Ninety seconds of patience is the difference between a cup you finish and one you leave half-drunk on the table.
There is a version of this cafe that serves you faster. We have costed it, drawn it, and quietly put it back in the drawer.
The pour-over takes about four minutes from grind to cup. Most of that is waiting, and most of the waiting is not ours: it is the water finding its way through the bed of coffee at the pace it wants to go. Rush it and you get something thin and sharp. Slow it too far and it turns bitter and flat.
Dev, who runs the bar in Alserkal, describes a good pour as "boring to watch and impossible to fake." The kettle goes around in slow circles. The bloom rises and settles. Somewhere near the end the smell changes from bread to fruit, and that is when you know.
Ninety seconds of patience is the difference between a cup you finish and one you leave half-drunk on the table. We would rather you finished it.
If you are in a hurry, the batch brew is the same coffee, made an hour ago, and it is honestly very good. We will not be offended.