Saudi Coffee Company, Culinary Arts Commission Sign Agreement to Preserve Heritage

The Saudi Coffee Company signs a cooperation agreement with the Culinary Arts Commission to promote and preserve Saudi Arabia’s unique and diverse culinary heritage. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Saudi Coffee Company signs a cooperation agreement with the Culinary Arts Commission to promote and preserve Saudi Arabia’s unique and diverse culinary heritage. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
TT

Saudi Coffee Company, Culinary Arts Commission Sign Agreement to Preserve Heritage

The Saudi Coffee Company signs a cooperation agreement with the Culinary Arts Commission to promote and preserve Saudi Arabia’s unique and diverse culinary heritage. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Saudi Coffee Company signs a cooperation agreement with the Culinary Arts Commission to promote and preserve Saudi Arabia’s unique and diverse culinary heritage. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

The Saudi Coffee Company announced Thursday the signing of a cooperation agreement with the Culinary Arts Commission to promote and preserve Saudi Arabia’s unique and diverse culinary heritage.

The agreement will help promote Saudi Arabia’s coffee product as one rooted in the past, present and future of Saudi society.

It will celebrate Saudi Arabia’s coffee heritage, support the development of the national coffee industry and empower local talents.

The company is a subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund established to transform Saudi Arabia’s Coffea Arabica into a global product.

“The Saudi Coffee Company is ramping up efforts to be a pioneer in developing the coffee industry in Saudi and celebrating coffee heritage with the Culinary Arts Commission,” Saudi Coffee Company CEO Raja al-Harbi said.

He stressed that the agreement is a major step that will help the company communicate its values and message to the public.

Mayada Badr, CEO of the Culinary Arts Commission, said: “Our cooperation agreement with Saudi Coffee Company aligns with our mission to share the richness of our culinary arts and traditions with the world. “

This agreement will further enhance the Kingdom’s long-standing legacy of coffee growing, underscoring the Company’s distinctive product, Badr added.

The terms of the agreement include plans to work across multiple platforms including content creation, sponsorship, marketing and merchandising opportunities to market Saudi Arabia’s coffee beans more widely.

It provides for collaborative work between the commission and the company in several areas, such as a program to develop a media library and local culinary arts stories and the designing and marketing of tourism routes for coffee plantations.

It will support Saudi coffee events and festivals, issue licenses to Saudi coffee experts, encourage local production, promote the company’s products in digital shops specializing in Saudi culinary arts, and set standards for the processing of coffee beans.

The Saudi Coffee Company’s vision is to ensure that the national coffee industry is enabled along its entire value chain, from bean to cup.

It will play a vital role in developing sustainable coffee production in Saudi Arabia’s southern region, home to the world-famous Coffea Arabica.



Britain’s King Charles III Welcomes the Visiting Japanese Emperor and Empress 

Britain's King Charles III (R) sits with Emperor Naruhito of Japan during a State Banquet at Buckingham Palace in London on June 25, 2024, on the first day of a three-day State Visit by Japan's Emperor and Empress to Britain. (AFP)
Britain's King Charles III (R) sits with Emperor Naruhito of Japan during a State Banquet at Buckingham Palace in London on June 25, 2024, on the first day of a three-day State Visit by Japan's Emperor and Empress to Britain. (AFP)
TT

Britain’s King Charles III Welcomes the Visiting Japanese Emperor and Empress 

Britain's King Charles III (R) sits with Emperor Naruhito of Japan during a State Banquet at Buckingham Palace in London on June 25, 2024, on the first day of a three-day State Visit by Japan's Emperor and Empress to Britain. (AFP)
Britain's King Charles III (R) sits with Emperor Naruhito of Japan during a State Banquet at Buckingham Palace in London on June 25, 2024, on the first day of a three-day State Visit by Japan's Emperor and Empress to Britain. (AFP)

King Charles III welcomed the Japanese emperor and empress for a state visit that began on Tuesday, offering the best in pomp and circumstance as the UK seeks to bolster its role as the most influential European nation in the Indo-Pacific region.

Emperor Naruhito and Empress of Masako are to attend a banquet hosted by the king, lay a wreath at Westminster Abbey and tour one of Britain’s premier biomedical research institutes. But the emperor began this week’s trip by visiting a site that has special meaning: The Thames Barrier.

The retractable flood control gates on the River Thames seemed a natural destination for a royal long interested in the waterway that runs through the heart of London. Naruhito studied 18th-century commerce on the river as a graduate student at the University of Oxford some 40 years ago.

He chronicled the interest in his memoir “The Thames and I,” together with his fondness for Britain and its people. The future emperor got a chance to experience life outside the palace walls, including doing his own ironing and going to the bank.

Tuesday's ceremonial welcome seemed warm. Charles and Naruhito, who have known each other for years, settled into the back of a carriage and chatted like old chums.

Masako wore a mask in her carriage because of a horse hair allergy.

Both countries look to each other as a source of stability and mutual reassurance at a time of potentially destabilizing global political change.

“We’ve had a long history of engagement,” said John Nilsson-Wright, the head of the Japan and Koreas program at the Center for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge. “But ... this current visit (is) a reflection of both the personal ties of affection between the two royal families (and) perhaps most importantly of all, the geopolitical significance of the relationship.”