It seems like just when you had seen it all in the Dubai coffee scene, you get introduced to a new concept but this time it involves German cars and of course coffee… so welcome or should I say wilkommen (German for welcome) to AMG Kaffee described as the summit of luxury for coffee connoisseurs, foodies and the ultimate Mercedes AMG lover. Located at Dubai Design District (D3) a stone throw from downtown you will notice as you drive into D3 a grey looking building on your right-hand side with the huge Mercedes Benz emblem decked with G-wagon cars parked at what looks like a 45-degree angle defying gravity.
As you enter the building you will be greeted by a customer service assistant that asks you how they can help. On the righthand side you will see rows of classic books, then chocolate, pasties before you notice a La Marzocco GB5 espresso machine – aha! I have arrived at a coffee shop, or is it?
La marzocco GB5
If you look straight in front of you, you’ll notice a massive show room full of Mercedes cars and if you veer to the left , you may even see some classic ones too.
Classic Benz
So, am I in a Mercedes car show room or a café.
It’s BOTH.
Going back to the front of this massive retail space, you’ll notice inviting chairs and that’s the main reason I visited twice last month with friends.
For the coffee, apparently, they have it roasted for them with their own label, and I was pleased to see Hart – formerly of Typica, as the lead barista – now I was relaxed because I knew that my coffee would be well prepared. On my first trip I had a cappuccino, which was served with a biscuit – classic undertones of chocolate and nuts and my guess would be that is has Brazil in it.
On my second visit I opted for a cortado with the same beans. However, you’d be pleased to know that they have an extensive food and drinks menu and offer filter coffee too.
Cortado at AMG Kaffeehaus
One of my friends opted for breakfast – poached eggs on avocado spread toast.
Yummy
There’s seating outside and the atmosphere is California cool, even with Japanese manga art.
We walked around and took pictures and visited the souvenir shop too. Is the Flash trying to catch a MayBach?
The Flash and Maybach
At the back they have a section for reselling cars too and have a prayer room.
All in all, the onus is to re-invent the retail space even for cars. A place where you could literally hang out for hours, walk around, talk about cars, enquire about your dream driving machine, have lunch, dessert and coffee and hang outside (before summer approaches) and enjoy some peace and quiet. To top it off, on formula one race days they have screens where you can watch the race and they are also using their space for events. So, they really want you to hang out.
Try and visit before it gets too hot and if you prefer, they are open in the evenings too.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the third edition of the World of Coffee Dubai, which took place from 21-23 January in Dubai, under the auspices of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). Sure. I’d been to the previous two and this year promised more excitement with a slightly bigger offering. Featuring much as before, with experts, coffee roasters, gadgets, coffee farmers, espresso machine and coffee roasting manufacturers and more, I thought I’d go, meet fellow coffee nerds, drink lots of coffee and attend a few lectures. Well, I did most of that and more, but sadly wasn’t able to attend any of the lectures, BUT, all was not lost, as I learnt a lot on the one day that I attended. So, here’s a quick summary;
First stop was at Harvest Belt, where I learnt about the Link small batch coffee roasting machine that you can programme to roast espresso, filter, etc and even fine tune it for different coffee processes like natural, washed, etc. If I was going to start roasting, I think I’d get this machine.
Just next to them was one of my fave Dubai roasters, Grandmother (I still don’t know where that name comes from ), but their head roaster, Freddie, offered me a delectable Ethiopian anaebroic espresso – it really filled my lips – yum.
Then I was now on the hunt for my first milk based coffee of the day and when I saw Uber Milk, I thought what better place to stop than here. I had already witnessed their ultra automated machine when I visited Rosslyn Coffee in London in January 2023 and just wanted to enquire about their business in the GCC, as most cafe are not as busy as a typical central London coffee shop. Sure enough one cafe in Dubai has it but they have a few of them in Saudi already.
In conversation, I noticed this guy pouring beautiful latte art and they said, that’s the head of coffee at WatchHouse – startled, I walked over and placed an order for a cortado – incidentally, it was Ethiopian beans again.
