Under the Coffee Tree

I push my favourite goats along the rocky path with the stick. As they turn to eat some sweet grass, the Imam astride his mule mutters a complaint from beneath his black turban. An angry sun heats my naked shoulders and the top of my feet. My throat burns for the water promised ahead.

Allah, please show me the way I came before.

The mule stops and the Imam smacks its rump with his fly stick. A whiff of jasmin draws me, and here are the rocks I piled two moons ago. Allah, be praised, the goats remember!

“Holy one, look. Kaldi's goats know it. See how they hurry to their special trees!”

****

Despite his marathon training, in the thin air Charlie gasps as he studies his hand-held GPS. He compares the co-ordinates with the trail on the map and a satisfied smile creases the dusty features beneath his wide-brimmed bush hat. Exactly 490 metres to go to the waypoint he had plotted. He casts his eyes across the mountains to the dusty haze above the ancient city of Harrar. Feeling the intense sun on his back Charlie takes a long draft of the chilled coffee in his thermos and offers some to his aquiline guide.

“Haile, there should be a gully off to our right.”

“Yes, Mister Charlie. I see it. The stones that the old man spoke of are here. Be careful. This way is only fit for goats!”

****

My hand grips the mule's halter as we approach the four trees, perched on this small shelf in the gully where the rains collect. I see dark green shiny leaves and the brightest white delicate flowers. And yes, there are the strange bitter tasting red berries that my goats love.

“Look, holy one. How the goats race to the trees! Now we must wait until the sun is lower. They will eat until all are gone.”

The goats nuzzle under the trees as if suckling at a mother's belly. The Imam lifts himself grunting off the mule's back and I help him to sit. I scoop water from the small pool as the goats eat their fill.

****

Charlie carefully frames the shot in the viewfinder of his Nikon. The gnarled tree trunks must be at least half a metre in diameter, like no other coffee tree he has ever seen. The wispy upper branches carry few leaves and the occasional flower bud. Zooming in on one of the trees, his heart leaps.

“Hey, man it's still cropping! I gotta tell Schultz in Seattle. Haile, you take us some cuttings.”

“But, mister Charlie, these trees are sacred to the local people, do you think...?”

“How about I pay you another fifty and we keep this between us?”

****

I shake the Imam awake. In front of me the goats are dancing, skipping around on the grass and kicking their back feet in the air.

“What sorcery is this? Allah u akbar! These beasts are bewitched. We must leave this place.”

“But, holy one. These berries bring life to men too. See the goats. We must harvest the seeds, and grow more.”

Slowly the fear leaves the Imam's eyes.

“Now I see this is Allah's will. Kaldi, you must speak to no-one of this place, do you understand.”

“No of course. If it is Allah's will.”

I must tell all my brothers to be silent. We will keep this secret for Allah. And for this holy man. And for myself. And my family. And no-one else. For ever.

****

In thirty seconds Charlie's satphone has connected and a female voice answers.

“Starbucks executive suite, Good Morning, how can I help you?”

“Charlie from Ethiopia for Howard Schultz, please. He's expecting my call.”

“One moment please, I'm putting you through...”

Ten seconds later, and a firm male voice crosses the continents,“Schultz.”

“Hey, Howard. I've found 'em. It's unbelievable. They must be four hundred goddam years old. I'll upload the jaypeg's as soon as we switch to data. We got cuttings too.”

“Great work, Charlie. Look after them. And don't tell anyone. Not even your mom!”

“KaldiCafe. I gotta hand it to you Howard. Once this stuff is out in four years, it'll be bigger than Frapuccino.”

But the phone line has gone dead. Charlie's two minutes with the man are up.

Reshouldering his pack, he turns to follow his guide. As the sun moves down to the horizon he can just hear a distant muezzin calling to prayer.

Although my spirits are always lifted when I am in high mountain areas, my favourite place is somewhere that is geographically more mundane but emotionally and spiritually more connected to “who I am”. I run a coffee roasting business that is pretty much a “one man show”, and I derive enormous satisfaction in the simple physical tasks related to roasting coffee. Although the surroundings at the premises where I roast coffee are mundane - a small, untidy and cramped warehouse unit on an industrial estate - I define the “place” as the relationship between myself and the coffee I am roasting. What I see, smell and hear in this place determines how others will taste what I am producing.

