Coffee 24/7

I never thought I’d be needing coffee in my life but I did and yes I still do. I love coffee so much that I actually tried to become a barista and until now, I am very proud to say that I am barista in progress. I can definitely make a VERY good espresso and steam the milk perfectly as per RAW coffee company’s stamp of approval. I am not so much into latte art but I am getting there as well. Who wouldn’t want a pretty looking coffee right? 

I am passionate with coffee just as how I am with food but did you know I fell in love coffee first even before cooking and baking came into my life? It was when I was in high school that I started making my own coffee and even using a manual frother. Like any student would do, coffee is always around especially during exams. This went on until I was studying in Higher Colleges of Technology at Sharjah Colleges and earning my way towards to the I.T world. I would even drive myself early in school just so I can sit in the university café have my sugar donut paired with coffee.

No, coffee wasn’t only my energy booster and my source of caffeine punch during exam week but it is something that takes my mind off away to somewhere relaxing… the smell of the freshly brewed coffee wakens my senses and the taste gives me a calm effect. I really love coffee that even until my working days in the I.T World, I would always pass by a petrol station and have my cuppa. 

My coffee adventures never stopped even until I had my own home business, Mini Treats. I would always post my coffee discoveries around the emirates and found a coffee friend via social media, Najla. We always would talk about coffee through our posts and have been trying to meet up over a cup of coffee and it happened 7 months later then guess what? We found out we were neighbors during our younger days.  It’s good to meet people over social media and bond over coffee. Thank you Najla, those coffee chat days is something I will really remember.  

I continued to discover different coffee over the Emirates and when I first had a taste of RAW coffee in one of my food trips in Dubai, I made it to a point that when I am going to open my own shop, it’s RAW I am definitely going to serve and yes, wishes do come true. Now since my shop has opened, I found another coffee friend thru Moza and I always see her in the shop with a coffee cup in her hand. We usually spend almost every morning with a little chat over coffee and it’s good to have her around. 

It has been a long journey since I began my coffee loving days and I even had a coffee machine at home but nothing beats the freshly grounded organic coffee beans poured over with the perfectly steamed milk and just enjoying the warm cup without any sugar. Coffee for me is bliss and it’s so good without the sugar. It might be a little strong at first but try to drink it without the sugar and you will get the nutty, chocolaty taste of coffee beans and the mild sweetness of the milk. 

There’s more to know about our coffee and one of my team member, Ken will tell you about it but before that, did you know that during our Awesome 1 Year birthday celebration, we had free coffee all day long and our hardworking barista like Ken made over 800 cups in less than 15 hours, just imagine. I have an amazing team using an amazing coffee and just making the best and awesome coffee experience possible. "Read More"

Thank you Ken for a wonderful write up about my favorite thing in the world, coffee. Yes, he’s right we’re creating a different atmosphere here in the shop because every product we have here in the shop is done out of passion and we’d love to keep it that way. 

Love,

Nawal

Happy 1st birthday to Paper Fig Desserts

On Tuesday 26.01.2016 we had a fabulous celebration commemorating our first birthday ever. It was all made possible thanks to my very hard working team, loving family and friends and our dearest and to all of you who are my number one supporters.

We have been planning this birthday celebration for a few months but it was the last 3 weeks that were so intense -- finalizing every little details to make the one day event unique and very special.

So these are the things we had for our very special day:

Coffee, coffee, coffee and lot of coffee!

Just for one day, we had a pop up coffee booth outside and placed a sustainable seating area using old woods/crates stacked to form a table. Both inside and outside the shop, we gave away free coffee to everyone who came and visit us. We served almost 800 cups of coffee in one day and my team of baristas never failed to give the best shots of espresso and the perfectly steamed milk approved by RAW coffee company. I would like to thank our wonderful supplier, RAW Coffee Company who makes freshly roasted organic coffee beans here in UAE. It was an awesome 1 year working with these passionate coffee lovers and I would not drink any other coffee if it isn’t RAW. If you like coffee or wanting to try drinking coffee, RAW would definitely give you the best coffee experience and it made me fall in love with coffee even more. I wasn’t really a coffee person years ago but upon knowing RAW, they changed my perspective with coffee and I can’t start my day without a cup of Magic.