Cortado by Flavius
Never one to miss out on an opportunity to learn from an expert, I chatted with Flavius for about 20 minutes and this is what I learnt;
➡️Brew Ethiopian beans at a higher temperature for both filter and espresso – so much so that for espresso, try 97C – the reason Ethiopian beans have a a higher density.
➡️Store your coffee beans in the freezer in dose batches – so store 18g of beans for your espresso, etc, as opposed to just storing the whole bag to avoid moisture.
➡️WatchHouse shop at Hanover Square (which I wrote about a few months back) is their flagship store for experimentation, so much so that the head barista won a recent competition.
➡️In 2020, the UK Brewers champion was Matteo D’Ottavio and he was head barista at their spitalfields branch and WatchHouse use his winning recipe, which for using 15g of coffee and 250ml water is;
50ml, wait 30 seconds, bloom
50ml, wait 30 seconds, pour
50ml, wait 30 seconds, pour
50ml, wait 30 seconds, pour
50ml, wait 30 seconds, pour
Walking around I saw the famous Dritan Asela – of instagram fame – had a brief chat with his wife.
I noticed that he was at a stand, Toga Coffee of Sharjah that were offering this delicious coconut balls wrapped around white chocolate and fresh raspberries – I boldly asked for 3 and the owner was so kind and hospitable he duly obliged. However, I noticed their strange description of coffee beans with hints of coconut and asked for a piccolo.
Coconut piccolo
wow! even before I drank the coffee I could smell the coconut (one of my fave fruits). I met the roaster, Pirates of Coffee, all the way from Canada and asked where I could buy a bag – he said here and he only had one bag left – destined for me I guess, praise God.
After lunch, I saw the that the Nordic Approach were hosting a coffee tasting session, so off I went.
There were lots of exciting coffees and I must confess I can’t remember which one stood out – was it the Panama Geisha or the Kenyan ? In any case, Nordic Approach are famous for their lighter roots and the tables were set top across continents, Africa, the Americas and Asia.
Photo: courtesy of Liana
Still up for more tasting, I passed by quickly to Janson Farms – another famous coffee farm from Panama – saw they were brewing their coffees on a Hario V60 and thought why not – during my experience I bumped into the Indonesian barista champion.
Where to next?
I had heard that my new coffee friend, Antonio Orria, whom I had met in Dubai airport in September, had just joined Victoria Arduino in Dubai and was showcasing their latest espresso machine, the Black Eagle Maverick, so off I went. Lucky for me, he was by himself and I got a quick demo about the machine, which in essence brews both espresso and wait for it….. filter coffee on their Pure Brew system. To quote them,
“PureBrew technology is a revolutionary, three phase, extraction method that uses pulsating frequencies of water pressure to release the purest flavour from your coffee bean according to its freshness, region and type.”
Victoria Arduino Black Eagle Maverick
In essence they have a different basket for filter, with a cone shape and for which Antonio kindly brewed for me using 12g of coffee – I can see the advantage for playing around with different brew recipes and of course reducing the time for a barista in a busy coffee shop. It can also brew tea. I’m looking forward to visiting their newly opened outlet to learn more.
I was already having an Ethiopia coffee bean filled day, so why not go over to Boon Coffee, headed by the friendly Orit Mohammed. She got her head baristi to brew me an espresso, using Ethiopian beans of course and very kindly gave me a bag of their premium blend to try at home.
Boon coffee: espresso
No more coffee!
Well, not quite. I stopped over at Three Coffee, one of my fave Dubai coffee roasters and couldn’t say no, when they offered me an espresso using Yemeni coffee beans.
Yemeni espresso
Then I bumped into my fellow coffee geek friend Shehzeen and she roped me into a latte art competition, which she won with some help but which one do you think was the best?
Guess mine?⬅️
Incidentally the UAE BARISTA CHAMPIONSHIP was won by Michaela of Typica coffee (one of my faves) again for the fourth time I think
Photo courtesy of Lyndon, her husband
Before I left I popped over to the SCA stand and bumped into an old acquaintance, Stephen Morrissey, Deputy Chief Commercial and Community Experience Officer (plus WBC 2008) like I did last year, had a brief chat about the state of coffee in the UK and perhaps globally – in short, he shared my concern that many coffee roasters tend to roast quite light these days. Don’t get me wrong I like medium light roasting for filter based coffees but for espresso…. NO!
