The process of an Ethiopian coffee ceremony starts with spreading fresh aromatic grasses over the floor and setting up a rekbot (a box like piece of furniture) upon which small, handle free coffee cups are placed. There is also a jebena (a black clay coffee pot) and a charcoal fire burning incense, which prepares the room for the ritual. People often call together family and neighbours to drink coffee with them.
During the ceremony, people chat about various issues, laugh together and support each other. The woman who is performing the coffee ceremony first takes a handful of green coffee beans and washes them on a flat iron pan. Next, she holds the pan over the hot coal and shakes the beans out of their husks. She then roasts the coffee in the same pan.
To keep the roasts even, she keeps stirring the coffee beans until they turn dark brown and oily. After they are roasted, she picks up the pan and swirls it around the room, passing it by the people in the house to spread the aroma of coffee. After the coffee beans have cooled, she grinds the coffee in a wooden mortar, called a mukecha , and a pestle, a metal cylinder with a rounded end called a zenezena . She then puts water in the jebena and places it over the hot coals. When the water is boiled, she removes it from the heated coal and adds the ground coffee to the boiled water.
After the coffee is boiled, she removes it from the heat and puts it down it by slightly angling the jebena for few seconds before she pours to serve it. This helps the dregs of the coffee to settle at the bottom of the pot. The first round of coffee served is called abol , which means first. This is followed by two additional servings known as tona and then baraka . The tona and baraka are boiled by adding more water into the jebena, making each serving slightly weaker than the one before it.
