COFFEE was not on my radar growing up in Scotland. True, there was a watery grey tepid fluid on offer at the Mens Union between university lectures, and on British Rail trains. It was available countrywide, every hospital I worked in during the 1960s and 1970s producing an identical liquid. The only glimpse of sunlit uplands that awaited was on a school outing to Paris when the deep bowls of milky chicory coffee served at breakfast in our pension with warm croissants and the whiff of coarse Gitane cigarettes made me a Francophile for life. Two decades later, on a brief visit from Africa, I found civilisation had reached Abbotsinch – there it was, a Costa Coffee bar. After two cups of unexpected but very acceptable expresso, I felt I shouldn’t push my luck further and considered doing a U-turn back to Nairobi…..

Which brings us to Kenyan coffee, one of my favourites. There was a small, ramshackle but wonderfully hospitable hotel in a Nairobi suburb called the Hurlingham (pronounced ‘Hullygum’ by taxi drivers) which we used as a base for climbing safaris in East Africa. Each morning in the sunlit dining room with its creaking yellow-wood floor, one or other of the two elderly Luo waiters would, if they were in a good mood, serve up a pot of this rich, distinctive brew; if they were not, we would draw lots as to who would approach the closed kitchen door, knock gently, excuse themselves for interrupting, then plead for mercy.

Ugandan coffee is milder. During Idi Amin’s reign of terror in the 1970s, Nsambya Hospital in Kampala was one of only two hospitals in the country that kept its doors open day and night, the latter shift being somewhat fraught for the doctor on call – which is when Sister Margaret Mary and coffee came to the rescue. A tall, stern, phlegmatic Franciscan nun, she seemed to be permanently on night duty, knew every patient and nurse, and was unflappable whether it was a haemorrhaging pregnant woman or a gang of armed, drunk soldiers.

The phone would ring in theatre and that familiar gruff voice would ask: “Have you finished operating on that man yet? Yes? Well, now, I’m just making a cup of coffee if you’re interested – and I see Sister Ailbe has made some ginger biscuits, so it could be worse, sure an’ it could.”

At the southern end of the continent, the Afrikaner farmers still drink an interesting homemade brew of roughly ground beans, chicory and unidentifiable debris which can block a sink. The taste is not unpleasant but certainly improved with a tot or two of the Boer peach brandy.

I have never been an expresso enthusiast, partly because there is always a feeling that you haven’t had your moneysworth, even if somebody else is paying for it.

My favourites are the Ethiopian varieties. January, 2017, found four of us sitting on sacks of cassava and sorghum in a small wholesaler’s store just off Nimule’s main street, not far from the Nile. The brutal civil war in Southern Sudan was six months old, thousands of women, men and children had been shot, butchered, raped or had starved to death in the bush. Outside the store, a group of young men, some in camouflage uniforms, all bearing Kalashnikov rifles, were shouting and posturing. They were known as ‘Tigers’, and took their orders from the South Sudan’s army leaders.

We ignored them, our attention being elsewhere. Berhani’s wife was preparing traditional Ethiopian coffee on her portable charcoal stove, a thrice daily ritual that kept her family and several neighbours like ourselves sane in bad times. Her husband had served in the Eritrean army, and was a spare, grim-faced and very tough customer but he always smiled at the sight of the small, thick china cups being carefully warmed then half-filled from his wife’s calabash. Conversation ceased while savouring and sipping began, a matter of some time and accompanied by odd grunts of satisfaction, then a communal sigh, after which talk resumed while Mrs Berani added some fresh charcoal in preparation for the final cup.

Dr David Vost studied medicine at Glasgow University and is currently working at a hospital in Swaziland. He and his family live on a small farm in Northern Uganda near the Albert Nile. davidvostsz@gmail.com