I still reminisce about espresso coffee from like 10 years ago. It was such that whether you had an espresso or flat white the body wrapped around your tongue with chocolate and dark berries, caramel and nuts and the taste lingered for an hour – not to mention the latte art contrast with milk that was delectable to look at, but nowadays, I think espresso is too bright and in milk, it is almost like flavoured milk. I’m not sure what your thoughts are, but when I launched my coffee brand two years ago, I tried to bring that back.
Also, we felt that the customer experience is beginning to diminish. Again, I recall when I was in London recently, not naming any cafes, I felt like the baristi were not that approachable like the ones in Dubai. I recall trying to film a barista pouring latte art and she abruptly told me to stop. I know that as specialty coffee has grown, you will loose the essence of that coffee nerdy experience, when I used to got to a cafe and just chat with the baristi about the coffee and the art of coffee making, but I miss those days and with so many companies investing in specialty coffee now, perhaps those days may never come back.
Photo: courtesy of Naveed
But you know what, I still dream about having another cafe in the future and perhaps I will be able to make a difference in bringing that back as after all this is…
I recall a few years back, pre-pandemic, when I read that there were a few restaurants opening in Dubai on a weekly or perhaps a monthly basis. It seems the coffee shop entrepreneurs or what I like to call the coffeepreneurs didn’t want to be left behind…. Enter a new coffee concept, Q-LAB, located in Jumeriah.
Now to be honest, Q-Lab is not a new coffee shop as such but more a new concept born out of the company DXB Blends (DXB is the acronym for Dubai airport, just like you have LHR for London Heathrow Airport). In short, DXB blends have been around in Dubai for a few years, and I first heard of them when I moved to Dubai 3 years ago. I must confess, although I had only been once, I was never tempted to visit any of their shops until now, when I saw another Dubai coffee nerd duo post about them. Intrigued, I arranged for my friends and I to have our regular Saturday morning coffee meet up there.
The Q Lab seating area
In short, Q-Lab will be the new hub of DXB Blends, where their roastery will roast coffee and prepare blends for their other outlets, with a stronger focus on quality, so the coffee on offer at Q-Lab will be a higher specialty coffee offering. As you enter the coffee hub, there are lots of chairs, with the roastery on the right-hand side.
The roasters
As you walk further in, you will be greeted by a friendly Barista, Ace (I told him that with a name like that, he will have to ace it every time he brews coffee…pressure) – we chatted coffee for several minutes as I got there ahead of my friends. Ace has been working in coffee for over 5 years and hails from the Philippines, but he shared with me his desire to keep learning about coffee so that he can compete for the national barista championships and perhaps more. He even has a tattoo on his hand with the Hario V60 and coffee beans.
I love coffee tattoos
Pleased to see the Mod Bar, I opted for the espresso blend for my cortado as the description hinted of Brazil.
The Mod Bar
My friend, Naveed opted for an Ethiopian and got a beautifully poured unicorn latte art… hmmmm! I thought because this was Ace fave coffee.
Walking around, you will see their coffee on display in different sizes of the standard 250g and a smaller version at 100g. I think they do this because they have some expensive lots, and it might be easier on your pocket to try a 100g coffee. As I walked around, a Yemeni Lot 22100 with notes of cacao nibs, dried figs and vanilla caught my attention.
Yemeni coffee
So, after downing my cortado, followed with some conversation, I knew that I had to try this special coffee brewed on a Hario V60, who wouldn’t?
Delicious
I shared it with Naveed and it was definitely worth AED55 ($15) – their normal price for filter brews are AED30. I picked up dried fruits, hints of light cacao and vanilla spice, yum.
As we were leaving, the staff gave me a complementary 100g bag of a Colombian Anaerobic Java coffee, so kind.
Q Lab are located at 118 Al Hadiqa Rd – Al Safa – Al Safa 1 – Dubai.
I plan to revisit as they will soon be offering breakfast and lunch too.
