Riyadh: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) announced 2022 as “The Year of Saudi Coffee,” celebrating the authentic taste of a household staple, local media from the gulf country reported.
The Saudi Minister of Culture, Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan, said that the “Saudi Coffee Initiative” will be the umbrella under which all celebrations meet as an essential component of the Kingdom’s culture.
The initiative aims to spread the use of the term “Saudi coffee” from the Kingdom first, leading to its use at the international level.
Saudi coffee has been considered one of the social rituals in the Kingdom for decades, and it differs in its taste and method of preparation from internationally known coffee.
This drink is also characterized by its own rituals, both in terms of the tools used to prepare it and the way it is served.
The “Year of Saudi Coffee” is scheduled to shed light on the Khawlani coffee, as an authentic Saudi product, as well as what its cultivation, harvesting and production say about a unique Saudi culture.
Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s largest consumers of coffee, and the quantities of coffee imported by the Kingdom are estimated at 72,000 tons annually, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
In November 2021, the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture signed an agreement to establish a coffee development city in the Al-Baha region’s Mashuqa and Al-Qara governorates.
The city will be built in an area totalling 1,600,000 sqm and will have the operational capacity to provide 1,000 job opportunities and plant 300,000 coffee trees.