Ethiopia (9th Century) : The coffee plant is native to the Kaffa region of Ethiopia. Early tribes consumed the coffee cherries by mixing them with animal fat to create an energizing food source.
Yemen(15th Century) : Sufi monks in Yemen were the first to harvest, roast, and brew the beans into a hot beverage. They relied on this stimulating drink to stay awake during long, late-night prayers.
Global Spread : From the Yemeni port city of Mocha, the beverage spread to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, Mecca, and the Ottoman Empire. By the 17th century, the drink had reached Europe and North America, sparking the worldwide coffeehouse culture.
There’s a new kind of caffeine theater unfolding in New Dorp, and it doesn’t involve random photos of people you’ll never know, a burnt espresso shot served with the faux emotional warmth of airport carpeting.
And, it’s about time.
Enter Mo̲ka & Cō — Staten Island’s newest boutique café, where Yemeni coffee culture meets luxury branding, a minimalist and modern aesthetic, along with hyper-surreal pistachio-colored pastries, and enough atmosphere to make your (basic • average) chain coffee shop feel like the DMV waiting room.
Located on New Dorp Lane, the rapidly expanding café brand has arrived with all the subtlety of a velvet curtain opening at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center.
The beans?
Organic, terrace-grown, handpicked, sun-dried, sustainably sourced. In other words: the exact opposite of whatever sludge has been simmering in your office for the last six hours.
The Mo̲KA & Cō company describes itself as “grounded in history,” which sounds less like a coffee slogan and more like a beautifully dressed philosophy major with nipple tassels.
Wait!!! What? #weJest
(Wanted to make sure you were awake, reading and still paying attention). Okay. let’s continue with some more snark.
Still, there’s substance behind the aesthetic.
Mo̲ka & Cō‘s CEO, Numan Ali, says the goal is “to redefine coffee culture” by introducing rare Yemeni coffee traditions to a wider audience.
And honestly? Staten Island could use a little cmore ultural redefining (see History).
This one is going to hurt: 8 years ago: Staten Island folk of Italian descent was a whopping 38.7%. Today it’s only 25%. — SI-nyc.com
Take some time to digest that, we’ll wait.
NJ is likely the next stop for them anyway.
Mo̲KA & Cō ‘s menu reads like someone handed a spice merchant an espresso machine and said, “Go forth and Make art.”
There’s Turkish coffee served in elegant glassware. Qishr brewed with ginger and cinnamon. The creamy Mufawar. And the signature Mo̲KA Spice Latte — a velvet-rope blend of black cardamom, cinnamon, chocolate, and ginger that sounds less like a beverage and more like a fragrance campaign shot in Marrakesh.
Then there are the pastries. Staten Island Advance food writer Pamela Silvestri described them as “bountiful,” highlighting croissants streaked in pistachio green and strawberry pink while noting that “pistachio is a one-note samba in the food.”
One note Samba. Not too sure about that one.
Okay. The desserts below are the size or your fists.
