{ "id": "coffee-as-food-in-ethiopia", "url": "https://coffearium.org/entries/coffee-as-food-in-ethiopia/", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "title": "Coffee as food in Ethiopia", "summary": "In Ethiopia the coffee plant gives more than the brewed bean. Coffee berries cooked in butter, leaf infusions and husk drinks, what sources say about each, and how two of them became regulated foods in the European Union (EU).", "domain": "history", "kind": "Concept", "stage": "cup", "topics": [ "history" ], "topicSections": {}, "lang": "en", "status": "verified", "reviewer": "Coffearium verification pass", "lastVerified": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z", "updated": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z", "added": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z", "brief": [ "Buna qalaa is an Oromo preparation of coffee berries cooked with butter; a 2018 study describes it as a ritual that accompanies Oromo ceremonies.1", "A 2020 review lists Ethiopia among places where coffee-leaf infusions are a traditional food, with the local names kuti, jeno and jenuai.4", "Drinks from dried coffee cherry husk are called hashara in Ethiopia and qishr in Yemen.4,7", "The EU authorised coffee-leaf infusion in 2020 and dried coffee cherry pulp in 2022 as traditional foods from third countries.5,9" ], "quickFacts": [ { "label": "Parts used", "value": "Berries, seeds, leaves, cherry husk" }, { "label": "Buna qalaa", "value": "Coffee berries cooked with butter (Oromo)" }, { "label": "Leaf infusion names (Ethiopia)", "value": "Kuti, jeno, jenuai" }, { "label": "Husk drink names", "value": "Hashara (Ethiopia), qishr (Yemen)" }, { "label": "EU traditional-food authorisations", "value": "Leaf infusion 2020 · cherry pulp 2022" } ], "aka": [ "Buna qalaa", "Coffee leaf tea", "Coffee leaf infusion" ], "linkTerms": [ "buna qalaa", "coffee leaf tea", "coffee leaf infusion", "coffee-leaf infusion", "kuti", "hashara", "qishr" ], "related": [ "the-ethiopian-coffee-ceremony", "ethiopian-landraces", "coffea-arabica", "coffee-cherry-anatomy", "coffee-drinks-around-the-world", "coffeehouses-from-mecca-to-europe", "caffeine" ], "contested": [ "Meal or symbol. A 2018 ethnographic study reports that the Oromo do not consider buna qalaa a food and eat it symbolically;1 a 2011 article by an archaeologist describes the Oromo use of coffee as a meal,2 and the Oromia regional tourism body calls buna qalaa a delicacy.3" ], "corrections": [ { "date": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z", "change": "Caffeine chart removed; the coffee fruit juice range (70–300 mg/L) is now described as a proposed standardisation range, not an estimate; the UK committee’s 8–12 mg/g is a literature range the notified product matched; husk definition and the UK committee’s role corrected; cascara pulp specification added.", "reason": "The chart set a proposed product range, a regulatory limit and a label threshold beside measurements, and its husk rows did not describe husk drinks; Eckhardt et al. 2022, ACNFP/139/01 and Reg. (EU) 2022/47 say otherwise than the draft." } ], "sources": [ { "id": "s1", "title": "Buna Qalaa Ritual of the Boorana Oromo", "authors": "Bacha, A.; Kuto, L.; Fufa, D.; Mohammed, K.", "year": 2018, "publisher": "Üniversitepark Bülten 7(1), 26–39", "url": "https://repository.ju.edu.et//bitstream/123456789/999/1/CSSH%20%20buna%20qalaa.pdf", "doi": "10.22521/unibulletin.2018.71.3", "tier": "A", "tierNote": "Üniversitepark Bülten states double-blind peer review; full text read in the Jimma University repository.", "quote": "Buna qalaa came from two Afan Oromo words i.e. buna (coffee) and qaluu (slaughtering).", "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s2", "title": "Buna Qalaa: A Quest for Traditional Uses of Coffee among Oromo People with Special Emphasis on Wallaga, Ethiopia", "authors": "Wayessa, B. S.", "year": 2011, "publisher": "African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter (September 2011), via ScholarWorks, University of Massachusetts Amherst", "url": "https://scholarworks.umass.