Merry Christmas!

We will be closed for the holidays from December 24 until January 1st (both days included), except:

Jægersborggade
Monday 29th 11.00 - 18.00
Tuesday 30th 11.00 - 18.00

Roskilde
Saturday 27th 10.00 - 16.00
Monday 29th 11.00 - 18.00
Tuesday 30th 11.00 - 18.00


If you wanna indulge in something else than coffee we can all thoroughly recommend last year's success: Glögg a la Klaus It does wonders in this cold climate. Perhaps we can pursuade Liv to share her wonderful caramel recipe and Sara to share hers for "Lussekatte" (a safran cake).

Merry Christmas everyone!

More courses and Christmas gifts

We've added two more barista courses for the beginning of '09.
February 4th is already sold out though.
April 22nd is still available. Book here.

There's also still a few spots left for the cupping course Kaffesmagning med Verdensmesteren

What better Christmas gift to the coffee fanatic in your household? (And we all have one of those in our families right?!)



We've also still got our cups on sale. The offer for 6 at a reduced price still holds.

The Taster Package of our 6 coffees with a 32% discount is also available at the Coffee Shops in Jægersborggade and Roskilde.


And personally, I look forward to matching the traditional Danish Ris á la Mande with a nice Frensh Press of the dark roast Idido after the Christmas dinner on the 24th.

Barista Magazine

The December/January issue of Barista Magazine is on the streets.
The current issue features our last column about our first year as a company.
It's been a very interesting process writing this series of articles during the past year. It's allowed us to take time and reflect on our progress in a way that I don't think we would have otherwise. And it'll be fun to go back and read in a few years. Part of me also think I'll miss getting emails from Sarah every couple of months asking when the heck the article is coming ;-)

You can come and read Barista Magazine at our coffee shop while sipping a fresh roasted cup of coffee. Or you can read the entire magazine online! Yes, that's right. B-Mag is for the people, so Ken and Sarah now provides online access. We still recommend a one year subscription, because then you wont spill coffee all over your shine new laptop when you see the new Stumptown adds...

Roskilde build-up done… for now

Saturday (yesterday) was an extremely busy day in Roskilde. At a point we were 2 baristas and one doctor/ dishwasher (thanks Tove) having trouble keeping the line of people from not growing too fast. Intense and very inspiring !

Hopefully we will have many more of these days, where you stand in a crowd and wonder where did all this come from ?

So I thought it good to summarize the hectic build-up now, while we still can remember what happened.

For this project we had some quite clear rules.

It had to be cheap.
When we first heard of this oppurtunity 4 weeks ago, everything was very uncertain about the contract etc. It is also a totally different setting from what we are used to and we can never be sure how our ideas are going to be perceived in this context. So we wanted to keep investments to a minimum in case we wouldn´t be allowed to open.

It had to go fast.

Both us and the contractholder could only go through with this if we could move in very swiftly. None of us could fit this project in much later. It was actually just 3 weeks between the day I saw the place for the first time until we opened the doors.

We saw these circumstances as quite challenging, luckily we have had an another factor playing in our favour- flexibility.

Eva, who had a designshop in the locality before, has been a dream as a co-operator. Always seeing potential problems or new ideas before anyone else. Helping with everything from the smallest details to just about anything, And always showing total trust in what we were doing. I would say it is crucial to get well of from the start with the people owning or renting out your locality, but in this case we can say that this whole project wouldn’t have been possible if wasn’t for Eva.

Peter has among other things been handling all the documentation brilliantly and I think that Peter and Eva could actually form the most efficient company ever if they wanted to.

Casper has done all the other things that we couldn’t. Running the roastery. Quite a mouthful.

So, our minds were set to build something quick and cheap. The room was in a good stand and had a perfect floor for a Coffeebar- epoxy. The walls needed some minor mending (which of course took more time than we thought) and 2 buckets of paint. We went on in a quite brutalistic manner, we did just the absolute minimum and put more effort on those parts and materials we wanted to stand out and really needed attention. In all, it was a very flexible room.

It was vital for us to expose our beans in good way, so we put some effort on making a shelf.

Second, the street window was magnificent and just called for a desk were you can sit and look and be looked at.
Third, the back window was first a minor priority, but gradually we realised that it was important to get it right. The back window is part of the bar area, so it was good to get it fixed for hygienic reasons but it also just makes it a better working area.

Klaus handled the extremely important electricity and plumbing which we had to take in from adjacent rooms. It went incredibly smooth and quick. The framework for the working area is 2 stainless steel tables. They were very cheap and I have to say that I love the fact that they are open underneath (no separatating walls creating shafts), so you can easily fix and adapt things along the way. If we need to increase the working area, we could actually just build on with more steeltables.
We also got a lot of very appreciated help from Torgny Törsäter (my father actually), he is an architect/carpenter and quite used to handle things like building a suspended windowdesk in no time with no money. We learn a lot from this kind of projects, which is an extra bonus, not taking into account the sense of control you get from receiving help from professionals.

