Dubai coffee guide: the roasters behind the glass towers

Dubai’s specialty coffee is roasted in warehouses. The industrial estate of Al Quoz, a few kilometres inland from the beach, holds four of the roasters in this guide: Nightjar in the Alserkal Avenue arts district, RAW Coffee Company, which has roasted in the city since 2007, Cypher Urban Roastery, founded in 2016, and the roastery of The Espresso Lab, whose cafés are in Dubai Design District and Nad Al Sheba. The other cafés are in the towers along Sheikh Zayed Road, the malls and the residential clusters of Jumeirah Lakes Towers and the Palm Jumeirah. Black Coffee brings a Lebanese roasting family’s 90 years to two cafés, Mokha 1450 sells rare single origins from women-run farms across five venues, and Drop pours espresso and V60 on a choice of single origin out in Al Khawaneej. Seven of the nine roast their own coffee.

Nightjar Coffee Roasters, Alserkal Avenue

Nightjar Coffee Roasters roasts and brews on site in Alserkal Avenue, the warehouse arts district in Al Quoz, in a room that is roastery, eatery and bar. It was founded by “a crew of counterculture devotees”, plays vinyl on a good sound system and sets itself against stuffy, slow-service coffee ritual. The green coffee is bought by direct trade or through transparent contracts at origin. The kitchen serves an all-day breakfast, rotisserie chicken, salads, pancake stacks and a homemade custard pie, and cold brew tea and coffee run on tap next to nitro drinks and mocktails. There are no bookings; it is walk-ins only. The retail range is three seasonal blends and a short list of single-origin nano lots.

RAW Coffee Company, Al Quoz

RAW Coffee Company was founded in 2007 by Kim Thompson, joined a couple of years later by Matt Toogood; the two New Zealanders are now equal partners and, by their own account, hold the first SCA diploma awarded in the Middle East and North Africa. RAW roasts fresh every week at its warehouse in Al Quoz, and the same site holds a custom-built roastery café of about 13,500 square feet, with a kitchen for breakfasts and lunches, and an SCA training campus. The pillars are local, ethical and direct: roasted in Dubai, fair to suppliers and staff, bought through relationships with growers at origin. RAW was named Best Homegrown Coffee Roastery at the BBC Good Food awards in 2022, and in 2026 its Ugandan Elgon lot took first place in the experimental category of Uganda’s Taste of Harvest. The range runs from the Working blend, made for flat whites, to single origins and a line of fruit-fermented Colombian lots.

Cypher Urban Roastery, Al Quoz Industrial Area 3

Cypher Urban Roastery was founded in Dubai in 2016 to source, supply and roast specialty coffee, with fair trade across the whole life of the bean as its principle and a mission to revive the region’s own coffee traditions, recipes and drinking customs. The roastery, built the same year, is temperature and humidity controlled, with a coffee lab, a cupping area, a staging room for green coffee and Probat roasters, and it handles more than 30 tons of coffee. The Cypher School of Coffee teaches barista and sensory skills, SCA education and the CQI programme. The range is tiered as Head-Start, Coffisticated and Nobility and stretches from Sumatran espressos to Geishas from Bolivia, Tanzania, Peru and Colombia, auction lots, and Arabic coffee in Saudi and Emirati roasts with or without cardamom. Several of its coffees took medals at the Global Coffee Awards MENA 2026.

The Espresso Lab, Dubai Design District and Nad Al Sheba

The Espresso Lab is a Dubai-born roaster founded by the Emirati entrepreneur Ibrahim Al Mallouhi, who in 2025 became “the first Emirati international judge at the Best of Panama”. The roastery in Al Quoz Logistics Park is open to visitors; the cafés are in Dubai Design District and Nad Al Sheba, with three more outlets in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Microlots are roasted to a filter or an espresso profile and sorted into Habitual, the everyday collection, Voyage, a rotating set of origins, and Signature, the rare and auction lots, among them Panama Geishas from the Lamastus and Hartmann families and Hacienda La Esmeralda. The business owns a young farm, Finca Rasha, in Chiriquí, and its team holds four UAE National Barista titles, five Brewers Cup titles and the 2026 UAE National Roasting Championship.

Boon Coffee, JLT, the Palm Jumeirah and the Meadows

Boon Coffee was founded by Orit Mohammed, from Harar in Ethiopia, and the roaster draws on generations of her family’s coffee knowledge. It roasts organic coffee in the UAE on European equipment and buys its single origins directly from Ethiopia, paying farming communities fairly and investing in their education; the range is Ethiopian at heart, with house blends, single origins from Yirgacheffe, Sidama, Guji and Kaffa, a Turkish grind and a cardamom Arabic coffee. The first café is on the ground floor of Lake Plaza in Jumeirah Lakes Towers. On the Palm Jumeirah there are cafés by the entrance to the Depachika food hall in Nakheel Mall and in the food district at The Pointe, the Meadows Souk café serves the early crowd, and at Mall of the Emirates Boon sits inside Crate & Barrel with a bistro-style breakfast and light lunch menu. The cafés brew V60, syphon, AeroPress and French press as well as espresso.

