Coffee connoisseur Farimah Fattahi brings a touch of Iran to Paris's café culture

Morning mist was drawing abstract shapes on the shopfront window. It was a gray day in Paris, but walking through the door of Harvest coffee shop, which opened in mid-November 2024, provided a warm distraction from winter. Farimah Fattahi was there to welcome us, with hazel eyes and an outfit whose monochrome matched the materials of the place – wood, lime and ceramics.

Harvest is a beautiful name for the road strewn with pitfalls that the 32-year-old woman born in Tehran has taken to find herself at the head of her own coffee shop, with a team of three employees. "We are open every day, the weeks are intense, but when I get here in the morning, I have to pinch myself to believe it. I had been dreaming about this coffee shop for years, and I put the best of what I had learned into it."

The third of four siblings, Fattahi grew up in a traditional Iranian family and, like her elder sister, studied food engineering, until her passion for coffee led her to branch out. At the age of 25, she was the only woman to sign up for a slow coffee course in a tea-loving country that knows almost nothing but black coffee. Her father didn't like the idea, but Fattahi went ahead with her plan anyway.

Short seasonal menu

In Tehran, she took on contracts in cafés, learned about stamina and management, and perfected her specialty coffee skills. She took part in all the barista competitions, with the support of her husband, Saeid, who had gone to study in Leuven, Belgium. She joined him in 2019, and the couple moved to France the following year: "I had an interview in a coffee shop on the first day I arrived in Paris!"

Covid-19 and its successive lockdowns broke her momentum but offered her the opportunity to focus on learning French. As soon as the cafés reopened, she trained in the best establishments, sculpting patterns in the milk foam and using the Aeropress to explore the nuances of single-origin coffees.

In the spring of 2023, while cycling along the Rue de la Roquette, she came across a vacant space and took the plunge. Neither the administrative formalities nor the construction work frightened her. A year and a half later, Harvest was born. Fattahi has not compromised on any of her expectations: a short seasonal menu, milk from Ferme de Viltain delivered to reduce packaging, beans chosen from KB Coffee Roasters in Pigalle. And a dream machine from the Netherlands, a gleaming Kees van der Westen that sits enthroned on the counter.