Though she is busily injecting Ethiopian culture with a bit of America, Asrat has not lived in the US. But her husband, a pilot for Ethiopian Airlines, has made regular trips there, frequently with her in tow.
She said she did not feel the least bit guilty about her imitation cafe. After all, legend has it that coffee itself originated in Ethiopia long ago when a goat herder named Kaldi noticed his goats prancing around with glee after eating some strange red berries. Yemen, just across the Red Sea, makes its own claim as the birthplace of coffee. Whatever the case may be, one thing is clear: Coffee did not originate in Seattle.
Asrat has the history of Kaldi printed on the wall of her cafe, proudly promoting the Ethiopian roots of her product. But even there Starbucks was the inspiration. Asrat acknowledges that she knew nothing about the legend of Kaldi until she read about him on the Starbucks Web site.
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