One of nine ethnically-based regions in Ethiopia, Oromia, named after the Oromo people, was created in 1995 from the Sidama region. Verdant, often remote, it shares borders with all the other regions except Tigray. This border sharing has led to disputes, the most recent being August 2016. Currently, an unquiet lull exists that will hopefully solidify into justice for all involved.
But Oromia has been famous for more than just the recent political upheaval. It is in this region that the fabled goat herder, Kaldi, and his goats discovered the first coffee cherries around 400 A.D. Coffea Arabica has spread (with the help of mankind’s love affair with the magic bean) and now grows throughout the world’s temperate zones. But here in Ethiopia, coffee trees proliferate as they did all those centuries ago, and the air is sweet with the scent of coffee flowers--like jasmine and orange flowers, and yet not at all like.