UAE cafes – From Coffee With Love

April 25, 2022April 26, 2022

Dubai Coffee Pioneers: Mokha 1450

I’m blessed to live in a vibrant city that thrives on specialty coffee, not to mention, constant sunshine, beaches, great food that will make a foodie tire themselves out and an eclectic mix of cultures – a true city of the 21^stcentury. For me, it’s been wonderful since I moved here in September 2020. Nevertheless, with the ever-growing coffee culture witnessed by almost a monthly opening of a new coffee shop, it’s easy to forget the ones who started the journey and paved the way, so here we are, Mokha 1450.

You may have heard me mention the name before as I did an experiment to debunk the myth of freshly roasted coffee last year and needless to say, a rare coffee, an Ethiopian Geisha, won my test, whereby a coffee roasted months before tasted even better when brewed using a Hario V60. This coffee was sourced by Mokha 1450.

Initially located at Wasl Road but now with a branch on the famous Palm Jumeriah – yes the man-made island shaped like a palm tree in the middle of the Arabian sea off Dubai’s coastline – now you see why Dubai has a lot to offer, indeed a city of dreams, BUT back to coffee….

The origin of the name traces back to Arabia itself, Mokha being the seaport in Yemen that started trading coffee back in….. 1450 – get the hint. So, Garfield Kerr, the owner, I presume wanted to launch his coffee shop in homage to the first city of coffee. However, that wasn’t enough, as Garfield with roots in Jamaica, ensued that his was the first company in the UAE to import Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee from Jamaica’s Coffee Industry Board (now known by its new acronym JACRA). In this connection, Mokha 1450 have always sourced “rare and exceptional” coffees – this terminology features on their coffee bags. In fact during the EXPO2020 from October 2021 to March 2022, Mokha 1450 served the most expensive coffee there as Jamacia Blue Mountain coffee is usually if not the most expensive, one of them.

Mokha 1450 is called a boutique in that their service is akin to being served in a fashion boutique – attention to the coffee but more so to the customer.

Preparing my cortado

At their Palm Jumeirah branch, upon entering, you are given a menu that explains all the coffees on offer and if you are serious about coffee like me, you may take a while to go over the menu before placing your order. After which, they will offer further explanation if needed. At this branch, as they have more space, they will also prepare the coffee in front of you, just like in a boutique they will bring out the best clothes and explain the product, so too here.

I’ve been thrice, twice to the Palm Jumeirah branch and once to the Wasl branch. On my second visit to Palm, we met with Garfield and he offered us another delectable coffee – see below.

At the first World of Coffee event, Mokha 1450 experimented with serving you espresso in an iced cup – the coffee cup was placed in a freezer and they pulled the espresso shot into the freezing cup – the idea was to display a different array of flavours, more on highlighting the acidity.

So, why go? Well, if you love coffee and want to be served with attention to details by courteous staff and want to take your taste buds on a whirl, then visit. I must add that they have a delicious of array of cakes at their Palm branch and wife always orders the carrot cake, not to share…. Ha!

Visit them and read more on their website

May 22, 2016May 22, 2016

I was at Ratios Coffee, Sharjah, UAE

I know, back in the UAE again – I can’t help it, if Emirates offer the most competitive routes to the countries I travel in Africa, at least currently, and let’s face it, A 48 hour stopover in Dubai is too tempting to pass off. Okay, so sifting through Instagram, my eyes were caught by the introduction of the UAEs first or at least one of the first Synesso espresso machine at a shop in Sharjah – the next emirate to Dubai. So, when I visited just last week and I was tole we had to attend a wedding feast in Sharjah, I quickly opened up Instagram to try and find out which cafe it was, so that I won’t miss the opportunity to check out another specialty cafe. By chance, I actually found them through another committed coffee geek centre, Speciality Batch, (Espresso Lab, Hundred Wellness Centre, Dubai) whom I’ve never visited, but who seem to have the exclusive rights to Synesso in the UAE.

After stuffing my self with all kinds of food, I encouraged my friend, another keen coffee guy, to search and try out Ratios coffee. After driving around for close to 30 minutes – committed – we found the shop, which is like a goldmine in terms of speciality coffee in this region.
Overlooking the Sharjah Creek by an area called the Corniche, connecting both Souq Al Arsah and Souq Saqr, Ratio prides itself on keeping things simple. It works with speciality micro-coffee roasters from the region, which in this case is Speciality Batch, located in Dubai.

Khalid Faisal Al Qassemi, Vice Chairman of Al Qasimi Group and Owner of Ratios, said: “We opened Ratios to offer our guests perfectly brewed coffee unlike what is served in branded shops amidst a vibrant atmosphere and supported with exceptional customer service (source: Khaleej Times)

and I can’t complain about that…. although it was busy, you could tel that when busy, there’s a really relaxed vibe here, the kind you find in your typical neighbourhood cafe in New York or London.