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/24087496-307c-487e-8c8a-b64da0f33677/content", "tier": "B", "tierNote": "Newsletter article by an archaeologist (PhD student, University of Calgary, at the time); not stated to be peer reviewed. Its account of James Bruce is second-hand (via Weinberg and Bealer 2001).", "quote": "Pure butter is added to the toasted coffee beans while still on fire.", "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s3", "title": "Buna Qalaa: A Unique Take on Coffee by the Oromo people of Ethiopia", "authors": "Visit Oromia", "publisher": "Google Arts & Culture (story by Visit Oromia, Oromia Tourism Commission)", "url": "https://artsandculture.google.com/story/YQUxjlTwmrIbfA", "tier": "B", "tierNote": "Regional tourism body; used for a description of practice only, never for a number or a date.", "quote": "Buna Qalaa is an Oromo delicacy that is prepared by frying raw coffee beans in clarified butter.", "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s4", "title": "A Review of Coffee By-Products Including Leaf, Flower, Cherry, Husk, Silver Skin, and Spent Grounds as Novel Foods within the European Union", "authors": "Klingel, T.; Kremer, J. I.; Gottstein, V.; Rajcic de Rezende, T.; Schwarz, S.; Lachenmeier, D. W.", "year": 2020, "publisher": "Foods 9(5), 665", "url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2304-8158/9/5/665", "doi": "10.3390/foods9050665", "tier": "A", "quote": "Traditional beverages from coffee cherries have been consumed in Yemen (called Qishr) and Ethiopia (called Hashara).", "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s5", "title": "Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/917 of 1 July 2020 authorising the placing on the market of infusion from coffee leaves of Coffea arabica L. and/or Coffea canephora Pierre ex A. Froehner as a traditional food from a third country under Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 of the European Parliament and of the Council and amending Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/2470", "authors": "European Commission", "year": 2020, "publisher": "Official Journal of the European Union L 209, 10–13", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2020/917/oj/eng/pdf", "tier": "A", "quote": "has a history of safe food use in Africa, Asia and North America", "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s6", "title": "Herbal Infusion Made from Coffee Leaves: Traditional Food (Notification NF 2019/0740). Committee paper ACNFP/139/01", "authors": "Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP) Secretariat", "year": 2019, "publisher": "Food Standards Agency, United Kingdom", "url": "https://acnfp.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/ancfp_139-01_committee_paper_coffea_leaves.pdf", "tier": "A/B", "tierNote": "A for what the committee paper itself states about the notification; its account of the history of use summarises the applicant’s dossier and is B.", "quote": "Herbal infusions from the leaves have been consumed in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Liberia, Indonesia and Jamaica as a traditional beverage.", "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s7", "title": "Risk Assessment of Coffee Cherry (Cascara) Fruit Products for Flour Replacement and Other Alternative Food Uses", "authors": "Eckhardt, S.; Franke, H.; Schwarz, S.; Lachenmeier, D. W.", "year": 2022, "publisher": "Molecules 27(23), 8435", "url": "https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/27/23/8435", "doi": "10.3390/molecules27238435", "tier": "A", "quote": "Consequently, 1 L of fruit extract juice contains between 70 and 300 mg of caffeine.", "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s8", "title": "Technical Report on the notification of cherry pulp from Coffea arabica L. and Coffea canephora Pierre ex A. Froehner as a traditional food from a third country following Article 14 of Regulation (EU) 2015/2283", "authors": "European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)", "year": 2021, "publisher": "EFSA Supporting Publications 18(5), EN-6657", "url": "https://www.efsa.europa.eu/bg/supporting/pub/en-6657", "doi": "10.2903/sp.efsa.2021.EN-6657", "tier": "A", "quote": "for more than 25 years in Yemen, Ethiopia and Bolivia.", "abstractOnly": true, "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s9", "title": "Framkvæmdarreglugerð framkvæmdastjórnarinnar (ESB) 2022/47 frá 13. janúar 2022 (Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/47 authorising dried coffee cherry pulp and its infusion as a traditional food from a third country; Icelandic text)", "authors": "European Commission", "year": 2022, "publisher": "EEA Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (Icelandic edition), via Matvælastofnun (MAST)", "url": "https://www.mast.is/static/files/reglugerdir/2022_47.pdf", "tier": "A", "tierNote": "Read in the official Icelandic EEA text; the English description in brackets is ours. The date and number are confirmed by source 7.", "quote": "reynst örugg til notkunar sem matvæli í Jemen, Eþíópíu og Bólivíu", "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s10", "title": "We Consumers – Tastes, Rituals, and Waves", "authors": "Morris, J.", "year": 2017, "publisher": "In: Folmer, B. (ed.), The Craft and Science of Coffee, Academic Press, ch. 19 (pp. 459–460 cited)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00019-0", "doi": "10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00019-0", "tier": "B", "tierNote": "Folmer textbook (all chapters count as one Tier B source); carries no number or date alone. Quote checked in the editor’s full text of the book.", "quote": "The Ethiopians called this concoction buno, but the Sufis named it qishr.", "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s11", "title": "Current status of coffee (Coffea arabica L.) genetic resources in Ethiopia: implications for conservation", "authors": "Labouisse, J.-P.; Bellachew, B.; Kotecha, S.; Bertrand, B.", "year": 2008, "publisher": "Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 55(7), 1079–1093", "url": "https://agritrop.cirad.fr/546270", "doi": "10.1007/s10722-008-9361-7", "tier": "A", "quote": "the maximum genetic diversity revealed by DNA-based markers is found in the forest coffees of the south-western highlands", "abstractOnly": true, "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s12", "title": "The Effect of Time, Roasting Temperature, and Grind Size on Caffeine and Chlorogenic Acid Concentrations in Cold Brew Coffee", "authors": "Fuller, M.; Rao, N. Z.", "year": 2017, "publisher": "Scientific Reports 7, 17979", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5740146/", "doi": "10.1038/s41598-017-18247-4", "tier": "A", "quote": "The water was heated to 98 °C and added to coffee grounds in a traditional French press carafe.", "accessed": "2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z" } ], "markdown": "## More than a brewed bean\n\nCoffee in Ethiopia is not only a drink made from roasted seeds. Sources describe dried coffee berries cooked with butter, infusions of the leaves and drinks made from the dried husk of the cherry.1,4 The husk is the dried outer part of the cherry around the seeds; a 2022 review counts skin, pulp and parchment as husk.7\n\n“Food” is an outside label. In a 2018 study among the Boorana Oromo, people did not consider buna qalaa, the butter-cooked coffee, a food; they eat it as a symbol.1 This entry follows the sources and names each use as the people who practise it describe it, where a source allows. The brewed coffee and its ceremony are covered in [The Ethiopian coffee ceremony](/entries/the-ethiopian-coffee-ceremony/).\n\nThe coffee plants behind these uses grow in Ethiopia’s forests, semi-forests, gardens and plantations.11 How that diversity is grown and conserved is told in [Ethiopian landraces](/entries/ethiopian-landraces/).\n\n
\n
\n
    \n
  1. Leaves: leaf infusion. Coffee-leaf infusions are a traditional food in Ethiopia, called kuti, jeno or jenuai, according to a 2020 review.4
    2. \n
  2. Dried cherry: buna qalaa. Dried coffee berries, cracked open with the teeth and cooked with butter and milk in an Oromo ritual.1,2
    3. \n
  3. Husk: hashara. Drinks from the dried cherry husk, called hashara in Ethiopia and qishr in Yemen.4,7,10
    4. \n
  4. Seed, roasted and ground. Balls of roasted, ground coffee berries and butter carried on journeys, in an 18th-century travel account retold in 2011.2
    5. \n
  5. Seed, roasted and brewed. Black coffee drunk with a little sugar, salt or butter, as the Oromia tourism body describes it; the 2011 article from Wallaga also records salt added to the brew.2,3
    6. \n
\n
Parts of the coffee plant and their uses as food and drink in Ethiopia, from the sources cited. Point at a number or a line of the legend to highlight the part. Schematic, not to scale.
\n
