The Espresso Lab is a Dubai-born coffee company founded by the Emirati entrepreneur Ibrahim Al Mallouhi, whose taste for the drink began in childhood beside a grandmother who roasted Arabic coffee. A specialty coffee shop he found in New York in 2010 set him on five years of visiting cafés around the world, a coffee diploma at Bellissimo Coffee Advisors in Oregon, trips to farmers in Vietnam and Ethiopia and an executive MBA at Cass Business School in London before the company opened. In 2025 he became “the first Emirati international judge at the Best of Panama”.

Sourcing starts with microlots, which the roastery in Al Quoz Logistics Park roasts to a filter or an espresso profile, so that most coffees are sold in both. The range is sorted into three collections: Habitual, built for consistency and sweetness across espresso and filter; Voyage, a rotating selection of origins; and Signature, the rare and auction-level lots. The producers include Café Granja La Esperanza in Colombia, the Lamastus, Hartmann and Janson families in Panama, Kotowa, Longboard, Mount Totumas and Hacienda La Esmeralda, and in Ethiopia Testi, Geisha Village and the Bombe washing station of Alo Coffee. The business has its own farm, Finca Rasha, at 1,600 metres in Los Pozos de Cotito near Volcán in Chiriquí, now in its third year and expecting a first harvest in April 2029. It also sells the Meraki home espresso machine, with coffees roasted for it, and its Jasmine cup.

The team has won the UAE National Barista Championship four times, in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2025, the UAE National Brewers Cup five times, most recently in 2026, and the UAE National Roasting Championship in 2026. For the Gahwa Championships it wrote the Official UAE Gahwa Roast Guide and Flavor Chart, a profile for the light, aromatic roast behind Emirati coffee.

In Dubai the cafés are in Dubai Design District and Nad Al Sheba, and the roastery in Al Quoz Logistics Park is open to visitors. There are two outlets in Abu Dhabi, at Qasr Al Hosn and The Arcades in Al Mushrif, and one at Thara in Sharjah.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: The Espresso Lab