People, can't we all just get along?  

It seems the Ethiopian government has suspended the licenses of coffee exporters.  I can't sort it out and it seems to be a disagreement over whether or not to require exporters to use some trademarked names for coffee based on the region it comes from.  What's strange is that the Ethiopian government wants to make this requirement, though a reliable system for ensuring the coffee's authenticity just doesn't exist.

George Howell sums this paradox up well in in a quote from a NY Times article on the recent events:

“What scares me is that the trademark route in no way guarantees that the coffee even comes from the particular ‘designated’ region (ironically while Yirgacheffe now becomes a trademark, any coffee lover thinks of it immediately as a region). It is merely a trademark, without any guarantee of origin or traceability.”

I'm just going to have to get to Ethiopia one day soon to sort it out.