Dessie Ethiopian Restaurant and Market

Category: Public Art

Address

2655 University Blvd
Wheaton, MD 20902

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Details

Dessie Ethiopian Restaurant and Market
Location: 2655 University Blvd    
If you are invited to an Ethiopian coffee ceremony, this is an honor signifying friendship and respect.  Dessie Ethiopian Restaurant and Market offers demonstrations of this traditional art form.  
“Traditional Art” is art that is part of the culture of a group of people. Skills and knowledge of an art form are passed down through generations through family members or from masters to apprentices. In Ethiopia, the traditional coffee ceremony is an integral part of the everyday culture. Visitors to an Ethiopian home are almost always welcomed with a coffee ceremony at any time of the day.  
To many of us, coffee is what gets many of us moving in the morning. Making coffee is often a daily ritual we perform: measure water and grinds, turn on the coffeemaker. Or it’s arriving at our favorite coffee house and asking for the usual. There is something about the fragrant, steaming, dark elixir that lends itself to ritual. To Ethiopians, the ritual of making and drinking coffee is quite special.
The Ethiopian ceremony demonstrates the full life cycle of coffee preparation and is usually performed by a young woman who wears a long white dress with colorful embroidered borders on its sleeves. The young woman has been taught how to conduct the ceremony through watching and learning from other women. 

Prior to the ceremony, incense is burned to clear the air; the smell of incense will mix with the coffee smells to make for an aromatic experience. The young woman starts the ceremony by washing raw coffee beans. Then the beans are roasted in a special flat long handled roasting pan over a small charcoal stove or fire.  The woman moves the pan back and forth so as to not burn the beans—which also releases the fragrant aroma of the coffee beans. Once the beans are roasted, they are ground, traditionally by hand with a mortar and pestle. The ground coffee is then placed in a jebena, a handcrafted clay pitcher with a round bottom, long neck and straw lid. The jebena is filled with water and placed on the fire. Once boiled the coffee is strained and served in small cups. The process can take from thirty minutes to a few hours and provides a chance for sharing and conversation. Through the woman’s carefully planned and practiced movements, the relatively simple act of washing, roasting, grinding, brewing, pouring and serving coffee is elevated to an art form.  It is a feast for the senses of smell, sight and taste. It’s an art form to be witnessed and who knows, you may look at your own coffee making ritual a bit differently or at least your regular Starbucks barista.  
The Washington, D.C. region is home to a vibrant community of East African immigrants from countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea. Downtown Wheaton is no exception in this regard. Establishments such as Dessie Ethiopian Restaurant and Market are well recognized for preparing traditional Ethiopian dishes such as yebeg tibs (a spicy lamb dish served in a clay pot), doro wot (a well-known chicken stew prepared with a hot pepper sauce and served with a hard-boiled egg), misir wot (a lentil-based vegetarian dish) and injera, the spongy, sourdough flatbread that serves as both foodstuff and utensil. Dessie also offers patrons the opportunity to request a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony and service. Beyond the culinary arts, Dessie’s market caters more broadly to the socio-cultural needs of Wheaton’s Ethiopian community by selling a variety of foodstuffs and cultural goods which provide patrons with tangible connections to their homelands.