the.com/teff
a grain so tiny one seed could disappear in your fingerprint, yet feeds nations.
means Teff is a tiny-grained cereal grass native to the Horn of Africa, cultivated chiefly in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where it's milled into flour for the spongy flatbread injera.
from The name comes from Amharic, and is widely linked to the Ethiopian Semitic root meaning "to lose" — the popular explanation being that a seed so minuscule is easily dropped and lost from sight. Whether that's the true origin or a fitting after-the-fact story is hard to pin down, but the connection between the grain's smallness and the verb for losing is the standard account.
- seed size
- 150 seeds weigh as much as one wheat grain
- ethiopian staple
- ground into injera, the spongy sourdough flatbread
- gluten-free
- naturally contains zero gluten
- name origin
- likely from Amharic for lost, it's so small
- iron rich
- packs more iron than most other grains
injera bread — spongy flatbread made from teff flour, staple in ethiopian and eritrean cuisine for over 2000 years
ethiopian highlands farming — teff is the primary cereal crop grown in ethiopia's high-altitude regions, accounting for ~20% of national grain production
bob's red mill teff — us-based company that commercially produces and sells teff flour and whole grains since early 2000s