cafe culture

Spreese (mix of coffee with tea)

Ethiopia is serious about their coffee and cafes. People meet and sit at cafes all times of the day.  And they don't sit on their laptops.  They chat and drink coffee or tea together. We visited two great cafes in Gonder for a coffee and snack break in the mid afternoon.  Both days we pushed our explorations past lunch time so we were all ready for something to eat and drink.  Tamirat directed our horse cart drivers to a cafe just in time so there were no little girl melt-downs (or big girl melt-downs, well OK maybe I had at least one).  I had phenomenal  macchiatos both days.  Justin had Spreese.  Spreese (meaning "mix" in Amharic) is half coffee half Ethiopian tea or "chai".  It's delicious.  The girls had french fries with extra ketchup.

When Addie was sad (very sad) to leave Gonder on Sunday one of her reasons for loving Gonder is that there were cafes with french fries.  "But there is no cafes in Addis Ababa with french fries!' was her complaint.  We explained that of course there are we just don't frequent cafes in Addis.  I promised her we would start.  For the fries and the macchiatos.