Introduction to Ethiopia's Tomoca Coffee Brand_How to Brew TOMOCA Coffee Beans/Powder

The Legendary TOMOCA Coffee

When it comes to coffee, Ethiopia cannot be overlooked. And when discussing Ethiopian coffee, TOMOCA is impossible to ignore.

Fresh TOMOCA beans: roasted Harar long beans.

Anyone who has tasted TOMOCA coffee knows it's the real thing. TOMOCA is also a century-old brand in Ethiopia. Ask where to find the best coffee in Ethiopia, and the answer is definitely TOMOCA.

TOMOCA Coffee Beans/Powder

Product Name: TO.MO.CA Coffee Beans/Powder

Origin: Ethiopia

Ingredients: Harar coffee beans (roasted)

Roast: City Roast

Taste: Slightly sweet with gentle fruit acidity, excellent mellowness and its characteristic mature flavor. Its unique balance of sweetness, acidity, and bitterness is exceptionally elegant.

Aroma: Rich fruity fragrance and grassy aroma

Visual: Smaller bean particles with uneven bean color

Brewing Methods

TOMOCA Coffee Beans: Detailed brewing instructions are not provided here - a coffee machine is essential.

For TOMOCA coffee powder, note that this is not an instant product. You can enjoy its rich flavor with coffee machines, moka pots, distillation pots, siphons, or filter paper. Without such equipment, you only need a small pot for boiling milk or water: after the water boils, add the coffee powder and keep it at a boil for 10-20 minutes (generally, 2 cups of water take 1-2 scoops of powder - coffee-spoon-sized or regular small dining spoons). The brewed coffee should then be filtered 2-3 times through a fine sieve or filter paper. After that, adjust to taste. If you're not used to pure coffee, add milk, condensed milk, brown sugar, white sugar, or coffee creamer - be warned, it's very bitter without sugar. This should be a favorite of true coffee lovers.

Methods to Identify Fresh Coffee Beans

Smell: Fresh coffee beans have a strong aroma; poor-quality beans smell unpleasant.

Sight: Good coffee beans are whole and plump; poor-quality beans are irregular and fragmented.

Touch: Fresh beans are crisp when pressed, releasing fragrance as they crack open.

Color: Dark black beans produce bitter coffee; beans with yellow tones produce coffee with acidity.

Ethiopia: The Birthplace of Coffee

Ethiopia, known as the birthplace of coffee, boasts its history as coffee's place of origin along with traditional agricultural cultivation techniques. It is said that the English word "coffee" itself comes from "Kaffa," a place name in Ethiopia. Legend has it that around 900 AD, a shepherd in the Kaffa region was grazing his sheep in the mountains when he found the flock fighting over a type of red berry. After eating the berries, the sheep became unusually lively and energetic. The shepherd feared they had eaten something harmful and spent an anxious night - yet the next day the flock was completely unharmed. This accidental discovery prompted him to collect the wild fruits and boil them into a juice to quench his thirst. He found the juice wonderfully aromatic and felt unusually energetic after drinking it, and began cultivating the plant - leading to large-scale coffee cultivation. The name "coffee" evolved from "Kaffa," and from Ethiopia, coffee spread to the world.

Ethiopian Organic Coffee

Ethiopian coffee may well be the world's only pollution-free green organic coffee. Ethiopia still uses traditional cultivation methods with manual care for the trees; fertilizers consist mainly of fallen leaves, dead grass, and animal manure, replacing the harmful pesticides and herbicides used at scale in other producing countries.

Ethiopia is now most famous for its "Mocha" coffee. In the West, "Mocha" refers not only to a coffee variety but also to brewing methods, coffee-making equipment, and special preparation techniques. Mocha beans are mostly dry-processed, though premium washed lots exist. Mocha beans are renowned for their acidity, alongside slight sweetness, a subtle winy aroma, and lower caffeine content.

TOMOCA Coffee Shop Notes

This coffee shop is very, very small, but world-famous. It was once featured in Lonely Planet, and coffee enthusiasts from around the world make special pilgrimages here for a cup.

The TOMOCA shop sits in a very unassuming small building - the yellow building pictured below. Without someone familiar to guide you, you would never find it; even standing in front of it, you might not believe it. Yet take a taxi or ask for directions in Addis Ababa and everyone knows it. And there are no branches anywhere in the world - this is the only one.

Since it was a weekend and a tour group had come through, it was extremely busy. A line of people waited to pay on the left; on the right you can see the tables - there are only three in the entire shop, with no chairs. Everyone stands while drinking, and they drink quickly.

Finally, an Ethiopian coffee map hangs indoors - something special, which I'll research next time. Before leaving I bought some coffee powder that needs to be brewed for 3-5 minutes. There is no instant coffee here. They sell whole beans too. I had originally bought the powder as gifts for colleagues, then realized no one owns a coffee pot - so I kept it for myself!

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Ethiopia is one of the world's great specialty coffee origins, and as coffee's birthplace it holds countless native varieties - a treasure land that coffee lovers follow faithfully for its flavors. For a first taste, FrontStreet Coffee recommends the entry-level washed Yirgacheffe: clear jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity in a light, elegant, tea-like cup, like a refreshing lemon tea. Yirgacheffe itself is a small town in southern Ethiopia - spring-like all year, misty, cool, and humid - where thousands of coffee trees thrive and give the region its signature weave of florals and fruit acidity.

Most Ethiopian coffee follows a garden-farming model: each smallholder sends harvested cherries to a village-based processing station, and lots are sold under the team's name - hence the many cooperative coffees, such as FrontStreet's Gedeb (Dingding) Cooperative, Worka Cooperative, and Konga Cooperative. Gedeb, in the Worka area at Yirgacheffe's southeastern edge, became an independent cooperative in 2012 with roughly 300 member farmers; because the flesh is removed before drying, its inherent aromas come through crystal clear - citrus, lemon, and elegant white florals. For a bolder cup, try FrontStreet's natural Yirgacheffe Red Cherry (peach, cocoa, honey, lemon) or the natural Sidamo Huakui from Hambella in Guji - 200 hectares of traditional sun-drying on raised beds for 21 days - which after a medium-light roast shows light fermented wine notes, florals, citrus, and mango with honey sweetness, cocoa, spice, and a thick, lasting finish.

For something wilder, FrontStreet's Kaffa Forest coffee comes from truly wild trees growing at 1400-2100 meters under shade in red soil with abundant rainfall. Medium-light roasted, it offers a distinct white floral aroma, bright lemon acidity, sweet orange and bergamot, and a green-tea-like finish with faint melon and nut sweetness.