A few years ago, my friend Rachel went to Israel and came back with a bag of assorted Ahava cosmetics and a bag of coffee beans roasted by Cafelix. At the time, there was only the tiniest coffee scene in Tel Aviv and Cafelix one of the city’s only proper roasters. Admittedly, I thought the coffee was roasted a tad too dark but I had nothing to compare it to since the local coffee scene in Israel’s biggest city was completely unknown to me.
Fast forward a few years and there you have me wandering around the Levinsky market area with a friend and stumbling upon a Cafelix café. In all fairness, I had completely forgotten about the coffee bag that my friend brought back from there and it was only after I posted a photo on Facebook that she created the link for me by reminding me of that time.
After having had a few coffees here and there, I was really impressed by the setup and the quality of the coffees served here. If you had no idea where you were at that moment, you could have been in a nice modern café in San Francisco or Barcelona. I, for one, was in a very happy place.
Cafelix, the café and roastery founded by German expat Philipp Schaefer and his wife Yael in 2011, greatly helped shape what is today’s very small but vibrant specialty coffee scene in Tel Aviv. But according to Philipp, getting started wasn’t easy thanks to Israeli bureaucracy that can sometimes seem more complex and confusing than its counterpart in Germany. And I’m German too. I know what I’m talking about. Yet, persistence and patience paid off and after 3 years of waiting, Cafelix finally got all the permits it needed to open Tel Aviv’s first inner-city roastery.
I didn’t get the chance to visit any of the other cafés or the roastery but the café close to Levinsky market was all I needed after a casual stroll through the busy streets of this bustling neighbourhood. The outside is covered in foliage, providing much-needed shade from the intense sun and the inside is cosy albeit a bit squished. The baristas know their trade well and you can choose from a variety of coffee drinks including all your favourite espresso-based beverages, filter and even nitro cold brew on tap.
The coffee bags feature animals rather than extensive information about the origin, something that seems to date back to the early days when local roasters were still a bit more secretive but, truth be told, the bags look cute. And, most importantly, the coffee inside tastes great.
Thus, if you’re in Tel Aviv and you’re looking for a great cup of coffee, Cafelix is a really good place to start.
