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.

Liv and David wins Coppa di Nesta

We are very proud that our good Colleague Liv Akne Andersson and her friend David Ågren on Sunday 23rd won the Barista Competition - Coppa di Nesta - in Malmö, Sweden.

You can read more about their performance on Dan Stenquist blog or on Riktigtkaffe.se soon!

Our congratulations to Liv and David!!!

Our New Coffee Shop

On Monday the 1st of December we will open a Coffee Shop on Algade 20 in Roskilde!

We are very excited about this location since it is in the main street of the second largest city on Zealand (Sjælland) known for its rock festival. Also this is the city where Peter grew up and most of his famliy still lives around there.

But maybe the biggest scoop in this new project is that we have had the luck to get Karen Dysted on board!! Karen just spent the last three months in Kenya working to optimize Dorman’s cafés in Nairobi and visiting coffee farms and mills. We're confident that with Karen's coffee skills and charm this will be a very special place with a fantastic atmosphere.

We look forward to inviting the people of Roskilde in to our new coffee shop.

TV News

Casper turned the eyes of Denmark to coffee tonight:

DR 1
TV2 Lorry

And I guess the cat's out of the bag... we're planning to open up a second location!

TV on the Radio on Casper

Today the media woke up to the news that Denmark won the European Team Challenge. Of course they called Casper up straight away and wanted interviews (seriously, they did!).

Politiken had the news on their front page this morning.

Then later TV2 Lorry came by our roastery to film and interview Casper. The segment should be aired tonight at 19:30.



About half an hour earlier Casper will be a guest on national TV station DR1's Aftenshowet.

Tomorrow the early birds will be able to listen to his soft spoken voice on Denmarks Radio P3 Go'Morgen P3.

What a wonderful opportunity to make more people aware of quality coffee!

We hope you Turn On, Tune In... but avoid dropping out ;-)

Team Denmark wins SCAE’s European Team Coffee Challenge 2008.

So I just returned from the big espresso trade show in Trieste, Italy.
I as a member of The Danish National Barista Team I did not get to see much of the show as I was competing in the European Team Coffee Challenge. The Danish team battled against teams from Russia, UK, Austria, Italy, Estonia, Iceland and Ireland and came out victorious. Hurray...

During the days there we participated in several workshops and competitions. All though the quality of some of the workshops was not very high and some pretty bad arranged (only in Italian!!!) all in all the Team Challenge was a great competition. I really like when you get to meet other baristas from all over europe and share ideas about coffee.

As said the competition is build up by several smaller competitions including coffee and spirits, cooking with coffee, roasting, blending and brewing coffee in different ways. In one of my favorite competitions the teams had to brew two cappuccinos with latte art on an old vintage La San Marco from the 1920’s and two on a modern espresso machine. It was really nice to have the opportunity to try out the old equipment... that thing only brews with a pressure around 1,2 bars.. what an honour.

The Danish team is:
Signe Støttrup Jensen from Sigfreds Kaffebar in Århus, winner of the danish latteart competition in 2008
Søren Stiller Markussen from Growers Cup, Danish barista champion and 6th place at WBC 2008
Mikkel Pilegaard Madsen from Sigfreds Kaffebar in Århus, 3rd place danish barista championship 2008
And me Casper Engel from The Coffee Collective, Danish and World Cup Tasting Champion 2008

A great thanks to all the other teams who made these days so wonderful and fun.
Hope to see you all again soon.

Read more about the competition on: www.scae.com

Idido - Aricha Microlots

We're thrilled to finally invite you and all your friends to the launch of our new coffee:

Idido Mill
Aricha Microlots 2, 6, 8 and 20
Yerga Cheffe
Ethiopia

Friday November 14th 2008
15:00 - 19:00

We'll present two different roast profiles of the Idido; a light roasted and a dark roast (espresso).
The Idido will also become a part of our new espresso blend.

We'll cycle through the different microlots in due time, indicating the current lot on the bag. Exclusively on this day you will be able to try all of the four lots at the same time!

Back in November last year Peter visited the Idido mill on his trip to Ethiopia.
Read Peter's field trip reports: Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3.
You can also see all his pictures on Flickr.

