Oakland–As the sun rises over Oakland’s flatlands, Meron Temesjen tends a propane stove on the sidewalk of Telegraph Avenue, turning her head to avoid inhaling the fume of smoke and debris it emits. To a stranger, she looks like a camper who has wandered far from the trail.

But if anything is out of place it is the Ethiopian tradition of home coffee roasting which, in the year since she opened Café Sidamo, the 31-year-old has introduced to this central Oakland neighborhood and its steady flow of morning traffic.

“Neighbors like the smell,” says Temesjen, who goes by Mimi, as beans dance in the pan below, turning from a light green to a rich dark brown. Translucent skins pop off to the concrete and leave behind an oily veneer on the beans.

Meron Temesjen, owner of Cafe Sidamo, in her coffee shop.

In Mimi’s native Ethiopia, the preparation—and consumption—of coffee is a slow, deliberate process—nothing to be hurried by machine roasters or paper to-go cups. “Machines take all the flavor,” she says.  There, in the birthplace of the beverage, where nearly a dozen regions are known for their particular variety, beans are sold raw and roasted at home.

Mimi’s household, in a small town two hours from Addis Ababa, the capital, was no different. “Every morning I would do that for my mother,” she says, beginning when she was five years old. It takes about 45 minutes to roast a pan of beans, before letting them cool and sifting them in a basket to separate the loose skins.

For Ethiopians at home and those who gather in Café Sidamo, savoring a fresh cup takes at least as long, accompanied by a bowl of popcorn and good conversation.

“The process takes almost two hours,” says Mimi. “You have to take the time to enjoy it.”

That appreciation for making a good product is something Mimi learned back in Ethiopia, as the daughter of owners of a local hotel and coffee shop.

“I always wanted my own business,” like her parents had, she says. But that was difficult to imagine growing up in the 1980s, when her country’s name became synonymous with third-world famine. Basic resources could be there one day, gone the next. “Water, electricity—you have to struggle for everything.”

After Mimi graduated from high school, word of a letter from the U.S. president spread through town. Bill Clinton’s Diversity Visa program invited applications for a lottery offering permanent residency to immigrants from countries with low rates of U.S. immigration. Nearly a year later, Mimi learned she and her brother won, and they were soon in the East Bay, where an older sister had settled three years before.

A decade later, with the help of her husband and a small business development organization, Mimi saw her dream come to fruition in Café Sidamo, named after Ethiopia’s most famous coffee-growing region.

Tucked into a quiet strip of Telegraph Avenue, the café has the feel of a lounge, with artwork covering the walls, and a handful of tables so close together it seems they were designed to introduce patrons to one another. The chalkboard menu offers a variety of traditional American foods like pancakes, bagels, and roast beef sandwiches. But the coffee comes in one variety only: Ethiopian.

“It brings me close to my country,” she says. “When I see the coffee I know that it is from Ethiopia.”

Oakland–The black-and-white photograph of the woman with the piercing eyes sits on the front counter of Dareye Hide Away Ethiopian Restaurant, overlooking the dining area and the kitchen.

Terufet Zafu, cafe owner

A few customers, most arriving by bike, filter in and out of the barely week-old establishment in Oakland.  Few know that the expansive café with its white umbrellas and warm, red-brick interior is named for the woman in the photograph, an Ethiopian who never set foot on American soil.

Dareye (pronounced Dar-EY-yay) was famous for her cooking, says Terufet Zafu, 44, the woman’s daughter and owner of the restaurant.  Originally from Sidamo, a region in the south of Ethiopia known for its coffee, Terufet’s mother opened a restaurant in the capital city, Addis Ababa.  One of her specialties was Yebega Tibs, a spiced lamb stew, said Terufet.  “No-one makes it like her,” she said, shaking her head.

Dareye passed away more than a decade ago, but her traditional East African recipes live on thanks to her daughter, who wears a blue-and-gold embroidered scarf around her head. Terufet speaks in Amharic, punctuated with short bursts of English; her three grown children, who work in the restaurant as well, take turns translating.

After immigrating to Oakland in 2001 with her husband and children, Terufet struggled with the language barrier.  She soon found a niche market making Injera (Ethiopian flat-bread) for distribution in local restaurants, markets and liquor stores.

The distinctly sour, spongy bread is made with an Ethiopian staple, teff, a round grain.  The pancake-like bread must ferment overnight.  Though it was difficult to find the brown and white grains in America, (they eventually found Ethiopian distributors,) customers approve of the result. “It tastes the same as back home, a lot of people have told us,” Tiyu, 26, Terufet’s daughter said.

The bread is packaged in plastic and delivered to local stores in Oakland like U and I Liquors on Telegraph, or Grand Perkins Market.  It is bought by members of the thriving Ethiopian community  that has sprung up in Oakland over recent decades, marked by Ethiopian restaurants, stores and churches.

