RIYADH: Osama Al-Awwam's love of coffee has led him to launch a project named "The Roasting House," with the intention of spreading the culture of coffee in the Kingdom by providing an educational environment that aims to make coffee drinking both enjoyable and easy.

Al-Awwam's story started when he tasted a particular brand of coffee 10 years ago, which changed his views about the popular drink. He went on to obtain academic certificates in roasting, which has now propelled him to success.

Al-Awwam changed his passion into a project to spread the culture of coffee and to make the experience of drinking coffee an enjoyable one. He likes to prepare the coffee in traditional ways, especially through the use of filters to preserve the natural flavor of the coffee. He developed business relations with Hario, a majorJapanese company that manufactures coffee machines, in order to support his endeavors.

Al-Awwam has a BA in Business Law and International Trade and previously worked as a consultant to develop business solutions with British companies before returning to Riyadh. He said that it was during his stay in Britain that he became passionate about coffee.

"I started reading about coffee and how to prepare it, and when I enrolled in university to study commercial law, my parents bought our first roasting store. Ever since, I have been addicted to roasting coffee and have developed my equipment in order to give me more experience," he said.

The idea of the project came to him when he returned to Saudi Arabia and realized that getting fresh beans wasn’t easy. Thus, his friends brought him the beans when they travelled outside the Kingdom, or he purchased them through the Internet.

During the first few months in Saudi Arabia, he got to know people who enjoyed high quality coffee, which gave him the idea of roasting coffee by himself after researching the market.

"After presenting the idea to investors, it developed into a strategic plan that included studying the market, technical study and a financial study, in addition to conducting a survey on social media websites", he said.