The yellowish drink with a strong taste of spices “is drunk almost every day”Perera points out. “Our Qatari colleagues take it and make us drink it, but I didn’t know what it was made with or where it came from,” she admits after a session dedicated to the famous “gahwa” at Embrace Doha, an independent culture center.
Everything around this ritual is a gateway to Qatari culture. It begins with the introduction of Ethiopian coffee in the region 600 years ago – legend has it that the properties of the beans were discovered by a shepherd from Yemen – and continues with the composition of the drink, from roasted light coffee beans and cooked, as well as cardamom and saffron.
“Italian coffee is very well known, but did you know that it comes from here, from the Arab world? We are very proud of it, maybe that is why many people use it, but it is also a great way to start a conversation,” explains Shaima Sherif, CEO of Embrace Doha, a place located in the heart of Al Wakrah, south of the Qatari capital.
generosity symbol
In the majlis (reception rooms and central places of sociability, mainly male), it is the head of the family who prepares the “gahwa” in front of his guests and is served by his younger sons.
It is served with the left hand with a traditional coffee pot called “dallah”. It is drunk with the right hand in small cups called “finjans”, which are filled to a quarter of their capacity so as not to burn their fingers and the tasting is accompanied by dates.
When you are full, after two or three cups, you shake the “pretend” to communicate it instead of saying it out loud. This is a vestige of a time when the deaf served in the “majlis” to prevent sensitive matters, mainly political or military, from leaking out.
“The symbol of coffee is part of our history. In hundreds of years, the country has changed, but coffee has not,” says Shaima Sherif.
In 2015, at the initiative of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, the “gahwa” was accepted as intangible cultural heritage of Humanity.
“Serving Arabic coffee is an important aspect of hospitality in Arab societies and is considered a symbol of generosity,” underlines UNESCO.
A “warm hospitality” on which the organizers of the 2022 World Cup put the accent, especially in the face of international concerns about the reception that LGBTQ+ spectators will have in the supreme soccer tournament.