Welcome to Brews & Co Café, the specialty coffee shop run by family.

The idea behind this blog is to give you an insight into the ups and downs, highs and lows, ideas, successes and failures of our family café.

Business is hard work, especially when you have to be involved in every aspect of running a café, from marketing to finance, new product ideas to social media, staff to SOPs. You get the idea… Brews & Co is very much a passion run business where every area is meticulously managed to ensure our customers always receive the highest standard of service with the best quality products.

When we started, the shop was just a shell, nothing inside. I’ll actually drop a few photos in later so you can take a look. Many meetings with our architect later, we finally got our ideas down on paper. Our architect also designed the Superdry store, so he was an expert in wood. He imported the wood for our counter, which can be noticed as soon as you walk into the shop.

The approvals took a while, after which construction proceeded. After many delays, we finally got the café open. In the meantime, we were busy sorting equipment, hiring staff, training, developing products and sourcing furniture.

At home, I had the coffee roaster running full blast with different green beans, but as you can imagine, the whole house smelled like coffee. Anyway, once I had perfected the roasting process, the roaster was transferred to the café and is one of the main attractions.

The first cold brew fridge we had was an interesting innovation. I was busy digging out the innards of an old fridge to test the concept of a kegerator. The cold brew was well received so we eventually got a proper kegerator for serving cold brew and…..

Nitro Tea. An interesting story about this one. Our family had a special recipe, passed down from generation to generation. A special elixir for a bloated stomach or to ease digestion. Of itself, a nice drink which had the requisite effect, but not outstanding. Anyway, I was sitting in the café one day thinking up new product ideas and I thought to myself, why not try mixing our specialty teas with this herbal concoction. Turns out, it was well received. It actually tasted amazing, especially when nitrogenated.

Yesterday I had a very interesting conversation about education. For those of you that know me, my passion is education. Can you imagine what would happen if we stop force feeding information and actually allow students to learn? Is an academic record sufficient to allow you to be a functional citizen of the world? More work is required to change the factory model of education which exists only to churn out grade stamped conformed students. Instead teach them to become critical analysers with an open mind and self directed approach to learning. An individual is unique and should be treated as such. Anyway, enough of my rambling. The Uganda beans have settled in nicely and taste awesome as a V60.

On to coffee, the South American beans we get are usually full bodied with chocolatey, caramel and nutty profiles whereas the African coffees are usually more berry, fruity flavoured. It varies depending on the farm and climate conditions. The altitude, surrounding crops and general condition of the earth itself plays a role in the final taste, not forgetting the processing which is normally either natural or washed. Some farmers now ferment their cherries before final processing which gives some unique tastes.

Today I made myself some espresso at home, using my flair neo. Amazing espresso with Ugandan beans. It’s really easy to use, especially with the new pressure portafilter. We actually have one unit available to buy, comes highly recommended.

Testing Arabic coffee with Brazil and Ugandan beans. For those of you that know, Arabic coffee is lightly roasted and then ground with a mix of spices.

We received some new specialty herbal tea, let’s see if it matches our expectations. If it does, you’ll see it on the menu…

For those of you wondering, this is actually a blog, which means paragraphs are added on different days, so it doesn’t necessarily flow as smoothly as our espresso 🙂

A lot of people wonder how to make a great coffee. It’s all about the process; start with high quality specialty beans, I prefer light roasted Ethiopian beans that have degassed over seven days. Always grind fresh to the correct grind size; fine for espresso and course for cold brew, V60 and chemex and somewhere in between, experiment to get the correct grind size. For espresso tamp with 15lb of pressure and make sure your machine pressure is set at 9 bars. This should give you a good tasting espresso. Use a naked portafilter which allows you to see the flow. This is where you can tell if your beans have been grinded and tamped correctly. You should be able to see the espresso flowing from all around the portafilter base and not just one side.

Did you know we make a wicked iced V60? You can also request a specialty tea mixed in to get floral notes. An interesting combination indeed.

COVID is really hitting our business hard. We’ve been struggling since March. If you want to support us to stay open, please ask our barista about subscription opportunities for daily coffee, coffee beans, sandwiches and meals. We offer some great deals. Alternatively, you can speak to management about investing in shares.

Nitro Tea in the office or at home? Of course… We have two Nitro fridges you can keep in the office to get Nitro Tea, Cold Brew and soon Kombucha on tap.

We have some commercial equipment on sale. A small single head La Marzocco, commercial fridge, under counter fridge, display fridge, fryer and panini grill. We also have some outdoor tables and chairs. Give us a shout if you are interested.

Special offer on coffee beans. Drop an email to info@brewsandco.com for some great offers. We can give you a 50% discount on some beans this October.

We also make some great party cakes. Check out our instagram to see some pictures. We are just in the process of making a 3-tiered birthday cake – moist chocolate delight.

We have a new Keto meal partner, some great keto meals coming soon. Keep an eye out on instagram to see some pictures.

Want to customise your drink. Sure, no problem. Speak to our barista to make your own drink. If it’s successful we’ll add it to the menu and name it after you.

We’re open to new ideas, meal suggestions and products. Drop us an email with your thoughts.

To celebrate UAE National Day, we’re planning some great offers, I’ll keep you posted so watch this space.

Being vegan is a healthy lifestyle choice as long as you understand the science and food ratios needed. You need to get a balanced intake of carbohydrates, protein, minerals and fiber. You know who to speak to….

Need daily balanced meals? Sure, let us know your requirements..

Do you know we offer a call and pick-up service? Just call 058 59 60 700 to place your order and we’ll bring it to the front of the cafe. You can also pay by contactless card on pick-up. It’s great when you’re in a hurry and need to pick-up your favourite coffee from Bews.

What makes a coffee shop different? Well, in our case, we’re passionate about quality, service and being a family run business. We personally speak to customers and tell them all about our great products and how they were developed. It’s difficult to manage everything but we get it done! A tip: Always have a task list ready to plan your day.

“Coffee is a language in itself “

Jackie Chan
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