There’s a new coffee spot on the Dallas scene, but it wants visitors to know it’s not just a coffee shop.
Dilla Coffee is a Black family-owned coffee roaster that just opened last week in East Dallas. Offering light, medium and dark roasts, the beans come straight from a family farm in Ethiopia.
Kebede Degefu, one of the shop’s owners alongside his brother Mesfin, says coffee roasting has been in the family for generations (they’re about the fourth generation to carry the torch).
“Back home, maybe a century, we are bringing into the fourth generation of life to stay within the arena,” Degefu says.
The coffee beans come from coffee cherries in Dilla, which is a market town in Ethiopia.
Degefu’s wife, Asrat, roasts coffee the traditional way for a coffee ceremony, which involves roasting the beans in a pan, letting guests smell the smoke, grinding the beans and pouring the coffee from a jebena, or a clay coffee pot, into cups.
Asrat roasts the coffee in the traditional way, but they’ve now transitioned to a commercial red and silver coffee roasting machine.
“That’s our message to Dallas, that we came from this [traditional method] to this one [a modern coffee roaster],” he says.
Currently, Dilla Coffee sells whole bean and ground coffee to corporations and interested companies. During farmers market season, the family goes to markets, like Dallas Farmers Market to sell their products and reach more customers.
Another product in the works for the summer is their cold brew, courtesy Yonatan Hailu (who handles the marketing and social media for the shop), made from the dark roast that has the strongest flavor.
Dilla Coffee had a grand opening event where guests could experience the traditional coffee ceremony and will have a second soft opening for people to stop by on April 8.
Other than the events they’re already doing, Yonatan says they’ve also gone live on UberEats and DoorDash for people who aren’t able to stop by the shop or markets.
Dilla Coffee is located at 3823 Ross Ave.