\n\n## Buna qalaa: coffee cooked in butter\n\nBuna qalaa means “slaughtered coffee” in Afaan Oromoo, the Oromo language: *buna* is coffee and *qaluu* is slaughtering.1 Cutting open the coffee bean with the teeth is compared to cutting an animal’s neck.1\n\nThe preparation starts with dried coffee berries, washed and cracked open with the teeth.1,2 They are toasted in a pot over the fire, and fresh butter is added while they are still on the fire.1,2 In the 2018 study the cracked berries are also cooked in milk, so that milk and butter soak into them.1 Sources differ in detail: one starts from green or dried berries, another speaks of raw coffee beans fried in clarified butter.2,3\n\nBuna qalaa belongs to occasions. A 2011 article from Wallaga, western Ethiopia, names community meetings, weddings and fundraising events.2 Among the Boorana Oromo it accompanies rituals such as weddings and *gubbisa*, the naming of the eldest son.1\n\n## Coffee as provisions for a journey\n\nA travel account by James Bruce, an 18th-century traveller, describes coffee carried as food.2 In his account, Oromo warriors on long journeys carried roasted, ground coffee berries mixed with butter and rolled into balls. One ball was said to last a whole day.2 We know this account only as it is retold in the 2011 article, which takes it from a later book.2 It is a traveller’s report, not an observation by the people concerned.\n\n## Leaf infusions\n\nCoffee leaves are made into tea-like drinks. A 2020 review names Ethiopia, South Sudan, Jamaica, India, Java and West Sumatra as places where the infusion is a traditional food.4 In Ethiopia it is called kuti, jeno or jenuai.4 The same review says arabica leaves have probably been used in Ethiopia, and robusta leaves in India and West Sumatra.4\n\nThe notification that led to the EU authorisation (below) was reviewed in 2019 by an advisory committee of the United Kingdom’s food regulator, then part of the EU process; its paper lists Ethiopia, South Sudan, Liberia, Indonesia and Jamaica.6 According to the applicant, the drink is made like tea from fresh, dried or roasted leaves, and spices, herbs or milk are sometimes added.6 The committee noted that further details of traditional use were not provided.6\n\n## Husk drinks: hashara and qishr\n\nThe dried husk of the cherry is brewed as well. Drinks from coffee cherries are called hashara in Ethiopia and qishr in Yemen.4,7 Elsewhere the dried husk is sold as cascara. A 2022 review notes that its use as a hot-water drink is rather unknown in the Western world.7\n\nHusk drinks also stand near the start of written coffee history. According to a coffee history chapter, the first recorded coffee drinkers in Arabia used an infusion of dried coffee husks. The Ethiopians called it *buno*, the Sufis *qishr*.10 That chapter dates the first records to the 15th century.10 How coffee moved on from there is told in Coffeehouses from Mecca to Europe.\n\n\n\n## Buna qalaa as ritual\n\nThe 2018 study worked with Boorana Oromo informants through interviews, focus groups and observation.1 It reads buna qalaa as a ritual that “accompanies all ritual performances of the Oromo”, from the Gadaa system to reconciliation and weddings.1 Married women slaughter the coffee; girls who have not reached fertility do not take part.1\n\nOrder and blessing matter. Elders sit at the front and eat first, then juniors follow; the head of the household tastes only symbolically before the elders.1 A blessing comes before the ritual tasting.1 Coffee is not normally slaughtered at night, with exceptions such as weddings and the day a *qaalluu*, a ritual leader, has died.1\n\nThe preparation has its own vocabulary. When the cracked berries go into the milk, the sound is called *tooruu*.1 Cracking the husk lets milk and butter enter the bean and stops it jumping out of the pan.1 Oil replaces butter when butter runs short, and a salt bar, largely replaced by sugar, sweetens the mixture.1\n\n**Origin stories.** Oral traditions recorded in the 2018 study say the first coffee plant sprouted from the tears of Waaqa or, in a Boorana myth, on the grave of Kuma.1 These are myths, given here as the study records them. The 2011 article notes a belief that the Oromo were the first to recognise coffee’s stimulating effect, and adds that nothing substantiates it.2 No source opened for this entry dates the beginning of buna qalaa.\n\n## Leaf and husk drinks in EU food law\n\nUnder EU novel food law, Regulation (EU) 2015/2283, a food with a history of safe use outside the EU can be notified as a traditional food from a third country.5,8 Two coffee products have passed this route.\n\n**Coffee-leaf infusion (2020).