Where the Wild Coffee Grows

Coffee is one of the largest and most valuable commodities in the world. This is the story of its origins, its history, and the threat to its future, by the IACP Award-winning author of Darjeeling.

Located between the Great Rift Valley and the Nile, the cloud forests in southwestern Ethiopia are the original home of Arabica, the most prevalent of the two main species of coffee being cultivated today. Virtually unknown to European explorers, the Kafa region was essentially off-limits to foreigners well into the twentieth century, which allowed the world's original coffee culture to develop in virtual isolation in the forests where the Kafa people continue to forage for wild coffee berries.