Coffee Tour Dispatch #1 - Ethiopia - Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa - the capital city of Ethiopia. We have been fortunate to hike around the capital city of Addis Ababa for a few days while waiting for our itinerary to the cooperatives in Sidamo and Harar get finalized (and re-finalized, and re-touched yet once more..) by the Oromia Farmers Union. Tight and dependable schedules are not I recall, their strong point.

Alas, this has allowed me to share with our little band of travellers my favorite coffee bar in Addis: Tomoca. Since my last visit in 2005 - virtually nothing has changed. The same store owner (Rumours have it was opened by Italians, who then fled leaving it in local hands when the Communist Dergue took over in 1974) is still there counting the cash, as is the barista - lining up his tiny saucers for what are almost exclusively macchiato and short blacks ( I really have to devote an entire post for all you espresso geeks to show the very unique way Ethiopian baristas go about doing milk drinks...more on that later..).

Tomoca is a special coffee haunt - from the constant smoke hazed air created by the unventilated old coffee roaster out back, to the very cool, colour coded domino-like chits that you have to purchase at counter first and then hand to the barista. The vibe (You can see in the linked video blogpost), is what makes this place. It is definitely not the quality of the coffee. What this place lacks in sheer lack of espresso nouce is made up in bucket loads by the ambience that most NZ cafes could'nt muster in a million years.

If you are ever in Addis Ababa, you can find Tomoca just off Winston Church Hill Ave, near the top of the hill by Piazza. If it's consistency over the 4 years since I last visited is any indication, likelihood is it'll still be as good by the time you have saved your pennies for the air ticket over here.

Tags // Ethiopia, Tomoca

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