Asmara Caffee

General information

Asmara Caffee is a coffee shop based in London Ontario Canada and was founded in August 2012. Though there over a hundred coffee shops in the city, Asmara Caffee brings with it, its own uniqueness being that it carries with it the cultural and traditional methods of coffee making in Eritrea, Africa.

Asmara is the capital city of the country of Eritrea in Africa and it is popularly known for its unique methods of brewing coffee directly from coffee seeds. The home-based methods used give the coffee drink an aroma which is unique and unequaled by those made by other (including the so called “industrial” or westernized) methods. Traditional Coffee-serving in EritreaIn Asmara (and the entire country of Eritrea as a whole), the typical setting for brewing coffee for an evening refreshment is to have members of the family (and guests) seat outside in a circle under the moonlit sky, while the women roast the fresh coffee beans in a large metal spherical tray on a fire made by the side of the gathering. The tray is continuously stirred to ensure even roasting. As part of the ceremony, the women would occasionally sample the roasting beans in the tray, put some in a plate and pass it round the circle of people in attendance to just “breathe in the aroma of the coffee”. It is beyond expression in words.

The business philosophy at Asmara Caffee, London Ontario, is to closely emulate these traditional methods to remind the Eritrean community of their coffee heritage and to introduce the vast customers in London and surrounding area to something new and different about the art of coffee making and coffee drinking. A visit to Asmara Caffee will convince you that each coffee you drink can be an enjoyable and memorable experience.