Say Cheese =D

For the photo lovers, we gave them a memory for them to keep -- a Photobooth outside allowing everyone to strike their best pose and enjoy unlimited shots. It was a wonderful sight to see when I saw everyone with their giddiest smile as their photos were taken. My PF family also took a time in between their breaks to get that sweet shot.  

The PF Gift box filled with sweets were given away to our guests as a thank you for coming in to celebrate our special day. We prepared a lot of them and hopefully everyone who came had a chance to enjoy the box filled sweets. I would like to thank my very hardworking pastry team who took time to fill their already busy schedule in making something sweet for our lovely guests.

The birthday cake. We had a birthday cake plan but what we didn’t expect is we’re having 2 cakes to celebrate our birthday. The couple Mohamed Alhashimi and Fatima Alnajre who keeps on coming back to our shop for their coffee time gave us a delicious red velvet cake shaped into a coffee cup complete with the spoon and profiterole on the side. I am so touched with the gesture they did and it makes my heart filled with joy that they loved our coffee and they even made a birthday cake for us to celebrate the awesome 1 year. So yes, we had two birthday cakes and we sang twice and my little boys Khalifa and Abdulla cut the first slice and then followed by my staff who held the knife all at once. I am very happy to see my staff happy when they were slicing the cakes because without them, I would have never made this Sweet Retreat a sweet one and lasting for a year and hopefully more years to come.

Balloons and Messages. We did have a birthday vibes on the shop and it was filled with balloons floating all over the place and everyone had the chance to write us a message for our birthday. It was so nice to read the messages and congratulatory notes you have given us and to read that you are also looking forward in seeing us getting bigger is very heartwarming.

PF Gift Vouchers

We know a lot of you want to share your PF experience to your family and friends so we might have the PF Vouchers available for gift giving very soon but for now, let the winners enjoy the first release of the gift vouchers.

All gift vouchers are for one time use except for the coffee vouchers where I will talk more about later on. The vouchers we gave away are in denomination of 500 AED, 100 AED and 50 AED plus the 1 free dessert on display and 10 coffees. 

To all the winners, I have called each and every winner and it was my pleasure to acknowledge your winning. You can claim your vouchers in the café, just ask your server how. You are also allowed to give the vouchers to the person you want to give it to, just let us know who you want to give it to.

Blackboard

if you didn’t notice we have changed our blackboard too. We wanted to keep it with the event we’re having but I couldn’t take off the first art we had which has the different desserts we used to make in the beginning. That was the only part I wanted to keep for a long time because it means a lot to me and did you know that all we had in the beginning was desserts? This wall is something that we will keep on changing depending on the season or event but for now, it shows different colors, social media and just all about our birthday vibes. Thanks Maria (UAE Murals)

Thank You

It was a very fun filled day and it feels like it was my own birthday. We have received gifts from a lot of people and as much as I want to thank them all in a public platform, most of them wants to keep a private profile and you know who you are. I am so happy to receive so many flowers, a book, even a wallet and so many more. All of you made it a very meaningful day and it’s a celebration that will forever make a mark in my heart and mind. I am more inspired to do more and be more as this passion of mine just keeps on growing and I would not even think about stopping.

Looking forward to more years of inspiring and living this passion of creating unique, fresh and creative flavours.

Love,

Nawal

An Awesome 1 Year

بالفعل عامنا الأول كان الاجمل و انتم هم السبب.. شكرا لكم جميعا لجعلكم بيبر فيغ محطتكم الدائمة في امارة الشارقة..

لولا دعمكم لما حققنا ما سعينا لاجله، لذلك اسمحوا لنا بتوجيه هذه الدعوة لكم لحضور احتفالنا بعامنا الأول..

مفاجات كثيره بانتظاركم في هذا اليوم التي اعددناها لكم لتستمر على مدار اليوم و لكن في الساعه ٤ مساء سنحتفل جمعيا و ستشاركونا بقطع الكعكة المصممه خصيصا لهذه المناسبة

مع حبي،

نوال النعيمي

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It was indeed an Awesome 1 year and you made it all happen.. Thank you for making Paper Fig Desserts as your own Sweet Retreat in Sharjah.

