ABOUT
The origins
Generations of Ethiopian coffee growers and brewing experience have been passed on to the present day.
View productsOur Story
Ethiopia is considered to be the birthplace of coffee. In Ethiopia, over 12 million people are involved in the cultivation and picking of coffee. Coffee ceremony plays an important role in the Ethiopian society. People often gather over coffee for many different reasons, like daily life conversations, for solving social conflicts among neighbors, after church gathering and spending a good time with each other. People around the world travel to Ethiopia to enjoy authentic coffee with a touch of Italian mix because of the historical interactions.
Coming from five generations of Ethiopian coffee growers, we grew up running around family’s coffee plantation in Harar, which is located in the Eastern highlands of Ethiopia. That’s where we acquired plenty of experience with coffee, learning daily lessons about every aspect of coffee growing, harvesting, roasting and brewing. Every cup we serve is a delicious result of our high standards, we devote ourselves to the art of coffee roasting and retailing, moreover we are very passionate to serve and introduce our finest coffee to our community in Rockville.
Our Approach
Our objectives is to introduce Black Lion Cafe to the community, to provide a place for people to go and spend a good time with friends and family. A quite place to work, a convenient location. We provide a unique and authentic taste of Ethiopian Coffee.
Our goal is to select, roast, and market the freshest 100% Ethiopian Arabica coffee beans. At our roastery, we drum roast our coffee beans daily in small batches and deliver promptly to our customers to ensure they enjoy maximum quality from our brand, Black Lion Coffee. We use one-way valves when packaging, which allows coffee to be packed immediately after roasting to maximize protection from moisture and air, conserving freshness, flavor, and aroma.
A coffee straight from the origin.
Allow us to make you a cup of coffee straight from the origin. Enjoy it in our meticulously deigned café and/or let us pack some freshly roasted beans for you to take home. Routinely ranked No. 1 by experts, Ethiopian coffee never disappoints.
Product Feature
...it’s hard to imagine a coffee that tastes better than a finely washed Yirgacheffe or a big, sweet, natural processed Sidama. This is the genetic birthplace of Coffea Arabica, which has been growing wild and harvested here for millennia. Every time I drink a coffee from Ethiopia, I can’t help but feel that this is how coffee is supposed to taste and everything else is an imitation, a copy of a copy, changed in some way inadvertently because of genetic drift or changing climates. Ethiopia also has the largest genetic diversity of coffee varieties, helps contribute to the uniqueness of the cup character"
SINCE 1993
Who we are?
The story of coffee begins in the mists of legend according to which monks in caves and monasteries of the remotest plateaus of Ethiopia used it to keep awake during night prayers for centuries. They were first advised by a goat-herder, Kaldi, who fortuitously observed its refreshing effects on his goats.
Making its way through Arabia into Europe, its consumption is said to have gotten Papal approval in 1615 by Pope Clement III who personally tasted, enjoyed and approved its use. By the 17th Century, it is estimated that at least 300 coffee houses were in operation in the city of London alone providing venue for political and other forms of enlightened social discourses.
Unsurprisingly, having graced conversations in the capitals of Europe for years, by the end of the century, coffee made its way into the New World arriving first in New Amsterdam as New York was then called. Praised by Thomas Jefferson as “the favorite drink of the civilized world” an insinuation to the Boston Tea Party protest of the 1770’s that incidentally marked a cultural shift from tea to coffee in America. According to credible sources, Americans of all backgrounds now consume an estimated 146 billion cups of coffee annually making America the leading consumer of coffee in the world.
President Obama tasted coffee from its genetic origin. He did not come to Black Lion Café in Rockville, Maryland; he went straight to Ethiopia.
For our neighbors who would defer the seven-thousand mile-fourteen-hour journey to Ethiopia to experience the most exquisite coffee in the world, Black Lion Café brings it home directly from its genetic roots.
Black Lion Café sources its coffee from three regions of Ethiopia known for producing some of the best tasting coffee beans in the world. Keffa, the region of Ethiopia that gave the name ‘coffee’ to the bean.