Ethio Spices
Open sack of deep red berbere spice blend with a wooden scoop

Batches are dried on raised mats near Gondar before milling, which is why the colour reads deep red instead of dusty brown.

Berbere Blend, Medium Grind

Sun-dried chilies, korarima and besobela from Gondar growers.

This is the red blend that most Ethiopian cooking starts from. Cooks reach for it when a pot of doro wat or misir wot needs its base, and it also works for slow-simmered sauces where you want warmth rather than pure heat. The grind is medium, so it blooms quickly once it hits niter kibbeh and does not turn gritty in the pan.

Grind
Medium, blooms fast in fat
Sizes
100g, 250g, 500g resealable pouches
Sourcing
Smallholder growers around Gondar
Batch note
Harvest month and grind coarseness on each pouch
  • Built from sun-dried chilies, korarima, besobela, tikur azmud and a short list of warm spices.
  • Milled in small runs, so the aroma holds between cooking sessions.
  • Suits doro wat, misir wot and any sauce that simmers for a while.
  • Not the right pick if you want sharp heat for kitfo or tibs, where a finer, hotter blend does the job better.
Ask about this batch Compare with Mitmita, Fine Grind

Who packed this batch

Berbere Blend, Medium Grind

Selam runs sourcing and quality for Ethio Spices. She grew up in Gondar and spent six years working with cooperative mills before joining us, which is why the berbere on this page tastes the way it does: she still checks drying mats herself and rejects any batch where the chilies were dried too fast.

Her day-to-day work is less romantic than it sounds. She negotiates harvest windows with smallholder growers, tracks which lots came off raised mats versus ground drying, and sets the grind coarseness for each run. If a batch of medium-grind berbere comes out too fine, it scorches in niter kibbeh before the onions soften, so she pulls it and re-mills rather than shipping it.

She also writes the batch notes that go into every pouch, including harvest month and grind coarseness. If you want to know which farm your 250g pouch came from, or whether a lot suits doro wat versus a quick misir wot, she is the person who answers.

Reach the sourcing desk

Address
4527 Rene Circle
Donovanfontein, NC 6594

Ask about harvest month, drying method or grind coarseness for the berbere lot you are holding. Batch questions get a straight answer, usually within a day.

Send a batch question

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