Today was a day that proved to us, once again, you should just say “YES!”. We had planned to take it easy and just wander around town so we could prepare for our upcoming Kili trek. But, we have just come off a pretty easy 5 days and were feeling antsy. There must be something we could do, if even for a few hours. Hmmm. Our driver yesterday mentioned and coffee making tour. Not being a coffee drinker at all, that didn’t hold a whole lot of appeal for me, but it would kill about 5 hours so we decided to go for it. What’s the worst that could happen?

The drive to the Maretuni Village was impressively long, uphill and bumpy! No. Not bumpy. Jarring. Teeth breaking, brain rattling, call your chiropractor afterwards painful. Impressively, the worst road we’d seen up until now. Ouch.

An energetic, engaging and invested young man greeted us and walked us up a muddy and winding path to his village. His name? Good Luck. We don’t know if he made it up, or what, but that it what he goes by. He talked the whole time about his people, his culture, the plants we passed, and what we could expect when we arrived at the actual village. I can tell you, nothing he told us prepared us for the amazing experience we were about to have.

We get it, making coffee doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? It doesn’t sound like a new experience, right? No matter, we had said yes. We were in it. Eight more young men came and joined us to bring us to the place where magic happens.

We didn’t realize it was going to start from the very beginning. From the bean. From the raw bean. And nothing about the process was going to be automated. Nope, nothing but manpower and singing to get to the final product. Step one, taking the husks off the beans using the largest mortar and pestle we had ever seen. The mortar was hip high, the pestle about 4 inches round, 5 feet long and heavy. We pounded those beans into submission, the pestle keeping the beat as the young men danced and sang one of their ‘work’ songs for us.

The husked beans then got roasted over an open fire with Jason and I stirring them continuously so they didn’t burn. From light grey into the dark brown colour we are all familiar with in ten minutes. Back into the mortar they go so we can ground them up.

The first pass separates the outer bean from the inner bean. The outer bean is nice and dark – having been roasted closer to the heat – and will have the least amount of caffeine. Yep. The lighter the coffee, the higher the concentration of caffeine.

Once the grounds are finished, it is time to make some cowboy coffee! About 1.5 cups of the grounds were poured into 6 cups of boiling water and left to combine together for a minute. The resulting liquid (?) was as slick as oil and just as dark. I was starting to get concerned about what I was going to have to taste. The men poured the coffee out of the pot and into a coffee urn with flair and then led us to the tasting room.

I have to mention that the whole time we were making coffee, the men were smiling and laughing. Unless they were singing and dancing. At the beginning of the process, Good Luck had grabbed my phone and acted as our private photographer and videographer. He got so many great shots and captured all the amazing memories. I wanted to hire him for the rest of our trip! The enthusiasm of everyone there was catching. It was so obvious the pride they had in their village, their people and their way of life.

Okay, I’m stalling. It is now time to try the coffee. I don’t even like Tiramisu – how am I going to get a whole cup of this down?? Jason takes a nice big gulp and gives me a suspicious smile. One, two, three – I take a cautious sip. Hmmmm. Honestly?

It could have been worse. And once I added 3 tablespoons of sugar, I was able to drink the whole cup. Jason asked for a refill. I did not. Jason’s second cup went down easier still because they added a shot of some homemade Banana Vodka! Haha. They certainly knew how to keep us entertained.

We thought our excursion was over and were preparing to say goodbye when Good Luck then brought us to his house where a huge table was set up outside for us. We were also getting a homemade lunch. What?!? The food just kept coming; banana and yam stew, spiced rice, beef stew, beans, spinach, hot sauce, fruit…so many dishes! And all of it was delicious.

What a treat that whole day was. We laughed and smiled, we learned so much, we got to try all kinds of local cuisine, and we had the most amazing young man document it all for us. This excursion was vastly undersold by our driver, so much so that we almost gave it a pass. Thank goodness we opted in.

Just say “YES”! Even to coffee.