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A food crop. Its nation. Their new history. Coffee Story: Ethiopia a tale from the country where coffee began. It's the twenty-first century and Ethiopia in the global consciousness is shedding its history of drought famine and war. It's doing so by embracing the heritage and potential of its defining crop coffee a plant first accounted for in legend more than three thousand years ago and that now ranks among the world's ten most-valued commodities. Coffee Story: Ethiopia is the recounting of that process: a visual and narrative tale of opportunity resources education and tradition.

Author Majka Burhardt's prose weaves its way into the fabric of the Ethiopian coffee story with precision humility and curiosity. The result is both informative and illuminating. Ethiopia's coffee story unfolds through photos vignettes and extended captions that allow easy entry onto any page. Coffee Story: Ethiopia also transcends the bean itself to explore Ethiopia's larger landscape and peoples.

With elegant photography by Travis Horn and original artwork by illustrator Molly Holmberg Coffee Story: Ethiopia proves an invaluable addition to the library of the coffee professional the coffee consumer and anyone interested in this ancient plant and in exploring Ethiopia's territories and lore.

Coffee Story: Ethiopia is the second book authored by Majka Burhardt who in 2008 published Vertical Ethiopia: Climbing Toward Possibility in the Horn of Africa (Shama Books). Ms. Burhardt is also producer and director of the film Namuli (2016) and executive producer of Waypoint Namibia (2010). Burhardt is the founder and executive director of Legado where she works to protect the world's most threatened mountain ecosystems by empowering the people who call them home. Legado originated during a pioneering climbing and conservation research expedition to Mozambique. Ms. Burhardt holds an MFA in creative writing from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers and received her BA in anthropology from Princeton University. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband Peter and twins Kaz and Irenna. Majkaburhardt.com

"Can you imagine a world without coffee? No-it is impossible to do so because the coffee bean in the way Majka Burhardt explains has permanently and irrevocably entered our lives. To understand more about this remarkable bean you must remember that it originates in mountainous Ethiopia long regarded as one of the world's most mysterious countries. Coffee is so vital to us all that it makes this book the first modern study of the bean uniquely important-and I recommend the pages herein to anyone in quest of knowledge enlightenment and entertainment." - Professor Richard Pankhurst author Economic History of Ethiopia (1968) and A Social History of Ethiopia (1990)

"A porridge of roasted coffee cherries mixed with butter and salt called Buna Kelema. Multiple conflicting myths of coffee's origins. Hallucinogenic chat leaves. How Christians vilified coffee but then glorified it. How Muslims ritualized coffee and embraced it. People of wisdom courtesy and tradition. Kidnapped girls forced to marry high infant-mortality rates. Rainforest highlands barren desert and agricultural wealth. It's all here and more: the Ethiopian story. The coffee maven adventurer climber and anthropologist Majka Burhardt paints vivid word-pictures to accompany Travis and Helmut Horn's breathtaking photos. Coffee Story: Ethiopia carries us into the heart of the land where coffee originated with all its glory mystery contradiction and potential." - Mark Pendergrast author Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World