Many link the influx of immigrants from the Horn of Africa to the civil unrest in Ethiopia over the past few decades.  Ethiopians left by the thousands after a revolution in 1974, when Emporer Haile Selassie was deposed and a Marxist military regime was installed, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think-tank.

Other conflicts, along with wide-spread famine and drought in the mid 1980’s, led to more emigration.  As of 2000, the Ethiopian community in Alameda county consisted of about 2000 people, according to U.S. census data, although Mike, 26, Terufet’s son, believes that number to be much higher by now.

But despite the visible community presence along Telegraph Ave., America is still very far from home.  Terufet misses visiting with her extended family and attending her local church, which she did several times a week.  She also didn’t previously work outside of her home. “The pace of life is slower there. It’s an easier life.” Tiyu said, touching her Bob Marley baseball cap.

Tiyu, on the other hand, attended an American school before moving to the U.S. and has no problem switching between Amharic and American-accented English.

While she was busy navigating the obstacles of adjusting to a new life, Terufet’s Injera business took off.  She opened Café Dareye at 2504 Telegraph Ave, which was successful, but tiny.  “The room was this big,” said Mike, measuring with his hands.  “People spilled out onto the sidewalks.” After a little more than a year, Terufet started looking to expand her family business.

Sitting at the window in the new location, customers face the patio of Café Colucci, half-obscured by plants, across the street.  Terufet and her family were not aware that another Ethiopian restaurant was right across the street when they found their current space.  However, “we’re friendly with them.  We respect the woman who owns it.  She’s been there for 15 years,” she said.

Even though her business is new, Terufet is optimistic that her mother’s recipes will help her restaurant survive.  While Tiyu is explaining the history of her business ventures, Terufet steps in to clarify, gesturing as she speaks in Amharic.

Her daughter listens and then smiles, explaining, “she wanted me to say that it did not take several years for her business to get off the ground. It only took one.”

Terufet musters some of her English to hammer this point home: “It took me one year and one month to find success,” she says.

Although Tiyu will continue studying biological science and Italian at U.C. Davis this fall semester, she plans to commute and continue to work part-time at the restaurant.  Her sister Taytu, 22, and brother Mike both want to continue with the restaurant as well.  They hope to eventually open a franchise, Tiyu said.

Despite the comments about Ethiopian customers, the restaurant is mostly empty one particular Sunday afternoon.  Most Ethiopians are at the local Ethiopian New Year’s celebration, or Enkutatash, Terufet says, and then her face lights up.  She explains something excitedly to her daughter.

Another reporter came and wrote a story on her café – the tiny one – at the same time, Ethiopian New Years, exactly one year ago. “She says that it is a good omen that you are here,” her daughter said, smiling.

OAKLAND — Tirsit Ali, 39, is carefully tying a bow through the waistband of a faded white apron she has just pulled over her head. She approaches a deep sink and peers down to examine a heaping pile of purple onions, ripe tomatoes, and crisp jalapeno peppers still glistening from the faucet’s bath.

Tirsit Ali, 39, owner of Messob restaurant in North Oakland

“Even when I was a little one, I loved to cook,” she recalls.

Ali’s earliest culinary memories date back to 1980 when, at the age of 10, she began helping her mother and other female relatives peel and cut onions at their home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city. The dish they prepared most often then was Shiro Wot, a stew of ground chickpea, onion, and garlic that is a staple dish for Ethiopia’s 75 million people.

Thirty years later, Tirsit (TUR-see) is still making Shiro Wot. Only now it is at her own restaurant, Messob, which she opened in north Oakland in 2005 and named after the traditional Ethiopian circular straw table designed for communal eating.

Ali came to the United States with her Ethiopian husband in 1991 when she was just 21 years old. They left Ethiopia during the period of political turmoil that precipitated the end of Communist rule in that country.

From the beginning, Ali says, America felt like home.

“I liked everything. It’s a huge country. Very clean,” she says, her warm smile exposing two rows of small, yellowed teeth of a size and color rarely seen in an American city with modern dentistry and adequate nutrition.

But Ali soon discovered many differences between Ethiopia and America, especially how people interact.

“In Ethiopia you gather together every day, eat with your family and friends,” Ali recalls. She feels America is missing this strong sense of community.

“Here, it’s all hard work, everyone is always busy. People meet each other less.”

Ali entered the American workforce as a maid for Sheraton Hotels. Soon after, she took a job preparing and serving food at an Ethiopian restaurant in Berkeley. It was in that kitchen that she began planning for the day when she would have a business of her own.

Living in Addis Ababa, Ali remembers few if any businesses run by women. “It was dominated by men then,” she says.

Today, however, Ali feels conditions in both countries have improved. “Women own not just restaurants but other businesses now. I think it is more equal.”

