{"id":24187,"date":"2019-09-17T14:08:39","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T21:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freshcup.com\/?p=24187"},"modified":"2019-11-26T09:46:01","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T17:46:01","slug":"boon-boona-coffee-goes-back-to-the-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freshcup.com\/boon-boona-coffee-goes-back-to-the-source\/","title":{"rendered":"Boon Boona Coffee Goes Back to the Source"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boon Boona Coffee owner Efrem Fesaha (right) and director of coffee, Ali Gulduren. All photos by Barbara Lloyd McMichael<\/em><\/p>\n

[I]t\u2019s noon on a Saturday, and things are abuzz at Boon Boona Coffee. As both \u201cboon\u201d and \u201cboona\u201d are East African terms for coffee, the name \u201cBoon Boona Coffee\u201d delivers triple-shot branding for this community gathering place in Renton, a suburban city just south of Seattle. Since opening this past January, the coffeehouse has attracted a large, diverse, and enthusiastic clientele.<\/p>\n

Boon Boona founder and CEO Efrem Fesaha has equipped his new enterprise with the typical accoutrements of a modern caf\u00e9: coffee makers, coffee grinders, espresso machines, an enticing pastry case, and a gleaming roaster that presides smack dab in the middle of the space.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But Fesaha points out that all of the above have developed over just the last century or so. As the son of Eritrean immigrants, he is mindful of his roots and what he calls \u201cthe narrative of coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCoffee has a much longer and deeper history,\u201d he says, \u201cand it\u2019s important to speak to what that history was and what it looked like.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, Boon Boona focuses on coffee sourced from Africa, where coffee first originated.<\/p>\n

Fesaha\u2019s journey toward coffee entrepreneurship has been roundabout.<\/h5>\n

He was five when his dad was hired as a Boeing engineer and the family moved to the United States. As a kid growing up in Seattle, Fesaha navigated the hybrid life experienced by most children of immigrant families. At home, his parents spoke their native tongue, Tigrinya, and maintained some of the customs of their homeland. The East African community in Seattle is robust, and Fesaha recalls a \u201crevolving door\u201d of friends and family visiting, eating traditional food, and participating in the daily ritual of roasting beans and drinking coffee. There was reminiscing about village life back in Eritrea.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d talk about the goats and sheep, about walking to school every day with their friends, and the family that was their joy,\u201d says Fesaha. \u201cIt sounded better than Disneyland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of the home, meanwhile, Fesaha was immersed in school and an American adolescence. After graduating from high school, he attended Washington State University, then landed back in Seattle to launch a career as a financial analyst, working for Amazon and Nordstrom.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t until he returned to Africa in 2011 as a grown man and spent several weeks in the family\u2019s ancestral village in Eritrea that he began to understand what his parents had been talking about. It wasn\u2019t Disneyland, exactly, but \u201cthe feeling that everyone is your cousin, your brother, your sister,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Efrem Fesaha<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That was also the trip when a visit to a local caf\u00e9 changed the trajectory of Fesaha\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d walked into the caf\u00e9 one morning and was enveloped in the heady aroma of roasted coffee beans. The proprietors did their own roasting onsite, and the sensory impact almost bowled Fesaha over. This was a far cry from the coffeehouses back in the U.S., where coffee was prepared with beans that had been pre-roasted and packaged elsewhere.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s when an idea began to percolate.<\/h5>\n

Fesaha returned home. Seattle may be headquarters to Starbucks, the corporate Goliath of the coffee world, but now he felt that he had something of his own to contribute to the coffee business: the authenticity of single-origin, sustainably grown coffee beans from Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to have that shine,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He started out small, sourcing the best beans possible so that the transplanted East African community in Seattle could get a reliably delicious taste of home. Gradually, his wholesale business expanded to other markets around the U.S.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Transferring freshly-roasted and ground coffee beans into the jebena.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next, he started roasting his beans in pop-up settings, getting feedback, and building a clientele.<\/p>\n

Finally, last year, Fesaha signed a lease on a high-visibility, 2,600-square-foot corner retail space in Renton, and set about creating a caf\u00e9 of his own. He continued doing pop-ups, even serving pour-overs from the front door of his new space during the build-out.<\/p>\n

By the time Boon Boona Coffee opened its doors to the public in January, it already had a dedicated customer base.<\/p>\n

Fesaha brought in Ali Gulduren as coffee manager, and the two have developed a principled approach that focuses on connecting with small, independent exporters to locate African farmers\u2014many of them women\u2014who engage in sustainable cultivation practices. Boon Boona serves coffee sourced from the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia and the Ngozi province in Burundi, among others.<\/p>\n

To underscore that direct connection, every weekend Boon Boona offers customers a chance to participate in a traditional East African coffee ceremony. As business bustles in the main area of the store, Fesaha or his associate Rahel Goitom perform the ceremony behind a counter off to one side.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On a recent Saturday, Goitom is demonstrating to two couples who are perched on stools across the counter from her. She chats with her guests about the origin of the coffee while pouring the green beans into a pan and roasting them over an open flame. When the beans begin to sizzle and turn brown, she removes them from the heat and pours them onto a small, woven mat called a mesh er efet<\/em>, holding it up and encouraging her visitors to waft the fragrance toward their noses.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Next, the beans are ground. Traditionalists use a mortar and pestle; this affords more time for conversation, which is the point of the leisurely ceremony in the first place.<\/p>\n

Once a medium coarse grind is achieved, it is poured into the jebena<\/em>, a shapely vessel used for brewing in Ethiopian and Eritrean coffee ceremonies. The coffee is brewed several times before it is considered drinkable. Sometimes sugar, milk, or coins of ginger are added to the cup or brew.<\/p>\n

The final flourish is the pour. In a practiced move, Goitom holds the jebena<\/em> high and releases a slow stream that prevents any sediment from slipping into the small cups below. The coffee is served with a mildly sweet bread called dabo<\/em> (in Ethiopia) and himbasha<\/em> (in Eritrea), and a roasted barley and peanut mixture called kolo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For those used to the grab-and-go culture at a typical caf\u00e9, this ceremony is a mesmerizing indulgence in the senses and a chance to reflect upon the source of the drink. You just might say that Boon Boona Coffee\u2019s triple shot is coffee, culture, and connection.<\/p>\n

\n

Boon Boona Coffee<\/strong>
\n724 S 3rd St Renton, WA 98057  |  425-496-8618
\nboonboonacoffee.com<\/a>  |  Open daily 7 a.m.\u20139 p.m.
\nEast African coffee ceremonies are held every Saturday and Sunday. The hour-long ceremony is $10 per person. Book online at boonboonacoffee.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As both \u201cboon\u201d and \u201cboona\u201d are East African terms for coffee, the name \u201cBoon Boona Coffee\u201d delivers triple-shot branding for this community gathering place in Renton, a suburban city just south of Seattle. Since opening this past January, the coffeehouse has attracted a large, diverse, and enthusiastic clientele.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1148,"featured_media":24190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[24,17],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBoon Boona Coffee Goes Back to the Source - Fresh Cup Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As both \u201cboon\u201d and \u201cboona\u201d are East African terms for coffee, the name \u201cBoon Boona Coffee\u201d delivers triple-shot branding for this community gathering place in Renton, a suburban city just south of Seattle. 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