The Bagersh family have been producing coffee for generations. The oldest son, Abdullah, had often heard his grandfather tell how the coffee used to be more aromatic in the old days. Today, gourmet coffee is often washed coffees, where the coffee cherries have been de-pulped within 24 hours after harvest. Abdullah, however, began experimenting with the traditional Natural method, in which the whole coffee cherry is dried over a period of time. This method is almost any where else only know as an inferior method giving dirty coffees with lots of defects. Through the last 7 years the Bagersh family have optimized the Natural process at the Idido mill in the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia. The drying takes place on 'raised beds'(see picture below) and all during the drying proces cherries are carefully turned over and sorted by hand. When the cherry has dried in to what looks similar to a raisin, the dried husk is hulled off and the beans separated. In the very carefull way this is done at the Idido mill the post-harvest processing reminds us of the post-harvest processing of the Amarone wine. We truely belive that the flavour of this coffee is at least as outstanding as that of great Amarone wines!

It's a wildly aromatic coffee with an intense strawberry and bergamot aroma. In our two different roast we bring out this aroma in unique ways. In the (very) light roast the intense aroma is the dominating overall characteristic of the coffee. Even when just opening a bag of whole beans there's no doubt - the aroma reveals it's the light roasted Idido coffee.
In the darker roast its very interesting as SO espresso shot in which a similar strawberry-like aromatic experience hits the nose even way before the cup is close! Prepared this way the coffee also excels as having an extreme smoothness and tingling acidity.

We have worked a lot on getting the right balance in our espresso blend. Of course the sweetness and smooth oily body of the espresso is just getting better with the Idido supplementing Daterra and Finca Vista Hermosa. We wanted to keep the chocolaty taste balance and marzipan notes which has been characterizing our espressos so far. But at the same time we wanted to add the Idido in a way where the Strawberry aromas could work as subtle top-notes which would be brought out only by careful barista work. Therefore we had a bag brought in by air two months ago. In the meantime we have have been trying out lots of roast profiles and blends. This work has taking some time since we wanted to let the coffee rest at least 10 days (in gasflushed valvebags) before tasting. Also we preferred to taste the coffees before noon to have the best working tastebuds and we wanted to taste it as straight espresso and not having more than approx. 6 shots in a session! We believe by now we have reached an espresso which is ready to be presented - and we are looking very much forward to getting your response!

So Friday the 14th we'll let you taste the coffees for free in our coffee shop. Come and join the fun!

We need more grinders...

Maybe it's a little overkill but we might as well use them in stead of just storing them away.
Single Origin Espressos/Americanos of Kariaini, Kenya AA Top, Daterra Sweet Collection, Brazil and Idido, Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia has been served today.

...and now its done !

Two instense days of carpenting. Our new desktop is fixed and all the installations are working as before. We also replaced the old glass-rinser (which we use for milkpitchers) for a larger one.

We' re very happy with the result and we really think it will last longer. It makes it much easier to keep at tidy workspace also. 

We are very grateful to Søren Ulrich who has put it all in place. Søren is a furniture designer and carpenter who does all kind of projects.

Closed on Monday 13th and Tuesday 14th October

We open again on Wednesday 15th  at 7:30.

The cause is that we are going to change the desktop in the bar. The old one is made of MDF and only had a light coating of ordinary paint. Of course the original plan was to have something more durable, but  we were very tight in schedule (we had only 2 weeks from when we got the keys until the roastery/ coffeebar should be running). We chosed MDF because it is easily shapable.

We were quite aware of the fact that MDF is not good in a working area that has so much to do with water - it literally sucks it up. So we thought we were going to put at least 3 layers of durable paint, but then time ran away and we only got 1 layer of ordinary paint.

So now the new desktop will be made of bamboo with a  laminate (not sure if this is the word in english). 

Anyhow, this was maybe a bit too long about at simple desktop, but I thought it unecessary for others to eventually do the same mistakes we did.

Guatemala goes Vacuum

Vacuum packing has long been high on the priority list for us. Daterra was the first farm to do this. Our Kariaini coffee was vacuum packed in Kenya. We re-pack the coffees that arrive in jute-sacks ourselves, if we can't have it done at origin. This is something we feel quite strongly about.

