ETHIOPIAN HAWISA

Kaffa Region in Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, hence the similarity in name Kaffa - Coffee. Coffee is called 'Bunna' (boo-na) in Ethiopia, but as the plant spread out in the area as far as the Arabian peninsula across the Red Sea people referred to it as Kaffa or Coffee for the region it came from. The reason for its early spread was as an edible product mostly for the caffeine.

Kaffa province is found south west of the capital Addis Ababa, the regions capital city is Jimma. The region is an ideal agricultural area growing apart from coffee, maize, teff (Ethiopia's staple food) and many other cash crops. The region is also very diverse with large Ethiopian muslim population and a mix of different Ethiopian ethnic groups, the Oromo being the largest one.

The area was on a trade route to Sudan and other parts of Africa and also on trade and pilgrimage route to Arabian Peninsula which perhaps explains the spread of coffee in that direction.A detailed story of Kaffa area is below, taken from the Ethiopia's national airline Ethiopian Airlines in flight magazine known as "Selamata".

Hawisa is grown by 235 cooperative members under partial forest cover at around 1650m asl. The producers are very much small-holders – average production per member is 150kg which equates to around one acre of land each.There is a communal washing station where the cherries are pulped, fermented under water for 10 hours and then washed. They are then partially dried in the shade for 4-6 hours before being fully sun-dried on raised beds for 10 days.