In 2000, confident and eager, Ali formed a business partnership with another Ethiopian family friend. With financial backing from Ali’s husband, they opened a small Ethiopian coffee shop on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. But without the necessary kitchen facilities, they could not get the food license required by the city to prepare and serve their traditional meals.

A year later, when an established Ethiopian restaurant in Oakland came on the market, they jumped at the chance to buy it. After four years learning the restaurant business with her friend, Ali left the partnership to open her own restaurant, Messob.

Today, Ali handles the finances and ordering decisions, and still prepares most dishes herself. “It’s been difficult,” says Ali. “You have to work hard, you have to get things together. But you also need help.”

Luckily Ali has the support of her husband, her young son, and a large network of family and friends in the Bay Area’s Ethiopian community. Many of these people she knows from her years in Ethiopia, others she met here in California.

Her small staff is made entirely of Ethiopian women.  Some wait tables in the evenings, working only for tips.

“They have other jobs but they come here to help me out,” Ali explains.

Growing up in the comparatively urban environment of Addis Ababa, Ali’s middle-class family did not work in agriculture. Instead, they bought most of their food from a local market. But Ali recalls a small backyard garden where her mother grew beautiful collard greens and jalapeño peppers – two of her favorite vegetables.

With Messob, Ali strives to prepare dishes the traditional way, as she remembers from her mother’s kitchen. She has meat delivered two or three times a week and shops for produce at the farmer’s market at Jack London Square. She only buys enough fresh cabbage, potatoes, carrots and collard greens to last a few days.

Still, she misses the fresh Ethiopian produce she remembers from her youth.

“They have everything here, but the taste is different,” she says. “In Ethiopia it’s more a natural thing. They don’t use anything to make it grow fast. Don’t put anything in the ground. So it’s more delicious. Seriously.”

According to Ali, it is the unique spice flavor combinations such as shiro, mitmita and berbere — a hot and spicy blend of red chili pepper, ginger, cloves, coriander, garlic, and salt – that make Ethiopian cuisine so special.

Interestingly, many of the key ingredients on which the signature Ethiopian dishes depend come in the form of dried powders, products that are more dependable in a nation with poor distribution networks.

Ali’s Shiro Wot, for example, is never made from fresh chickpeas but instead from Shiro powder, a ground, dried version that is far less perishable. The same is true for many of Ethiopia’s spices, lentils, and grains, which makes shipping to overseas distributors in America more feasible.

For Ali, the biggest challenge in running a restaurant is the long hours, especially because she chooses to do most of the cooking herself.

“I work very hard, cooking all day,” she says. “Three, four hours for just one stew. American food is easy. To make a burger, it’s just ten minutes.”

The famous Ethiopian bread, injera, takes three days to prepare.

Traditionally, injera is made almost exclusively from teff, a small, nutrient-rich grain that has been one of Ethiopia’s staple crops for centuries. But as teff has become more expensive to import – a 25-pound bag that used to cost $22 dollars now costs $55 dollars – most Ethiopian restaurants in America, including Messob, have started substituting corn meal in place of it.

Once prepared, the injera dough is left unrefrigerated overnight so that it can set and ferment slightly, which gives it its sour flavor. On day two, the dough is placed in a refrigerator for 12-24 hours. On the third day, the mixture is cooked over a stove top on a large round surface resembling a pancake griddle. After 90 seconds on the griddle the injera is removed and allowed to cool to room temperature before being served.

“It looks like a pancake but it’s different,” Ali explains. “People here call it the spongy bread.”

Teff is not the only Ethiopian food commodity to experience inflated prices.  Ali’s friends back home, most of whom she has not seen in 20 years, tell her that most food prices there are on the rise. She says the biggest sacrifice in Ethiopians’ diet has been meat. Historically a key component of middle-class Ethiopian cuisine, meat is now too expensive for many families to afford on a regular basis.

According to Ali, the cost of food ingredients in the Unites States have also increased in recent years. Still, she has chosen not to raise her prices.  Ali charges $6.95 for Shiro Wat and $9.95 for Doro Tibs, a dish of boneless marinated chicken sautéed with onions, jalapeno, garlic, and rosemary. Her prices are between $1-2 less on average than comparable Ethiopian restaurants in the area.

Ali says it is better to suffer a drop in profits than increase her prices and risk losing customers. “It’s not a good time in America, too. Many people have no work.”

But times at the restaurant are equally tough and Ali is making just enough money to stay in business. Over the course of three hours one afternoon, only three patrons, an Ethiopian couple and a young white man, come in to the restaurant for lunch.

Ali acknowledges that eat-in business is slow, but says her restaurant serves a steady take-out dinner clientele of Piedmont locals. And on the weekend, she says, crowds of Ethiopians pack into the small restaurant after church services for the large shared family meals traditional in her culture.

“Friday, Saturday, Sunday this place is full of Ethiopians.”