Ethiopian Coffee: holy City Harar

Harar is a famous producing area in eastern Ethiopia, the representative of ET sun-cured coffee, and it is also a classic of fine coffee world sun treatment or natural treatment.

Urban History of Harar

Harar, with a history of more than 1300 years, is a veritable ancient city. Although archaeologists believe that the city was built in the 10th century, legends make people believe that the city's history should be longer.

Harar is regarded as the fourth holy city in the Islamic community of Ethiopia, and it is a rare Islamic city in Christ ET.

Around 1550, the Islamic monarch who ruled harar built a wall around the city, which was 4 meters high and had five gates, which still exist today. This structure is called "jegol", "the besieged ancient city". There are 82 mosques and 102 holy tombs on 3.5 square kilometers of land within the city wall. Once upon a time, harar was called the "Forbidden City", and infidels entering without permission could be sentenced to death. In the 1990s, the city wall and many historical sites inside the wall were certified as World Cultural Heritage by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The 16th century was the golden age of Harar, when Harare coffee was famous all over the world. By the 18th century, harar had developed into a famous trade center. After the establishment of Addis Ababa, the important position of harar began to weaken. In 1902, Dire Dawa was established as a new harar, and the status of harar was further reduced.

In its long history, harar existed mainly as an independent regime, ruled by Egypt from 1875 to 1884, became independent briefly in 1885 and merged into Ethiopia in 1887.

Harar coffee

Harar coffee is the representative of ET courtyard coffee (garden coffee), and the variety is an ancient local species.

Harar coffee is a traditional sun-treated coffee, the picked fresh coffee fruit is dried in the sun, in the drying process, the fruit will be accompanied by a certain degree of fermentation, coffee seeds absorb the aroma and taste of the pulp, and finally reflected in the cup. In addition, many of harar's coffee fruits are left directly on trees to dry.

Sun harar is famous for its full body and red wine flavor. Blueberry and dark chocolate are common words in the cup review description. Compared with washed coffee, tanning harar is a bit more unrestrained and wild.

From picking to processing, almost all the processes are handled by hand. Even shelling is done by hand.

Harar coffee is usually divided into three categories: longberry, shortberry and mocha. Long fruit, longberry, refers to individual larger beans; short fruit, shortberry, smaller beans; mocha, mocha, composed of round beans. In addition, there are common grades with reference to the number of defective beans, such as G4 and G3.

Residents of Harar, like other ET areas, coffee is a part of life, and the famous ET coffee gift is also daily here.

Harar Coffee: challenge from Qat

Harar coffee is the darling of the boutique world. But the cultivation of harar coffee faces challenges.

On the one hand, the challenge comes from increasingly complex climates, including harar and Neri nyeri in Kenya, where lack of regular climate change brings drought, insect pests and haze to coffee cultivation.

On the other hand, harar's coffee cultivation faces the challenge of another cash crop, qat.

Qat, or "khat", pronounced / chat/, is a local plant whose leaves are also called qat.

Chewing leaves qat is part of tradition in the Arabian Peninsula and many parts of Africa. Qat is a kind of stimulant. Like coffee gifts, chewing qat, people get together to chat, which is also part of daily life. After the Qat party, people will go back to their work lives. Chewing qat is as much a way of socializing as drinking coffee.

Qat seems to have an advantage over coffee. The only thing farmers have to do is pick leaves, tie them up and sell them. Unlike coffee, it has to go through complicated processing. In addition, the growing demand for qat in the Arabian Peninsula and Africa is also the driving force behind the expansion of cultivation. Qat has to pay a lower fee than coffee sales.