Author: Lameen

What a great way to start the beginning of the year by attending yet another World of Coffee Dubai event, now in its 5^th edition, which took place from 18-20 January 2026. I’m so grateful to God for living in a city that takes its coffee seriously and it has now been confirmed that this global event on coffee is here to stay for another 5 years …. Yay!

This time I went not once but twice – coffee geek moment. On the first day of the event, I took a friend who was visiting the event for the first time and kindly asked him to reserve at least 4 hours because I knew that not only would we be trying out different types of exquisite coffees from around the World and from top coffee farms but I might geek out at new gadgets and meet with coffee royalty.

So, where do I start…

Upon hearing that Benchmark coffee, voted in the top 100 coffee shops in the world would be at the Brewing Gadgets stand, I knew this would be one of my stops for my milk-based coffee fix, a cortado.

And they didn’t disappoint. My first sip took me to some kind of sweet milk heaven, so I quizzed head barista, Gibson about the milk and in short, they create their own milk to make it extra creamy. You would be glad to know that Benchmark won two of the three competitions at WOC, UAE national barista and latte art.

Just around the corner I met with Mariam Erin, former UAE national barista where she served us coffee on her latest invention, the binocular – nominated for a best new product award – a new way of brewing that lets you brew two types of coffee into one carafe – a delightful brew indeed.

So, what else excited me?

At the Espresso Lab stand, they had the Single Wavemaker by Waved, which is “a single-serve-style wavemaker that emits ultra-low frequency electromagnetic waves and electrical currents into water and coffee to elevate them functionally and sensorially”.

In short it tries to m minimise bitterness in coffee and enhance the acidic and fruity elements. I was offered two cups of coffee to taste the difference BUT confessed that I preferred the non-waved version because it gave more complex taste notes. 

We stopped over at world famous Panama coffee farm, Hacienda Esmeralda and we asked to taste their priciest coffee, which was NIDO ??

I don’t think it was the NIDO 7, which was bought by Dubai based coffee shop, Julith, which sell this coffee for US$980 per cup and was bought for US$604,080 for just 20kg. I know… coffee madness. Nevertheless, we had NIDO something (zoom into the picture). In any case it was typical, with notes of black tea and well balanced with a sweet mouthfeel finish. 

We walked over to Grandmother coffee, one of my fave Dubai based roasteries and were served a delectable cup of coffee by master roaster himself, Freddie.

I must confess that when I saw Abbas, owner and head roaster of Pirates of Coffee, a Canadian based coffee roaster, I was excited. Why? Because two years ago, I had one of the most intriguing coffees in my life, the Munchies, an Anaerobic Honey processed Colombian coffee, which had tastes of pineapple, NY vanilla cheesecake but more prominently, coconut. I was so excited by this coffee back then, that I wrote a whole blog post on it – see here. I quickly bought a bag after tasting it as both an espresso and piccolo — coconut goodness in a cup.

After a few cups, we headed briefly to the Victoria Arduino stand, Frederico (in the pic at the top in the beige blazer) introduced us to their latest edition, the E1 Prima Pro, which has their pure brew technology allowing you to brew both espresso and filter but more so, brew freshly roasted coffee… wow! Added to my wish list or should I say coffee bucket list. 

Before we left, I saw this odd contraption, a block of ice with a hole going from the top to the bottom to allow freshly brewed coffee to travel into a cup, called the Brewvie. Intrigued, I asked Enea of alchemy coffee for a taste. Iced coffee with a sparkling orange acidity .

On my second day I went with another friend who wanted to introduce me to a company exporting coffees from East Africa, primarily from Uganda – we had a chat and they gave me tons of coffee to try.

Who else did I meet?

Allan from Man vs Machine

Naveed and I met Allan a few years back at a coffee shop in Dubai and soon after that he was poached by Barn Berlin and relocated to Germany. I’ve been following his story since and now he works for Man vs Machine in Germany and was at their stand. He was so excited to see me that he gave me a complimentary bag of coffee to take. Danke. 

Andrew Tolley, Chairman of Specialty Association of Coffee

You may not know this, but back in 2012 when I was planning to return to London to start a new coffee venture I met with Andrew and his siblings, who were running one of London bets specialty coffee shop group. We chatted many times and I almost joined their team. I haven’t seen Andrew since so it was great catching up a few minutes, where we exchanged some ideas on the coffee scene, before he had to rush to another meeting.

Martin Wolf, 2024 World Brewers Champion

Just before I left, I bumped into Martin Wolf, my fave barista from Vienna.

After two trips, I was coffeed out.

See you next year at WOC 2027 insha’allah. 

I had no idea what to expect when I was invited by Garfield Kerr, the CEO of Mokha 1450 Luxury Specialty Coffee and the President of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) UAE chapter, to be a judge at the semi-finals of the UAE AeroPress Championships held in Dubai on 7 November 2025. 

However, when I walked into the venue, I was greeted with a room full of music with a live DJ, loud cheer and tons of people from the UAE coffee community.

My first reaction;

 “what am I doing here and can I really judge such talent?” 

Enter…. Imposter syndrome. 

Sure, I’ve been writing about coffee for over 18 years, met countless experts like James Hoffman, Maxwell Colonna Smalls, been invited to many events, attended several coffee conferences, ran my own coffee shop for three years, tasted coffee from almost every region in the World and earned a SCA Sensory Skills certificate. The list goes on.

So, I was lucky when I saw my number one coffee buddy, Naveed of The Need For Coffee, as I could chat, relax and soak up the atmosphere.

This helped me to relax and as I took a walk around the venue watching other judges judge the prequalifying rounds, I began to gain more composure, talking to myself (not aloud) “yes, I can do this”.

After about two hours, it was my turn together with my other two judges, one a lady from Brazil that has been in coffee for over 10 years and an Emirati lady who imports Yemeni coffee. 

In short, we were not allowed to see the contestants, so we were seated backing them as I guess this might bias our judgement or perhaps, we may be overtaken by the methodology.

So, here we go…

Upon tasting three cups of coffee, we were told, point to the one you think is the best and if 2 out of the 3 judges chose a cup, that barista, only identified by a colour, unknown to us, was the winner. 

On the first go, the other two judges chose a cup that I didn’t. Then I thought “oh dear”

However, for the remainder of the cups, you would be glad to know that I always picked the winner.

The highlight for me was when one of the cups had a distinct taste of guess….

Coconut.

Wow!

I still wanted to know what methodology that barista used because all the coffees were the same for all contestants.

I definitely picked that cup and so did my other two judges – unanimous decision.

And then before you know it, it was all over.

I pray I’ll be invited again and I’m grateful to Garfield and his team at Mokha 1450 for organising the event.

The great pictures were taken by none other than Naveed.