The Third Cup

The charcoal has been burning for an hour. Almaz fans it with a straw plate, coaxing the coals to exactly the right temperature — hot enough to roast, not hot enough to scorch.

She pours the green beans onto the flat iron pan. They crackle. The smell hasn't started yet.

In Ethiopia, coffee is not a drink. It is a buna — a ceremony that takes three hours, requires specific equipment, and follows protocols her grandmother's grandmother would recognize. Almaz performs it three times a week, for neighbors, for family, for anyone who appears at the door at the right hour.

The beans are turning brown now. She shakes the pan in a circular motion, keeping them moving. The first wisps of smoke rise. A child runs to tell the neighbors: buna is starting.

Ethiopia is where coffee began. Not cultivated — discovered. The legend says a goatherd named Kaldi noticed his goats dancing after eating red berries from a certain bush. He brought the berries to a monk, who threw them in the fire in disgust. The smell that rose from the flames changed everything.

The legend is probably false. The discovery was probably gradual, accidental, lost to history. But Ethiopians tell the Kaldi story anyway, because it gives the bean a narrative, a birthplace, a home.

Almaz carries the smoking pan through the room. This is required — everyone must smell the roasting. To skip this step would be like serving dinner without letting guests see the table. The aroma is the invitation.

The beans go into a wooden mortar. She pounds them with a pestle, not too fine, not too coarse. The grounds go into the jebena — a clay pot with a round bottom and long neck, blackened from years of use. Water is added. The jebena goes on the coals.

The waiting begins.

In the West, coffee is a transaction. You pay, you receive, you leave. The average time from order to exit at a Starbucks is three minutes. Efficiency is the point.

Here, the opposite is true. The buna takes three hours because connection takes time. The neighbors arrive, sit on low stools, talk. The coffee is served in tiny cups without handles. The first round is called abol — the strongest, almost bitter. The second is tona — milder, as the grounds are reused. The third is baraka — the blessing, weak but sacred.

The first cup is for strangers. The second is for friends. The third is for family.

Almaz pours the baraka. The children who ran to announce the ceremony now receive their small cups. They are learning what coffee means — not a caffeine delivery system, but a technology for making strangers into family.

The coals are dying. The jebena is empty. The neighbors rise to leave, promising to return when Almaz's sister hosts the next buna. The system of obligation continues, each ceremony creating debt and credit, weaving the neighborhood into a fabric that holds.

In Addis Ababa, cafes now serve espresso to young professionals in a hurry. But in the neighborhoods, in the villages, in the places where time still moves at human speed, the buna persists.

Three cups. Three hours. Three hundred generations of doing it this way, because this is how you turn a bean into a bond.