Now Edwin Martines of Finca Vista Hermosa has initiated the first vacuum packing of coffee in Guatemala. Way to go Edwin! And way to go whole team doing the hard work of weighing out, packing, vacuuming, sealing and boxing these coffees! Truly exciting.

You can see Edwin's pictures of the process here.

We've got nominated for the Copenhagen prize "Byens Bedste" (Best of the City) by AOK! The category is "Consience" and the nomination is a recoqnition of our Direct Trade model which we appreciate a lot!

Direct Trade is something we are very passionate about but it is also difficult to build up these relationsships. Therefore we aprreciate this nomination very much!

If you feel like supporting us please go to this site and give us your vote:

byensbedste.aok.dk

Mahlkönig Vario grinder

Georg Lauridsen from Mahlkönig Nordic - fresh back from the Nordic Roasters retreat in Oslo - stopped by the coffee shop yesterday and was kind enough to demonstrate the new Mahlkönig Vario (home) grinder.

It's a very neat piece of equipment that will fit nicely into most kitchens. Adjustments are very easy with the broader range from Coarse (French Press) til Fine (espresso) on one side and within those step a finer adjustment range on the other side. Grind quality was much better than we had dared to hope for. When visually comparing the coarse grounds to that of our large Mahlkönig "R2D2"-grinder it looked very similar. And on the finer settings we were able to completely clog up our La Marzocco. After just three shots we had dialed it in at 25 seconds and had a great shot.



Georg is still a little hesitant to promise when it can be in the shops, but rumors has it that by end October it might be on the shelves. It's definitely going to cost more than most home grinders out there, but on the other hand, how many of those can actually grind for espresso? And with the ceramic burr set the Vario sports it should last for a lot of French Presses.

We tried our best to persuade Georg to leave the grinder with us, but since it's one of two prototypes he had to take it with him. We'll see it soon again I hope.

Visit to Koppi coffee roastery

Last weekend Sigga Dora, Linus and I drove up to the beautiful town of Helsingborg in Sweden - just across the water from Helsingør in Denmark - to visit our friends Anne and Charles and (for Sigga Dora and I) see Koppi for the first time. We've been meaning to go there for so long, but I think anyone who starts a business will recognize that time flies too fast.



Anne and Charles served us some beautiful fresh roasted coffees, amongs others their lot of the Aricha, and an great shot of their One Finger Snap Espresso (great name!) with loads of thick molasses-like sweetness and an almost cherry-like acidity. Yummy!




The space they have at Koppi is amazing! It's really big (especially to us), very high ceiling and huge windows all around that lets the Swedish summer light right in. The roaster-area is behind the bar one level up with big glass window between - allowing customers to see the action without being disturbed by the noise and smoke of roasting. Cool furniture and small details all around reveals that Anne and Charles have a definite flair for interior design. But it still doesn't draw any attention away from what obviously the most important thing there: the coffee.



Thanks to Anne and Charles for being awesome hosts and the best of luck with the future of Koppi!

More Flickr pics here

Slow Food Nation

Our friend Brent Fortune of Crema Coffee & Bakery in Portland sent us this picture from the Slow Food Nation coffee talk, where Edwin Martinez was giving a talk on coffee and especially Direct Trade relationships.

You can read more about over at Tonx' blog

Finca Vista Hermosa new crop- approved

Well, it was maybe not a total surprise, but we are very happy with 1 month of FVH new crop.

This will be a good year. Me and Casper are detecting a freshness that stands out- not just the fact that it is recently harvested. It is that acidity that is so special for this farm.

Casper is also talking about purity and honeymelon. Mouthfeel is velvety smooth.

We have tried as a part of our espressoblend, pure and light in americano, frenchpress and cupping of course.

Impressing.

Back to school.

We start our courses for the autumn. There will be all sorts of events connected to coffee. Everything will take place at the roastery.
You can read about it and sign up at the webshop or come by the roastery.

There will be a limited number on all courses, so be sure to book your place in time.
This time all the courses will be held in danish, but I think that most people will be able to follow anyway.

The newly crowned World Cup Tasting Champion will for example hold a cupping !

