Ethiopia Harrar Natural Coffee

Harrar coffee comes from the highlands around Harar in eastern Ethiopia and is dried whole, in the fruit, so it is wild and fruity: blueberry, red wine, dark chocolate and a little spice. It is one of the oldest names in coffee.

Origin & Story

The city of Harar sits at about 1,885 meters in eastern Ethiopia, roughly 500 kilometers from Addis Ababa, inside a stone wall. Its old town, Harar Jugol, was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2006. It is often called the fourth holiest city of Islam, with dozens of mosques and more than a hundred shrines, and for centuries it was also a trading city, described as an emporium of the coffee trade.

Coffee traditionally left Harar for the Red Sea coast and was shipped on to Mocha in Yemen, then out into the Arab and Ottoman worlds. The word Mocha still appears on both Harrar and Yemeni coffees today, a reminder of how closely the two were linked.

Harrar is made in the traditional way: whole cherries dried in the sun, often on raised beds, in a dry climate that suits the method. Buyers sort the beans into grades such as Longberry, the classic large export grade, Shortberry, and the small, dense Mocha.

Dried in the fruit, Harrar is wild. Expect dense blueberry, red wine, dark chocolate, cardamom-like spice and dried apricot, and sometimes an earthy, musty edge that some drinkers prize and others avoid. Its heavy body is at home in a French press, the method used in this recipe.

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