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Coffee in Retrospect: Harar to Jibuti, and sometimes back through Aden (1908 to 1922)

Before the First World War, a sack of Harar coffee could reach New York under its own name, or it could go by way of Aden and arrive as Mocha. Three accounts from those years follow it on the road, and record what was taken from it along the way. William Ukers wrote All About Coffee for buyers, and his pages on Ethiopia read like directions for getting coffee out of Harar. They are also as close as these old documents come to the people who grew it. Most of the coffee around Harar, he wrote in 1922, came from small plots of fifty to a hundred trees, owned mostly by Hararis, Oromo and other Ethiopians, with a few Greek, German and French planters among them. Near the town, the women of farming families carried the coffee in long, shallow baskets on their heads to the brokers. Farther out, the farmer waited for the broker to come to him. The only grower Ukers shows us in those pages is in a photograph, captioned as a coffee grower and his helper in his grove of young trees near Harar. ...

Coffee in Retrospect: The British Foreign Office on Ethiopia's coffee trade (1920)

Coffee is the chief agricultural export. It is of two kinds: the Harrari, grown in plantations round Harrar, which is exported to Aden from Jibuti, and, mixed with Mocha coffee, is frequently sold (in Europe) as pure Mocha... ABYSSINIA: ECONOMIC CONDITIONS (AGRICULTURE; CHANNELS OF FOREIGN TRADE; EXPORTS) Great Britain, Foreign Office, Historical Section, Peace Handbooks No. 129, Abyssinia (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1920), pages 70 and 79 to 82 1920 p. 70, (2) AGRICULTURE, (a) Products of Commercial Value With a volcanic soil and excellent climate, agriculture is extensive, but primitive. Tropical products are grown in the lower valleys, and cereals and beans up to 9,000 or 10,000 ft. Coffee is the chief agricultural export. It is of two kinds: the Harrari, grown in plantations round Harrar, which is exported to Aden from Jibuti, and, mixed with Mocha coffee, is frequently sold (in Europe) as pure Mocha; and the Abyssinian, growing wild in the south and west, which is expo...

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