Melbourne prides itself on its reputation for its coffee roast. From Brunswick to Fitzroy we have the cold drip coffee, pressed coffee and the proud coffee bean shops with any roasted, smooth and syrupy bean you could ever want. But not many people have had the authentic kind right from the source itself.

After visiting Footscray, I’m not quite sure all of Melbourne lives up to the traditional standards Ethiopian café restaurant Konjo has to offer. Walking into Abdul and Rozenn’s restaurant brings an instant waft of spices and herbal tea. In the corner there’s a small table with traditional Ethiopian pots called Jabenas, ready for the ceremony of coffee bean roasting.

“The coffee ceremony is sacred. If there’s something wrong in the villages in Ethiopia, people meet at the coffee ceremony and resolve issues” Abdul says.

Coffee is the heart of Ethiopian communities and the heart of Adbuld and Rozenn’s restaurant. Performing two ceremonies a day, Abdul first  washes the green coffee beans, hand roasts them, then grinds them himself. It’s a ritual he takes seriously, winning him the number one coffee experience in Matt Holden’s Age Good Food Guide in 2013.

Abdul left Ethiopia 25 years ago due to the political corruptions. With his two younger brothers, Abdul recalls riding on the back of a lorry truck for 800 kilometres to Kenya where they would live as refugees for five years.

In 1998 Abdul and his brothers arrived in Australia after being sponsored by an older brother. Once in Melbourne, Abdul knew he wanted to start his own business in making traditional African jewellery and crafts.

Starting off selling his jewellery at markets in his spare time and working in the meat packaging industry, Abdul was able to save up to open his own shop. In 2001, Abdul met Rozenn at an African pub. Rozenn at the time was on a one year visa to learn to teach French in Melbourne schools. It wasn’t long before Rozenn moved to Melbourne to help open the café restaurant next to the jewellery store, serving both French croissants and traditional Ethiopian foods.

The aim of the restaurant is to bring the people in the community together to start breaking down the barriers of communication between migrants in Footscray.

“I only go to pubs so I can talk to people. I break that communication barrier of our community. You can’t just tell them to do it, but they have the knowledge to use here and contribute. Even the kids, if they don’t break the barrier and they have kids, they won’t either,” Adbul says.

As current ambassadors for Footscray, Abdul and Rozenn have a goal. The goal is to start breaking down communication barriers in the community but also encourage universities to reach out to migrants from third world countries to assist them in finding ways to utilize their knowledge.

“It doesn’t matter what developing country it is, everyone who comes here has knowledge but Australia doesn’t reach out. As the ambassador I say, talk to them and they will talk back,” Abdul says.

Abdul described the differences between working in Ethiopia and working in Australia. Upon his arrival, Abdul said he was lucky to have his brother to show him where to go if he wanted to learn or if he wanted to work. But Abduls frustrations come from the lack of outreach programs there are for third world migrants who don’t know anything about university courses, yet have the knowledge to contribute to the community.

“It doesn’t make sense if there is knowledge you should be able to use it somewhere else.”

After visiting Abdul and Rozenn at Konjo it was clear they wear the role of community leaders well. Abdul wears his pride as almost a responsibility to bring the Ethiopian community together. The passion they put into working with the community and the love they put into their coffee and traditional food reflected the core reasons they started the restaurant, to bring people together.

Konjo, meaning beautiful in Abduls native tongue, is the perfect word to describe the essence not only of their restaurant, but the message behind it’s establishment.

If you want to experience the traditional coffee ceremony, Konjo can be found at 89 Irving Street, Footscray.