Encounter Coffee Roasters, Trade Centre and Mall of the Emirates

Encounter Coffee Roasters is the coffee brand of EATX, the group behind Tom & Serg, The Sum of Us and Common Grounds, and it roasts all its beans in-house for the group’s venues. Its craft was developed in Melbourne and its cups read “coffee for the modern traveler”. The roastery is on the ground floor of Burj Al Salam on Sheikh Zayed Road, the same floor as The Sum of Us, EATX’s sourdough bakery and café; Encounter’s own café is at Mall of the Emirates, and a kiosk serves ICD Brookfield Place in DIFC. The group’s roasters buy organic green coffee from growers worldwide. The range pairs two house blends with single origins from Africa and the Americas.

Black Coffee by Cafe Younes, Duja Tower and Media City

Black Coffee is the Dubai brand of Café Younes, founded in Lebanon in 1935 and “the oldest and the largest home-grown specialty coffee roaster in Lebanon”. BLACKCOFFEE was established in 2018, sources Arabica from around the world and roasts it live in its branches, where customers can watch. The first café is in Duja Tower on Sheikh Zayed Road by the World Trade Centre, with a timeline wall of family photographs that starts at 1935; the second is in Dubai Media City. The blends are made for the rakweh, the long-handled Lebanese pot, among them Abou Anwar’s Blend, a tribute to the man who roasted at Café Younes for six decades from 1954, and a cardamom-infused Golden Rakweh Blend, and the single origins come from Colombia, Guatemala, Panama, Yemen, Brazil, Ethiopia and El Salvador.

Mokha 1450, Al Bada’a, the Palm Jumeirah and Emirates Towers

Mokha 1450 is a luxury specialty coffee brand founded on “a strong ethical platform to responsibly source coffee”. It buys through a direct-trade model, mostly from women-owned and women-run farms and cooperatives, paying higher premiums and running community projects with them, with origins in Yemen, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Guatemala, Colombia and Cuba. It has five venues in Dubai: the Coffee Boutique in Al Bada’a, a Coffee Lounge at Golden Mile Galleria and a co-working lounge inside the Andaz hotel on the Palm Jumeirah, a café in Al Barsha, and the Coffee Priorists café at Emirates Towers, an interactive room where guests experiment with coffee or make their own with the baristas’ guidance. Masterclasses and curated experiences, among them The Coffee Olfactory Experience, can be booked.

Drop, Al Khawaneej

Drop is “a 3rd wave coffee company” established in 2016, with its café at Al Khawaneej Walk in Al Khawaneej. Every espresso drink, from a piccolo to a Spanish latte, comes with a choice of single origin, and the same choice applies to the Chemex, V60 and cold drip. The kitchen serves an all-day breakfast on home-made sourdough, from cucumber with lemon labneh to almond butter with raspberry jam, and cakes, a macapuno coconut cake among them. Whole beans from Ethiopia and Brazil are sold to take home.

What you need to know about Dubai specialty coffee

Which Dubai coffee shops roast their own coffee? Nightjar roasts on site in Alserkal Avenue, RAW Coffee Company at its warehouse in Al Quoz, Cypher in Al Quoz Industrial Area 3, The Espresso Lab at its roastery in Al Quoz Logistics Park, Boon in the UAE for its cafés, Encounter at Burj Al Salam on Sheikh Zayed Road for the EATX venues, and Black Coffee live in its two cafés.

Where is the coffee in Al Quoz? Nightjar’s roastery, eatery and bar is in Alserkal Avenue, RAW Coffee Company’s roastery café is in Al Quoz 1, Cypher’s roastery and coffee school are in Al Quoz Industrial Area 3 and The Espresso Lab’s roastery is in Al Quoz Logistics Park.

Which cafés are inside malls? Boon has cafés in Nakheel Mall, at The Pointe and inside Crate & Barrel at Mall of the Emirates, Encounter’s café is at Mall of the Emirates too, and Drop is in the Al Khawaneej Walk mall.

Can you book a table? Nightjar takes no bookings and works on walk-ins. Mokha 1450 takes reservations for its masterclasses and experiences.

Where can you learn to brew or roast? RAW runs an SCA training campus at its roastery, Cypher runs the Cypher School of Coffee with SCA and CQI courses, Encounter offers coffee classes, Black Coffee runs a “From Seed to Cup” masterclass, and Mokha 1450 holds workshops and an olfactory experience.

Where is Arabic coffee on the menu? Boon roasts Al Qawha, a cardamom Arabic coffee, Cypher sells Saudi and Emirati roasts with or without cardamom, and Black Coffee’s Golden Rakweh Blend is infused with cardamom.

Is there food? Nightjar serves an all-day breakfast, RAW’s café serves breakfast and lunch, Boon’s Mall of the Emirates café has a bistro-style menu, Drop serves an all-day breakfast on home-made sourdough, and The Sum of Us, the bakery beside Encounter’s roastery, bakes sourdough.