Yemen, Ismaili Coffee

Sea Island has carefully sourced the very best Yemeni coffees available, produced under the famous ‘White Camel’ label by Ahmed Alhamdani. The availability of this brand is very limited, with each coffee named according to the different areas in which they grow. All White Camel coffee is grown at altitudes of 1500 meters or more above sea level, depending on the region where the coffee is produced, naturally sun-dried on earth drying grounds, and sorted by hand.

Produced in the Bani Ismail district of Sana’a, at an altitude of 2000 to 2500 meters, Ismaili beans are tiny and rounded, resembling split peas. The cup profile of Ismaili coffee is elegant - softer, gentler, and less powerful than the Matari, but still exceptionally complex with many sweet, fruity layers.

An important and integral part of coffee’s history, Yemen is the origin of the term ‘Coffea Arabica’ and was the first country in the world to grow coffee commercially, with terraced farms flourishing by the 1400s. Today, most of the coffee grown in Yemen consists of ancient heirloom varietals of Arabica coffee that originally came from Ethiopia, most of them found almost nowhere else in the world, creating coffees that are unique in taste profile to Yemen. Yemeni coffees are often referred to today as ‘Mocha’ coffees - the word ‘Mocha’ is a derivative of the name of Yemen’s Al-Makha port, through which coffee was historically exported to the rest of the world.

The availability of Yemeni coffee is extremely scarce, and the amount produced decreases year after year, with only a small amount being exported. Due to the lack of rain in this region the coffee plantations need to be irrigated, but the dry air does have the benefit of creating a very small and extremely hard coffee bean.