Sometimes tasting something straight from the source awakens primal taste memories in our genetic code we didn’t even know were there. Something like this happened when we first went to Mocha Arabica, a new café in Fatih with specialty coffees from Yemen. The first cup of java brewed for us, a variety called Balali from the Bani-Ismail region in north-central Yemen, west of the capital of Sana’a, was earthy and redolent. While we didn’t detect every single note in the wide-ranging description, it was without a doubt a highly nuanced coffee – it had a rich, silky mouthfeel, nice acidity, and botanical hints on the finish.