We would never make it to the 1 year mark without  all of your support and with this, please allow me to invite you to our first birthday ever.

We have a lot of surprises waiting in store for you that day and get l to experience a different Sweet Retreat that’s happening exclusively on our birthday.  but we will be cutting our birthday cake AT 4:00 PM.

Love,

Nawal Al Nuaimi

Letter from the Founder and CEO of Paper Fig Desserts

Hello there!

Thank you for sharing your interest in knowing more about me and my growing Paper Fig family. Yes, we are getting bigger and sweeter and it’s about time I will share to you as to how my story began. My story is about food, family, love all rolled into one.

We are soon launching a timeline about my journey towards growing my passion for pure, fresh and unique flavors into business but for now, let me tell you a little about it in this blog that I personally manage myself.

You may all know me as Nawal a certified foodie but did you know that I started my career in the corporate world? I was an I.T professional who worked in both Dubai and Ajman municipality before I left it to become a full time wife to a very supportive husband, mom to 3 beautiful children Khalifa, Abdulla and Mahra and an all time employee of Paper Fig Desserts.

My life before was just about my little family, I.T career and I was never really a foodie not until I got pregnant with my first son, Khalifa, when food curiosity kicked in. I learned how to cook and bake until I never stopped. About 2 years later when my second son, Abdulla, was born, I had my first travel to London with my husband and guess what? I spent my entire vacation roaming around the bakery and food lane of London! I went home from our trip with an inspired heart to explore more in the kitchen life.

I always manage to share to my family, friends and colleagues whatever I am cooking or baking, be it a pizza, bread or sweets. They all loved my creations and they all pushed me to start a home business and with the outpouring support, I eventually decided to start out a home business.

I wanted to do something sweet in small sizes thus coming up with the name Mini Treats and it was Asma Al Humrani, a talented woman who helped me create the brand logo. I started small with Mini Treats and all I did was sell cheesecake in a cupcake size together with the fruit tart that I made from scratch. It was all just a hobby and a passion to do the sweets that’s why I did not expect it to be well known brand among the locals. As my brand grew, my product portfolio grew as well. You usually see the bite sized cheesecakes in family gatherings or gifts to any events and the cake pops for wedding. It was truly a wonderful journey growing with the Mini Treats brand as I was able to turn clients into friends. There was a steady growth with the business and it made me dream to have my own central kitchen just to be able to catch up with the demand. My husband supported me since the beginning by buying me a commercial chiller at home, expanding our kitchen and he pushed me to go with my central kitchen dream. I learned about Khalifa Fund and I joined and did a proposal about my growing Mini Treats business. The application of the fund was ongoing when me and my husband decided that we need to do a re-branding since we don’t want to be limited to mini treats per se. It was also about that time that my husband and I, became business partners. I usually do my research and found the American brand Bloom Bake Shop Online and wanted a logo exactly like it so we went on to find the designers behind it. They came up with many brand proposals and when they came up with the Paper Fig brand, we immediately fell in love with the concept. I only dreamt of a central kitchen but when Paper Fig came to life, my concept changed and we wanted to come up a Sweet Retreat that would still value the core that I had with Mini Treats which is a passion of creating fresh, pure and unique flavors that is consistently good.

Fast forward to 2015, a month later when my 3^rd child, my only daughter Mahra was born when we finally opened our doors to all of you.

Thanks to Khalifa Fund, my supportive husband and business partner Ahmed, my family and friends and to you my awesome supporters for making it all happen. It was indeed an awesome 1 year for me and my growing Paper Fig family. It didn’t come without a struggle as we are a start-up business and there are still tons to learn in being a full time wife, mother and entrepreneur all at the same time.

I have a lot of things to share to you in the coming days, weeks and months to come so you can also be inspired to be the person that you are meant to be. I believe that whenever there is passion and dedication, you can make things happen.

Love,

Nawal Al Nuaimi