Something to read

We have just received a copy of Luis Noberto Pascoal's book Aroma of Cofffee - A Practical Guide For Coffee Lovers at the coffee shop for our customers to read. Luis, as you might know, is the owner of the Daterra farm and a very knowledgeable man about coffee in general. The book has lots of great pictures of coffee from seed to cup, especially a great shot of the small 'soldiers' - the beginning of the germination when the coffee bean shoots from the ground.
Thanks to Andreza for sending this!

Finca Vista Hermosa new crop

High expectations for next week !

There is some wonderful coffee coming in.
Edwin Martinez and his collegues at the Finca Vista Hermosa (Guatemala) has sent us this years crop. The long journey from the farm, across the Caribbean and then over the Atlantic is now over.

It has just arrived to Copenhagen freeport and we expect to have the first bags of roasted New Crop for sale tuesday afternoon.

We are very excited since all the samples we tried were outstanding and we can´t wait to try it out and go at it with the experience we had from last years crop !

Two of the strengths of this coffee is derived straight from the craftmanship of the farm- the consistency and the elegance.
I wont go into exactely what they do so god at the farm- I will just merely point out some of the things we appreciate when we handle it.

The consistency
That's why this is one of the most inspiring coffees, it is so relaible, as a roaster you can always be sure that the beans from the same crop all live up the highest demands. This gives us the possibility to make every batch a ongoing precise calibration of the roast profile. You never have to be in doubt wheather it is the beans or something else that is done wrong if it doesn't end up good- in this case it is never the beans !

And then the cleanness or elegance.
This is exceptional. This is what adds that little extra nerve into the roasting of Finca Vista Hermosa.
Because you know it is there and that there is no excuse for not bringing it out. This requires maximum attention, you thrive to find every little subtle hint of aroma. Since the aromas are so delicate and subtle, you have to be very deilicate when you roast it. The slighest change in the roast profile immediately immediately sets its mark in the taste.

Since we always let our coffees rest a couple of days after roasting before we cup them, this waiting always include a lot of anticipation and nervousity before you know how the roast actually went.
This most certainly applies to FVH, you can normally say if a batch went quite good or quite bad just by looking and at the coffee when it is cooling. But with FVH it is these very small nuances that makes it unique- and they come out clearly when the coffee has rested some days.

Hope this gives an idea of why we appreciate this farm so much.

So Edwin with collegues, we are looking forward to harvest the fruits of your qualified work.

-Linus

Closed for one morning

We will have to open a bit later on Wednesday 9th July due to some work with the electricity in the street.

We will however open the doors at 11 o´clock so you are very welcome to come in then.

So, on Wednesday 9th of July we are open from 11 - 18.

We are open as usual the rest of the summer.

Thank you !

Now we´re slowly catching up again and we hope everbody made it safely home.

We want to direct a big thank you to everbody during a fantastic coffee week in Copenhagen. We saw so many nice people and had so many interesting discussions that we want to express an enormous gratitude to everyone.

Thank you.

Clips and stuff from the past week

Yes, it's been a great week! We're all a little exhausted, but we will definitely post about our experiences during the whole Wonderful Cofffee SCAE event as soon as possible.

Meanwhile you can watch Casper's cupping here:


There's also a short clip on TV2 Lorry and an article (in Danish) here and here.

We'll try to update the list if anything else pops up. And meanwhile we just discovered this article from a couple of months ago (also in Danish).

Award for Coffee Excellence

In the evening Saturday 21st we were awarded with the SCAE prize for Coffee Excellence in the category of Young Entrepreneurs!

We are very proud to get this award from the SCAE after just being in business for less than 1 year! It gives us comfort that we are on the right track (and yes we will make sure to keep our feets on the earth;-)!



Thanks to everyone who's supported us in this beginning, to our families and friends and to the farmers we have been so fortunate to work together with.

Casper is World Cup Tasting Champion!

Casper has just won the Cup Tasting Championship!
He aced the first round in 1 minute 19 seconds, had one incorrect in the semi-finale and then in in the finals he probably set a new record for speed with all 8 correct in around 1:46! The other two finalists had 4 out of 8, so with two cups still to be lifted it was already clear that Casper had won.

