3. New Flower
Roy woke up late, and by the time he was out of his room, Webele had
already made arrangements for their journey. He had planned on
traveling alone, but hale and restless Webele was determined to
follow him in his quest for the original coffee. Webele suggested they
start at Harrar.
“I’ve called a botanist friend of mine. He says Harrar is surely the
birthplace of Coffea arabica. The earliest hard evidence is in Yemen,
but those plots were probably laid during Ethiopian invasions in the
sixth century. Most likely we introduced them to the beverage. They
were far better at promoting it than we, of course—it should be called
Coffea Abyssinica.”
Roy sipped at his morning cup. He never took for granted the
feeling of clarity this simple infusion imparted. “Sixth century?” he
mused. “Interesting that Islam was born in Arabia at exactly the
same time that coffee was introduced.”
“Yes. Mohammed was born in the same year that Ethiopia
launched a failed attempt to capture the Kaaba,” Webele said, “I
often wonder if in some indirect way, Ethiopia gave birth to Islam. If
we hadn’t threatened that sacred Arabian stone, would there have
been any reason for their tribes to band together?”
Roy looked into his cup and saw his own face again. “Perhaps it
was the new drink you brought over. Coffee can be quite a catalyst for
change.”
They had some trouble purchasing tickets. Airline travel was
restricted due to an absurd war going on between the Ethiopian and
Eritrea, the latest in a long string of Ethiopian catastrophes.
Eritrea had once been the province of Ethiopia bordering the Red
Sea. After the fall of Mengistu in 1992 the country was peacefully
granted its independence. Now, as a result of some petty squabbling,
the two nations found themselves fighting over a worthless piece of
desert to which both laid claim. Eighteen years of quasi-Marxist
despotism had left them the world’s poorest republics and here they
were spending the bulk of their national budgets to bomb small tracts
of uninhabited sand. Tens of thousands of soldiers had been killed
ABYSSINIA
222
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