Dearborn — The latest food trend coming out of Metro Detroit that is gaining traction nationwide is cafes specializing in coffee made from beans grown in Yemen.
The businesses behind the movement are based in Dearborn and all have been founded by people of Yemeni descent. Several owners said they seek to blend the ancient tradition of Yemeni coffee and the modern U.S. market of high-end organic coffee.
“I think by 2030, we should be in every single state of the United States,” said Hamzah Nasser, owner of Haraz Coffee House.
Since 2021, cafes from at least three Dearborn-based businesses have opened in some of the most competitive foodie markets in the nation, as well as Metro Detroit. Dearborn businesses have set up shop in New York City, San Francisco, Houston, suburban Chicago and the states of Kentucky and New Jersey. Nearly a dozen cafes are planned to open later this year, including in Memphis, Minneapolis, Charlotte and Florida.
Haraz Coffee House opened its first Dearborn cafe in 2019. Last February, the business began offering franchises, and now there are a total of 16 cafes in six states. This past week, it secured another franchisee set to open in Chicago. Later this year, Haraz Coffee House cafes are set to debut in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, Ann Arbor’s Main Street and the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing.
“Honestly, at this point, we are only meeting 1% of the demand that we have,” Nasser said.
On Friday, the latest Metro Detroit cafe debuts in Westland’s Soho Banquet & Event Center. In the lobby, Qahwah House will open its 11th location. Qahwah House owner Ibrahim Alhasbani is believed to have started the modern Yemeni coffeehouse trend in Dearborn when he opened his first cafe in 2017 on Schaefer Road.
By 2021, he opened a Qahwah House in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
“That cafe is one of our most popular locations,” Alhasbani said.
There’s another in Manhattan’s West Village, and soon, there will be another near Columbia University in Manhattan.
Qahwah is the Arabic word for coffee. Haraz refers to the mountain region in Yemen where the coffee first began to be grown in the 14th century. But due to centuries of globalization, as well as years of political instability in Yemen, the country is not currently a major source of coffee.
The owners of the various Dearborn-based Yemeni coffee businesses hope to change that. Most of the founders of the various businesses still have a deep connection to the Middle Eastern nation.
“I think many of us who are doing this want to bring Yemeni coffee back,” Alhasbani said.
No one else appears to be franchising and promoting Yemeni coffee the way these Dearborn entrepreneurs are, said Jonathan Morris, a coffee historian and author of “Coffee. A Global History.” The history professor at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom also co-presents the podcast “A History of Coffee.”
“We don’t see chains that specialize in that kind of coffee outside of the immediate area (of Yemen) and diaspora communities” of Yemenis, Morris said. But he said demand for the product among “hipster coffee nerds” has been high for several years due to the 2018 nonfiction book “The Monk of Mokha,” which tells of a Yemeni-American in San Francisco attempting to export Yemeni coffee beans out of the war-torn country.
The taste of Yemeni coffee is distinct, the business owners and customers said. The aroma of many Dearborn cafes is of a robust coffee with a hint of cardamom and ginger — popular ingredients in various blends.
Another blend includes a bit of the coffee husk.
“When I first tasted it, it very much made me think about things like old leather books,” Morris said. “It has a deep, rich fruit, but slightly. You taste the sort of ferment.”
David Hovey, an Oakland, Calif., resident who routinely comes to Dearborn for business, makes it a point to visit a Yemeni coffeehouse whenever he is in Dearborn.
“It’s strong and tasty. I’d say it is familiar, but also, the bit of spice makes it unique,” Hovey said recently as he bought a 16-ounce Sana’ani, a black coffee with cardamom, for $5 at Haraz Coffee House in Dearborn.
“For me, it helps with the time zone change because it gives me a jolt, but I don’t get jittery,” Hovey said.
For a cup, prices range from $4 to $6 at various cafes in Dearborn. For a pound of beans, the general price range seemed to be $25 to $35. Qahwah House sells a 10-ounce bag of beans originating from a single farmer for $50.
There are several Yemeni coffeehouses with locations only in Dearborn, making the Wayne County city a rare center for the product. Dearborn is home to one of the largest Middle Eastern populations in the U.S.
Yemeni coffee is rare in the world because of the immense logistical challenges of getting the beans out of the country, the business owners and others said. The current logistical woe is Houthi rebels based in Yemen attacking international cargo ships in the Red Sea.
But various owners of the Dearborn-based businesses have family connections to overcome the many challenges, they contend. Several cafe owners said they have relatives who own small farms that grow coffee, along with other key contacts that allow them to continue to get the beans out of the country.
“In the past, we used to get our beans from the (cargo) container in a matter of month-and-a-half, two months. Now it takes about three months,” said Ramzi Mohammed, an owner of Azal Coffee in Dearborn. The current delay is not curbing the ambitions of Azal and other businesses. Azal opened its first cafe in Sept. It is aiming to secure five locations by the end of the year, including in Farmington and Royal Oak, Mohammed said. It is already working on two franchises out of state.
“We’re hoping for hundreds,” he said.
