In Ethiopia, coffee isn’t something you grab on the way out. It’s an event. The coffee ceremony, jebena buna, starts with raw green beans and ends, an hour or more later, with a third cup nobody is meant to skip. It happens in homes every day, and it’s how guests are welcomed.
There’s a saying for how central it is: buna dabo naw, “coffee is our bread.” Buna is Amharic for coffee.
Where Coffee Comes From
Arabica grows wild in the forests of southwestern Ethiopia, around the old kingdom of Kaffa. UNESCO recognized the Kafa Biosphere Reserve, about 760,000 hectares of it, in 2010. One theory says the word coffee itself comes from Kaffa, though that’s far from settled. The local word is closer to buno, which passed into Arabic as bunn. The Geisha variety that now sets auction records was collected in the same corner of the country.
How the Ceremony Goes
The host, usually the woman of the house, spreads fresh grass on the floor, sometimes with small yellow flowers in it, and lights frankincense. She washes a handful of green beans and roasts them in a flat pan over charcoal, shaking them until they crack and darken. Then the smoking pan goes around the room so every guest can take in the smell.
The roasted beans are ground by hand with a mortar and pestle and brewed in a jebena, a clay pot with a round belly and a long neck. When it’s ready, the coffee is poured in a thin stream into small cups without handles, and the grounds stay behind in the pot. Popcorn is the usual snack, though peanuts, bread or roasted barley turn up too.
Three Rounds: Abol, Tona and Baraka
The same grounds are brewed three times, and each round has a name. The first, abol, is the strongest. The second, tona, is lighter. The third, baraka, is the weakest, and its name means blessing. Guests are expected to stay for all three. In Tigrinya-speaking areas the rounds are called awel, kale’i and baraka.
With the roasting, the grinding and three brews, the whole thing takes well over an hour, and that’s the point. The ceremony is where neighbors catch up and news gets passed along.
How Much Coffee Ethiopia Keeps
Ethiopia is Africa’s biggest coffee producer, with about 11.6 million 60-kilo bags in the 2025/26 season and a forecast of 12.1 million for 2026/27. You’ll often read that Ethiopians drink half of it. Recent estimates put home consumption lower, at about a third of the crop in 2025/26 and around two-fifths in the forecast for 2026/27. That’s still millions of bags, and a good share of it goes through a jebena.
Only about 29% of Ethiopian coffee is washed. The rest is dried whole in the cherry, the natural process, which gives Ethiopian naturals their fruity reputation.
Espresso in Addis Ababa
The ceremony has company in the capital. Addis Ababa has a strong espresso bar culture, a legacy of the Italian occupation from 1936 to 1941, and the macchiato is a city staple. Have one at a counter in the morning, and if someone invites you for buna at home in the afternoon, say yes and stay for the third cup.