Coffee With A Cause

Ethiopia. The birth place of arabica coffee.

According to legend, shepherds in this north African land noticed how their goats danced and burst with new life after sampling the fruit from a bush that grew wild. They tried the beans from this bush and found themselves invigorated.

Ethiopian coffee still grows wild across the green hills and roasters say it's known for its gamey and spontaneous flavor profile.

Many Ethiopians offer coffee to visitors in an ancient ceremony that makes it much more than a simple morning beverage.

Liane Wolbert, whose son Nate works on the Living Space construction crew renovating the American Legion building and the Loundagin building on Main Street in Waitsburg, knows all about this ritual. As a visitor and missionary to the third-poorest country in the world, she has been offered coffee this way many times.

The coffee is brewed after the green beans are picked from the wild bush or from cultivated trees and roasted over hot coals. The participants in the ceremony are asked to enjoy the aroma by waving the smoke towards them before the coffee is ground with a wooden mortar and pestle, and boiled in a jebena (or boiling pot).

The host pours coffee from the spout of the spherical pottery vessel into small handleless cups on a tray without stopping until all the cups are full. Sometimes, the ceremony is accompanied by the burning of incense. " The coffee is considered very precious," Wolbert said. "It's served with some unsalted butter, not milk. When we (Wolbert and her husband Mark) first got there and tasted the coffee, we'd know we'd be spoiled if we tried anything else."

Customers of the soonto open Coppei Coffee Co on Main Street won't have to travel to Ethiopia to taste or bring this coffee home.

We're exploring the possibility of retailing the coffee the Wolberts buy and bring back from Ethiopia at the new coffee shop to help support their humanitarian work. It's part of our dream to offer unique gourmet beans from nonprofits that do good work in coffeegrowing countries. This same retail menu may some day include arabica beans from Nicaragua and Vietnam. Buyers may pay a little extra for the bags, but they'll know the proceeds support muchneeded overseas development work.

In the case of the Wolberts, it will help fund five orphanages, including three on the border with Sudan.

A country with 77 million people, Ethiopia is as well known for its abject poverty as its fabulous coffee. Because AIDS, malaria and typhoid are rampant, the country is home to an estimated 7 million orphans, Wolbert said.

"I've seen infants abandoned on paths with their umbilical cord still on them," she said.

Liane Wolbert was a school counselor in Tacoma, Mark a landscape professional and pastor at a Foursquare church. They live in Puyallup. Four years ago, they joined the overseas outreach efforts of the Puyallup-based Adoption Ministry of the larger Youth With A Mission nonprofit.

Adoption Ministry was founded by Miles and Debi Musick of the Foursquare church in Puyallup. Twenty five years ago, they were called to care for pregnant or single mothers who had no place to live and started the New Beginnings Home.

As a youth, Nate, 22, remembers going on mission trips for vacation. The whole family, including his twin brother Adam, his younger sister Alena and even their grandmother would go to projects in Europe, Alaska, Africa, Russia and Israel.

Mark Wolbert heads missionary trips to Ethiopia at least eight times a year now and brings back 60 kilos of coffee beans (about 135 pounds) each time.

He packs supplies such as tools, soccer balls, medical supplies, toys and formula from here and returns with the fragrant beans from the country's southwest Kaffa region (the origin of the word "coffee").

Over the years, Adoption Ministry has also engaged in crop sustainability, water sanitation and school construction projects.

The Wolberts have been giving their beans away to donors and supporters. Nate's boss, Living Space owner Nat Farnham, recently bought a goodly stash after tasting a sample the younger Wolbert brought him.

If it all works out, Coppei Coffee would make the Wolberts' Ethiopian import its first caused-based retail item, then hopefully add beans from a variety of other origins.

For more information, visit www.adoptionministry.net.