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Coffee Farms & Guest Rites: Saudi Arabia’s Unique Coffee Culture
Saudi Arabia is a country of two coffee cultures: Arabic and specialty. With one, you have highly ritualized and historic coffee traditions that welcome guests. With the other, you have have a growing appreciation for lighter roasts and third wave brewing methods – and even some specialty coffee production.
Yes, that’s right: Saudi Arabia has coffee farms.
Khaled Almadi of Elixir Bunn, a roastery and café in Riyadh, agreed to talk to me about how these two traditions live side-by-side – and how he expects Saudi’s specialty industry to keep growing.
What Is Traditional Arabic Coffee?
Traditional Arabic coffee has a long history and great social significance – so much so that UNESCO has labeled it an Intangible Cultural Heritage. UNESCO describes it as “a ceremonial act of generosity”, and it can be used to welcome guests, celebrate weddings, and even apply pressure in negotiations should a guest refuse to drink it.
Khaled says, “The ritual mainly takes place in homes, Bedouin tents, or at events. In cafés and restaurants, the ritual is not entirely compliant due to the commercialized aspect of service.”
Traditionally, the coffee beans would be roasted in front of the guest before being ground and brewed in a dallah, a beautiful Arabic coffee pot. Nowadays, however, the beans are typically roasted in the kitchen. Spices, such as cardamom, are often added.
The drink should be poured with the left hand and served to guests with the right hand. These guests should then consume it without sugar – despite the bitter taste. A bowl of dates may be provided to sweeten the taste, and it’s traditional to drink one to three cups.
Two Coffee Cultures: Specialty & Arabic
Saudi Arabia’s coffee is steeped in tradition, but Khaled tells me there is room for specialty coffee culture as well. He sees the two thriving simultaneously.
In fact, because the Arabic coffee ritual is difficult to duplicate in cafés, Khaled says that there is a gap to be filled by other coffee trends. Many of his customers may drink Arabic coffee at home with guests, but they will also consume specialty coffee – either at home or in his café. They just needed to be introduced to it first.
Non-Arabic coffee entered the mainstream, he continues, when international chains appeared in Riyadh. Establishments like Dunkin Donuts familiarized people with filter brews. And as those international chains “normalized” filter coffee, it was easier for third wave coffee shops and roasteries like Elixir Bunn to exist.
Rapid Growth
Elixir Bunn has seen a 220% growth since opening, with practically no marketing budget (they use social media for organic reach). Their success, Khaled tells me, lies in a focus on three things: quality products, quality service, and coffee education. And the latter is key to the development of Saudi’s coffee scene.
Khaled tells me that Elixir Bunn makes coffee education available both through the website and in the café. What’s more, it grows with its customers: as his staff shares information about coffee producers, origins, and processing methods, their customers share their thoughts and preferences.
What’s more, specialty is appealing to different demographics. Gender segregation is expected in Saudi restaurants and coffee houses. In fact, in 2016, the Starbucks in Riyadh was required to stop serving women after the barrier between the “bachelor” and “family” areas of the café collapsed. However, Khaled has recently expanded in order to serve women in a dedicated area of the coffee shop – a sign of the growing interest in third wave coffee.
This interest is also extending to competitions. In 2016, Saudi Arabia saw its first ever AeroPress Champion. And this year, Sara Al-Ali was a finalist in the World Cezve/Ibrik Championship.
Of course, specialty coffee is still a young tradition in Saudi Arabia, with much to build towards. Khaled says, “We’d expect a smoother ride when we create a specialty coffee association of Saudi Arabia.” But its quick development holds great promise for the region’s third wave.
The Saudi Coffee Palate
Khaled explains that it takes a few months for customers’ palates to adjust to specialty coffee. However, once they develop a taste for it, they are eager to explore different brewing methods and origins.
He’s noticed that the most popular specialty regions tend to be Colombian and Brazilian. There’s also an uptick in East African coffees – partly because of Saudi Arabia’s geographic location. What’s more, while it’s difficult for many other countries to import Yemeni coffee, it is abundant here.
And earlier this year, Saudi Arabia produced its first ever specialty coffee crop. Time will tell how Saudi customers respond to coffee grown in their own country.
Specialty Coffee Farming in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia’s specialty coffee crop is the fruit of years of work. The country has mainly a desert climate, with high daytime temperatures and low nighttime ones. There are only two exceptions to this: a strip of steppe in the west, and a small, humid region, with mild temperatures and long summers, just north of Yemen.
It is in this humid area, in the region of Addayer, that Saudi Arabia’s first specialty coffee farms exists. Sitting less than 15 miles away from the Yemen border, Addayer – along with other nearby counties – holds great potential for coffee production.