And no, that isn’t a typo. Three Coffee Roasters are a Dubai based specialty coffee roasting coffee company, who tend to specialise in “funky” coffee and by that I mean that they push the boundaries in sourcing anaerobic, macerated, 90+ and rare coffees and then roasting them that make you say wow! once you sip them.
So, it came as a I surprise to me when I was scrolling through my instagram feed that I saw Drew – their New Zealander Co-Founder and General Manager talking about their espresso coffees. Upon further inspection on their website I was pleasantly surprised to see that they offered non-funky single estate and blends. I confess, although I don’t mind pushing my taste buds to the limit – always up for the challenge – with some things like espresso and espresso with milk, for me, its a no! no!. I don’t mind something unusual in my milk based espresso like macadamia , dark berries, vanilla, cinnamon, with hints of dark chocolate, caramel, etc BUT I don’t really want high acidity, peach, grapefruit and strawberries with milk.
So, when I came across Colombia La Esperanza Washed – Made for Milk, Ethiopia Hambela and Lazy Daze, all for espresso and milk based – I was excited and placed an order.
Before I describe my taste bud experience, a detour.
A few things I noticed about Three Coffee espresso offerings;
*The aroma – wow!
*The long lasting taste – admirable
*Ease of puling shots – stressless, except the Ethiopia Hambela (more on that later).
My first brew was the Colombia La Esperanza – made for milk. Upon opening the bag, wow! the aroma and yes it smelt of milk chocolate. It was great with milk and probably my fave of the batch.
I savoured it a little longer but trying the others before finishing this.
Next up, the Lazy Daze – a mix of “A mix of washed, natural and anaerobic coffees from Brazil, Indonesia, Rwanda, Guatemala and Colombia”, so expect something unusual.
Another aromatic experience that lasted right to the end of the bag and the long lasting taste after every brew stopped me from eating anything it afterwards for at least an hour to savour the taste, yum.
Now, Hambela.. Ethiopia, Ethiopia. where do I start? In fact when I tired to brew this first as an espresso, it was a disaster – nothing came out, so I thought perhaps I bought the wrong roast type – filter instead of espresso and so I actually brewed it on the Hario V60 and on the Aeropress
BUT then I thought let me go back to Drew on instagram. He shared rather helpfully that the beans are lot more denser, so I need to grind a lot more coarser than the other beans, which I did.
When I tried it as a milk based espresso drink – I must confess the first experience was wow, wow, wow! yes three times of wow! BUT after the first brew I didn’t get that easily.
Perhaps because of the plus 40C temperature in Dubai the brewing experience was temperamental and when rushing out in the morning, I couldn’t afford to keep wasting shots, so I settled on a 18g, 30g out – more hints of dark berries and dark chocolate.
If you are excited by what you read, then visit http://Three Coffee to place an order and I’m not getting any commission.
When asked by my friends where we should go to for coffee on a Saturday morning during the Dubai Winter (20-25C), MILK Bar, located in Wasl 51 on Wasl Road near City Walk, easily rolls off my lips.
Located in the newish development of Wasl 51, which hosts a Michelin gourmand restaurant (Orfali Bros) together with a host of trendy cafes and breakfast spots, MILK, fits in with the upmarket feel of new places to hang out in Dubai.
Tempting
As you enter, you are greeted on your left with a ladder (quirky) and an L-shaped serving and brewing bar, dominated with a La Marzocco Strada . As you walk further into the shop, a host of delectable cakes, pastries and sweets present themselves like they are saying, “don’t look, just order” – it reminds me of my display cabinet at my coffee shop in Cape Town back in 2011, which was based on the strategy, “people fall in love with beauty first”. Now, if you make the mistake of walking into MILK without sitting first, the temptation to order a cake or something sweet will be unbearable because they not only look great, they taste nice too. This is based on previous experience. Cheesecake below…
Yummy cheesecake
You’d be more impressed to know that MILK also bake their cakes and of course, as with everything in Dubai, you can order it home for that special occasion too.
But that’s not just it. Let’s talk about their food too.
Yes please
I’ve been here with my family and friends too for breakfast many times. Not only do they have an exciting and not overly complicated breakfast menu, their prices are good value for money too. As someone who loves coffee and food too, especially breakfast, I confess that I must have tried at least four different items on their breakfast menu, from béchamel spinach poached eggs, Turkish eggs, pancakes and my current fave, the cornbread eggs benedict, below.
