As you make your way in Hamra’s main street, your nose will suddenly be assailed by hearty aromas just before you encounter a large sidewalk with four big green trees and people sitting and standing waiting to be served at one of the two coffee shops opening onto the street.

 

Café Younes is mainly a roaster with a moderate beverage menu. It sells more than a dozen of different coffee beans to a variety and vast clientele: Old generation Lebanese still looking for the same old taste (Turkish coffee: Brazilian, Colombian or Ethiopian beans), young Lebanese using either a stove top, a plunger or an automatic drip (blends are highly consumed mainly our famous Café Younes blend: equal parts of Sumatra and Ethiopia medium roast), Europeans enjoying the French roast style, Americans choosing from a variety of origins and blending them themselves for their automatic coffee makers, people from the Gulf (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait…) purchasing Bedouin coffee (a very light roasted blend, very coarse grind, lots of cardamom), tourists or reporters from the Far East (Japan, Korea, China…) mainly inclined towards freshly roasted Sumatra beans…

 

Beans are still warm from roasting made on premises using a 50 years old Probat roaster located in the basement and a small Probat sample roaster for sensitive and customized beans. The coffee aroma wafts along Hamra reaching many blocks away.

 

What makes Café Younes unique is an almost forgotten technique of very slow roasting of the green coffee beans. This extracts their fullest potential and obtains delicious richness.

 

The shop doubles as an espresso bar, offering beverages in paper cups, and a grab-and-go fresh coffee. The very strong espresso brew is highly praised.

 

Having an interesting mini museum, this branch (dating from 1960) displays numerous coffee-linked curiosities and accessories among which are: a red Spanish home grinder dating from 1930, an old stove top roaster from the 1940s, a German cash register from 1960 (still in use by the way!), an antique bulb radio player from the 1880s and a half burnt Café Younes sign dating from 1935.

 

Café Younes was established in 1935, in Bab- Edriss, Beirut’s Downtown district. It was first founded by Amin Younes who had just returned to Lebanon after spending 40 years in coffee plantations in Brazil. The company was the first roaster and coffee place in Lebanon and it started to import raw coffee from South America and Africa, roast it and sell it as retail and wholesale bulks. Three generations later and after soon-to-be 75 coffee years, Café Younes (now installed in Hamra, Beirut) is still selectively purchasing, professionally roasting and affectingly grinding great coffees.

 

The history of Café Younes is embodied by Abou Anwar, its roaster, who came to work for the elder Amin 52 years ago at age 16 and is still in charge of all roasting. When the first generation Amin Younes returned from Brazil in the mid-1930s, he set up the first roaster in downtown Beirut. He imported Brazilian beans, as well as the more traditional Yemenis and Ethiopians, roasted them by hand, and brewed up the local style of coffee, which is commonly called Turkish coffee today: coffee ground powder-fine and brewed in a long-handled ibrik pot, sweetened and poured into tiny cups.

 

When Amin’s son Souheil took over the business in 1960, he opened a second location in Hamra and brought back an espresso machine from Italy, installing it on the street so passers-by could see the Italian-style coffee being made. Within days, they were lining up to try it. He bought a 30kg Probat for roasting, which is still going strong today. He imported Kenyan AA and roasted it very dark, even for espresso—innovative for 1960.

 

In 1996, Amin Younes took the business over from his father, focused on increasing coffee varieties and put a coffee beverage menu into operation. In 2008, he opened Café Younes Gourmet, a modern style coffee house.

As a specialty roaster, Café Younes gives its customers detailed information on the origins of the beans it markets. Below is a list everything consumers ought to know (and roasters ought to tell them!) about the various origins and types of Arabica coffee beans freshly roasted and ground on premises.

Freshly Roasted and Ground Arabica Beans from around the world

Brazil (Sul de Minas) - South America
Known for more than a hundred years as Brazil's "Green Gold", these beans are grown on top of the hills of the region of Sul de Minas. The careful cultivation of Sul de Minas’ seeds and the harvesting of their beans have remained virtually unchanged for generations. Brazilian coffee is nutty, sweet and low of acidity with a hint of bitter sweet chocolate aftertaste.

Colombia (Supremo) - South America
Colombian Supremo has large beans, consistently good taste, strong body and sharp acidity. A very good "daily" coffee. This is the coffee many now-serious coffee connoisseurs became hooked on before totally abandoning mass-produced store-bought grounds.

Bolivia (Caranavi) - South America
Very clean, delicate, fruity and aromatically sweet, Bolivian coffee from the region of Caranavi gives a drink clear as a bell. It stays sweet and beautifully pure. In short, some would be happy to spend a lifetime drinking only this coffee.

Costa Rica (Tarrazu) - Central America
This hard bean has a fine acidity, full body and vibrant flavors which give it a distinctive character well balanced and sweetly smooth. It is hard to get a bad coffee from Costa Rica, which for the consistency of its processing is called the “Switzerland” of coffee-producing countries.

Nicaragua (Matagalpa) - Central America
Roasters focus on the beans of Central America, especially those of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Guatemala, which produce coffees of legendary completeness. Heavy in body, balanced and aromatic with powerful acidity, coffee from Nicaragua make most coffee tasters easily forget something else.

Ethiopia (Harrar) - Africa
The original coffee bean which hooked the world, discovered growing among goats more than a thousand years ago in what is called today Ethiopia. Boasting a sweet, rich, smooth, full-bodied, fruity flavor, Harrar is by far the more sought after mainly for what experts call its “blueberry” flavor.

Uganda (Mount Elgon) - Africa
From the region of Mount Elgon, farmers in Uganda have improved upon their traditions and launched Uganda's coffee industry insuring a great quality. Uganda’s coffee is intense in character, rustic, fruity, heavy in b body and low in acidity.

Sumatra (Mandheling) - Indonesia
The absolute finest of the naturally processed Sumatran beans. These works of art get their fruity flavor from the rich volcanic slopes near Mount Leuser, one of the highest points of land among the countries throughout the Indian Ocean. These beans are double hand-picked to insure the highest quality. The intense fruit flavor, the syrupy taste, the herbal fineness and the massive body make this variety a great gourmet bean for aspiring coffee connoisseurs.

Decaffeinated Brazilian Coffee
99.7% decaffeinated.