Upon entering, it’s quite obvious that coffee is the champ here – okay they’ve got some sandwiches, pastries and sweets on display but the coffee stuff outweighs the others; there’s an uber boiler, a chemex, bags of specialty batch coffee everywhere, other coffee tools and of course the Synesso in customised colours.

I decided to place an order for a piccolo – a mini-latte but stronger in terms of coffee – double shot coffee with a lot less milk, because the drink is made in a 120ml cup.

I couldn’t however resist the cheesecake topped chocolate brownie – forgive me, but there wasn’t any dessert at the wedding, so I was craving something sweet and wow! Nothing like a great dessert to accompany a great coffee.
I took pics and sent them to my daughter to taunt her – it worked – “daddy can you please bring me a slice” Erm! not sure how that will work on a 5 hour flight.

The barista, Ronald, is really into his latte art, very easy to talk to and give advice.

On the latter, before leaving for Dubai, Ronald asked us to check out Cremolata, located in the University City of Sharjah, apparently awarded the best gelato in the Middle East but more importantly for me, they serve coffee from another new and top micro-roaster, gold box – another place to check sometime soon insha’allah. On this occasion we had an espresso – medium acidity and smooth, with hints of caramel.

So, if you’re tired of Dubai and wants o explore another Emirate not too far away, I highly recommend Ratios Coffee. If you can’t ask make it before Ramadhan, i.e. before 6 June, then check them out after and cool off with some gelato at Cremolata too, who also have a branch in Dubai.For more, see ratioscoffee

September 13, 2013September 20, 2013

Getting a Good Cup of Coffee in Dubai: RAW Coffee Company

When you think of Dubai, you may think of Toobuy and many moons ago, when I thought about opening up a speciality coffee shop somewhere in the World, I thought about Dubai. Well, why not – they had big shopping malls, flashy cars, the best paid expatriates with tons of perks, a growing coffee lifestyle market, the highest amount of 5 starts hotels with the highest occupancy rates in the World at that time and even now the tallest building in the World, BUT they didn’t have good coffee.

Sure, all the major coffee chains from the UK and the US are there but still, not good coffee. So, I thought, let’s break the bean and start something special. In any case, as you know, I chose Cape Town to pursue my dream (I sold Escape Caffe in February this year) but I’m glad to report that someone else beat me to it a few years back, RAW Coffee – at this moment, the only speciality coffee operator in Dubai, focusing on sourcing fair trade and organic coffees and roasted locally in Dubai – located at Warehouse 10, Al Manara, al Quoz – in an industrial complex of the very busy Shaykh Zayed Road.

I like what they’ve done with the place to make it feel more authentic – first of all it’s in a converted warehouse – as you enter on the left, there’s the La Marzocco Strada machine to make espresso based coffee and other gadgets as well as a brew bar with an Uber boiler to help make pour-over coffee.

On the right they have a “green” living wall and some chairs. Walking through to the back, on the left hand side of the warehouse/shop, there’s a glass enclave featuring not one, but three coffee roasters – so they import and roast all their coffees (When the proprietor, Kim started, she only had one Probat, now she’s expanded to another two, a giant 18kg Coffee Tool roaster and a smaller Dietrich sample roaster).

I think the main reason for this is that they also supply some restaurants – a list of their customers is on their website. Dotted around on the ground floor to add more authenticity are heaps of green coffee sacks. Right at the back of the shop, there are some stairs to a small sitting and workshop area at the top, overlooking the rest of the shop. You can sit and drink coffee from a very authentic solid wood table or relax on some bean bags. In any case, if there’s more than 4 of you, I would recommended sitting upstairs and chilling out.

Now, to the coffee. Upon entry, I ordered a flat white as I usually do to test out their milk frothing and latte art skills. I noticed that another customer was very impressed with the latte art as he kept looking at it and I silently thought “Erm! I know this is new to you, but eventually you’re going to have to drink it”.

Lots more people, mainly expatriates, shuffled in briefly to buy bags of coffee. For my second test – I usually order a pour over to test the roasters skill with the bean and have to confess, I thought the coffee a little too darkly roasted for me – it was good with milk but as a pour over, pure black, slightly bitter with no delicate notes picked up. I quizzed the barista present as to how he prepared my coffee and in conclusion the water was too hot (over 92C) and the dimensions (20g with 200ml water) way too high. He apologises profusely and my cousin, accompanying me for his first speciality latte (he is used to chain style coffee) bought two 500g bags of coffee for me to take back to Vienna, so that appeased the barista somewhat.

I would have loved to have met Kim but it was Friday afternoon and I guess her time off.

In any case, to the best of my knowledge, if you want a speciality coffee experience in glitzy and flashy glass skyscrapers Dubai, I recommend you escape into RAW coffee.

Visit them online at www.rawcoffeecompany.com to order coffee and get directions to where they are. They’re open 7 days a week; offer barista courses and sell all types of equipment for the very keen home barista.