Opening Hours Holidays

The holidays are almost here, and if you want to get some gifts or just sit down for a while, see when below.

Please note that the hours are not the same at all places.
Here are the opening hours:

TORVEHALLERNE

20/12    7-21
21/12    7-21
22/12    8-21
23/12    8-19
24/12 CLOSED
25/12 CLOSED
26/12 CLOSED
27/12    8-20
28/12    8-20
29/12    8-20
30/12    8-19
31/12    8-15
1/1       CLOSED
2/1       7-20

JÆGERSBORGGADE

20/12    8-18
21/12    8-18
22/12    8-18
23/12    8-19
24/12 CLOSED
25/12 CLOSED
26/12 CLOSED
27/12   10-18
28/12   10-18
29/12   10-18
30/12   10-18
31/12   10-15
1/1       CLOSED
2/1       7-19

GODTHÅBSVEJ

20/12     7.30-21
21/12     7.30-21
22/12     9-21
23/12    10-21
24/12 CLOSED
25/12 CLOSED
26/12 CLOSED
27/12    10-18
28/12    10-18
29/12    10-18
30/12    10-18
31/12    10-14
1/1     CLOSED
2/1        8-18

Yukro visit late 2012

Ethiopia. Ancient Abyssinia. Birthplace of Arabica coffee. (I really wish I could do an intro to this blog post narrated by David Attenborough.) What a magnificent place.

The harvest in Ethiopia this year looks to be small - about 30% less than last year from what we heard. Many places experience bi-annual cycles, where one year will have a large crop and next year a small crop, so nothing unusual about it. At least a lower yield quite often mean higher taste quality, but it's hard to predict until you're done processing and drying.

Casper and I spend a little over a week in Ethiopia with the primary goal to visit Yukro and spend a good amount of time with the people there. Last year we bought one lot from them, which was our first purchase from Ethiopia since the famed Idido (Aricha micro lots). It's a coffee that has impressed us immensely once we got the roast right, and it's holding up extremely well over time too. So we are very eager to cup the coffees from Yukro again this year and have every intention of buying again (and in the future) provided that the quality maintains. After visiting we have no doubt that it will actually improve. The energy there and the knowledge that is being implemented will surely make the coffee from Yukro stand out in the future too.

Just as we arrived at Yukro village, the members were gathered for a meeting. We were asked to share our thoughts on their coffee and give them sort of a pep talk. We don't think they needed a pep talk at all, and it was awesome to feel the spirit and energy there.

Vis Farms på et større kort


Vis Farms på et større kort


One disclaimer though: We were there too early. See, these kind of trips we have to plan a long time in advance, as both of us have a pretty full work week as it is. Casper is in charge of our roastery and deliveries and I run our wholesale, marketing and training. So we had been told that the week we went would most likely be the top of the harvest (and still early) and planned accordingly. Unfortunately the harvest became delayed and we were there just about a week before the actual harvest began. Bummer.  The upside, though, was that the people at Yukro actually had time to talk with us and show us around. During harvest that can be a problem, as everybody is really busy.

Yukro is actually a small village as well as being the name of the wet mill. The members of the cooperative wet mill (also called a washing station) lives in the area around the village. Last year Yukro had around 250 members. This year it has increased to 367 members. It cost 400 birr (the Ethipian currency) to become a shareholder of the coop. The members elect a cooperative committee or board of 13 people, including a chairman, vice chairman, treasurer and secretary. The chairman os Yukro is Mr.
Taddase Gudina (on the left on the picture below). A very friendly and welcoming man, who invited us into his home and shared many meals with us. In general the hospitality and openness of the Ethiopians is amazing.



Much like in Kenya the members (shareholders) pick their own coffee trees and deliver cherry to the wet mill. Here they get a receipt (in triple copies) for the amount of cherry they've delivered and are paid cash straight away. The cherry price is set by the board of the coop before the harvest begins, so the members know what to expect. When the coop has sold all their coffee and know how much is left after paying off loans, salaries etc. the dividend is paid out. This actually happened while we were there, meaning more than half a year after we bought the coffee. The reason for it being so late is that all the accounting needs to be finished first, and some of the last of the coffee hadn't been paid until quite late.



