Al Hudaydah, known has Hodeida or Hodeidah, is the coffee port on the Red Sea and fourth largest city in Yemen.
We traveled to Hodeida, the port city for coffee in YemenYemen has a coffee culture like no other place, and perhaps some of what we enjoy in this cup is due to their old style of trade...: Technically,... on the Red Sea. The old port city is Al Mohka (Al Mocha, Al Mahka) which is where the name Mocha coffee came from.
Hodeida is not that appealing, and even at this mild time of the year is still so muggy compared to high-altitude Sana’a. There seems to be more Afro-Arab peoples here too.
It would be fantastic to visit the old city of Al Mahka but I understand there is little there to see … or perhaps they just didn’t want to make the trip south of Hodeidah. I was disappointed at the time but thought I would return and make the journey.
I didn’t think returning to Yemen would become so difficult, as conflict increased and security in the country diminished.
Hodeidah, City of Sweat!
After the coffee is entirely sorted, it is loaded into baskets, each representing one 50 kg bag of exportable coffee, ready for jute bagging. Yemen 
Amar and his cousin at the Hodeida warehouse of Sowaid, where the final hand sorting of the coffee takes place. Yemen This is a closeup of the coffee at the Sowaid warehouse ready for export. The prep is quite good, and when you consider there are no machines used, it’s amazing. Yemen Many of the people in Hodeida are Afro-Arabic, as are the woman who are experts at hand sorting the coffee here. There are no sorting machines, it is entirely done visually. (Notice the sweat – it is hot in Hodeida). Yemen A toilet without a pedestal, or a seat for that matter. No TP, and a hose on the wall. You figure it out. Yemen We stayed at the best hotel in Hodeida, which isn’t saying much. The Red Sea looks like a big lake here, and the climate is muggy. Yemen It’s already getting muggy at 8 AM. You start the appreciate the higher cmiles of Sana’a Yemen … oddest of all, I think the kid was reading a book or something. I guess the sheep watch out for themselves. Yemen There are lots of things that you will see on the streets of an American city, but this is NOT one of them Yemen I thought the hotel art was funny until … Yemen … it’s just plain bizarre. Woman on the mind; kinda literal, eh? Yemen This is typical, that a bike is covered in cloth, or more often in fur! When they cover them in fur they look like Barbarella bikes – or maybe that is Alley Oop. Yemen It takes a week to prepare a lot of coffee, then a couple days to bag it, load it in a container and get it onto the ship. Unfortunately, Hodeida and it’s muggy climate is bad for coffee. But Sowaid makes sure the coffee sits no lobger than 10 days here before it is on a ship, or else he sends it back to the better climate of Sana’a to be stored. Yemen Back at the Sowaid warehouse, I had some serious hat head, my favorite animal t-shirt (drives some people crazy) and not nearly enough coffee in me to lift a 50 kg basket Yemen The Sowaid cousins Yemen Mr. Sowaid’s brother runs the coffee operation in Hodeida. Ali looks on. Yemen We drove around a bit, but there is not a lot to see here. Yemen Littlest Cousin Yemen The preparation of the coffee was noticably worse than at the other warehouse… not horrific, but the broken beans, pods and black beans could be seen Yemen As it turns out, it is the same women who work at all the warehouses. They form a crew, and when they are done at one they go to another. But they know the different specifications of the various exporters. When you remove too many defects from the coffee, the exporter is losing money …there’s less finished product to bag up. Yemen It seemed that here they were removing only the worst defects, as seen here, but not the broken beans, under-ripes (they have a greenish, wrinkled appearance.) At this point, the freman came and since we were with a different exporter, well … it was time to go. Yemen Eventually we dropped in at the Muslot warehouse, which is the exporter Royal Coffee uses. Since all the women were working there, we couldn’t really take any pictures. Yemen or they use rugs. In any case, they seem to have taken the idea of Mecahnical Horse quite literally. Yemen 
And what about the surprising fame of Ernie and Bert? Their trash is everywhere … PBS would be proud. Yemen Well, stripped of everything useful. A lot of these are old Fiats, maybe because of the Italian influence across the way, in Ethiopia. Yemen I wonder when the kids will outgrow this arrangement. Yemen Rare Western-style guy, something you don’t see much in Yemen. Yemen There were a lot of motorcycles in Hodeida, so I snapped a few pictures. Yemen … and apparantly running straight into the cement factory ahead. Yemen A stop at a gas station, and it becomes apparant that they don’t use oil pans in Yemen, where all the earth is indeed one giant oil pan. Yemen At the convenience store …it’s a pretty funny idea, just a little odd. Made in France, too. I bought it, but I decided not to drink it. Yemen I guess it’s traditional to wheel on down to the roadside and wave for alms. There were a lot of people doing it… Yemen This didn’t look good … Yemen Green Balls for Sale Yemen … but the ruck slowed down and the goat had a cool story to tell his goat buddies. Yemen 
I noticed that toward Hodeida the women were usually less veiled as up in Sana’a. Yemen It wouldn’t be a complete Yemen travelog without a picture of trash. Towns and roadsides are full of it. People think nothing about tossing trash from the car window. Yemen A roadside shop for ????? Maybe those are just parts that fell off passing cars, and you can go here to buy them back (?) Anyway, this was the place we were ambushed, in the friendliest way, by farmers from Ismaili, who insisted we go with them to their coffee area … Yemen Yet another swell door Yemen