After three weeks we are done, but as mentioned, the room is very flexible and can be changed quite dramatically if we intend to have another layout.

And there are of course thousands of things that Karen is improving on every day, but I have to say that she has already given an atmosphere to the place that wasn´t there before.

Courses early 2009

Sorry, but this post in only in Danish.

Så er vores kursusprogram for første kvartal af 2009 klar.

Barista Teknik

28. januar 2009
kl. 18.30 - 21.30

Få det optimale ud af kaffen og espressomaskinen sammen med Barista Verdensmester Klaus Thomsen. Der bliver dosereret, distribueret, tampet, brygget og steamet på et intensivt 3-timers kursus i de nyeste barista teknikker.

Pris Kr. 500
Køb billet her.


Cupping

11. marts 2009
kl. 19.00 – 21.00

Kaffe er en af de mest aromatisk komplekse fødevarer man kender til.
Verdensmester i Kaffesmagning, Casper Engel Rasmussen, vil stå for denne smagning. Han vil præsentere den internationalt anerkendte metode til at vurdere kvaliteten af kaffe, kaldet cupping. Smag på udvalgte, karakteristiske kaffer og bliv bekendt med kaffens vokabularium.

Pris Kr. 400
Køb billet her.

Tilmelding til Barista og Cupping kurset sker på vores webshop.


Risterkurser i samarbejde med EspressoBar

Kafferistning Basis (3 timer)

Søndag d. 5. april 2009
kl. 13-16:

- Kafferistning generelt
- Varmetilførsel og temperatur
- Ristningens faser
- Fysiske- og kemiske ændringer i bønnen
- Profilristning
- Slowroast vs. speedroast (fysisk, kemisk og sensorisk)
- Komparativ cupping af kaffe ristet ved forskellige profiler ( samme farm, samme slutfarve, forskellige risteprofiler)
Kr. 800 incl. 1 pose grønne bønner

Roast Masters Crash (Heldagskursus)

Lørdag d. 4. april 2009
kl. 9.30-16:

Formiddag:
- Systematisk Cupping
Cupping som metode
Cuppingsproget
Smagstest af egne sanser
- Kaffedyrkning – kvalitet og historie
Udbredelsen af kaffedyrkningen
Sorter, mikroklima og dyrkning
Høst og efterhøstbehanling
Den internationale handel med kaffe og bæredygtighed

Frokost (inkluderet, ca. kl. 12.30-13.00)

Eftermiddag:
- Profilristning
Basic risteteori
Slow Roast vs. Speedroast
Komparativ cupping af kaffe ristet ved forskellige profiler (samme farm, samme slutfarve, forskellige risteprofiler)
Kr. 1.500 incl. frokost og 1 pose grønne bønner.

Tilmelding til ristekurser sker ved at sende en mail til EspressoBar på mobak@espressobar.dk med følgende informationer:

- Navn
- Adresse
- EspressoBar brugernavn
- Hvilket kursus ønsker du at tilmelde dig

Tilmeldingen er bindende, og først gyldig når du har modtaget en bekræftelse på din tilmelding. Tilmelding foregår naturligvis efter først-til-mølle princippet. Når du har modtaget en bekræftelse på din tilmelding, foregår betaling via bankoverførsel. Kontonummeret vil fremgå af bekræftelsen.

TCC 4K - Roskilde is open

The Coffee Collective Roskilde opened yesterday.

At 7:30 we tore down the paper that have been covering the windows for the past couple of week and started welcoming people to our new coffee shop.

Here's Linus giving away free coffees to by-passers:



With 12 seats we're keeping it small and personal. A 2-group La Marzocco GB5, Compak K-10 and a Mahlkönig VTA-6 (aka R2D2) is situated in the bar, with a beautiful white disk (thanks to Eva!) to serve the drinks on.

The espresso machine is situated with the side to the customers, so it's - just like in Jægersborggade - easy to see what the barista is doing. And when we installed the lights in the La Marzocco we thought the big Mahlkönig grinder could use some light as well. So now we have a Mahlkönig with built-in light - and the cool part is that the light only comes on when you grind! It's really neat and perhaps the only of it's kind ;-)



Opening day was really cozy and a few journalists and photographers stopped by. Saturday one of the local papers had a full page about the store and local coffee hero Peter Dupont (he's from around Roskilde originally) which a lot of people had already seen. We hope the word will spread fast and the people of Roskilde will come in and try our coffees.

More pictures on Flickr.