DUBAI, UAE – Cafes in several Arab states in the Gulf have started selling coffee and other cold drinks in bottles this month, triggering a new trend that has caused excitement, confusion and side effects.
The journey began at Einstein Cafe, a chain of desserts with branches from the region, from Dubai to Kuwait and Bahrain. Instead of ordinary paper glasses, the cafe, inspired by images with modern-looking bottles, distributed on social media, decided to serve its thick milk drinks in plastic bottles.
Although the franchise was not a newcomer to baby-themed products – a cereal milkshake, rice cereal for babies, is a long-running bestseller – the unprecedented fervor over feeding bottles was a bit shocking. All the stress and anxiety caused by the coronavirus pandemic seems to have stimulated some to find a way out of the strange new madness.
“Everyone wanted to buy it, people called all day, telling us they were coming with their friends, they were coming with their father and mother,” he told the Associated Younes Molla, CEO of the Einstein franchise in the United Arab Emirates. Press this week. “After so many months of pandemic, with all the difficulties, people took pictures, had fun, remembered their childhood.”
The lines clogged Einstein stores along the Gulf. People of all ages sneaked onto the sidewalks, waiting for the chance to suck coffee and juice from a plastic bottle. Some owners even brought their own bottles to other cafes, pleading with bewildered bartenders to fill them.
The images with the bottles filled with colorful kaleidoscopes of drinks attracted thousands of appreciations on Instagram and bounced in the popular social application TikTok. A remedy for the uncertainty of the world? A response to a certain primary instinct? Either way, a trend has been born.
However, soon, online urers took note – drinkers and baby bottle vendors faced a lot of nasty comments.
“People were so angry that they said horrible things that we were ‘aeb’ to Islam and Muslim culture,” Molla said, using the Arabic term for shame or dishonor.
Last week, anger reached its highest levels of government. The Dubai authorities have been repressed. Inspection teams broke into cafes where the trend took off and distributed fines.
“Such non-discriminatory use of bottles is not only against local culture and traditions,” the government statement said, “but mishandling the bottle during filling could also contribute to the spread of COVID-19,” an apparent reference to those who they bring their used bottles to other cafes.
According to the statement, the authorities were “alerted to negative practices and its risks by social media users”.
Backlash also came from Kuwait, where the government temporarily closed the Einstein cafe, and from Bahrain, where the Ministry of Commerce sent armed police with live cameras to the cafes and warned all dining units that serving drinks in food bottles “violates customs and Bahraini traditions. ”
Oman urged citizens to report the bottle’s comments to the Consumer Protection Authority’s helpline. Saudi Twitter users and media personalities condemned the trend in the harshest terms, with the popular news site Mujaz al-Akhbar lamenting that “the kingdom’s daughters have suffered a loss of modesty and religion.”
This is not the first time that the guardians of local customs in the Arab countries of the Gulf have focused their anger on social media phenomena. Vague laws throughout the region give the authorities broad power to eliminate public immorality and indecency. Emirati officers last spring, for example, arrested a young expat for posting a video on TikTok sneezing into a banknote, accusing him of “damaging” the reputation of the UAE and its institutions.