Delicious
Although Milk actually opened a few years ago, I didn’t go until September 2021, when after having breakfast at a popular breakfast spot nearby, I went to MILK afterwards to get a cortado. First time, below;
Although they haven’t necessarily committed to just one coffee roaster, you’ll find that their coffee preparation is up to par. So, at the moment they are sourcing their espresso based beans from Grandmother roastery (one of my faves) and the filter blend using April from Copenhagen. I usually visit in the mornings and so opt for their espresso milk based drinks… or should I say, their cortado.
Another cortado
Taste profiles tend to be chocolate with hints of almonds, hazelnuts and milk chocolate. Favouring a more intense taste, I rarely order their cappuccino or flat white, but my fellow coffee nerd, Naveed, usually orders them.
A few months ago they underwent a renovation, which from what I could see, expanded the seating area and now gives you a window view into the kitchen. See video below.
Why go?
Good breakfast, relaxed seating, delectable cakes, friendly staff and off course coffee that won’t disappoint. Need I say more? Check them out.
I can’t think of a wonderful way to start 2023 than attending a full-blown coffee event in my city, Dubai. This was the second edition of the World of Coffee (WOC) event in Dubai but there was no comparison to the 2022 edition, as the 2023 was on a much bigger scale.. perhaps about 6-7 times the size. Kudos to Khalid Mulla (president of SCA UAE) and the top brass of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), whose president Yannis Apostolopoulos, attended too.
However, it wasn’t just about the size of the venue but the buzz too, created by coffee geeks, like moi who crave learning, talking and speaking about coffee but to be usurped in an environment where you got to witness coffee professionals who work hard to ensure you enjoy your daily brew wherever you are in the World, share their passion and love for the bean. So, what else?
We had the latest tech on display from the espresso machine kings like La Marzocco, Victoria Arduino, Synesso, Slayer, Rocket and more –
Synesso ES1
We had other equipment highlighting the latest tech to roast, sort, filter brew and store coffee – we had coffee from coffee roasters not just from the GCC region but from India (Subko, Blue Tokai), Australia (Stitch Coffee) and Denmark (April) too.
April Coffee from Denmark Blue Tokai from India
We had the inventor of Cafec showing us how to brew coffee on his invention differently from what I had seen previously.
There were also talks on all aspects of coffee and I got to meet famous coffee podcaster, Lee Safar too. Dubai powerhouse, DMCC had a large booth showcasing their service offerings from a business perspective and their head, Saeed gave Naveed and I lovely gifts.
What else?
We had award winning coffee growers, coffee art, young baristi serving coffee from Panama, other coffee growing regions showcasing their coffee, UK and European coffee specialist – a special evening hosted by Garfield of Mokha 1450, where I met former WBC champ, Stephen Morrissey – I wrote about him here in 2008…
The list goes on and I met too many people that I won’t list so as not to offend anyone, BUT it was all about coffee, coffee, coffee – the title of my Instagram post that went viral. However, a major first was the UAE National Barista Championship, which was won by Mariam Erin, now of Cosmic Garden Coffee. I wrote about about her here when she was the UAE coffee brewers champ.
Organised across three days, I went twice with fellow coffee nerd, Naveed (blogger) and met other coffee geeks too – pic at the top.
Leaving my palate free for both days I ensured that I often started with an espresso-based milk drink – after all there were tons of people offering to make you free coffee using the Victoria Arduino Eagle One (I guess they sponsored the event). On my first day, I have to confess I lost count on how many coffees I tried – having been coffee fatigued on day One, I promised not to be drowned in coffee again on day Two but although I know I was a bit more reserved, I still lost count.
Cortado by Typica
WOC was held in the venue of all Dubai venues, the World Trade Centre, which was apt for one of the first major events of the year. You could easily get lost and in fact there were few people I had wanted to meet and some booths that I wanted to visit that I found out were there after the event, but such is life.
