In Sugar Land, cafés are in every corner. Finding the one can be difficult—some coffee shop environments are only suited for socializing, become too crowded to sit down in for a while and enjoy the atmosphere and/or are too noisy to be productive with work-related activities.
Three years ago, I came across what I call the perfect café, having everything you would want in your ideal coffee shop: comfortable seating to catch up on studying as you sip your refreshment along with a sweet treat to go on the side, the picture-perfect setting for Instagram photos along with plenty of seating indoors and outdoors to bring your friends and family along as you sit down for an hour and enjoy quality time with them. Introducing Haraz Coffee House, a Yemeni-based café chain having 47 locations across the United States. This coffee shop is suitable for people who want to relax in peace while they finish a school assignment as they enjoy the drinks and appetizers offered at Haraz, or friends who want to meet up on a Saturday evening as laughter and conversation fill the room. If you enjoy studying in cafés during the weekends, I would go between morning or mid-day instead of the evening because that tends to be their rush hour. What I love most about this café is that the atmosphere is open while still staying on the “cozy” side with warm lighting and neutral colors.
Haraz offers a variety of drinks from refreshments—strawberry lemonade, pomegranate and mango dragon fruit—to traditional drinks like Harazi Mufawar (with coffee, cardamom and creamer) and Saffron Adeni (with black tea, a haraz spice, creamer and most importantly, saffron). My go-to would be the iced mocha latte, which has a double shot of espresso with chocolate syrup. I love how the mocha latte isn’t overpoweringly sweet with a lot of syrups and added sugars, you can still taste the espresso while also getting a hint of mocha. If you’re like me, someone who doesn’t prefer Turkish coffee (fine dark coffee tasting bitter with cardamom), but also loves to enjoy coffee that is slightly sweetened, I would stick to buying the mocha latte—the semi-sweet chocolate taste covering up the bitterness espresso has. Although I’m not the biggest fan of matcha, I have to say their matcha has to be one of my favorite matchas I’ve tried. I love how I was able to taste the sweetener added instead of just the matcha, and it was the perfect ratio.
There are a wide variety of appetizers offered at Haraz, including croissant’s, cheesecake, milk cakes, and my favorite of them all: Bee Bites—a sweet Yemeni honeycomb bread with a cream-cheese filling, sesame seeds and honey drizzled on top. The Bee Bites have a soft doughy texture and the cream-cheese filling definitely adds the best savory taste to them.
Overall, Haraz is the perfect café to go to, if you want to go for a study session, spend quality time with family and friends or go simply for the vibes and delicious drinks and appetizers!
