{"id":304879,"date":"2026-05-31T21:22:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T02:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/?p=304879"},"modified":"2026-05-31T21:22:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T02:22:55","slug":"i-moved-from-ethiopia-to-shetland-and-ive-brought-the-coffee-with-me-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/?p=304879","title":{"rendered":"I moved from Ethiopia to Shetland – and I’ve brought the coffee with me – BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

18 hours agoShareSave<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iona Nico<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BBC Scotland News<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"BBC
Coffee has been an important part of Netsanet Sori’s life since childhood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shetland has plenty of honesty boxes – filled with fresh eggs, home baking and even pies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the 1,000 or so residents on the island of Whalsay have recently got one offering something a little more unusual – hand-roasted Ethiopian coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been provided by Netsanet Sori, also known as Netsi, who moved to the island in October 2025 after spending nine years in Orkney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raised on the family coffee farm in rural Ethiopia, she has brought a flavour of her native culture to her new home about 4,000 miles (6,400km) away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Netsanet
Hand-roasted Ethiopian coffee beans have found a home on a small Scottish island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Netsi’s mother died when she was young, and she was raised by her grandmother and great-grandmother on the farm where she had to “grow up fast”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“How I was raised there, compared to here, it’s completely different,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since moving to Scotland, she has used coffee to stay connected to home, importing beans from the farm where she grew up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s very important to me and I will teach my children about it as well,” she added.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preparing and drinking coffee is an important daily ritual in Ethiopia with members of the community, mainly women, coming together to take part in a traditional ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Neighbours and villagers gather once or twice in a day to share information, good news or bad news, and love,” Netsi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s also about community belonging. If you make a coffee, you can’t drink it alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You have to share what you have and help others.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Coffee ceremonies take place in Ethiopia every day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hand roasting coffee beans is a slow, careful process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the beans arrive in Whalsay, they are a light green colour with a subtle, earthy aroma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are then cleaned and roasted in the same pot and to ensure the roast is as even as possible, the beans must be constantly shaken as they heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As they cook, the beans darken to a rich brown and begin to release an oil, something Netsi says is a sign of good quality coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traditionally, the beans are ground with a tool resembling a mortar and pestle but, for the sake of speed, Netsi now uses a small electric grinder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Coffee beans are a pale green colour before they are roasted<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While living and working in Orkney, Netsi said she roasted coffee only for herself, as well as for friends and charity events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But after moving to Whalsay, she decided to turn her passion into a business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“After a little research, I realised that nobody else is roasting coffee like this in Shetland,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So, I thought I can do it, and it’s worked brilliantly. People seem to really like it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ingrid
Ingrid Sutherland said it was great to have an honesty box selling coffee beans<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ingrid Sutherland, who lives on the island, has been buying the coffee since she first discovered it at a Christmas fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’m a bit of a coffee drinker, I love a good cup of coffee in the morning,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Real coffee, not instant, so I was just blown away with how cool it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s local as well, so I can just nip along the road and get a bag, rather than going out of the isle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have plenty of egg boxes and cake fridges here in Shetland, but we didn’t have a coffee box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s fantastic to have a coffee box here.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 hours agoShareSave Iona Nico BBC Scotland News Shetland has plenty of honesty boxes – filled with fresh eggs, home baking and even pies. However, the 1,000 or so residents on the island of Whalsay have recently got one offering something a little more unusual – hand-roasted Ethiopian coffee. It has been provided by Netsanet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304880,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304879\/revisions\/304880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopanorama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}