Sudanese Jebena Coffee

Sudanese jebena coffee, or jabana, is coffee made the slow way, in front of the people who’ll drink it: beans roasted almost black in a pan, pounded with ginger and cardamom in a wooden mortar, boiled in a clay pot, and poured into small cups through a plug of palm fibre. It’s served in rounds, with incense, dates and conversation, at everything from weddings to funerals to an ordinary afternoon. The Sudanese cultural magazine Andariya calls it “a living cultural tradition and an element of intangible heritage”. Here’s how it’s made and what it means.

The short version

• Roast dark, pound by hand, with ginger and cardamom.
• Boil in a clay jebena over a small charcoal stove.
• Strain through palm fibre stuffed in the spout.
• Serve in rounds: Bikri, Tenni, then Baraka.
• Spiced and often sweet, unlike Ethiopia’s plainer coffee.

How is Sudanese jebena coffee made?

Andariya describes each stage of the home ritual, usually led by the women of the family:

1. Roasting. The beans are roasted slowly over a low flame in an aluminium or iron pan made for the job, until they’re dark brown, almost black.
2. Cooling. They’re tipped into a woven palm-leaf tray to cool.
3. Pounding. They’re ground in a fondok, a wooden mortar, the pestle beating out a rhythm.
4. Heating. Charcoal goes into a kanoun, a small traditional stove, and the jabana or dalla pot goes on top.
5. Boiling. When the water boils, the coffee goes in with spices such as ginger, cinnamon and cardamom, and boils.
6. Straining. Pieces of palm or doum-palm bark are pushed into the mouth of the pot to hold back the grounds. This filter is called a musaffa. The pot then rests on a wiqaya, a colourful fabric or metal stand.

For a home recipe with quantities, Afrifood Network gives this version for four:

Ingredient	Amount
Green coffee beans (or freshly roasted beans)	4 tablespoons
Ground ginger	1 teaspoon
Ground cardamom	½ teaspoon
Cloves or cinnamon (optional)	A pinch
Water	4 cups
Sugar	To taste

Roast the green beans in a dry pan for around 10 minutes, turning them constantly (“they go from properly roasted to burnt in under a minute”), grind them with the spices, stir them into the boiling water, bring it back to the boil, let it settle for a minute or two, then pour through palm fibre or a fine strainer.

How is it served?

In three rounds, Andariya says, with the pot going back on the fire between each:

Round	Name
First	Bikri, the strongest
Second	Tenni
Third	Baraka, a gesture of contentment that closes the gathering

Among the Beja of eastern Sudan, the last round is called Khidr, after the Prophet Al-Khidr. In Sufi gatherings, the names may be Bikri, Tini and Talwa. Family and friends sit in a small circle on banabir, wooden stools woven with coloured rope, passing small cups, with popcorn, dates and sometimes nuts, while an incense burner smoulders in the middle.

Hospitality runs deep. If a guest arrives just after coffee has been made, Andariya says, a fresh pot is made for them, because a guest deserves their own coffee. Among the Beja, the pestle may even be struck in the morning when there are no beans in the house, so that the sound of coffee-making signals that the household isn’t poor.

How is it different from Ethiopian coffee?

Both use a clay jebena, and both roast and grind the beans in front of guests. The differences, according to Andariya:

• Spices. Sudanese coffee is usually spiced with ginger, cardamom and cloves; Ethiopian coffee tends to let the flavour of the beans come through.
• Formality. The Ethiopian jebena buna ceremony is more formal and structured. Sudanese coffee is more spontaneous and intimate, and gatherings can run for hours.

A University of Michigan archaeologist working at El-Kurru in northern Sudan wrote that the best cups of jebena they had were “spicy with ginger or cloves”.

Sudanese coffee today

Since the war began in April 2023, Sudan’s coffee imports, much of them from Uganda and Ethiopia, have fallen sharply, Andariya reports. Many Sudanese now roast date pits or wheat to keep the ritual alive, and jabana is still prepared in displacement camps, “shared alongside stories of loss and resilience”.

General guidance only. Roasting coffee makes a lot of smoke, so ventilate the room, and take care with charcoal and boiling pots.

Sudanese jebena vs other methods

• Ethiopian jebena buna: the formal coffee ceremony in the same clay pot.
• Eritrean coffee ceremony: another close neighbour’s ritual.
• Kahawa chungu: the spiced coffee of the Swahili coast.
• Café Touba: Senegal’s spiced coffee.

Explore every boiled method in the boiled chapter.