"Ethiopia is truly a land of discovery – brilliant and beautiful, secretive, mysterious, and extraordinary. Above all things, it is a country of great antiquity, with a culture and traditions dating back more than 3000 years. The traveler in Ethiopia makes a journey through time, transported by beautiful monuments and the ruins of edifices built long centuries ago."

"Do you know where the word ‘coffee’ comes from? It is from ‘Kaffa’, a coffee-growing region in Ethiopia. This makes Ethiopia the birthplace of coffee. Coffee drinking is an important social and cultural tradition in today’s Ethiopia, and is practiced with ritualized and elaborate ceremonies. But it was not always so. A hundred years ago, most Ethiopians had never drunk coffee. Along with tobacco, the brew was considered evil by the Christian Orthodox church, and church members were banned from drinking it on pain of excommunication."