History: Ethiopia’s wild coffee forests

Most coffee is grown on vast plantations using machines, pesticides and fertilisers.

But in Ethiopia, coffee grows wild in humid forests surrounded by birds.

And that wild coffee matters more than most of us realise. It is the genetic ‘library’ we can turn to find new varieties to help us keep coffee thriving in the face of climate change.

But the communities who live alongside them and have safeguarded this genetic treasure often don’t earn enough from coffee to make preservation the obvious economic choice.

Could a great story be the answer to earn higher premiums for these communities? Could that story be that all the coffee we drink today can actually be traced back to a single “mother tree” in Ethiopia?

This episode is about the history of coffee in Ethiopia, how far back the evidence goes, what counts as evidence, and what we should celebrate (and pay for) when we buy “wild” Ethiopian coffee today.

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Read Jonathan’s book, ‘Coffee: A Global History’

Support James’ work directly by buying him a coffee at Ko-fi.com/FilterStories

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Enjoy James’ Standart article about Avicenna and the earliest (supposed) written reference to coffee

Read the scientific paper pinpointing where wild coffee forests are in Ethiopia

Follow Solomon Tselele's work through his Facebook page

Learn more about the Ethiopian coffee ceremony on the Adventures in Coffee podcast

Series 3 of A History of Coffee is a collaboration between documentary maker James Harper of the Filter Stories coffee podcast and Jonathan Morris, Professor of History and author of ‘Coffee: A Global History’.

Ethiopian forest sounds curtesy of George Vlad. Hear more nature sounds here.

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