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The story goes that a shepherd in Yemen noticed his goats' endless energy after eating the coffee beans, which started the coffee revolution.
A young man on Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue is brewing coffee the old way. In fact, the Yafa Café pour-over, which goes for $7.00, may just be the oldest way.
One of the generally-recognized birthplaces of coffee is the poorest country in the Middle East-Yemen-and Hakim Sulaimani is attempting to bring about a Yemeni renaissance at his Sunset Park coffee shop.
According to British historians, the story goes that long ago, a shepherd noticed his goats would display simply boundless energy and restlessness after eating a particular red berry. The shepherd found also that consuming it allowed him to pray all night without ever feeling tired.
Fast forward to modern times, and very little good news of any sort comes out of Yemen. The Saudi war in the country has been the world's worst humanitarian crisis for half a decade. Beyond that, Yemen is such an unknown part of the world for so many, that even Hakim, the son of a Yemeni immigrant from the tribal highlands of Yafa in the south, didn't know his country's long history with coffee.
It wasn't until watching PBS at age 7 that he learned that Yemeni society was the world's first coffee culture-and it awoke a feeling of pride.
"I remember being a kid and feeling super-hyped because I'd never heard of Yemen in any other context before, in the mainstream," he told Food and Wine.
He dreamed that a coffee career connecting Yemeni coffee growers with the world market would be a viable business model.
"I want to do for Yemeni coffee what Starbucks has done for the Indonesian coffee economy," said Sulaimani, who, along with some of his family members, opened a café showcasing the cultural roots to their Yemeni homeland.
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In 1995, his father left the steamy highlands of South Yemen-then in the midst of a civil war of unification, behind. Bringing an "inherent understanding of trade and hustle," Sulaimani opened up "Yafa Deli," a bustling bodega that has served the residents of Sunset Park for 25 years.
In 2019, Hakim opened up his café to honor his roots, pairing Yemeni coffee beans with the most typical of recipes for breakfast treats and light bites.
'Born in Yemen, roasted in Brooklyn' reads Sulaimani's website, where several single-origin beans are out of stock. "For over 300 years, legacy farmers in this region have cultivated a keen understanding for the crop they hold so dear, and even through Yemen's trying times, Yafa is proud to be able to share this coffee with you."
Like a good entrepreneur, he is keenly aware of market forces that are driving Yemeni coffee to the highest prices seen in the industry. The birthplace of the bean can sometimes demand $16 per cup, no doubt inflated by the difficulties negotiating the American/Saudi blockade of the country.
Sulaimani works with an 11th-generation coffee grower to source the beans for his café, as well as other companies that try to ethically source beans from the country and support the farmers there.
Food and Wine reports that the business is booming, even though Hakim's father, who runs the Yafa Deli just down the road where coffee goes for $1.00, isn't convinced he can succeed.
But his son hopes to turn his brand from a line of cafés into a complete Yemeni wholesaler.
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