Latte Art Throwdown

Tomorrow evening we're hosting our first Latte Art Throwdown as part of our barista jams.


If you work with coffee and want to put your skills to the test, then show up at The Coffee Collective at 19:00.


There'll be plenty of coffee in the grinders, whole milk from Thise in the fridge and cold, tasty beers for those in need of that!

Pour Up or Shut Up!

Food & Wine Magazine

Food & Wine Magazine has us - The Coffee Collective - as no. 19 on their list of 100 "Best New Food & Drink Experiences" in the May issue of the renowned magazine.

International figures such as Ferran Adriá (El Bullí, Spain) and Grant Achatz (Alinea, USA) contributes to Food & Wine Magazine's list of best new experiences. The list includes international gourmet destinations Paris, London, Milano and Tokoy and highlights special experiences at both El Bullí, The Fat Duck and Noma.

In total four Danish experiences are to be found on the list: Noma, Henrik Yde Andersen (Kiin Kiin and Dim Sum), Bo Beck and then The Coffee Collective.

You can see the whole list on: www.foodandwine.com

Danish Barista Championship 2010

The Danish Barista Championship 2010 finished on Sunday.
Let's say it straight away: Søren Stiller won and AnneStine came in a close second.

It was a great competition to watch. AnneStine performed really well and the judges loved her coffee and especially her signature drink. She went 11 seconds overtime though and her shot times on the espresso were a bit long. Really, things just happen when you get on a stage that will throw off even the best baristas. But she didn't shake, she made some killer drinks and said everything she wanted to say. You can't ask for more.



She used our current espresso throughout the competition, where she served the four judges each an espresso, cappuccino and her signature drink. She talked about what coffee can be and not just what it is, showing this in her signature drink that played on contrast in both consistency and aromas. It's a two part drink with a coffee cream and a coffee lemonade. She kept her ingredients to a minimum and had developed the drink to show off the aromas already present in the coffee. The coffee cream consisted of espresso, lemon peel, a honey and corn starch mix and rapeseed oil. It really coats your mouth in a thick and intense way. Then the second part acts as a cleanser. It's made form a Chemex of our Kenyan Kiawamururu with a little bit of lemon juice "to really make it pop" and then infused with carbondioxide in a siphon. It's light and sparkling, really refreshing and highlights those wonderful floral aromas of the Kiawamururu. It's a really kick-ass signature drink, and we hope to sow it on the coffee shop before long.

A special thanks goes out to Eva Solo who were so kind to sponsor her with a whole lot of their awesome serving tools, including carafes, serving trays, pitchers and ice cube holders. As most competitors know these competitions can become quite expensive with all the things you need to bring. Read more about Eva Trio Gourmet Academy here.



In the end Søren Stiller - who has competed many times before achieving two second places in Denmark and 6th in the WBC - really showed how experienced he is. He was very calmed and composed and it was obvious he's prepared for this for a very long time.



The event itself was really good this year. The Danish SCAE chapter had worked hard on pulling the competition away from the usual trade shows, where it just drowns in all the other activity. The had found a great location in Århus, Auktionshuset. A charming old building that was just big enough that there was room for all. It was a cozy and intimate atmosphere there with a bar in one corner giving out free coffees from different Danish micro-roasters.



We want to complement the Danish SCAE chapter (Thorey, Rune, Mikkel, Samuli and whoever else we might be forgetting - sorry!) on this years championship. They have not had an easy time with a certain vulcano keeping their head judge away and such. But this year championship was a great success due to these people and all their voluntary work.

The judges came in place just at the end and were: Maríanna Jónsdóttir, Thomas Valentin, Mikkel Pilgaard and Peter Dupont as sensory. Rune N. Rasmussen and Georg Lauridsen as technical. And Thomas Sigfred stepped in as Head Judge.



There were only 5 baristas competing in total this year. (And we really have to do something about that). So there were just one round - the final round. The five baristas were: Søren Stiller Markussen, AnneStine Bae, Thor (didn't get his last name), August Crone and Adrian Kleist-Thomassen. We hope to see some of these compete again next year.



Congratulations to Søren and good luck for London!

