Harar (Harrar)

Harar is Ethiopia’s eastern coffee, grown in the highlands of the Hararghe zones around the old walled city of Harar. The highlands are semi-arid, and the coffee is almost all natural: dried whole in the fruit and sorted by hand, giving the fruity, winey cup that made the name famous.

The short version

• Natural, sun-dried arabica, sorted almost entirely by hand.
• Fruity and winey: blueberry, raisin, chocolate, a mocha flavour.
• 1,510–2,120 metres, in Ethiopia’s eastern highlands.
• More than 120,000 hectares of coffee in West Hararghe alone.
• A trademarked name, Harrar, since 2005.

What does Harar coffee taste like?

Fruity, winey and heavy. Wikipedia describes a distinctive fruity, wine flavour, medium acidity, a full body and a distinctive mocha flavour; peaberry lots, sold as Mocha Harar, often have complex chocolate, spice and citrus notes. InterAmerican Coffee, an importer, says Harrar “can have a strong, dry edge, winey to fruit-like acidity, rich aroma and a heavy body”, and in the best an intense aroma of blueberries or blackberries; its cupping notes are fruit, raisin, blueberry and vanilla.

Coffee Review’s blind assessments of Harrar coffees:

Year	Coffee	Score	Notes
2008	Harar Moplaco Cooperative Boldgrain (espresso)	90	Flowers and tropical fruit; orange, berry, spice and cocoa
2016	Harrar Mesela	91	Molasses, dark chocolate, Asian pear, narcissus; bittersweet acidity, silky
2017	Harrar Natural G3 Longberry	92	Brown sugar, cherry blossom, ripe blueberry, cedar, vanilla; round, velvety
2019	Harrar	91	Raisin, dark chocolate, roasted hazelnut, bitter orange zest; lightly syrupy

Source: Coffee Review. All four were natural, dry-processed coffees.

How is it grown and processed?

Harar is dry processed, with sorting and processing done almost entirely by hand, Wikipedia says; the bean is medium-sized and greenish-yellow, and the shells are used for a tea called hasher-qahwa. Coffee Review describes the area as semi-arid highlands near the ancient walled city, which have long produced traditional dried-in-the-fruit coffees.

Measure	Figure	Source
Altitude	1,510–2,120 m	InterAmerican Coffee
Harvest	October–February	InterAmerican Coffee
Main national harvest	October–December	USDA
Varieties	Heirloom	InterAmerican Coffee

How much coffee does Harar grow?

There is no recent official figure for Harar as a whole. The numbers that exist:

Measure	Figure	Source
West Hararghe output, 2005	8,364 t (3.7% of Ethiopia’s)	Central Statistical Agency, via Wikipedia
East Hararghe output, 2005	3,654 t (1.6% of Ethiopia’s)	Central Statistical Agency, via Wikipedia
West Hararghe coffee area, 2026	More than 120,000 ha	Zone agriculture office, via Ethio Coffee
West Hararghe coffee farmers, 2026	About 230,000	Zone agriculture office, via Ethio Coffee

The 2005 figures came from the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority’s inspection records. In January 2026 the West Hararghe zone office said it was preparing more than 41 million improved seedlings for 12 coffee-growing districts, with 7,000 hectares of new land to be planted.

The Harrar trademark

Harar was one of the three names, with Sidamo and Yirgacheffe, that Ethiopia chose to protect with trademarks after finding, WIPO says, that only 5–10% of the retail price of its coffee came back to the country. From 2005 it filed them in 34 countries, WIPO Magazine reports. In October 2005 the US Patent and Trademark Office refused Harrar, while approving Yirgacheffe.

Harar and other Ethiopian origins

• Coffee in Ethiopia: the whole country, its harvest and its trade.
• Sidamo and Yirgacheffe: the southern coffees, bright and citrusy.
• Kaffa: the wild forest coffee of the south-west.