I grew up in Nazareth, Ethiopia. In our home, coffee was never rushed.

When my mother's neighbors gathered, the conversation could last for hours — and it was my sisters' and my task to prepare the coffee. We would roast, grind, and pour, again and again, as the morning unfolded into afternoon. The coffee was never the point. It was the reason everyone stayed.

In 1998, I came to the USA.

Here, I watched people take their coffee standing — paper cup in hand, already moving to the next thing. It struck me: the same coffee that once slowed an entire afternoon in Nazareth had become something to rush through in New York.

I couldn't stop thinking about my mother's courtyard — the sound of conversation, the smell of green coffee turning in the pan, the sense that nothing needed to happen until the cup was finished.

QĀNA began as a question: could that same pause exist here?

Not a faster cup. A slower one. Not coffee as fuel, but coffee as the reason to stay a little longer.

That is what we've tried to bring to every bag we roast, and every cup we pour.

— Hayat Yussuf, Founder