** A company, AM Breweries, notified the infusion on 27 November 2018.5,6 The Commission authorised it in July 2020, citing a history of safe food use in Africa, Asia and North America.5 The authorisation covers the infusion as a herbal infusion only; the request to use it as an ingredient in other beverages was not considered valid.5 The specification sets at most 20 g of dried leaves per litre of hot water, pasteurisation of at least 71 °C for 15 s, and limits for caffeine, chlorogenic acid and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG).5\n\n**Dried coffee cherry pulp (2022).** EFSA reported that the pulp has been consumed as infusions, plain or spiced, for more than 25 years in Yemen, Ethiopia and Bolivia.8 It raised no safety objections.8 Regulation (EU) 2022/47 of 13 January 2022 then authorised dried coffee cherry pulp and its infusion.7,9 It covers the dried, unroasted pulp of arabica and/or robusta cherries, separated from the beans and also known as cascara; a typical infusion uses up to 6 g of pulp per 100 mL of hot water above 75 °C.9 Above 150 mg/L of caffeine, the label must carry a high-caffeine warning.9\n\n## Caffeine in leaf and husk drinks\n\nNo study opened for this entry analysed a leaf or husk drink prepared in an Ethiopian household. The numbers below come from EU assessments, two reviews and one coffee study, and they differ in kind: assessment values, legal limits, a proposed product range and one measured brew.\n\nFor the 2020 notification, EFSA used 7 mg/g of caffeine in the dried leaves and 9.9–10.9 mg/L in a drink made with 20 g/L of leaves, as reported in a 2020 review.4 The UK committee paper states that the caffeine level of the notified product is consistent with a literature range of 8–12 mg/g.6 The EU specification caps the leaf infusion at below 80 mg/L caffeine, below 100 mg/L chlorogenic acid (5-CQA) and below 700 mg/L EGCG.5 EGCG is limited because its presence in arabica leaf infusion cannot be excluded.5\n\nNo measured value for hashara was found. For a juice made from coffee fruit extract, a 2022 risk assessment proposes standardising the extract so that the drink contains 70–300 mg of caffeine per litre; this is a recommended product range, not a measurement.7 For comparison, one study measured 840–1,060 mg/L of caffeine in hot French-press coffee brewed at 35 g in 350 mL with water at 98 °C.12\n\nHow caffeine acts in the body is covered in [Caffeine](/entries/caffeine/).\n\n## Reference values\n\n| Parameter | Value | Source |\n|---|---|---|\n| Buna qalaa, base material | Dried (or green) coffee berries, cracked with the teeth | Bacha et al. 20181; Wayessa 20112 |\n| Buna qalaa, other ingredients | Butter, milk; salt bar or sugar; oil when butter is short | Bacha et al. 20181 |\n| Leaf infusion names, Ethiopia | Kuti, jeno, jenuai | Klingel et al. 20204 |\n| Husk drink names | Hashara (Ethiopia), qishr (Yemen) | Klingel et al. 20204; Eckhardt et al. 20227 |\n| Caffeine, dried coffee leaves | 7 mg/g (EFSA assessment); 8–12 mg/g (literature range cited by the UK committee) | Klingel et al. 20204; ACNFP 20196 |\n| Caffeine, leaf infusion at 20 g/L | 9.9–10.9 mg/L | Klingel et al. 20204 |\n| EU leaf infusion: leaves per litre | ≤20 g dried leaves per 1 L hot water | Reg. (EU) 2020/9175 |\n| EU leaf infusion: pasteurisation | ≥71 °C for 15 s | Reg. (EU) 2020/9175 |\n| EU leaf infusion: caffeine · 5-CQA · EGCG | <80 · <100 · <700 mg/L | Reg. (EU) 2020/9175 |\n| Cherry pulp infusions, reported history of use | >25 years in Yemen, Ethiopia, Bolivia | EFSA 20218 |\n| EU cherry pulp: typical infusion | Up to 6 g pulp per 100 mL hot water (>75 °C) | Reg. (EU) 2022/479 |\n| EU cherry pulp: high-caffeine label | Above 150 mg/L | Reg. (EU) 2022/479 |\n| Caffeine, coffee fruit extract juice (proposed standardisation) | 70–300 mg/L | Eckhardt et al. 20227 |\n| Caffeine, hot French-press coffee, 100 g/L, 98 °C | 840–1,060 mg/L | Fuller & Rao 201712 |\n\n## Open questions\n\n- **Composition of household drinks.** No study opened for this entry measured caffeine or phenolic compounds in kuti or hashara as prepared in Ethiopian homes; the numbers above come from EU notifications and reviews.4,6\n- **Where and how leaf drinks are used.** The UK committee noted that the history-of-use dossier lacked detail, and the 2020 review gives names but no regions within Ethiopia.4,6\n- **Age of the practices.** The sources record buna qalaa and coffee-butter balls, but none opened for this entry dates their beginnings; origin stories are myths.1,2\n\n## Key studies\n\n
\n

