My second shipment of the "world's rarest" coffees recently arrived in the mail. The first came from Papua New Guinea, as noted in Post No. 126. To get me this one, someone "journeyed to the eastern mountain valleys of Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, for robust, full-bodied Harrar, one of the world's most prized beans."I brewed my first cup this morning.
The packaging on the coffee read: Grown on small family farms, this rare coffee is harvested from high mountain valleys in the exceptionally fertile Harrar region of Ethiopia. Harrar is considered a "wild coffee" because the beans are dried in the coffee fruit, giving them a full-bodied richness with soft tones of dark chocolate, cinnamon and cardamom.
I learned that Harrar (or Harar) is an eastern city in Ethiopia that is not only known for its coffee but for a wall that completely encircles the city, including its 82 mosques and 122,000 inhabitants.
The wall, called Jugol, is over 2 miles long and over 16 feet high. It was erected in the sixteenth century and was made with locally quarried stone, held together with mud, and reinforced with stout juniper planks. You can enter the city through any of its five gates, a number supposed to symbolize the Five Pillars of Islam.
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