Nevertheless, it was good to hang out with Naveed, talk coffee and then veer off to learn more about coffee from other specialists. It got me thinking about how far the coffee industry has gotten in the last 10-15 years since I fell in love with it. Back then, the focus was on the God Shot of expresso brilliance – talk about filter coffee let alone single origin was completely alien as filter methods like the aeropress or Hario V60 were not either invented or ignored – it was all about espresso and batch brew machines.
Espresso number ?
Now in 2023, even I was completely blown away by the type of coffee equipment not just for commercial outfits but for the home too. There are now so many options that I must confess, would be very overwhelming for a newbie or even someone that wants to start. Perhaps next year they could hold on the first day, a guide to brewing coffee at home, where the manufacturers display some of the items to break you in gently into brewing coffee based of course on your budget.
Roest small batch roaster
Other topics worth venturing in may be to do with sustainability – where climate change will affect how coffee is grown and eventually coffee farmers and all those that depend on it, for their livelihoods. I’m really passionate about this and plan to get involved somehow, so anyone reading this that has ideas, please send me a message.
As I sign off, I was touched by how some visitors to Dubai and the GCC in general were amazed by the quality of coffee on offer in the region. Again, I recall coming to Dubai many times before I moved here in 2020 and it wasn’t until Raw Coffee started about 10 years back did specialty coffee start its momentum – to see it get adopted so quickly and to see how people have become passionate about it, obviously brings a smile to my face and a warm comfort for my palate as I’ve always wanted to live a in a coffee focused city.
So, don’t wait until WOC 2024, visit Dubai not just for the sun, beaches, shopping and amazing buildings, but for the coffee too.
One of the great things about being in a coffee enthusiastic city like Dubai is that there’s always something happening from opening new coffee shops with fantastic architectural design coupled with meeting new people in the coffee business that want to share their passion with you.
One such person was Vishnu of Al Saqr trading some I met over instagram in 2020 and in person when I moved to Dubai – credit to him for spotting me in a cafe way back in October 2020.
Vishnu on the left with Naveed
Fast forward to 2022 and Visnhu has managed to pursue one of his dreams within his company to set up a credible coffee importing specialty division called Harvest Belt. Their focus is to source traceable good quality lots of coffee to entice coffee conscious customers. In short they would love to work with cafes and restaurants who want to offer unusual and high quality coffees to their customers. This could be in parallel with them whereby you channel your desires in terms of getting a great bag of coffee from an unusual place that will make your customers go “wow!” can I have more of that.
So earlier this month Vishnu invited a few coffee experts from the Dubai coffee scene together with myself to visit their space, cup coffee and of course chat coffee.
Photo credit: FLTR magazine
Located in Dubai Investment Park, Harvest Belt is housed within one of many warehouses there, almost like a hole in the wall. With clean white spaces, it would also play the role of a no frills coffee shop decorated with coffee artefacts.
Classic Sample coffee roaster
The room is welcoming with their colours representing the continents that grow coffee. The harvest belt name itself is derived from the belt across the world of the coffee growing regions… clever eh!
So off to the coffees, where we cupped a wide range of newly harvested coffee from 2022 lots ranging from Ethiopia to Brazil , Guatemala and other Central American lots.
We cupped coffees roasted for both filter and espresso using their sample roaster BUT it’s important to highlight that Harvest Belt aren’t coffee roasters.. rather they source and sell coffee green beans.
An apt end to the year, enjoying coffee with friends in a coffee space.
One thing I love about Dubai is that it never fails to deliver on experiences. Now, I’m very aware that there’s a lot of media, some good and some suspect about Dubai but a city dating centuries with over 4.5m residents is a lot more diverse than the glitz and glam of what the media wants to portray.
So, off we went to the Al Fahidi district in old Dubai and yes, there is such a thing – it’s the place where it all started -where old building were built to capture cool air, where abrar (water taxis) transported people across the creek to trade in spices, cloths, carpets, gold, pearls and more – and where the old shops/merchants that built Dubai and foreign embassies are housed too.
In fact, I’d heard about the Coffee Museum for years but never ventured there and I must confess stumbled across it when my family and I were discovering the old city a few weeks back – we initially found it on a Friday but it was closed – so never visit on a Friday. That day, we went to another famous old city hub, the Arabian Tea House, just a minute away – another must go for traditional Emirate/Lebanese food and of course tea and Emirati style coffee (qahwa in Arabic).