Bacha et al., 2018 – Buna qalaa among the Boorana Oromo. An ethnographic study based on interviews, focus groups and observation. It describes how coffee berries are “slaughtered”, cooked with milk and butter, and shared in a fixed order with blessings, and reads the ritual as an expression of Oromo worldview rather than a meal.

\n

Üniversitepark Bülten 7(1), 26–39 · doi:10.22521/unibulletin.2018.71.3

\n
\n\n
\n

Klingel et al., 2020 – Coffee by-products as novel foods. Reviews leaves, flowers, cherry, husk, silverskin and spent grounds under EU novel food law. It gathers the traditional uses of leaf and cherry drinks, including their Ethiopian names, and the caffeine values used in EFSA’s assessment of the leaf infusion.

\n

Foods 9(5), 665 · doi:10.3390/foods9050665

\n
\n\n
\n

Eckhardt et al., 2022 – Coffee cherry products as food. A review and risk assessment of foods made from the coffee fruit. It notes the traditional cascara drinks of Ethiopia and Yemen, the EU authorisation of 2022 and caffeine exposure from cascara products, and proposes a caffeine range for coffee fruit juice.

\n

Molecules 27(23), 8435 · doi:10.3390/molecules27238435

\n
\n\n
\n

EFSA, 2021 – Coffee cherry pulp as a traditional food. EFSA’s technical report on a notification of dried cherry pulp from arabica and robusta. It reports more than 25 years of use as infusions in Yemen, Ethiopia and Bolivia and raises no safety objections.

\n

EFSA Supporting Publications 18(5), EN-6657 · doi:10.2903/sp.efsa.2021.EN-6657

\n
" }