The Coffee Books

What if a food crop, coffee, could change a nation's future?

Ato Sha’le’s stories of coffee history, spanning his family and Sidamo, anchor the book.

I first went to Ethiopia in 2006 as a journalist on a coffee expedition. Most of what I knew about the country was what many Americans are given: famine, drought, war. As for coffee, I knew that I liked to drink it. I kept going back, and over seven years I came to understand coffee as something much larger than a crop, and Ethiopia as something much larger than the story the outside world tells about it.

"Coffee is the world's most shared connection, chosen on a daily basis, with Ethiopia, whether we know it or not."

Coffee Story: Ethiopia, made with photographer Travis Horn, told the story through a journey across the country where coffee began, built so you can enter from almost any page. A wedding porridge of roasted cherries. A Sidamo elder folding a leaf into the communal cup. People whose traditions and futures run through the bean.

Origin: Ethiopia’s Coffee Legacy brought that same work to a wider audience. I created it as an ebook edition with Starbucks, and in the winter of 2013 they featured it as a digital exclusive.

I went looking for the story of coffee. What I found was a tapestry of stories that belonged to Ethiopia.