The people behind the grind

Ethio Spices grew out of a small kitchen in Donovanfontein and a long-running argument about how berbere should taste. Today we work with growers and cooperative mills around Gondar, Wolkite and the Rift Valley, and the team you reach by email is the same team that weighs, packs and labels every pouch.

The people behind the pouches

Ethio Spices started because a handful of home cooks in Johannesburg kept asking the same question: where do you actually buy berbere that tastes like the berbere in Addis? Not the supermarket version cut with paprika and salt. The real thing, ground from chilies dried on raised mats, with korarima and besobela doing their slow work in the pot.

We are a small operation. Two of us handle sourcing and milling, one runs the packing bench, and everyone answers emails when the queue gets long. We buy through smallholder growers and cooperative mills around Gondar, Wolkite and the Rift Valley, and we write the harvest month and grind coarseness on every batch note because a cook deserves to know what is in the bag before checkout.

The catalog stays deliberately short: berbere, mitmita, shiro powder, korarima, besobela, tikur azmud and koseret, in resealable 100g, 250g and 500g pouches. We grind to order where we can, and recipe cards for doro wat, misir wot and kitfo travel with most orders. That is the whole idea, and it has not changed since the first sack of chilies arrived.

1. First orders, 2019

   Selling from a kitchen table

   The first pouches were filled by hand, weighed on a small scale and labelled with a marker. Berbere and mitmita only, in 100g bags, mostly to friends of friends who had eaten doro wat at someone's house and wanted to cook it themselves. The recipe cards came later, after too many phone calls asking how much to use.

2. Sourcing, 2020

   Working directly with growers and cooperative mills

   Buying through middlemen made it impossible to say where a batch came from. We started dealing with smallholder growers around Gondar and Wolkite and with a cooperative mill in the Rift Valley, which meant we could record harvest month, drying method and grind coarseness on every pouch. It also meant accepting smaller, less predictable volumes.

3. Catalog, 2021

   Beyond the two red blends

   Customers kept asking for shiro powder, korarima, besobela, tikur azmud and koseret. Adding them was a slow process: each spice needed its own supplier, its own drying check and its own grind setting. Whole and ground versions now sit side by side, and the 250g and 500g resealable pouches came out of feedback that 100g ran out mid-week.

4. Cart and bundles, 2022

   Building the basket around mixed orders

   The cart was rebuilt so a basket could hold several blends, a gift set and a repeat of last month's order without confusion. Heat level became a choice at checkout rather than a guess. The starter bundle followed, aimed at cooks who had never bought korarima or koseret before and did not want five separate bags on the shelf.

5. Today

   Grinding to order, batch notes included

   Most spices are still milled in small runs rather than held as bulk stock, which keeps the aroma closer to the harvest. Orders leave with recipe cards for doro wat, misir wot and kitfo, and the batch note on each pouch tells you what you are cooking with before you open it.