This year, the farms produced natural and washed coffee. Some of the lots were then independently cupped at 80, 81 and 84 points. Khaled tells me they show “promise”. He describes them as having “typical notes” for coffees cupping in the low 80s – chocolatey, nutty, and so on – but with a “surprising sweetness”.
It’s an exciting start for a new specialty coffee origin.
Traditional brewing methods and hospitality, third wave roasters and consumers, and even coffee production – Saudi Arabia’s coffee culture is rich, complex, and still growing. And with ambitious industry leaders pushing it forwards by building specialty coffee farms and competing on the world stage, it will be interesting to see how the region develops.
Mr. Rows Namoura Coffee 
A Coffee Producer’s Guide to Soil Management & Farm Conditions
Our coffee can only be as good as the land that it’s grown on – but by my calculations, nearly 35% of coffee crops are produced in the wrong environmental conditions.
I’m talking about something called life zone, which refers to the temperature, luminosity/solar brilliance, rainfall, relative humidity, and soil characteristics that are best suited to coffee farming.
As an agronomist, allow me to take you through the ideal life zone for growing coffee – and what poor conditions will mean for your harvests.
The Ideal Coffee-Growing Conditions
According to Dr. Gloria Gauggel, the ideal life zone for Arabica coffee is as follows:
Let’s break down some of these qualities in a little more detail.
Effective Soil Depth
When it comes to your soil, you need to consider both its structure (which includes the soil texture) and chemistry (essential elements and minerals).
These two factors are connected because of the coffee tree’s root structure. As the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) explains, each tree will have multiple types of roots. The tap roots will grow down deep. However, there are also many secondary roots.
The secondary roots lie within the top 30 cm of soil and their role is to recover water and nutrients from the soil. As of such, the essential elements are key – and a loamy soil of the right pH ensures that the coffee tree can absorb the nutrients well.
Essential Elements & Minerals
The coffee tree requires 16 essential elements for its proper nutrition. These can be divided into four groups, based on their function and importance.
Group 1: Carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. These elements are present in water and air, which is why the life zone is so important.
Group 2: Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. These are also called “macronutrients,” due to the large amount of them that healthy coffee trees need.
Group 3: Calcium, magnesium, and sulphur. These are called “secondary elements,” because they are needed in lesser amounts than the macronutrients.
Group 4: Zinc, boron, manganese, molybdenum, iron, copper, and chlorine. These are called “microelements,” because even less of them is required – although they are still essential for coffee plant nutrition.
The importance of all these factors is visible in the plant’s harvest. Growing coffee in an adequate life zone reduces costs, makes work easier, and increases yield. In turn, this lowers risk levels and makes coffee production more financially sustainable.
For this reason, it’s important that producers plant coffee within an adequate life zone. Of course, within this life zone, there will still be variation in terms of soil conditions, hours of sunlight, rainfall, and more. These will require producers to adapt their farm management further (ideally with the assistance of an agronomist).
35% of Coffee Grown in The Wrong Life Zone
From an analysis of these factors, I have calculated that nearly 35% of the world’s coffee crops are outside the adequate life zone. During the past 10 years, I’ve visited 16 coffee-producing countries across three continents (America, Asia, and Africa). On these trips, I’ve worked on farm management, project development with small and medium-sized producers, and crop research.
That research involves the analysis of 22 aspects of coffee farming, ranging from the agronomical and environmental to the economic. My team analyzes one hectare per thousand hectares of coffee plantations in each country. We take as a reference the thermal zones and compare them to the physiological behavior of coffee trees, based on temperature and rainfall as the most relevant indicators.
From here, we reached the conclusion that 35% of coffee crops are planted outside the adequate life zone. Of that 35%, 30% are completely outside the ideal life zone. The remaining 5% are where farms are mostly within the ideal life zone but the producers have extended their plantation outside of it.
So what does it mean for producers if a farm is outside of the ideal life zone? Let’s take a look.
Growing Coffee in Poor Conditions
If a farm is in an upper marginal zone, i.e. it exceeds the figures in the table, you can expect:
And if it’s in a lower marginal zone?
Of course, you should remember that you may also see these traits on farms in the adequate life zone if there are problems with the farm management. Healthy coffee plants are a result of many factors, including farming practices, life zone, and more.
It’s important that we consider the ideal farm location and soil condition for coffee production. Planting in the right zones can help producing families to realize greater profit margins on their crops. It can also stabilize climate conditions as the local ecosystem will be more balanced.
For producers, there’s so much more to consider than just the farm location and soil condition: asset management, financial restructuring, varieties, processing methods, laborers… But the life zone is an important starting point.
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