The new Siraj Coffee House in Visalia has brought Yemeni culture to Tulare County.
Co-owners Arafat Arrahimi and Omar Agag serve coffee from beans imported from Yemen, which many believe is where coffee drinking began.
“It was originally made in Yemen,” Arrahimi said. “Sheikh Omar was a Yemeni citizen who discovered brewing coffee. Coffee was found before this time, but it wasn’t until Omar discovered brewing coffee that coffee really started to evolve.”
Sheikh Omar found red berries on a tree, took a bite from them, and realized that they were too bitter to eat. He decided to try to roast them, Arrahimi said.
“When he roasted them, he tried to bite one and eat it,” he said. “He realized that it was too hard to chew, so he grinded it and made his first cup of coffee.”
People in Saudi Arabia have similar stories about how drinking coffee originated in their country.
“Everybody has different stories, but coffee goes very far back when it comes to Yemen,” Arrahimi said.
Family-owned coffee plantation
Most of the coffee beans used to make coffee at Siraj Coffee House are grown by Arrahimi’s great uncle on a plantation in Yemen.
“He owns the farm in Yemen and he’s the one that grows it,” Arrahimi said, adding that the beans are cleaned and processed before being sent to America to be roasted.
“Coffee from Yemen is grown in different towns, in different elevations, and in different temperatures so each coffee has a unique, different taste,” he said. “It’s got a very bold taste. As far as the taste, the smell of it, the way that it’s handled, the way that it’s roasted as well, it has every uniqueness in every way possible.”
In addition to coffee, Siraj offers sweets and desserts from Yemen.
“We have some honeycomb bread from Yemen,” Arrahimi said. “We can make it in quite a few different ways. Sometimes we make it with cream cheese inside. Sometimes we make it with Nutella. Sometimes we just make it plain.”
Siraj offers another dessert called sabaya, a traditional, flaky Yemeni cake topped with honey. The coffee house also offers Arabic-style tea scones and Dubai chocolates.
The Yemeni experience
Visitors to Siraj Coffee are surrounded by the Yemeni culture.
“We want to let the customer experience the whole thing in general, not just the coffee,” Arrahimi said. “You can’t just present a coffee and not have scenery that goes along with it.”
Elements of the Yemeni culture at Siraj include a mural on the wall that shows coffee being grown in the Sarawat Mountains, Arabic-style seating against one wall, a guitar and even a dagger.
“It’s actually a dagger that we wear,” Arrahimi said. “A dagger is something unique that we wear back home as well, when we have on our outfits. We’ve got some real daggers on the wall behind the counter.”
Although Siraj has been open for a few weeks, Arrahimi and Agag plan to have a grand opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the near future.
Siraj Coffee House is located at 2145 W. Whitendale Ave., Visalia. For more information call (559) 740-9909.
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Siraj Coffee House brings Yemeni culture to Tulare County
Reporting by Steve Pastis, Visalia Times-Delta / Visalia Times-Delta
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
