# Bonga: Ethiopia's Arabica Coffee Heartland, and So Much More > Cloud forests, wild honey and ancient traditions: discover what makes Bonga, the Ethiopian home of arabica coffee, so surprising beyond its coffee groves. - URL: https://langandtrip.com.ua/en/article/bonha-efiopiia-epitsentr-vyrobnytstva-kavy-arabika-ta-bahato-inshoho/ - Language: en - Published: 2025-05-15 - Categories: Culture, Historic Sites, Tours, Ethiopia, Food & Drinks, Forests --- Bonga is a name you rarely hear when visiting Ethiopia, if you hear it at all. Yet it deserves far more recognition: this, many believe, is where arabica coffee was born. Despite its coffee credentials, the multibillion-dollar global industry that grew up around the bean has largely passed Bonga by. Today it is a small town tucked deep into southwestern Ethiopia, sitting quietly among pristine subtropical cloud forests teeming with coffee trees, wild honey, natural wonders and wildlife. The word "coffee" is thought to come from Kaffa, the ancient name for part of what is now the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region, where Bonga sits. As the story goes, around the sixth century, in the forests near Bonga, a goatherd named Kaldi noticed that his animals turned playful after eating red berries from a bush he had never seen before. Kaldi then tried the berries himself, and so the coffee bean was discovered. Early morning starts, dull office meetings and flimsy excuses to prolong a hot date would never be the same again. Early mornings in Bonga find the town's hillsides wrapped in low-hanging clouds, brought on by the distinctively high moisture in the air. The effect is strikingly cinematic as households come to life, their chimneys sending up thin columns of kitchen smoke that rise into the surrounding mist. ## Coffee in the clouds ![](/storage/image/prev/june-article-image-13-1-2025.jpg) The Bonga Forest Reserve, which covers roughly 500 square kilometers, is one of the last subtropical rainforests of any real size left in Ethiopia. Its altitude is ideal for coffee, which grows best at heights of 900 to 1,800 meters (2,950 to 5,900 feet). The shade cast by the forest trees means the beans develop more slowly, becoming denser and more aromatic as a result. It also keeps the trees shorter, so they are easier for locals to harvest by hand. Mirutse Habtemariam, a local beekeeper, is happy to give a crash course on the forest's other products. He points out forest cardamom (Ethiopia's most expensive spice) and the long green peppers sprouting among the bushes along the dirt paths. There are also banana trees with purple flowers that grow downward. He gestures up at the unusual wooden cylinders in the trees: traditional beehives, he explains. Honeybees are drawn by the sheer variety of flora in the forest. Local farmers, it is said, often turn to prayer as well, pleading with the wild bees to stay in the hives and build their honeycombs. The result, whether shaped by the flora or by divine intervention, is superb. ## Honey wine ![](/storage/image/prev/june-article-image-13-2-2025.jpg) The proof is easy to find, thanks to the many shops scattered across Bonga, stocked with barrels of honey ranging in shade from dark caramel to pale amber or opaque white. Unsurprisingly, there is plenty of tej on offer, the astonishingly strong and famous Ethiopian honey wine. Above the coffee trees, the forest is alive with black-and-white colobus monkeys, whose image appears on the label of Bedele, a beer popular in the region. Beneath the forest canopy roam lions, leopards, hippos, buffalo and antelope. "I would never move to the city and leave this behind," says Mirutse, gesturing at the forest around his village. Another advantage of this rural life is the traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony. Raw green beans are roasted over hot coals, then ground with a wooden mortar and pestle, before finally being brewed in a clay boiling pot called a jebena. Coffee does not come any fresher. And using beans grown amid such rich biodiversity yields a high-quality organic coffee of incredible variety. ## Healing power There is one brew that tastes almost like wine, with notes of jasmine and orange. Another carries hints of raisin, violet and mango. A third has undertones of strawberry, cherry and lychee. Coffee also plays an important role in local life beyond the obvious cup at the start of the day. Ground coffee mixed with honey is used to treat wounds. One of the criteria for a woman to be considered ready for marriage is her ability to prepare coffee. ## Off the grid For all its coffee and other natural treasures, both Bonga and the Kaffa region remain off the tourist map. Today the town's population is only around 30,000, and Kaffa's is about 900,000. Here life moves slowly, despite all the caffeine. But in 2015, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn visited Bonga to open a new National Coffee Museum. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian Tourism Organization launched a new marketing campaign, "Ethiopia, Land of Origins," to transform tourism in the country and draw more visitors to lesser-known destinations such as Bonga. ## Land of waterfalls ![](/storage/image/prev/june-article-image-13-3-2025.jpg) There is a great deal here to draw visitors, and those who make the grueling 460-kilometer road trip from Addis Ababa to Bonga, or who fly to the region's administrative capital, Jimma, then travel another 118 kilometers overland, will be rewarded. In addition to the 14 waterfalls scattered across the forest reserve, there are hot springs and natural bridges formed by erosion from wind and water. Numerous ancient churches and mosques dot the land. Hotel options may feel rather limited for some, and the trip calls for extra preparation compared with Ethiopia's more accessible sites along the better-known northern Historic Route. But what is lost in comfort is more than made up for by the incredible surroundings. And by all that delicious, fresh coffee.