Numen Design

What Numen Design is

Numen Design is a shop and studio for handmade writing instruments in Roma Norte, with a specialty coffee counter built into the same small room. The address is Tabasco 189, local D, and the door is on Jalapa, the side street, which is why people walk past it.

The centre of the room is a large wooden table holding the collection: mechanical pencils, ballpoints and fountain pens, in light and dark wood, each laid out individually so that the display reads more like a jewellery case than a stationery shelf. Every piece is turned from reclaimed hardwood, teak, tzalam, parota, oak and walnut, rescued from Mexican furniture and design workshops, and the packaging is built to be handed over as a gift. The writing instruments are not the only things for sale either: there are scented candles and a woody perfume, and the walls hold paintings and art objects.

Along one side there is a dark wooden bar with a tiny coffee counter and a short list of hot and cold drinks, a few small wooden tables to sit at, and wooden stairs set in front of a large mirror. The mirror is what most visitors photograph themselves in. The styling is carried all the way through, down to the black toilet paper in the bathroom.

Numen Design carries no food or coffee award. Its credentials are on the design side: its work has been shown at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York and at Zona MACO in Mexico City.

Who is behind it

Alberto Magaña founded Numen Design. It began about five years ago as a hobby and grew into a brand sold internationally. His stated position is circular design rather than sustainability as a label: the material is offcut wood that would otherwise be waste, collected from workshops including Taller Nacional and Alex Mora Studio, with most of the timber originating in southeastern Mexico.

The making is deliberately analogue. Magaña designs with a pencil on paper, prototypes take months, and production runs in collaboration with a master pencil maker, Octavio Díaz, from a workshop in Colonia Narvarte. He calls the finished pieces perfectly imperfect, which is the point: the grain and the flaws of the reclaimed wood are the design.

Awards and press

• Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York: Numen Design work exhibited.
• Zona MACO, Mexico City: Numen Design work exhibited at the contemporary art fair.
• Covered by Manera Magazine and by international stationery press including Pencil Talk, and stocked by specialist retailers abroad such as Amarillo Stationery.

How the shop and the coffee bar work

There are two things to do here and they take about twenty minutes together.

• The table: the full collection, one piece at a time. Staff will explain the lead blend, the intended use and the story behind each model rather than leaving you to browse.
• The coffee bar: a short list of hot and cold espresso-based drinks at the tiny dark wooden counter. Milk is regular or oat, and nothing else. No kitchen, no pastry case, no table service.
• Somewhere to sit: a few small wooden tables, and the wooden stairs in front of the full-height mirror, which was the best seat in the room when I visited.
• The other objects: scented candles, a woody perfume, paintings and art objects on the walls, sold alongside the pens and pencils.
• Buying: pieces come boxed in recycled cardboard, and the Simplex models include a leather case and a numbered certificate of authenticity.

What I saw in August

The collection is set out like art objects and the wood is genuinely beautiful up close, light and dark grain side by side. Simple and mechanical pencils start at around a hundred dollars and ballpoints and fountain pens run past two hundred, which is a lot for a pencil and makes more sense once you have handled one. The coffee was the surprise: a short list, regular or oat milk, very pleasant prices, and quality that stands up against dedicated cafes a few streets away. I drank mine sitting on the wooden stairs in front of the mirror, which is where I would sit again.

What it costs

Object prices are listed by the brand in US dollars. Coffee is paid in pesos at the counter.

Item	Price
Ballpoint pen, wood and brass or black and brass	110 USD
Simplex Slim mechanical pencil, 1.1 mm lead	110 USD
Simplex mechanical pencil, with leather case and numbered certificate	165 USD
Fountain pen, wood and brass or black and brass	215 USD
Fountain pen, all brass	235 USD
Coffee at the counter	Under 200 MXN, about 11 USD

Shipping within Mexico is free from the online store. The coffee is the cheap part of the visit by a wide margin, and nobody will push you to buy a pencil. Prices were current in 2026 and move.

How a visit works

No booking, no reservation, no minimum. Walk in from Jalapa, order a coffee at the counter, and look at the table.

• Instagram: @numen_design for current hours and new releases.
• Online store: numendesignstore.com, with WhatsApp and email support and free shipping in Mexico.
• Hours: listings show roughly 10:00 to 19:00 on the days it opens, and they are not consistent across platforms. Check before you go, especially early in the week.

If you want the objects explained, come when it is quiet. The staff do the explaining as a matter of course and it is the best part of the visit.

Getting there

• Address: Tabasco 189, local D, Colonia Roma Norte, 06700 Mexico City, with the entrance on Calle Jalapa. Some listings give Jalapa 91.
• Neighbourhood: central Roma Norte, a block or two from Avenida Álvaro Obregón and within walking distance of Mercado Roma and Plaza Río de Janeiro.
• Metro: Insurgentes on Line 1 is about ten minutes on foot. Hospital General on Line 3 is a similar distance.
• Metrobús: Line 1 on Avenida Insurgentes, stop Álvaro Obregón, then a few minutes east.
• Parking: metered street parking on Tabasco and Jalapa, usually tight. Walk or take a ride app.
• The workshop: production happens in Colonia Narvarte and is not open to visitors.

Before you go

• Look for the door on Jalapa. The listed address is on Tabasco and the entrance is not. This is the single most common reason people fail to find it.
• Check the hours first. Published hours differ between listings. Instagram is the reliable source.
• You can come only for coffee. Nobody treats the counter as a loss leader, and it is one of the better cheap coffees in Roma Norte.
• Handle the pieces. The weight and the grain are the argument for the price, and the staff expect you to pick things up.
• It is small, but you can sit. One room, a few little wooden tables and the stairs in front of the mirror. Not a place to set up with a laptop for an afternoon, and not built for a group.
• Pair it with the neighbourhood. Marne Café on Avenida Sonora is the full breakfast version of Roma coffee, and Payna on Medellín is a short walk for seafood afterwards.
• Check the hours before you go. The hours on this page come from the venue’s public listings, which drift, so confirm on Google Maps or the venue’s own channels before a special trip.

Watch the visit

The reel above walks from the door to the table to the coffee bar in a few seconds. For every place I have filmed in the city, open my Mexico City map or browse the Mexico City recommendations.