Our coffee wristband designs draw inspiration from artists hailing from different parts of the world, and our debut designer, Norah Ba Fadhl, preaches the message of history and coffee tradition in her newest design.
Norah Ba Fadhl – Coffee Wristband Designer
For someone like Norah, it can be difficult to call a place that has never been home, home. Norah was born in the UAE for a chance at a better life, but Yemen, where she has never stepped foot, although being ravaged by war and insecurity, is her true home. Norah does intend to visit someday, but for now, all she knows about Yemen is what she’s come across online and what she’s been told by family members.
“Yemen has its own culture, clothes, and history, which there is a lot to learn from online, but online is not enough to learn everything about Yemen because not all stories are shared online.”
A deep dive into the history and culture of the Yemeni coffee scene is what Norah advocates through her design of the coffee wristband. Having lived all her life in the UAE, she notes that some things, like the food and coffee scene in Yemen, can be very similar.
Her coffee knowledge started at the university, which is also where she discovered specialty coffee. She gained a keen interest in the different tastes of coffee as she frequented multiple coffee shops, noting distinct tastes and flavors. This made her wonder how Yemeni coffee tastes, which piqued her interest in Yemeni coffee as a whole before making it the central theme of her coffee wristband design.
Yemen is a hotspot for multiple coffee varieties, including the very popular ones like Mocha and some less popular varieties. The Al Mokha Port is popularly known as an exporter of good coffee from Yemen to other parts of the world. This port richly ties into Yemen’s history of becoming a coffee-producing nation, and companies like Port of Mokha, led by Mokhtar Alkhanshali, aim to bring to light these truths and make Yemen a popular destination for all things coffee.
Norah’s Design:
All design elements reference Arabic coffee, with the items and illustrations displayed. From left to right, the history of Yemen can be read through, starting from the popular Al Shadhili Mosque, known for being one of the earliest places coffee was taken, the Al Mokha Port, and then an Arabic ancient script (the Musnad), which is a huge part of Yemen’s history. She also illustrates the major coffee process method (spreading out on rooves), which is still popular in Yemen over washed processes and anaerobic processes.
Norah Ba Fadhl – Coffee Wristband Designer
Norah is currently working as a junior graphic designer in Abu Dhabi, spending most of her day making designs, paintings, and drawings. In her free time, she goes scuba diving and hiking. She loves experimenting with coffee to keep learning how to make good coffee with different methods, especially one of her favorites, the V60.
“Experimentation is what coffee is really about. There’s no good coffee or bad coffee, coffee is just different, depending on different factors. Try different processes first before judging.”
Experimentation is very important for Norah, as it is what can make any coffee exquisite, be it an old form or even an old coffee. She recently came across a new method of making tea from cascara (coffee husks), with cascara becoming more popular as people use them to make tea.
She takes part in group cupping and tasting events, where she can freely interact with people to improve where necessary. Although she has yet to pick her favorite cafe, she stumbled upon our friend, Sulaimen, one of our charity partners, at his concept cafe, WeAreThings.
We hope you enjoy Norah’s design whenever you come across it. If you’d like to become one of our charity partners, click here. If you’d like to order this wristband, click here.
