MoQana Coffee opened its third location on West Lindsey Street in Norman on Saturday.
Holman is a fourth-generation Norman resident who spent a decade representing Ward 7 on the City Council before becoming mayor in 2025.
From Mocha House to a Three-State Brand
MoQana wasn't born on Lindsey Street. The business started as Mocha House in Edmond in 2023, then became MoQana after its partners moved to Tennessee and opened a second location there, the outlet's reporting states. The business later expanded to Norman; its Edmond shop relocated within Edmond in February and built its following at 432 South Santa Fe Avenue, per Visit Edmond.
The Tennessee outpost, at 1105 North Houston Levee Road in Cordova, offers spiced lattes and milk cakes, according to Edible Memphis. The Norman location is the company's third, after its Edmond and Cordova shops.
Adeni Chai and Beans From the Haraz Mountains
The Norman menu includes a range of drinks.
At MoQana's Cordova location, Adeni chai is the most popular drink; it is a spiced black tea. The Norman shop also pours coffee made from beans grown in Yemen's Haraz Mountains, Haymah and Bani Matar regions, beans that remain uncommon across Oklahoma. Beyond coffee and chai, the menu includes tea, matcha, smoothies, sandwiches, crepes and waffles, along with fall-themed drinks and desserts running for a limited time.
Yemen is considered the home of the prepared coffee beverage, even though the coffee plant itself originated in Ethiopia. Beans grown on the country's high-altitude terraces, between 1,200 and 2,400 meters above sea level, are naturally sun-dried inside the whole coffee fruit, according to Mocha Lux, a process associated with floral and fruity flavor notes. Recent conflict in Yemen has posed danger to coffee farmers there and made exports more difficult, adding another layer to how rare these beans are outside the country.
Six Centuries Behind Every Cup
The history behind that cup runs deep. Brewed coffee traces back to 15th-century Sufi monks in Yemen who boiled coffee-cherry husks to stay awake during late-night prayer rituals, and Yemen's Red Sea port of Al-Mokha is where the word mocha comes from, according to Atmos Earth. Traditional Yemeni qishr is a beverage brewed from dried coffee cherry husks with ginger and cinnamon.
A similar Yemeni chain has opened near the University of Central Florida, a development Hoodline has also covered.
MoQana Opens in Norman
MoQana's Norman location is open.
