Sana’a Cafe

Yemeni coffee, tea, and dessert shops began popping up around northern Orange County in 2023 and 2024, starting with Fullerton’s Qamaria Coffee – an early location of a rapidly growing chain – followed by Anaheim’s Qahwah & Chapati, with Haraz Coffee House preparing for 2025 Anaheim and Tustin openings. Bearing more than passing similarities to Qamaria in both ambition and execution, another chain called Sana’a Cafe opened its first Orange County spot in mid-2024 at a Lake Forest plaza, offering southern Orange County residents a similar collection of drinks and pastries, ranging from cakes and baklava to honeycomb bread, plus several unique options. Everything is ordered and served from a counter staffed by a friendly team, which showed genuine interest in offering menu guidance – and some surprise that we were already familiar with Yemeni food and drinks.

The typical draws of Yemeni cafes are their strong, hot coffees and Adeni chai teas, which are served either in kettles or pre-made glasses as you prefer. Sana’a offers three kettle sizes, with the small size (shown) holding around two full-sized cups of silky, lightly spiced milked chai, kept piping hot at your table with a candle-lit heating base. Ornate kettles and trays are on display throughout Sana’s dining room, as are bags of coffee and less obviously Yemeni travel mugs for purchase.

Beyond the tea, we also tried two coffee drinks – one pistachio and the other rose – but found little trace of either added flavor. While Yemeni coffee is smoky and bold enough to be delicious on its own, it’s hard to match in power; both drinks could have been better balanced. Similarly, a ginger-lemon refresher arrived foaming and with plenty of its promised flavors, but absolutely overpowering in sourness, remaining so even after adding sugar ourselves. Our server mentioned that it was their first time preparing the drink, which two of us struggled to finish. Next time, we’d stick to basic Sana’a teas and coffees.