I see my roasting coffee through a small porthole shaped viewing chamber on the front facia of my coffee roasting drum. The sights are those of a batch of raw green coffee beans gradually turning through straw yellow and cinnamon brown to a rich glossy chestnut perfection. All the time they are moving rapidly through my vision in the porthole, each individual bean escaping quickly back into the crowd. My sense of smell can judge the progress of the roast. As the cold beans are plunged into the hot air of the drum, it seems for a few minutes as if wet sacks are being blow dried, but soon this is replaced by the unmistakable homely and earthy odours of baking bread. As I use the sample probe to inspect the roasting beans I am comforted when the bready aromas start to be accompanied by a sharpness of caramel, roasting nuts and vanilla. The beans expand twofold in my roasting oven and my ears are trained to listen for the change in sound that accompanies this small miracle. Initially my drum roaster sounds like a large set of maraccas or of dried peas being rhymically shaken in a paint tin. But after a few minutes the sound begins to become more muffled and I wait for the intermittent dull clicking as each bean begins to expand.

The process ends with a magnificent climax. I try to judge from the aromas and colour of the beans when I want to “stop” the roast and release the beans out of the drum into the cooling tray. As I turn on the rotating sieve which cools the beans, the subtle sounds of the beans in the drum are drowned out by the grinding of the motors and the tell tale squeaks of the wearing bearings on my poor old oven. I open the hatch and a waterfall of smoking brown beans surges out onto the cooling grid. The beans now begin cracking madly as they start to cool, the vanes of the cooling grid rolling them over as if they are raking fine gravel. If I have judged the moment right my nose is assaulted by the richest, sweetest aroma of coffee, nuts and chocolate veiled in the pungency of the smoke. But this moment is all too brief as I complete the act of creation by turning on the fans to suck cold air through the cooling beans. The cold air sucks the smoke and aromas with it, off up the chimney for others to briefly share. Now I take a bean or two in my fingers and crunch them in my mouth. My teeth know from the degree of resistance of the shell if I have achieved the perfection I seek, even before I taste the smoky bitterness of the coarse grounds that now coat my tongue. I hope not to taste the tell tale “bad barbecue” flavour of carbon which I know will overpower everything else in my customer's cup in a few days time, and if not for a few moments I bask in that elusive satisfaction of a mundane task well completed.

Damn Fine Coffee!
That's mainly what I like and mainly what I try to give - well, sell mainly - to people.
Coffee that would make Mr Wolf stop and pause for a second, take another sip and say:
"Damn fine coffee, Charlie. What is it?"
And I'd say...if there was time before the blood dried or the cops showed up, because I like to talk you see, and he is a man on a mission....
" First of all, Mr Wolf... or can I call you Wolfie? or maybe you prefer Harvey, because that is you real name isn't it? Yes where was I?
First of all, Wolfie, it has to be FRESH. That means the green beans have to be from the current crop and not just any crop, because only the very best will do..you know - Gourmet Shit! But we'll get to that later. And fresh beans have to be freshly roasted. That means yer beans have to have come out of the roasting oven yesterday, or the day before. Not today, mind, or the coffee flavours won't have had time to develop."
And he might say,
"Wow, Charlie, I never knew it was that important. But I must get on. Where's Vincent?"
"Hold it a second, Wolfie, I haven't even started. To keep the coffee fresh right to your cup - well, mug as I see you have. Not a mug like Vincent was when he pointed the gun with the safety on....but anyway. Keep those beans away from air and light until you are ready for a FRESH cup of coffee. Then grind just a few - enough for one brew.
Use fresh drawn water, 45grams of coffee per litre of it and catch it just before it boils. And that's rule 1 of DAMN FINE COFFEE. Rule 2 is...."
"Charlie, I don't want to seem impolite, but I have a lot to do. Maybe we can discuss this later. Now Charlie, please, pretty please, with a cherry on top, shut up and make another f***ing cup of coffee."