The Yukro coop is only two years into operation. The farmers around have been growing coffee for many years selling the cherries to private millers or exporters. By having their own wet mill they get much more value directly to themselves. The wet mill was set up initially by an American NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) called Technoserve. Funded by the Bill Gates foundation the organization works to transform lives by providing poor people access to productivity-enhancing tools. Building washing stations in Ethiopia is part of that. Technoserve does an amazing job in helping the farmers - with out having any agenda to make profit (as you might know, an NGO can't make money). They provide knowledge about growing and processing as well as helping the coops manage their finances and get better deals. It's really the kind of work we believe can help places like Ethiopia: Private businesses that thrive and bring money to the local community. Rather than one-off feel-good charity projects, we wish to be part of a longer lasting business relationship where all parts are profitable and equal. If you haven't already clicked the link above to Technoserve's website, I'd recommend you click now and read through it.

Mr Moata Raya, who's an agronomist at Technoserve in Jimma, took time to go with us to Yukro and show us around. He's a fun guy, always really cheerful with a great sense of humour, and at the same time very knowledgeable about coffee and the difficulties facing farmers. He also helped translate for us on a number of occasions, as we don't speak any Oromic or Amharic (they have around 85 different languages in Ethiopia).



At the Nordic Roaster Forum professor Giorgio Graziosi, from the University in Trieste, Italy, gave a very interesting lecture, that I'd recommend you see here and download the slides. Especially slide 20 is pretty mind blowing. Him and his colleagues are working on mapping the DNA of coffee, which is a rather extensive work taking several years. By now they can map out different varieties according to their genes. So for example they can determine based on DNA if a certain variety really is a geisha, caturra or whatever. In their work they have mapped coffees from several places, but what really surprised them was the coffee from just two places in Ethiopia. The variation in the gene pool there was astounding. If you look at Slide 20 you can see that the diversity in varieties from just those two places is great than all the other varieties grown commercially around the entire world.

This great diversity stems from the fact that Ethiopia is still pretty much the only place in the world where coffee is growing wild. There's thousand of different varieties growing in forests and farms there that no one knows what is.

Walking around the wild forests surrounding Yukro it's clear to anyone that this is not a plantation, as you know if from other coffee producing countries. Literally every tree we'd walk past looked like a new variety. And it was easy to pick out. One had huge, broad, round leaves and the next had narrow, thin, pointy ones. One had oblong, huge cherries and the next completely round little bombs. There were dwarf varieties next to tall, thing ones. And so on and on. You don't need to be an expert to see the differences here.



The other thing that strikes you is how wild the forest grows. From a distance you would not be able to tell that the main crop there was coffee. It just looked like a rain forest to us. Walking into the woods it actually took me a little while before I realized that some of the tall trees were coffee. There were several 10 meter tall coffee trees there!



To pick it the farmers have to drag the top down with a long stick to reach the cherries. Fortunately the stem is pretty flexible and the tree doesn't suffer. I hope the picture catches how tall this tree is, but it'll never do the actual sight justice. It was impressive.

Walking around the farms you couldn't help notice very strong smells from different herbs, especially wild mint growing like weed in the forest bottom. They don't spray the trees for anything here (pesticides or herbicides) and doesn't use any artificial fertilizers either. Everything is organic. They do weed out the bottom of the forest and let nature handle the rest.





We think the great bio-diversity and multiple varieties help that deceases and pests don't spread as easily as when you have just one variety of coffee growing across a big area. It's common sense within other agricultural products, so why would coffee be any different? This raises some interesting thoughts as specialty coffee these days is often sold and marketed as single varieties and we in general (us included) want to taste a specific variety on its own. But the mixture of varieties might have a much better impact at origin, and the wildness you also get in the cup is to us equally interesting as a single variety. In any case,

At the Yukro wet mill the cherry is received and then processed. Using an eco-friendly depulper and demucilator called Penagos 1500, both the pulp and the mucilage is removed.

After pulping and demucilating the coffee goes into soaking tank overnight. Early in the morning they take it to skin drying tables, which are always totally shaded. If it's taken direct to sun the parchment will crack and the coffee dry too quickly. On skin drying tables they are also sorting out any visible defects. Here the coffee is 3-4 hours, then moved to regular drying tables, where they keep sorting.

Waste water from processing (which is very little compared to for example processing in Kenya) is cleaned with Magic Grass, which absorbs the honey water in its root system. Water flows naturally through the magic grass which absorbs most of it and the rest goes into a sediment pool, where the water vaporize.

Optimal drying time for the coffee at Yukro is 8-10 days on raised tables that are shaded when there's sun, but not when cloudy. 10,5-11% drying green is ideal and the dry mill will only accept between 9-11,5%.

After drying its taken to storage. Here they weigh and label it with lot number and which table it's been dried on. They keep it in open bags for conditioning to let excess heat escape for about a day. When it's a whole lot (150 bags) it's taken to a warehouse with Oromia union next to the Dry Mill.


