Before the sign, there’s the scent. Beans turning slowly in the Kairos’ Bellwether Shop Roaster, the UAE’s first, with the rich aroma escaping through the door and into the streets outside. Follow it, and the room does the rest of the work: a wide window spanning the full width of the venue from the front door, drawing daylight through an open floor plan until it reaches every corner, upstairs included. At its centre sits the Coffee Assembly, a two-metre circular communal table, hand-carved from a single block of stone brought over from India by SHED Studio, the Surat atelier behind it, built, like everything SHED makes, to age with the hands and stories that touch it.
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