Brothers Bring Yemeni Coffee to East Lansing

Wearing clean blue scrubs as if he had just come from rounds, Dr. Ahmed Sufyan motions for me to join him at the back of Moka & Co, his new coffee house at 565 E. Grand River Ave. 

High, vaulted ceilings grace the location and fresh chalk art adorns the walls. Images include a hand-drawn map of Yemen that sits opposite a drawing of an elderly Arabic man, pouring coffee from a golden carafe into a small cup. All of the images are appropriate as the business is the first in the area to specialize in Yemeni coffees and teas.

“Some people are wine connoisseurs,” Ahmed said. “I’m definitely a coffee connoisseur.”

Ahmed is originally from the metro-Detroit area but has lived in East Lansing for the last decade. He is an ear, nose and throat surgeon with McLaren Health Care, with his own practice in facial plastic surgery on Abbot Road.

“I’m an expert in medicine, but I’m very passionate about caffeine,” Ahmed said.

He is joined in this enterprise by his brother, Sal Sufyan, who manages the day-to-day happenings at the coffee house, located in the former site of the MSU Broad Art Lab.

As Ahmed talks about the new business, Sal sits nearby, occasionally responding to Ahmed’s request to bring coffee samples to try.

“For me, one of the difficulties of living in the Greater Lansing Area is the limited availability of restaurants and other shops,” Ahmed said. “For me, I have to go to Detroit to get things we can’t find here and I started thinking. I’m at a point in my career where I don’t like making that drive to Detroit and if I can bring some of those things that are available in those other bigger cities here, I’d love to do that. 

“I was fortunate,” he said. “I had my brother who managed restaurants. I’m very passionate about the coffee itself. Sometimes I’d drive to Detroit just for that cup of coffee. It sounds crazy, but that was the main impetus for us starting it. We want to bring to East Lansing and to the Greater Lansing Area this product that is just not available.”

Lightly roasted beans are the difference compared to the dark roast of other coffee shops.

The Sufyan brothers are eager to explain how their Yemini product is different from the coffee at a chain coffee shop.

“We prepare coffee differently,” Ahmed said. “Our beans are lightly roasted and the reason why we lightly roast the beans is so you can get the full flavor of the coffee. And there’s certain drinks where we actually use the shell of the coffee. We utilize every part of the bean, the fruit. And normally, the bean is the pit.”

Ahmed explained other coffee establishments roast the coffee dark roast to get uniformity in the flavor.

“The reason why those larger companies do that is so they can have a consistent product,” he said. “It makes it a lot cheaper to do that, because you get beans from every place, they just over roast them and you have that burnt flavor. It’s a lot more cost-effective doing that. Our beans are [from a] single lot, they come from the farm. It helps the local farmers. It’s not from huge companies.”

“I don’t know of any other country that uses the husk [to make coffee] other than Yemen,” Ahmed said. “This is a traditional Yemeni drink, and it’s actually named after the village where my grandparents came from. The drink is called Jubani. This is how they drink their coffee.

“If you look at it,” he said, “the actual coffee bean has a green to yellowish to light brown. That’s the actual color of the coffee bean. And when you roast it, it gets darker and darker and darker. Most of us here in this country, when we see coffee, we see the black beans and that’s the roast. But this is in its natural element. It’s brewed from the bean, the shell, so the shell, which is the husk, is always discarded by most everyone else. But it has a very aromatic flavor to it. So we use the husk, some spices, ginger, you’ll see other ingredients. And for me, this is my afternoon, my dinner drink. This is what I have every night.”

With all of his coffee consumption, does the doctor sleep well?

“I sleep well,” he laughed. “Because this has less of the bean and more shell and spices, there is less caffeine content.”

“A common misconception about coffee is the darker the roast,” Sal interjected, “the stronger the caffeine. That is not true. In order to get the caffeine, you need the light roast.”

“Certain other locations, we call them these big box locations,” Ahmed laughed again, “they have perfected the way they caffeinate their drinks. I joke with people [that] you’re really just buying caffeine at these other places. It’s not about the flavor, it’s about the kick.

“For us, we want people to enjoy the flavor,” he said. “Caffeine, you can buy caffeine pills, it’s not really what we’re looking for.”

A pound of Yemeni coffee was a treat for the family in America.

The brothers are proud of their ancestral home, in addition to its coffee. Their grandparents emigrated to the United States and most of their family followed over the years. But they relished the few times a relative would send a pound of Yemeni coffee to the family in America.

“People may debate,” Ahmed said, “but I think the consensus is that [Yemen is] the origin of coffee. There’s an area that’s between Yemen and Ethiopia where people argue that it’s either this place or that place, but it’s definitely in the cradle. And the coffee that we have comes from, hence the word Moka, one of the cities in Yemen where it’s elevated, and the coffee beans have some of the best aromatic flavors. For a coffee drinker, you can taste the subtle differences, like some coffee has more of chocolate notes.”

All of the coffee at Mok & Co is from Yemen. 

“I have a friend who works for a larger corporation, I won’t mention the name, but years ago I looked into doing something similar to this,” Ahmed said. “I asked if they ever brought Yemeni coffee, and he said they couldn’t because it was like ten times the cost of regular coffee, so at the time it was almost impossible. Now, especially in greater Detroit and all the big cities, you’re starting to see people have tasted and they want that coffee. For me, I can’t have anything else.”

He points out the coffee is low in acid, for people who suffer from reflux.

“When I would drink that other dark roasted coffee, it would give me heartburn or reflux. I don’t have any of that with this coffee,” Ahmed said.

The shop will serve a variety of coffees and pastries.

Moka & Co will also serve popular western cups of coffee, including lattes and specialty drinks that are common on most coffee house menus. Ahmed feels a connection to the university community and the population his shop will likely serve.

“That’s when I got into coffee, as an undergraduate,” he said. “And students consume coffee for many different reasons. One, they need to be alert. If you look at the history books and the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, you see the reason why they came out of the Dark Ages and into the Middle Ages was because coffee was introduced to them at that point. 

“The Middle East had coffee and it was brought over to Europe, along with spices and stuff,” Ahmed said. “Debatable, but some people say that was kind of the catalyst for all of the scientific findings coming out of those Middle Ages into the Enlightened age. I think people studying, they want a cup of coffee to be alert and awake, but at the same time, it doesn’t have to be bitter. It doesn’t have to be this gross drink. It can be flavorful and healthy for you.”

The business also serves pastries, some of which are rooted in Yemen.

“Some of them are very traditional Yemeni, and others are more French,” Ahmed said. “We have a rose milk cake, along with pistachio and saffron baked goods. There are some specialty sweets that can only be [found] here or in a traditional Yemeni shop.”

While Moka & Co had its soft opening through December, it will officially open its doors on Monday (Jan. 8). A ribbon-cutting ceremony with city officials is planned for later in the month.

And the Sufyan brothers are already preparing to expand.

“We’re actually in the process of opening another location in the next month,” Ahmed said. “It’ll be at the old Panera in Okemos. That will probably be easier for families to sit down, there’s parking. Maybe one day this will be a national franchise. But for now, we want to keep everything small, local and just deliver a perfect product. That’s our goal.”