Cafés in Kazakhstan Almaty

Shai in the kese

Tea reached the steppe along the Silk Road: caravans carried Chinese tea through Semirechye and southern Kazakhstan, and it stayed a luxury for centuries; supplies almost stopped when the Silk Road declined in the 14th century.⁴ Tea-drinking customs arrived from Russia in the late 19th century, first among the elite.⁴

Shai (tea) usually means black tea with milk, and strong tea mixed with milk is called qyzyl shai, "red tea".⁴ In the south and in the Kyzylorda, Atyrau and Mangystau regions it is served in small bowls called kese or piyala, filled only halfway so guests can sip it hot and the host can refill it often.⁴

Every guest is offered a cup, and a short visit can last hours. When the guests have gone, families often say "ozimiz shai isheik" ("let's drink tea by ourselves") and pour their own round.⁴

Almaty's first coffee houses

Coffee houses are a 21st-century arrival. Writing in 2019, Forbes Kazakhstan dated Almaty's first, Coffeedelia and Biskvit, to about 15 years earlier.⁶ Coffeedelia's original café on Kabanbay Batyr Street, still known by the street's former name, Kalinina, opened in 2005 and closed on October 20, 2024.⁷

By 2019 one café owner counted 30 to 40 coffee shops per square kilometer in central Almaty's "golden square". Americano, cappuccino and latte outsold espresso, most trade came between morning and lunch, and hot drinks sold less in the summer heat. A cup from a mobile coffee stand then cost 450–500 ₸, one from a café 700–800 ₸ and up, and a kilo of roasted coffee about 7,000 ₸.⁶

Roasting at home

The rising share of green coffee reflects a young roasting trade. A 2025 survey by Poster, a café-software company, counted more than two dozen roasters in Kazakhstan, in Almaty, Karaganda and other cities, where five years earlier there had been only a few suppliers of fresh-roasted beans. Of those surveyed, 64% run their own cafés, two on average.⁸ Demand kept rising into 2025: imports in January and February reached 786.9 tonnes, 45% more than a year earlier and the most for those months in at least six years.²

As of 2025, roasters charged about 10,000 ₸ a kilo for base-grade beans, up to 35,000 ₸ for premium coffee and up to 239,000 ₸ for exclusive specialty lots.⁸ Some of the beans go back out: in January and February 2025 Kazakhstan exported 205.5 tonnes of roasted coffee, more than four times the year before.²

What a cup costs, and where it is packed

Café prices have climbed. In 2024 a latte cost 1,200 ₸ on average across Kazakhstan, 13% more than in 2023; a cappuccino cost 1,050 ₸, up 5%, and an Americano rose 11.3%.¹ Retail coffee as a whole rose almost 12% over the year.¹

Almaty, the largest city and the capital until 1997, sits in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau, part of the Tian Shan, at about 700 to 900 m.⁹¹⁰ It is also where the country's tea and coffee is processed and packed: in 2018 the city produced 87.4% of Kazakhstan's output of both.⁵

Earthquakes in 1887 and 1911 caused heavy damage in the city. The Ascension Cathedral in Panfilov Park, 56 m tall and built of Tian Shan spruce in 1907, withstood the 1911 quake.⁹