Ethiopia and the world of coffee

This past week, Ethiopia's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said it plans to earn more than USD $892 million from the export of coffee in the next budget year.  This corresponds to approximately 320,000 tons of coffee, or almost five million bags of coffee exported around the world, including to Germany, Saudi Arabia, Italy, USA, Japan, and many Middle Eastern countries.Ethiopia is the fifth largest producer of coffee, trailing Indonesia.  To put it in perspective, Ethiopia sells about a seventh as much coffee to the world as the largest producer, Brazil.  However, Ethiopian coffees are generally regarded with more appeal among connaisseurs.  And there's more romance to it because Ethiopia is the birthplace of all coffees.  The original coffee trees were harvested in Ethiopia and originally exported to the world through port trade in neighboring Yemen.  From there, many attempted to grow the tree all over the world but only certain climates would support it.  Luckily for us, some of the supporting climates also yielded a wider range of coffee flavors that one get simply from the original Ethiopian coffee.Today, coffee is still Ethiopia's largest export commodity.  The same budget announced investment in their coffee laboratories where they study ways to produce higher-quality and more disease-resistant coffees.  I wish I had a cup of it right now!