Check list for Coffee Processing

The Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union is based in Addis Ababa, with their HQ right next to their new Dry Mill. It was taken into operation two years ago and is the cleanest dry mill I've ever seen. Brand new destoners, hullers and density and size separators and sorting machines. Finished with a very efficient hand sorting space. That final hand sorting is a big part of the final clean cup and definitely worth paying the extra money for.



In a few weeks we can expect to cup the first samples of the lots from Yukro. From there it's still a little while before the fresh crop has been through the dry mill and are ready for export. Hopefully everything will ship on time and we'll again be one of the first roasteries to offer fresh Ethiopian coffees. But Ethiopia is a tricky country and time and time again roasters have seen their containers full of fresh coffee sitting in a warehouse of being stuck at a port for weeks, due to different circumstances beyond their control (for example there were a general strike last year just after our container shipped). So you never really know. In any case we're already looking forward to cup this years lots and continue our relationship with Yukro.



If you haven't already viewed our slideshow of pictures from the trip click this link.

Christmas Offers

If you still haven't bought Christmas presents, we have some great offers in stores for you:

Aeropress + 1 bag of coffee (your choice)
SAVE 50,-

God Kaffe + 1 bag Finca Vista Hermosa + 1 bag of coffee (your choice)
SAVE 80,-

God Kaffe + Wilfa coffee grinder MALT
Kr 750,-  SAVE 148,-

Taster Package:
4 x 250 g coffee; Kieni, Finca Vista Hermosa, El Diamante and Yukro
Kr 299,-  SAVE 72,-

Offers are only available in our stores, except for the Taste Package, which is also available in our webshop.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Slideshow from our visit to Yukro, Ethiopia

Here's a small slideshow of our pictures from our visit to Yukro in Ethiopia.

Click Full Screen and Show Info if you really want to dig into it. We hope you enjoy it!

Macchinesto at The Coffee Collective in Jægersborggade

We currently have a position open as Macchinesto in our coffee shop in Jægersborggade, which was our first shop.

The Macchinesto will be responsible for the quality at the coffee shop as well as having 4-5 barista shifts per week.

The postion will include responsibility for the following tasks:
• Quality at the Coffee Shop
• Barista training
• Service and maintenance of machines and other equipment in the shop
• Handling barista illness in the weekends where the Bar Manager is off
• Development and optimization of brew profiles and other barista skills
• Co-arranging monthly staff meetings with the Bar Manager

The Macchinesto will be working closely together with the Bar Manager of the coffee shop.

We expect applicants to have relevant experience from the specialty coffee business as well as a solid background in the barista craftsmanship.

The position is mainly open to people with a EU or Norwegian passport or a valid work permission, since immigration procedures in Denmark is unreasonable difficult and slow.

The position will start 2nd of January 2013. Deadline for applications is Thursday 13th of December 2012.

Send your application to job@coffeecollective.dk with the subject "Macchinesto".

El Desarollo on the shelves

Today we start selling El Desarollo from Huila, Colombia.

Since we have noticed that there are so many people craving to learn danish we give you the opportunity to translate the taste description  yourselves.

One little hint: "Mandarin" is pretty much the same in English.

You can read more about Peters trip to Desarollo here.

Colombia 2012

Monday 8th of October around noon I arrived in the city Gigante in the Huila region of Colombia. I went there to visit the grower association El Desarollo. I was there together with Alejandro from Virmax who are working closely together with El Desarollo with the common goal of developing the quality of their coffee.

The president of the grower association Luis Gutierrez welcomed us in the small warehouse, where the growers deliver in their coffee.

Luis Gutierrz

El Desarollo warehouse

My apologies for the poor quality photos! On top of me being a bad photografer, my lugage and therefore camera was delayed, so I had to use my worn down telephone camera

I had been looking very much forward to the visit since I havn't been in Colombia since 2006 when I was in the Cup of Excellence jury. Columbia is one of the largest producers of coffee in the world but at the same time seems to be a very complex place.

El Desarollo is what they call "un association de cafecultores" who is gathering the coffee from the members (about 150 members). Virmax has put in a quality controlling lab at the warehouse where everything is inspected, sample roasted and cupped by Alexis Villamil.

One special thing about Colombia in general and Huila region in particular is that they harvest beans all during the year. Since they have a lot less welldefined rainy periods than most other coffee producing areas, flowering (which is induced by the rains) is happening all during the year. So at the same tree one can see all stages of the cycle . flowers, small greens, larger greens, partially ripe, fully ripe and overripes (if they have not been picked).

Lots of small producers in Colombia have their own wet mill and therefore produce coffee in parchment themselves eventhough they might only have a few hectares of coffee production. Since the producers are small and they harvest all during the year the lots they produce can be a few bags or even less.

