By the time night falls and the last few customers trickle out of the ice cream parlors behind Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Port, it may seem as if the day’s work is done. But for Amira Al Dosari, it’s just the beginning.
Her shift begins at 9pm in the kitchen, where she prepares, stirs, and tastes 12 different bases to create her own premium soft serve ice cream.
By morning, Al Dosari’s shop, Ice Station, will be ready with more than a dozen flavors on offer. Many of them use ingredients from rare regions.
Source: Date Palm.
The date palm tree is a symbol of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the date palms that grow on the tree are one of the country’s most important agricultural exports.
In 2024, approximately 11 million tons of dates were produced worldwide. Middle Eastern and North African countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt lead the way, with the UAE in the top 10, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
When Al Dosari, 53, founded the shop in 2023, he had no intention of introducing dates. That idea changed after she took ice cream-making courses around the world and saw how many recipes relied on ready-made mixes, preservatives and artificial flavors. But her biggest concern was the high sugar content.
“I was thinking about what the future holds for (kids) who consume a lot of sugar at a young age. What effect will that have on their bodies?” she told CNN.
That led her to begin experimenting with Corus rotab, the softest and ripest stage of the Corus variety. Inspired by its natural sweetness, she decided to recreate the original recipe from when she opened Ice Station, this time without added sugar.
Al Dosari admits that dates contain a lot of sugar. But unlike refined cane sugar, whole fruits contain dietary fiber that slows the absorption of those sugars. What is important to her is that the sweetness comes naturally from the fleshy, black fruit itself.
“The main thing in soft serve is sugar. That’s what gives it its creamy texture,” she said. Making soft-serve ice cream without added sugar “was a challenge.”
After countless attempts and experiments that broke 15 machines, Al Dosari created Lotab-flavored ice cream. But then she realized that date palm trees, from root to trunk, can be used to make ice cream, and over the past three years she has created 145 different flavors.
One such flavor is her matcha. Instead of using Japanese green tea powder, Al Dosari uses date palm leaves, which she says gives the same flavor and bright green hue. This is known as “safcha” and is a timely alternative. As demand for this tea increases around the world, the outbreak is putting pressure on Japan’s supply.
“My whole family is like, ‘Matcha, matcha, matcha!’ and I said, ‘Okay, but matcha has caffeine in it, so let’s make something similar without it.’
Her daughter, sustainability consultant Ghalia Al Mazrouei, helped her find a use for the many seeds left over from date use and brew caffeine-free coffee. They also named it “affogato,” after the Italian dessert in which the drink is poured over a pile of ice cream and the ice cream is soaked in espresso.
“We know that the whole plant is very safe for consumption, so it was important to us how we could present it in a way that everyone could enjoy,” Al Mazrouei said.
Al Dosari discovered the culinary uses of palm pollen and created a complete flavor from it. She uses date molasses to sweeten her ice cream and has discovered that different varieties of dates, like bananas, produce different flavors.
But dates aren’t her only source of inspiration. Ice Station’s menu has long offered a revolving door of international flavors, from Costa Rican pineapple to ube, a purple sweet potato native to the Philippines. Al Dosari also comes in flavorful variations such as smoked salmon and cream cheese, caviar and vanilla, and Parmesan cheese and white truffle.
“I have a lot of[ideas],” she said with a laugh. She is currently inventing her 448th flavor.
But to the founder, her date-filled scoop is more than just an innovative flavor. They are a way of transforming traditional ingredients into cultural relevance and regional identity. “All Gulf countries share the same heritage of palm trees,” she said.
Date palms thrive in the arid environment of the Gulf, and their fruit has sustained communities for centuries, becoming a symbol of hospitality and generosity. In 2019, UNESCO recognized the importance of date palms by adding them to the list of intangible cultural heritage.
Al Dosari continues to extend that tradition in frozen form, reimagining traditional Emirati desserts such as fragrant kabisa, a mix of roasted flour, ghee and spices, and rahash, a sesame-based confection that she says is popular with locals and tourists alike.
She opened a second branch of Ice Station, but launching the product internationally proved difficult. Ice Station has showcased its flavors at events overseas, including in Uzbekistan and Egypt, and has received franchise inquiries from around the world, but Al-Dosari is concerned about a drop in quality as it expands.
For now, she continues to make soft serve ice cream with a bigger mission. It’s about encouraging people to eat more natural ice cream and putting Abu Dhabi on the map for premium soft serve ice cream, while also reminding customers of the heritage they’re consuming.
“Food is almost like an international language,” Al Mazrouei said. “You don’t have to completely understand someone to connect through food.”
