A goat herd in Kaffa
Every telling of coffee begins in the highland forests of Ethiopia, and most begin with a goat herd named Kaldi. The legend says he noticed his animals refusing to sleep after eating the bright cherries of a certain shrub, tried them himself, and found the same restlessness. Whether Kaldi existed hardly matters. What matters is that wild Coffea arabica is native to those forests and nowhere else. Long before anyone roasted a bean, people there chewed the cherries or brewed the dried husks. Ethiopia is still the genetic reservoir of wild Arabica, which is to say every Arabica plant on earth, including the ones on our hills, traces back to that forest.