CONGRATS TO CASPER FROM THE REST OF THE COLLECTIVE!


Billede af Roed - EspressoBar

WBC days

What are the collective doing during WBC and SCAE Wonderful Coffee?

Well, the coffee shop is open as usual except on Sunday where we'll be closing down the shop during the finals of the WBC. We've had a great many of our international coffee friends visiting us and look forward to welcoming even more.

As an official sponsor of the World Barista Championship our espresso blend will be available at the WBC Charity Café located right next to the WBC competition area (booth 191).

On Thursday Klaus will be at the Astoria booth (#188) making coffees on their new machine. Linus will take over on friday and saturday. Swing by for a collective espresso!

Thursday at 12.22 Søren Stiller Markussen will represent Denmark as competitor number 3. His prep-time starts at 12.04 and we suggest to get there in good time as there will no doubt be plenty Danish people to cheer him on. We're proud to have Søren use our coffee for his presentation and wish him the best of luck.

On friday around 1300 hours the SCAE Danish Chapter has organized a tour of Copenhagen Coffee Spots that will come to visit us on Jægersborggade. At the SCAE Denmark stand (booth #10) in the corner opposite the WBC area it will be possible to sign up for the tour. At the same stand you can also taste coffee from several Danish roasteries including ourselves and meet last years Danish champion Lene Hyldahl, who competed in Tokyo.


Saturday is the big World Cup Tasting Championship day. Casper is competing on behalf of Denmark (see here for his win of the Danish championship - that was before he grew a mustache). The competition starts around 9.30 - Casper don't know yet what time he is competing, so make sure to be there from the early morning with Danish flags, horns and lots of cheering-spirit!

Saturday evening we will be attending the SCAE Awards Dinner. Place still to be announced (or else we just couldn't find it anywhere. If you know where it is drop us a comment!). We're nominated for the SCAE Young Entrepeneurs Award, so please, cross your fingers for us.

Sunday, as mentioned, we'll close down the shop and go watch the WBC finals. Who will be there? We're not even gonna speculate on names, since there's SO many great baristas in the WBC this year. Good luck to all!

To wrap up the WBC the barista party on Sunday night at Café Europa will be a not-to-miss event. By then you can probably find us all lying in the Storkespringvandet with a beer in hand :-)


We look forward to a great WBC and to see everyone we know!

Lots of visitors and the FVH event.

Lots of visitors in town = busy busy coffee shop.

Yesterday was amazing. We had so many visitors from all over the world through our little space. People from Australia, Russia, Japan, Ireland, USA, Belgium, Poland, New Zealand and many more countries paid us a visit.




David Makin got on bar in the morning and pulled some fantastic shots for the collectivists. At the same time we were roasting several batches of coffee and trying to pack it all. It's difficult to pay attention to your tasks when people you haven't seen in a year keeps coming in the door.




Last night Edwin Martinez of Finca Vista Hermosa gave a wonderful presentation on life at the farm in Guatemala. Edwin is a tremendously engaging speaker and not afraid to share his personal stories.

"You [the audience] know these specialty coffee roasters, who spend a large percentage of their finances to travel to origin, visit farms and outstanding coffees. I'm at the other end - trying to find someone good to buy and roast my coffee." Edwin explained.



Edwin showed pictures from the farm, including the farm house at 1600 masl. and the surrounding landscape. The steepness and altitude of the hill slopes makes the work on the coffee farm extremely difficult. Transportation of cherries from the different lots, through small pathways on slopes to the wet mill is such hard labour that Edwin says: "There's no bad coffee!" A reminder to respect the hard work that everyone that produce coffee undertakes.

In stead of getting deep into the technical details of making coffee Edwin told about the culture and history of the Guatemalan people - something that highlights FVH's approach to coffee; It's about the people! The high cup quality comes from the work the people there do, like pruning the trees.



During the two hours many interesting points came up. The importance of medical care at the farm. The new technology of cell phones allowing farmers to get information from Anacafe about the market price so the farmers can hold on to their coffee until the time where they can get the most from it. How they will only take the finished coffee down to the harbor until they absolutely need to, so it doesn't sit in the warm climate and wait for an unnecessary time. And much more than I could possibly list here.

