Humans with seasonal depression, rejoice—warm weather is upon us.

With rising vitamin D levels comes a renewed appreciation for the little things, from lounging in the park to, if you didn’t see this coming already, a delightful cup of coffee or tea.

Below, we’ve gathered four of the city’s most unique coffee and tea spots, each with a story that, like sparkling water served alongside espresso, adds something a little extra to your experience.

Fairuz Cafe

Authentic Arabic coffee

Before 2003, Fairuz owner Ahmed Al Azawy lived in Iraq, where he worked at the United States Embassy. When the United States-led invasion of Iraq began, he and his family were able to immigrate to the U.S., settling in Richmond. The first business he opened was a barber shop—which he still runs—but later, he was inspired to open a café to fill the niche for Arabic-style coffee in the Richmond area.

Al Azawy opened Fairuz at the tail end of 2024 in the Tuckahoe Village Shopping Center in Henrico. Fairuz serves an array of the kind of coffee drinks that Richmond audiences will be familiar with, like espresso and iced coffee, as well as loose leaf tea. The real attraction, however, is the Arabic style coffee.

The process begins by putting coffee into a small, long-handled pot called a jadhwa or cezve, and then placing the pot into a shallow pan of heated sand to brew. (According to Al Azawy, this method originated in the Arab world, though it is often referred to as Turkish-style coffee.) The sand’s gentle, even heat serves to extract the coffee’s oils and flavors in a way that traditional burners or a direct flame can’t achieve, resulting in a smoother, richer cup without the excess bitterness that can result from overheating the coffee.

This light roasting—combined with the addition of spices like cardamom, which is traditionally used in Arabic coffee preparation—gives the coffee a glowing amber color and brings out the more subtle notes of the bean’s flavor.

“I always share [this coffee] with people,” Al Azawy says. “Even when people come in and say they’re just looking, I’ll give them some. It makes me feel happy to tell people about my culture and let them try it.”

Al Azawy is adamant that this coffee must be enjoyed alongside something sweet.

Dates are often seen as the most traditional choice, although Fairuz also serves a multitude of popular middle eastern sweets including date, honey, and pistachio baklava; zalabiyeh (fritters similar to donut holes); and namoura (a semolina cake), among other desserts, as well as the typical American-style coffee cake.

No matter which menu item you choose, this coffee is not for the person looking to take their coffee to go—Al Azawy notes that another essential part of the process is to take it slow. “If you want to enjoy the coffee, you need to relax and take your time,” he says.

Ironclad Coffee Roasters

The coffee shop inside a more than century old firehouse

Kelly O’Rourke and her husband Ryan lived in Ireland for around five years where they were immersed in a tea-dominated caffeine landscape. As a result, they had taken up roasting their own coffee at home. When it came time to move back to the United States, they decided to make coffee their full-time job.

After arriving in Richmond, they started roasting and selling their own beans at farmers markets, online and directly to cafes and restaurants. The couple’s desire to showcase the best of the beans—from roasting to serving—led them to open their own café.

“Depending on the equipment that [shops] choose to buy, the training they give their baristas, the milk they choose to use, the grinders, all of that means that you have a vast difference in the end product,” O’Rourke says. “We know what this coffee can be and we would like to showcase that by controlling it all the way from the roasting process through to making the drinks.”

When it came to location (they also have a West End and Lynchburg shop), they landed on a building that dates back to the 1800s and originally served as a firehouse. In its current iteration, visitors can find eclectic décor like colorful velvet couches and a grand piano situated in the center of the downstairs seating area, which pairs well with live jazz performances held every Monday and Friday.

But there is one particularly special vintage feature: a lone, unenclosed toilet in the area behind the building that is allegedly the oldest flush toilet still existing in the city; though O’Rourke has never officially confirmed this. “I like to pull pranks on the new hires and take them back there and tell them, ‘This is the staff toilet,’” she says.

Some of Ironclad’s star baked goods—made in house—include cruffins (muffin-shaped croissants) in flavors like Nutella and lemon meringue, as well as a variety of buns, from traditional cinnamon to seasonal flavors like pumpkin, eggnog and strawberry.

A standout Ironclad drink is the cookie milk latte, made with milk (either dairy or oat milk) that has had cookies steeped in it overnight—the spring cookie flavor is brown butter chocolate chip.

Another spring beverage O’Rourke is especially excited to share is the ‘Connemara Cappuccino.’ Named after the region in Ireland where she and her husband lived, the drink features an Irish whiskey reduction and is smoked in a smoke box with peat sourced directly from Ireland.

Rostov’s Coffee & Tea

The city’s oldest operating roaster and shop

The shop now known as Rostov’s Coffee & Tea first opened in 1979 as Carytown Coffee & Tea, and was founded by current owner Tammy Rostov’s father. After he passed away in 1998, the younger Rostov took over the retail portion of the store that she grew up working in, moving the business into its current location (1618 W. Main St.) in 2006.

“[My father] always loved retail and he’d always loved coffee,” Rostov says. “I’ve been working in the business the whole time. It’s been my life since I was 12 years old.”

Inside the cozy shop on Main Street, visitors can find a wide variety of bags of whole bean coffee—from fair trade beans to product produced by women-owned co-ops—all roasted daily and available in flavors like chocolate macadamia nut, crème brûlée, southern pecan, Seville orange and Guatemala peaberry (they also offer coffee subscriptions with select flavors).

The store also carries a range of loose leaf teas like blackberry sage, Irish breakfast, jasmine, lapsang souchong, masala chai and maté. Alongside their retail selection, Rostov’s has a to-go only coffee bar; and while there’s nowhere to sit inside, Rostov’s sets up tables and chairs outside in both the front and back of the store when the weather permits.

For those who typically make their coffee at home, Rostov’s carries a comprehensive selection of niche coffee makers and accessories including brands like AeroPress, Bodum, Chemex and Melitta.

On top of the diverse assortment of products and flavorful to-go coffees, visitors often say the shop’s employees are a highlight of the Rostov’s experience.

“If you trust the Google reviews, we have the nicest staff,” Rostov says.

Afterglow Coffee Cooperative

The city’s first worker-owned coffee shop

The founding members of Afterglow first met while working at Lamplighter, and soon began exploring the idea of branching off and forming their own café with a worker-owned business model.

Since opening in 2022, the shop has grown to a team of 12 employees, some of whom are fully vested owners while others are on an ownership trajectory. A testament to the authenticity of their effort, Afterglow doesn’t claim to have achieved a perfect system. Co-founder Alan Smith says refining the cooperative structure is an ongoing process, one that focuses on developing an effective model for lateral organizing and ensuring each person’s voice is equally valuable.

“We’re still trying to improve upon what we started out to do,” Smith says. “We’re working to create a robust, thriving business that can sustain us and trying to make purchases that allow us to keep doing what we’re doing, like buying coffee from farmers who are doing biodynamic agriculture.”

One particularly special menu item is the pandan matcha latte, which takes the typical grassy matcha flavor up a notch with the addition of the sweet vanilla-coconut flavor of pandan, a tropical plant native to Southeast Asia.

Smith’s personal favorite is the Boilermaker, a coffee flight of espresso, drip coffee and sparkling water.