Still craving that experience and when asked what should we do today… I replied, “let’s got to the coffee museum, which is also close to some shops for you babe (my wife)”. So, off we went last Sunday but we got there a bit late, just after 4pm – they close at 5pm.
Opening in 2014, the owner and purveyor of the Coffee Museum, Khalid al Mulla, had been collecting coffee related trinkets for years and decided to open up what is now the largest coffee museum in the Middle East – there are only 16 in the World. We paid an entry fee of AED10 (just over $3), which included complimentary qahwa (arabic coffee) with dates and another cup of coffee made the Ethiopian way using the Jebba. The museum is housed in a traditional Emirati home with low ceilings and narrow walkways, so mind your head as you enter.
Coffees
Split into many rooms across two floors, housing international antiques (mostly from Germany ), coffee origins room, middle east antiques, a literature room, a majlis (traditional Emirati room for drinking coffee and talking), as well as a kids corner and media room, you will have time to satisfy your curiosity. In short, the rooms host anything from old coffee grinding machines, dating centuries to the first ever roasting devices as well as beans and posters too. Luckily for us, we met Kay, whom I had met at an event promoting the UAE Aeropress championship, gave us a personal tour.
Kay showing us a coffee antique
For speciality coffee, head upstairs to their mini shop, which houses a Victoria Arduino Black Eagle espresso machine and of course filter brewing options. I couldn’t help myself and went for two options, a cortado
and a filter coffee using THREE Coffee (Dubai based roaster) Colombian filter beans prepared by Kay.
As we were walking down we saw this…
The Victoria Arduino Venus – yes it looks very plush but the great thing about this machine is that although it looks very antique from the outside, inside is a modern take on espresso machinery. This was their espresso machine before they recently introduced the Black Eagle.
As a tribute to all the coffee growing countries in the World they have these flags but they now have to add more (Nigeria grows coffee too).
All in all, a wonderful experience, which I highly recommend when you visit Dubai. Sure, you’ll want to visit the tallest building in the World , Burj Khalifa and the largest shopping mall, Dubai Mall but take time out to visit the old district, which houses traditional souks (that’s why my wife likes coming here… LOL), the Seef district with quaint hotels/restaurants and a murder mystery hunt, the museum of illusions, the Arabian Tea House, old
Mosque in Al Fahidi
style mosques and of course the coffee museum. After all, after all that walking and eating you’d want to finish off with some good coffee right?
Sometimes you get to enjoy a thing too much and forget to acknowledge it and for that I’m guilty of having never written a post about one of my fave coffee and food hangouts in Dubai, HEAL – breakfast, lunch and dinner + wellness space, located on al Manara Road in Jumeirah. In fact I went there today with my wife and then it suddenly dawned on me that I have never posted about them ….. sigh as my daughter would say.
For me, as you know by now, anywhere that serves good coffee and food that you can enjoy is always a go-to-place for me as it ticks the main boxes for me when it comes to delighting my taste buds and just meeting people. So, when I was working on one of my new ventures last year post-September, I needed to meet quite a few people and guess what my answer always was, when asked “where should we meet?”… Heal on al Manara Road.
Not only is Heal conveniently located about 15 minutes’ drive from where I stay, but it also offers breakfast until 2pm (yes, all my meetings were before 2pm to avail of the brekkie menu), good coffee of course, outside seating (great between November and March in Dubai), keen staff and not to mention an all-day menu offering delicious fluffy pancakes, which we had for lunch today 😋 – see below.
Pancakes at Heal
Set in a converted villa, the décor is white with ecru and hints of a Spanish style villa vibe, so its relaxing and a bit noisy sometimes but you can easily chill here for hours – witness the many peeps on their laptops making the space their work-from-home coffee shop. You have two options to enter the main shop from the main road, with the right side dedicated to a more relaxing vibe where they have a small shop offering scented candles and little bits for the home.
The rest of the shop is focused on eating, working and drinking coffee and more. Weekends get quite busy especially for their hearty breakfast menu with both local Emirati and expats mainly from England. During the cooler months there’s ample seating outside, right from the front of the shop all the way down the left-hand side to the back (there’s free parking at the back too).
