Good morning, Khalid.

Cupping lot 014 from Hodeida this morning. We tasted dried apricot, jasmine on the second pour, and a long chocolate finish that lingers past the cup. Score: 88.5. We bought the whole microlot — 240 kg, parchment-rested 90 days. If you're a café roaster in the GCC, reply and I'll send a 200g sample on the house.

Slow pull — single dose, 18g in, 36g out, 28 seconds. The Ramadan blend wants a touch finer than your usual. Try it with one date, no sugar; you'll thank me at iftar.

Hi — Sada from Rawdah. Your Ramadan tin is reserved before public launch. Confirm the same address as last month? Reply 1 to keep, 2 to update. Delivery between Mar 9–11.

We turned down a paid booth at the Riyadh Hospitality Expo last week. Three reasons. First, our wholesale capacity is sold through Q2 — adding leads we can't serve damages the relationship. Second, our buyers don't shop expos; they shop cuppings. Third, the booth fee covers two more origin trips — Yemen in April, Ethiopia in June — which is where the next 18 months of inventory comes from. Discipline beats reach when capacity is the bottleneck. We'll be at the next World of Coffee in Dubai instead, where the buyers actually are.

Roasting Friday's batch tonight. Drum at 198°C, first crack at minute 9, dropping at 10:40. Same recipe Hassan's been pulling for the Ramadan blend three years running. Tin tomorrow.

Ramadan Blend 250g — Yemeni single-origin base, with house-ground cardamom and a whisper of clove. Roasted Friday, shipped Monday. Best within 21 days of roast date printed on the tin. SAR 89.

Hassan walked the terraces with us last spring — 1,800 metres up, the trees older than any of us. This is where lot 014 came from. Reel goes up before the cupping note, so the story leads.

For the Ramadan blend at home, anything in the 1Zpresso J-Max range works — set it about two clicks finer than your usual filter grind. We're posting a recipe card with our roast tomorrow, will tag.

Agree on the capacity question, Reem. We've been turning down hospitality contracts for the same reason — better to ship 200 kg right than 800 kg apologetically. Coffee at our place if you're in Riyadh next month.

Three grades of cardamom, hand-cracked, ground separately, then blended at the end. That's why ours doesn't turn bitter when you steep it long. Workshop bookings open Sunday.

Auto-applied at checkout for tier-2 subscribers. Caps at SAR 30 off, expires Mar 14. Excludes wholesale tins and equipment.

On bar today: lot 011 from Sidamo, washed. Notes of bergamot, white peach, brown sugar finish. SAR 22 single, SAR 14 with any pastry.

Open cuppings for wholesale buyers, March: Tue 11 (Hodeida 014), Tue 18 (Sidamo 011 + Yirgacheffe blind), Tue 25 (Brazilian naturals). Reply to reserve a seat — six per session.

A buyer's guide written for first-time specialty drinkers crossing over from supermarket Arabic blends. Covers grind size, water temperature, the cardamom debate, and three recipes that scale from one cup to a dallah of twelve.

Same orchard, same blend, new tin. Recyclable steel, Arabic-first label, batch number printed not stuck. On shelves Friday.

We're hiring a head of wholesale based in Riyadh. SAR 240–320k base, equity for the right person, 4-day work week if you bring your dallah. The job is harder than it sounds: our buyers are spoiled and our supply is finite. Write me a paragraph, not a CV.

POV: your barista remembers your order, your sister's order, and that you don't drink milk on Wednesdays. 14s, no voiceover, just shop ambient + hand on the lever. Trend audio is at peak — window closes Friday.

Frame 1: the myth. Frame 2: roast colour vs. extraction yield (chart). Frame 3: caffeine actually drops slightly with darker roasts. Frame 4: density and grind matter more. Frame 5: dose ratio that actually controls strength. Frame 6: try this at home.

Khalid, sorry — your order shipped Wednesday but the courier missed the Riyadh sweep. It's out for delivery now, ETA before 8pm. We added a 200g sample of the new Ramadan blend on us for the trouble.

Two 250g tins of the Ramadan blend plus a hand-finished brass dallah from Al-Qassim. Limited to 80 sets. Ships in a re-usable wooden gift case. SAR 240 — saves SAR 38 vs. separate.

1/ The C-market printed $1.84/lb in February. We paid our Hodeida partners $7.20/lb FOB. Six posts on why, and what it means for the Ramadan tin price.