Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee

In this caffeine-addled corner of the world, the bean and its brew are both blessing and curse, swirled together in a single cup.

By Colleen Mastony
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Published March 29, 2007

JIMMA, Ethiopia -- Inside the coffee plant's corrugated metal fence, men look more like mules as they lug 100-pound sacks of coffee on their backs.

But as midday nears, a heavenly scent wafts from the corner, where Ahmed Achoumeto, 25, pounds a pile of black coffee beans in preparation for the noontime break.

"I am terribly addicted. If I don't get coffee, I can't see properly," he said, standing barefoot in the dirt, grinding the beans with a primitive 3-foot-long wooden pestle and a mortar made of a hollowed tree stump. "Almost everyone here is addicted."

Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. And in this caffeine-addled corner of the world, coffee is a blessing and a curse swirled together in a cup.

Amid the lush hills and misty valleys, peasants endure bleak conditions and back-breaking labor to bring the beans to the world market.While nearly every worker detests the process -- the picking, sorting, washing, shelling and drying -- they are also hopelessly hooked on the sweet and delicate flavor of the black elixir.

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