All our pictures can be seen on Flickr

Byens Bedste

Again this year, we're nominated in the prestigious Byens Bedste award for Best Coffee.

Please go vote on http://www.aok.dk/byensbedste
and hopefully this year a little place in Jægersborggade will beat the downtown players ;-)

Barista Competition time

On Sunday it's the 2010 Danish Barista Championship.
For the first time The Coffee Collective will have a competitor: AnneStine Bae. We've had several baristas for the past few years using different coffees roasted by us in the competitions, and of course Morten won last year using our Idido. But this is the first barista who's working in our own coffee shop to compete. Hats off to AnneStine for that! She's been working with us since last summer and previously worked for such good places as Estate Coffee and Stockfleths in Olso.

Yesterday we had the grand rehearsal of AnneStine's presentation. For the past couple of months her training have become more and more intense. Fortunately she decided to compete already back in October and in November her signature drink began to take shape. She's worked on it together with Troels Trier, who some might remember as the chef that helped create Troels Poulsen's signature drink for his WBC win back in 2005. 'Troels the Chef' has a great understanding of the competition and is a friend of us, so it was very natural for him to help AnneStine make her ideas comes through in the drink.

Here's the two working on the drink back in November

One of our other baristas, Mathias, is helping her out too. He's her official coach - a title that requires numerous evenings spent doing the dishes after run-throughs. He's done a great job so far, and as everyone who's ever competed will tell you, it's a priceless help.

AnneStine and Mathias getting ready

The rest of us has been helping out giving advice from our experience in competing. Personally I've found it thrilling to be so closely involved in preparing for the competition once again. And I'm so glad to have someone as enthusiastic and talented as AnneStine to train. You wouldn't think it's her first time competing from looking at her, but that's probably because she's worked as a barista for over 5 years and currently works our bar almost every day.


So on Sunday we had a sort of Dress Rehearsal for her presentation. Copenhagen Roaster had graciously invited us to their training room where Fritz Storm has a Nuova Simonelli espresso machine set up specifically for training that he was more than happy to let us use. Nuova Simonelli is the official WBC sponsor so that's the machine that will be used in the competition, and it was a great opportunity for AnneStine to get a little more acquainted with this machine.

Furthermore we had some good judges lined up: From CPH Roaster both Mads (current Danish Cupping Champ) and Jakob Dupont. Troels the Chef was there. As technical we had Karen and Casper and finally as head judge past WBC-certified Judge Sigga Dóra Halldorsdottir. Add to that a few spectators and a screaming baby, it was a good setup to shake AnneStine's nerves.


Judges for the dress rehearsal

Her nerves didn't show up though. She kept her head cool, her shots flowing beautifully and did her presentation well within the timeframe.

Peter has been asked by the Danish chapter of SCAE to be a judge in the championship a few months back, which he agreed to. So that's why he's missing from all of this (and I suspect he's secretly sad for missing all the fun). Since he was asked to judge he hasn't seen or heard anything about the training out of his own wish to have fresh eyes for all the competitors.

We won't tell too much about AnneStine's routine now, but let these picture do the talking:

Now the last week of training and training and more training us upon her and us at the collective. We're really looking forward to this Sunday and know that no matter how it turns out we're really proud to have AnneStine up there!


Thanks to Fritz, Mads, Jakob and Copenhagen Roaster for the opportunity to train there. Also thanks to Eva Solo, who has been kind enough to sponsor a lot of things for AnneStine's presentation.

Home Barista write-up

There's a nice write-up over on the forum Home-Barista.com by Anthony Steinbock, a philosophy professor and espresso aficionado, who recently had a guest lecture spot at the Copenhagen University that brought him and his family here for about a month.

Anthony brought us a kilo of Stumptown's Hairbender espresso when he came over and it was a great opportunity to talk about taste preferences and approaches of different roasters. I really enjoyed hearing his thoughts on the taste of our drinks; the espresso, aeropress, cortado and americano and the different coffees too. Anthony is definitely well travelled within the coffee world, so it was really nice to be able to show him some stuff he hadn't seen before. He says the Shakerato has become a hit at his home :-)

You can read Anthony's post here: http://www.home-barista.com/knockbox/copenhagen-coffee-collective-t13864.html and see some of his pictures.