Yes Ethiopia is the birthplace of Coffee. The area that it comes from is called Kaffa - you can see where we get our word coffee from.
In Ethiopia they have a very old folktale about the first time that people drank coffee, hope you enjoy it!
There was once a goat herder from Kaffa, a place in Ethiopia where the coffee plants still grow wild in the forest hills. He was out one day with his goats and noticed that they were acting in a very strange way. They seemed to be very excited, almost dancing on their hind legs. The goat herder had never seen the goats like this before and he looked around him for the reason. He noticed a few branches of a nearby coffee plant which was hung with bright red berries. He noticed that some of the red berries on the plant had been eaten and saw the goats chewing away on them. He tried the berries himself and rushed home to his wife who told him that he must tell the monks about this strange new bean. The monks were amazed but thought that the beans were not good because they made people who ate them very lively. They tossed them into the flames of the fire they were sitting around. The monks started looking at each other, they could smell a wonderful smell, the smell of roasting coffee beans that we all know and love today. They raked the beans out of the fire and crushed them into powder and poured boiling water on it. Within minutes the monastery filled with the heavenly aroma of freshly made coffee, and this brought other monks rushing to see where the wonderful smell came from. After drinking the coffee they found that they could sit up all night and pray. Without the coffee they would have fallen asleep. The rest, as they say, is history.
There was once a goat herder from Kaffa, a place in Ethiopia where the coffee plants still grow wild in the forest hills. He was out one day with his goats and noticed that they were acting in a very strange way. They seemed to be very excited, almost dancing on their hind legs. The goat herder had never seen the goats like this before and he looked around him for the reason. He noticed a few branches of a nearby coffee plant which was hung with bright red berries. He noticed that some of the red berries on the plant had been eaten and saw the goats chewing away on them. He tried the berries himself and rushed home to his wife who told him that he must tell the monks about this strange new bean. The monks were amazed but thought that the beans were not good because they made people who ate them very lively. They tossed them into the flames of the fire they were sitting around. The monks started looking at each other, they could smell a wonderful smell, the smell of roasting coffee beans that we all know and love today. They raked the beans out of the fire and crushed them into powder and poured boiling water on it. Within minutes the monastery filled with the heavenly aroma of freshly made coffee, and this brought other monks rushing to see where the wonderful smell came from. After drinking the coffee they found that they could sit up all night and pray. Without the coffee they would have fallen asleep. The rest, as they say, is history.