Dubai, United Arab Emirates, June 24, 2019: CE-Creates, the internal venture building platform for Crescent Enterprises, announced today that Kava & Chai, the UAE’s home-grown specialty coffeehouse, has opened three additional locations in Dubai.
The new outlets are situated in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the Mall of the Emirates, and at Tamani Arts Tower in Business Bay, and feature unique interiors designed by specialist consultant 4Space. The new sites add to Kava & Chai’s existing locations in Al Seef and the American University of Sharjah.
Kava & Chai is a home-grown, global coffeehouse that seeks to celebrate and revive Arab traditions and tastes, bringing people together in an intimate setting to socialise, exchange ideas, and enjoy cultural experiences. Coffeehouses have historically been associated with great ideas and shared experiences, and the original coffeehouses in Constantinople, Cairo, and Mecca hosted preachers and poets, politicians and storytellers.
Samer Choucair, Director, CE-Creates, said: “Our region has long been a heavy consumer of imported brands and a disproportionately light exporter of brands. With Kava & Chai, we intend to reverse that trend, by leveraging the Arab world’s cafe culture and history, which stands for hospitality and communion and dates back 600 years, to positively position the region to the rest of the world. The coffee itself may not be Arabic, but the culture is – and that’s what we want to showcase to the world. Our aim over the coming months is to refine the Kava & Chai brand by growing across the UAE, which really is a melting pot of most of the world’s cultures, before expanding into international markets, where we can proudly showcase our culture to a global audience.”
Sustainable development is also central to Kava & Chai, with everything from packaging to uniforms being sourced responsibly, made from renewable and recycled materials. Kava & Chai only considers environmentally certified suppliers and all coffee procured is direct trade – purchased by coffee roasters directly from growers.
Saad Abdallah, General Manager, Kava & Chai, said: “Coffee roasting and drinking as we know it today originated here in the Middle East, and Kava & Chai is committed to portraying this history and culture in a positive and inspiring way. These new locations will become part of the local community, a meeting place where people can engage with each other, share inspiration and enjoy cultural experiences.”
Kava & Chai aims to continue the cultural tradition and support the local art community, with local artists contributing to murals in the coffeehouse locations, designing festive cups, and participating in events in-store. Kava & Chai brings a mix of traditional flavours and unexpected combinations to the coffeehouse experience, making original concoctions with authentic roots.
About Crescent Enterprises
Crescent Enterprises (CE) is a diversified conglomerate headquartered in the UAE that operates a range of regional and global businesses across four platforms: CE-Operates, CE-Invests, CE-Ventures, and CE-Create.
CE-Operates, the operating business platform, constitutes subsidiaries and affiliates that span the ports and logistics, power and engineering, and business aviation sectors. These include Gulftainer, Momentum Logistics, Uruk Engineering & Contracting and Gama Aviation. CE-Invests, the strategic investments platform, maintains a balanced portfolio of diversified asset class investments, including private equity, real estate and other structured assets. CE-Ventures is its corporate venture capital platform that makes strategic direct investments in early- to later-stage start-ups across the world. Meanwhile, CE-Creates, the venture building platform, develops early-stage concepts into economically viable and scalable businesses with a significant social impact.
Crescent Enterprises employs over 4,500 people in 20 countries across five continents and has a long-term investment and operating philosophy that embraces corporate governance, inclusive growth and responsible business practices. The company is a subsidiary of the Crescent Group, one of the most progressive family business groups that has been actively contributing to shaping the economic landscape of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for more than 45 years. Crescent Group’s other subsidiary, Crescent Petroleum, is the first and largest privately owned indigenous upstream oil and gas company in the Middle East.