We'd like to thank Edwin and his wife and mother for taking the time to share with us the stories from the farm.

Nordic Coffee Map

Our friend Jeppe (the boyfriend of the 2007 Danish Barista Champion Lene Hyldahl, and co-owner of Behag Din Smag in Ålborg) has created a Nordic Espresso Map for all you foreign people who will be visiting Scandinavia for the World Barista Championship.

Link to the Nordic Espresso Map

Zoom in on Copenhagen for more detailed view to find some places to get you daily cup while away from home.



We look forward to welcoming all the SCAE and WBC visitors from around the world to Copenhagen!

Nomination for SCAE Young Entrepeneur Award

We've been nominated for the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe's Awards for Coffee Excellence 2008 in the catagory Young Entrepeneurs.

We feel greatly honored to have been nominated in the first year of our business and now look forward to having an excuse to attend the SCAE party on the Saturday evening.

Past winners of the SCAE Coffee Excellence awards include amongst others Luis Pascoal (of Daterra), George Howell, Dr Ernesto Illy and many more prominent figures, so a nomination on its own is an honour to us.

Meet The Farmers

Quality coffee begins at the farm. The hard work that is done there is essential to the quality we - as a roaster - want to bring to our customers. In the days prior to the WBC we will get a visit from two of the farms we work with. Both have offered to come and give a talk about their farms. This will be a great chance to meet some of the people behind some incredible coffees and hear about the work they do.


June 17th *Sold Out*
19.00 - 21.00
Finca Vista Hermosa
Edwin Martinez

Edwin is the third generation on the Finca Vista Hermosa farm in the highland Huehuetenango region in north-west Guatemala. His granddad Don Felipe bought a coffee lot called Michicoy back in the 60's and in 1970 he bought his second parcel, Finca Vista Hermosa, where the wet milling is done. Edwin is a certified Q Grader and will represent United States in the Cup Tasting Championship this year.



June 18th *Sold Out*
19.00 - 21.00
Daterra
Isabela Pascoal & Andreza Elaine Marzarao

Daterra is located in Brazil's Cerrado region and has become legendary
in the specialty coffee world for their innovative and scientific approach to coffee.
Research in varieties specifically for espresso, the state of the art Penta Sorting system and special vacuum packing are just some of the things that have established the farm's excellent reputation. Isabela and Andreza will also be talking about their sustainability programme.



Attendance is limited to 20 people per event. Price is DKK 100,- per person which includes a 250 g. bag of coffee from the farm.

To sign up send an email to klaus (at) coffeecollective.dk and pay the DKK 100,- either at our coffee shop or through our webshop. *Both Events Now Sold Out*

The events take place at our roastery and coffee work shop
The Coffee Collective
Jægersborggade 10
2200 København N



Klaus together with 'Don Edwin' and young Edwin, who will be visiting us

SCAE event

Yesterday we hosted the SCAE press conference for the upcoming Wonderful Coffee. The Danish SCAE chapter organised the event and all we had to do was open the doors and let them in. Danish Champion Søren Stiller Markussen, who also happens to be the National Coordinator for SCAE Denmark, made a presentation of his cappuccinos and signature drink. There will be a report from the event on EspressoBar







Last night we did the last training session with Søren. Now he's really well prepared and can enter repetition-mode, where he just has to rehearse his presentation over and over again till everything is spot on. His drinks and techniques are really solid and he's in good time to just get the last little details in place. We look forward to see him represent Denmark in the WBC.


On another note we got some sad news yesterday too: The Nordic Barista Cup 2008 in Finland has been canceled. We know Bjorg and Jens has put a tremendous amount of work in making this competition work, and we're sure it wasn't an easy decision to make. But it's better to cancel it than make an competition that wouldn't live up to the previous ones.

From the NBC website:

We are very sorry to inform you that Nordic Barista Cup 2008 has been cancelled.
We were not able to create the positive energy and economy needed to sustain the Nordic Barista Cup vision.

The next Nordic Barista Cup will be in Iceland in 2009.
See you there.

Jens and Björg
Nordic Barista Cup Administration