Where coffee was born — wild forest coffees, the Kingdom of Kaffa, and Ethiopia's richest market town
Jimma is the largest city in western Ethiopia and the gateway to the Kaffa forest highlands — the place where Coffea arabica was discovered growing wild, making this the birthplace of coffee for the entire world. The Jimma Zone UNESCO biosphere contains the last intact wild coffee forests in the world, where ancient trees still produce beans under the forest canopy as they have for over 1,000 years. The Jimma market is one of Ethiopia's largest and most atmospheric, trading spices, honey, and coffee in the same patterns it has for centuries. The Kaffa Bonga archaeological site preserves the r…
The Kaffa Kingdom, centred in the highlands around Jimma, was one of the powerful independent states of southwestern Ethiopia until its conquest by Emperor Menelik II in 1897. The etymological origin of the word 'coffee' is debated, but one leading theory derives it directly from 'Kaffa.' According to Ethiopian tradition, a goatherd named Kaldi noticed his goats dancing energetically after eating red berries from a particular tree — this legend, whether historically accurate or not, places the first discovery of coffee's stimulant properties in this region. The Kingdom of Kaffa had its own la…