Armenian Cardamom Coffee Roasted Near Seattle, WA
Armenian-Inspired Cardamom Coffee
SEVAK · 12 oz
Red 12 oz bag of SEVAK Touch of Cardamom beside two Armenian demitasse cups
SEVAK Coffee · Armenian-Inspired

SEVAK Armenian Coffee

Dark roast with a touch of cardamom, ground fine for the jezve. 12 oz.

5.0 · 27 reviews As seen in The Seattle Times
$21.00 per 12 oz bag · 340g

If your grandmother's kitchen had a smell, it was this: a small-batch dark roast laced with real cardamom, ground a touch finer than espresso. It's built for the jezve, but at home in a pour-over, phin, percolator, or espresso machine.

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Choose your quantity · buy more, save more
Order 1 bag · $21
Touch of Cardamom · 1 bag Discount applied automatically at checkout
$1 to Teach For Armenia
Small-batch roasted
Hovhannes Mkhitaryan and Trang Cao, co-owners of SEVAK, pouring soorj from a copper jezve beside a row of red SEVAK bags
Hovhannes Mkhitaryan, left, and Trang Cao, spouses and co-owners of coffee brand Sevak, pour a steaming cup of soorj inside the Regus coworking space on Bainbridge Island earlier this month. (Ivy Ceballo / The Seattle Times)
As seen in
The Seattle Times

“Bainbridge Island coffee company shines light on underrated cup of joe”

Read the story ↗
Why this coffee exists

Some coffees wake you up. This one takes you home.

There's a moment every Armenian knows. The jezve starts to whisper on the stove, the cardamom lifts off the foam, and suddenly you're eight years old again, in a kitchen where the coffee was thick, the stories were thicker, and nobody was allowed to leave the table early.

Most coffee is fuel. Soorj is a ceremony. It's the cup your grandmother read your future in, the one that sealed engagements and settled arguments, the one that turned neighbors into family. When we couldn't find that cup anywhere in America (not the right grind, not the right roast, not the cardamom), we decided to roast it ourselves.

SEVAK is that cup: 100% Arabica, roasted dark in small batches near Seattle, folded with real cardamom, and ground fine for the jezve. One bag brews about 34 traditional cups: a month of slow mornings for less than two drive-thru lattes a week. And every order sends $1 to Teach For Armenia.

The method

The ritual, in motion

Four steps, seven minutes, no machines. The slowest, and best, cup you'll make all week.

  1. 01

    Cold water & coffee

    One heaping spoon of fine SEVAK per demitasse into the jezve, with cold water. Never pre-boiled.

  2. 02

    Low & slow

    Set over the lowest flame. Stir once, then leave it. Patience is the only ingredient that matters now.

  3. 03

    The rising foam

    As the soorj climbs to the rim, lift it off just before it boils over. That golden foam is the prize.

  4. 04

    Pour & share

    Pour gently, foam first, let the grounds settle, then serve with something sweet and good company.

Inside the bag

Made for the ritual, not the rush

Aroma

Real cardamom

Folded into the dark roast for the warm, floral scent of an Armenian kitchen.

Roast

Dark & bold

100% Arabica, roasted deep and even for a full body that carries spice and stands up to sugar.

Grind

Fine

Between Turkish powder and espresso: fine enough to bloom in a jezve, ready for any brewer.

Format

12 oz · 340g

Resealable bag with a one-way valve. About 34 traditional cups.

Where SEVAK sits on the grind scale

Finer than espresso, a touch coarser than Turkish powder.

Turkish SEVAK Espresso Pour-over
FinestCoarsest

No jezve? No problem.

  • Jezve / CezveOur favoriteThe traditional Armenian way: fine grind simmered slowly into a rich, foamy soorj.
  • Pour-overClean and aromatic; back the grind off a touch for an even draw.
  • PercolatorOld-school and bold. A stovetop perc leans into the dark roast.
  • Phin filterDrips a thick, syrupy cup that loves the cardamom.
  • EspressoPull it as a spiced espresso: intense, fragrant, unforgettable.

Ready when the jezve is

Most first orders become monthly orders. Grab two and save.

Order with Cardamom
Reviews

What people are saying

5.0★★★★★27 verified reviews
The origins

From Ethiopia to Armenia

One cup, six lands, a thousand years. Armenian or Ethiopian? The honest answer: both.

Ethiopia · c. 850 CE (legend)

Born in the forests of Kaffa

Coffee's wild ancestor grows in the highland forests of Kaffa, in present-day Ethiopia. The beloved tale of Kaldi, a goatherd who saw his flock grow lively after eating the red cherries, is almost certainly a later legend, first set in print by Antoine Faustus Nairon in Rome in 1671. The plant itself, though, is genuinely Ethiopian by birth.

Source: Kaldi (Wikipedia) ↗
Yemen · 15th century

From cherry to cup

The earliest credible evidence of coffee as a drink comes from the Sufi monasteries of Yemen in the 15th century, where worshippers brewed qahwa to stay awake through night-long prayers. From the port of Mocha it spread north to Mecca, Cairo and Damascus.

Source: History of coffee (Wikipedia) ↗
Constantinople · 1555

The Ottoman coffeehouse

By 1555 the first coffeehouses opened in Constantinople's Tahtakale district, run (the Ottoman chronicler Peçevi records) by Hakam of Aleppo and Shams of Damascus. One legendary early house, Kiva Han, is remembered as the work of two Armenian brothers. This thick, unfiltered, finely-ground style is the one Armenians would carry home.

Source: History of coffee (Wikipedia) ↗
Armenia · the table

Soorj, the jezve & cardamom

Living within and beside the Ottoman world, Armenians made the ritual their own. They call it soorj (սուրճ): ground to a fine powder, simmered slowly in a long-handled copper jezve, often perfumed with cardamom, and finished by reading the grounds left in the cup. Coffee became a language of hospitality: never rushed, never taken alone.

Source: Armenian coffee (Wikipedia) ↗
Vienna · 1685

Armenians give coffee to Europe

Vienna's first coffeehouse was opened in 1685 by Johannes Diodato (Diodato Theodat), an Armenian merchant granted the city's exclusive privilege to serve coffee. From Yerevan to Venice to Vienna, Armenian traders helped carry the ritual deep into Europe.

Source: Viennese coffee house culture (Wikipedia) ↗
Seattle, WA · today

SEVAK carries it forward

We roast in small batches near Seattle and grind fine, cardamom and all, so a ritual that traveled from Ethiopia, through the Ottoman world, to the Armenian table can live on in yours. Named in the spirit of the poet Paruyr Sevak, every order sends $1 home to Teach For Armenia.

“Taste the kitchen you grew up in, or the one you wish you had.”

A thousand years of ritual. One bag away.

Small batches sell through. Order yours while this roast is fresh.

Order with Cardamom
Every cup gives back

$1 from every order supports Teach For Armenia, bringing dedicated teachers to children across the homeland. Coffee that tastes like home, and helps build it.