My fave brekkie item is the eggs benedict with spinach but of course you know that the coffee is my main attraction.
Featuring the classic Synesso Espresso machine with attentive staff, I often order a FLAT WHITE because I think they make one of the best I’ve had in Dubai, Why? Yes, sometimes baristi (plural for barista) often make mistakes pouring a cappuccino and calling it a flat white but here they do it well and if I go in the morning I’ll default to their flat white.
Hint: the milk on top of the flat white should move easily and shouldn’t be too firm (cappuccino) and there should also be a thinnish layer on top, if not it’s a latte. Sounds fussy, BUT hey when it comes to coffee, you’ve got to get it right.
I’ll confess that Heal have been using the same blend for over a year now – Brazil with chocolate and almonds (classic) and Ethiopian Hambela (fruity with red berries and medium acidity) but at least when they make it, they make it right. I usually have Brazil with espresso milk based and of course the Ethiopia for filter options but I have to confess on one occasion I was asked to try the Brazil as a filter using the Hario V6o and I was pleasantly surprised.
Gone were the chocolate tones but what ensued was the light caramel tones with hints of dark berries.
I’ve been for dinner once, but I’d say their breakfast offerings and lunchtime menu is where they shine best.
If you visit Dubai and can make it to Jumeirah, then check this place for breakfast, brunch before 2pm and lunch and of course coffee in a Spanish style villa setting.
You’re probably thinking “where the h**l is this?”. In short, Khorfakkan is a sleepy beach town in Sharjah (a UAE emirate, next to Dubai), but a stone throw away from Dibba in Fujairah (another UAE emirate).
Address Beach Resort
So, why was I here? We had a family staycation (a vacation that takes place in the same country that you live in) at a fantastic beach resort in Fujairah in late August. I’ve posted my coffee experience at the beach resort on instagram, which got almost 10,000 views but in summary, it still bothers me how hotels and restaurants spend so much time and training in sourcing the best ingredients but when it comes to coffee, they literally fall apart – sourcing coffee from big commercial brands, where taste has been sacrificed just to make as much money as possible. I digress.
So, in my quest not to sacrifice my taste buds even for 3 days for well prepared speciality coffee, I announced to the family “lets go over to Khorfakkan Beach and see what’s there”.
Now, if you know me, you’d kind of guess that I already done some research on speciality coffee in Khorfakkan. But I’m not that bad, as last year we also went there but it was a lot busier and I got to go on a jet-ski for the first time in my life, twice. However, this year and perhaps because it was on the weekday…. it was completely dead silent – not a soul on the beach. So, we decided to leave our beach gear in the car and look for somewhere to sit….
“I think there’s specialty coffee somewhere near”….. I smell a rat…. no, I smell coffee. LOL!
Upon entering the very empty coffee shop, named Medellin (yes, Colombia comes to mind), I noticed their espresso machine – a Synesso, quizzed the barista and saw that the coffee shop already had an award. As soon as I was informed that they stock Espresso Lab coffee (one of my faves in Dubai), I was convinced, as I know that Espresso Lab won’t sell their coffee to anyone without intensive training. I opted for the Indonesian as a Cortado.
Delicious
Oh wow! the hints of cherry and caramel with subtle hints of vanilla completely blew me away. It was indeed such a pleasant experience (if not I won’t be bothering wasting my time writing about this here). I sipped it gently….
After all make the good stuff last.
We took pictures of the cafe, chilled for a bit and then headed back to our plush beach resort for a late evening swim.
I was so fascinated by the taste that upon my return to Dubai, I went to Espresso Lab and ordered the same Indonesian arabica beans as a Cortado or should I say their 3 ounce.
Still just as delicious.
So, if you are craving well prepared specialty coffee and are within 15-25 minutes away from Khorfakkan Beach, please drive there and you won’t be disappointed believe you me.
Medellin is at Khorfakkan Beach, near the second entrance for paid parking – not too far from Baskin Robbins. It usually gets busy between 6-10pm and is open until 1am daily (whoa!)
From Coffee With Love 