12 places
They roast their own Ethiopian beans daily and serve them as straight espresso or milk drinks.
Plaster walls and trough sinks, a brew-bar menu, and an iced hibiscus or cascara if you want something other than coffee.
The rare proper espresso bar on the east coast, with rotating guest beans a few minutes from the Al Aqah beach hotels.
An Australian specialty café with beans from about a dozen origins and an open terrace on East Boulevard, opposite the Vida hotel.
A Dh25 flat white at the quieter Khawaneej branch, away from the Jumeirah crowd.
Beans roasted on a Loring machine travel over your head in clear pipes to the bar, and the bread comes from an open bakery using 48-hour sourdough.
You drink in the warehouse where the UAE's first specialty roastery still roasts, with the bags you can take home stacked behind the bar.
A Dh22 flat white made with their own Candyman blend, plus a Basque cheesecake that people come back for.
An Emirati-led café that sells curated design and lifestyle pieces next to the coffee bar, so you can browse while you wait.
A local roastery with a following among coffee people, where you choose a V60 by origin and flavour profile.
They roast their own beans, and the V60 pour-over is the order that made them one of the city's first specialty names.
You drink coffee roasted in-house next to cars you can't buy from any showroom, including a Mercedes 300SL signed by Brad Pitt.