CoffeariumBeta
  1. Plant
  2. Farm
  3. Process
  4. Trade
  5. Roast
  6. Brew
  7. Cup
History · Culture

Coffee as food in Ethiopia

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).

Across the chain: History

Source-checkedby Coffearium verification pass· Last source-checked 21 Oct 2026· Prepared with AI assistance· 12 sources (8 tier A)· 1 contested· Updated 21 Oct 2026
Reading depth
Contents
  • 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

More than a brewed bean#

Coffee 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

“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.

The 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.

branch with leaves and cherriescherry in section (enlarged)1Leaves: leaf infusionkuti, jeno or jenuai 4 2Dried cherry: buna qalaacooked with butter and milk 1,2 3Husk (dried outer layers)hashara; qishr in Yemen 4,7,10 4Seed, roasted and groundballs with butter (travel account) 2 5Seed, roasted and brewedcoffee, at times with salt or butter 2,3 Schematic, not to scale. Dashed ring: inner edge of the pulp. Thin inner lines: parchment around each seed.
  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. 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. Husk: hashara. Drinks from the dried cherry husk, called hashara in Ethiopia and qishr in Yemen.4,7,10
  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. 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
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.

Buna qalaa: coffee cooked in butter#

Buna 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

The 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

Buna 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

Coffee as provisions for a journey#

A 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.

Leaf infusions#

Coffee 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

The 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

Husk drinks: hashara and qishr#

The 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

Husk 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.

Buna qalaa as ritual#

The 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

Order 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

The 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

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.

Leaf and husk drinks in EU food law#

Under 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.

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

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

Caffeine in leaf and husk drinks#

No 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.

For 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

No 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

How caffeine acts in the body is covered in Caffeine.

Reference values#

Parameter Value Source
Buna qalaa, base material Dried (or green) coffee berries, cracked with the teeth Bacha et al. 20181; Wayessa 20112
Buna qalaa, other ingredients Butter, milk; salt bar or sugar; oil when butter is short Bacha et al. 20181
Leaf infusion names, Ethiopia Kuti, jeno, jenuai Klingel et al. 20204
Husk drink names Hashara (Ethiopia), qishr (Yemen) Klingel et al. 20204; Eckhardt et al. 20227
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
Caffeine, leaf infusion at 20 g/L 9.9–10.9 mg/L Klingel et al. 20204
EU leaf infusion: leaves per litre ≤20 g dried leaves per 1 L hot water Reg. (EU) 2020/9175
EU leaf infusion: pasteurisation ≥71 °C for 15 s Reg. (EU) 2020/9175
EU leaf infusion: caffeine · 5-CQA · EGCG <80 · <100 · <700 mg/L Reg. (EU) 2020/9175
Cherry pulp infusions, reported history of use >25 years in Yemen, Ethiopia, Bolivia EFSA 20218
EU cherry pulp: typical infusion Up to 6 g pulp per 100 mL hot water (>75 °C) Reg. (EU) 2022/479
EU cherry pulp: high-caffeine label Above 150 mg/L Reg. (EU) 2022/479
Caffeine, coffee fruit extract juice (proposed standardisation) 70–300 mg/L Eckhardt et al. 20227
Caffeine, hot French-press coffee, 100 g/L, 98 °C 840–1,060 mg/L Fuller & Rao 201712

Open questions#

  • 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
  • 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
  • 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

Key studies#

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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
Share or cite this entry

Change log

  • – 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

  1. ABacha, A.; Kuto, L.; Fufa, D.; Mohammed, K. (2018). Buna Qalaa Ritual of the Boorana Oromo. Üniversitepark Bülten 7(1), 26–39. doi:10.22521/unibulletin.2018.71.3 · other copies
  2. BWayessa, B. S. (2011). Buna Qalaa: A Quest for Traditional Uses of Coffee among Oromo People with Special Emphasis on Wallaga, Ethiopia. African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter (September 2011), via ScholarWorks, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
  3. BVisit Oromia Buna Qalaa: A Unique Take on Coffee by the Oromo people of Ethiopia. Google Arts & Culture (story by Visit Oromia, Oromia Tourism Commission).
  4. AKlingel, T.; Kremer, J. I.; Gottstein, V.; Rajcic de Rezende, T.; Schwarz, S.; Lachenmeier, D. W. (2020). A Review of Coffee By-Products Including Leaf, Flower, Cherry, Husk, Silver Skin, and Spent Grounds as Novel Foods within the European Union. Foods 9(5), 665. doi:10.3390/foods9050665 · other copies
  5. AEuropean Commission (2020). 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. Official Journal of the European Union L 209, 10–13.
  6. A/BAdvisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP) Secretariat (2019). Herbal Infusion Made from Coffee Leaves: Traditional Food (Notification NF 2019/0740). Committee paper ACNFP/139/01. Food Standards Agency, United Kingdom.
  7. AEckhardt, S.; Franke, H.; Schwarz, S.; Lachenmeier, D. W. (2022). Risk Assessment of Coffee Cherry (Cascara) Fruit Products for Flour Replacement and Other Alternative Food Uses. Molecules 27(23), 8435. doi:10.3390/molecules27238435 · other copies
  8. AEuropean Food Safety Authority (EFSA) (2021). 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. EFSA Supporting Publications 18(5), EN-6657. doi:10.2903/sp.efsa.2021.EN-6657 · other copies
  9. AEuropean Commission (2022). 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). EEA Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (Icelandic edition), via Matvælastofnun (MAST).
  10. BMorris, J. (2017). We Consumers – Tastes, Rituals, and Waves. In: Folmer, B. (ed.), The Craft and Science of Coffee, Academic Press, ch. 19 (pp. 459–460 cited). doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00019-0 · other copies
  11. ALabouisse, J.-P.; Bellachew, B.; Kotecha, S.; Bertrand, B. (2008). Current status of coffee (Coffea arabica L.) genetic resources in Ethiopia: implications for conservation. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 55(7), 1079–1093. doi:10.1007/s10722-008-9361-7 · other copies
  12. AFuller, M.; Rao, N. Z. (2017). The Effect of Time, Roasting Temperature, and Grind Size on Caffeine and Chlorogenic Acid Concentrations in Cold Brew Coffee. Scientific Reports 7, 17979. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-18247-4 · other copies

Tier A · authoritative · B · trade and expert · C · general. Supporting quotes for every source are in the data version of this entry. If a publisher’s site refuses access, try the doi link or “other copies”.

Suggest a change

On Coffee as food in Ethiopia. Tell us what you would change and why. A source that supports it helps most.