So there is a lot of lots to do quality control on and cup. When Alexis does this at El Desarollo it is open for the producers. Eventhough I tried to encourage it most of the producers I met at the Warehouse din't go for the cupping. With one exception a young enthusiatic producer named Edilfonso Yara and his wife. They both cupped for the first time but seemed to pick up quite fast.

Edilfonso had delivered in coffee a few days before and now it was time to cup it. We ofcourse blind-cupped everything. One coffee stood out as being the most complete on the table. High cleanliness, very balanced sligthly to the acidic side but still with a good body, and as it cooled it opened up for some delikate suttle floral aromas. It was fantastic to see the pride in the eyes of Edilfonso when it was revealed that this was his coffee...

Edilfons Yara cupping

 Unfortunately this was only a 30 kilo lot, but we got to buy it and work on getting it in order to present it in a month or two.

We also bougth a bigger lot from El Desarollo where Edilfonso contributed together with 27 other members of El Desarollo which has the same cleanliness and high balance but with a very creamy body.

Visiting the producers from El Desarollo I was impressed to see how much they worked with trying to slow down the drying process in order to make the quality better. Even a producer that was in doubt about how much to focus on producing high quality had a three layered shade drying bed-system with the aim of drying in around 15 days. Now it will be interesting if we can perceive the effort in prolonged cup quality of the lot we get in comparison to earlier experiences with fading Top Colombian coffees.

This seemed to be an example of the effect of Virmax double strategy of doing local quality analisis with transperant correlation to the prices paid to the producers (there by making the price-quality relation very obvoius) at the same time as working on spreading knowledge about how to produce higher quality.

"Promodores" who works on the Virmax project to spread knowledge amongst the farmers about quality producion. They continuasly visit the farmers and talk with them about their particular challenges and possibilities.

I definitely hope to get back to El Desarollo next year to get to work closer with the people here. But for this time my trip was continuing towards the north to Hacienda El Roble. From small holder production in Huila to large scale farm production in Mesa de Los Santos.

Hacienda El Robles gæstehus (Yeah - I got my lugage and camera)

El Roble is an interesting farm that seems to investing a lot in both producing organic coffee and developing their cup quality. They work very systematic investing quite a lot of ressources in pursuing these goals.

El Roble's Meteorological Station

Their are these days gathering an amazing amount of information on all kinds of aspects of their production, from their meteorologic station gathering info on the microclimate,

over their Coffee Garden with 78 different varieties of coffee

to their systematic test of drying under different conditions registering the temperatures at each drying scenario several times a day.

Shade drying - the round brass-things in each level are Thermometers.

.

To try to understand how all these parameters effect cup quality they have an impressing system for handling extremely small lots to keep them seperate through the production.

As a roaster who feels that we still have a lot to learn about producing high quality the systematic and analytic approach of El Roble is very intriguing... 

Good Life Coffee in Finland

Good Life Coffee in Helsinki is a proof that the Finnish coffee scene is changing and it's driven by baristas. Founder Lauri Pipinen is a well known face around the international coffee community and has done a great job with his new coffee shop, Good Life Coffee. We were very happy when he first wrote us and asked to serve some of our coffee up in the cold North.

Last Saturday Lauri competed in the Finnish Brewers Cup and placed third - a good achievement considering he's pretty busy running a business and being with his family. He used our Kieni from Kenya and these days you can drink TCC coffees in his shop - if you're quick.


From left to right: Hanna, Lauri and Tuomas:
 

Coffee Research Project

Like To Help With Coffee Research?
Live Near Copenhagen?
Then We Would Love To Hear From You

One of our barista’s is currently undertaking his Master thesis with the University of Copenhagen. It is in the field of Sensory Science, and what is even more interesting is that coffee is the subject of the research.

The Coffee Collective is delighted to be supporting this research and we would love your help. If you happen to live near Copenhagen and would be able to complete a quick online survey please click the link below.

The survey asks a few questions relating to coffee consumption and takes less than 5 minutes to complete. Please complete it by November 12th .

In November and December a selection of respondents will be invited to a tasting session at our Godthåbsvej roastery as part of the thesis.

Here is the link.

We hope you'll participate!

Last roast of Esmeralda Special !

On Tuesday we'll roast the last batch of the 2012 auction lot Esmeralda Special.

If you place your order before Tuesday 12 o'clock on our webshop we'll ship it straight from the roaster to you.

We'll miss this extraordinary coffee until next auction in spring 2013. Fortunately we're expecting some other coffees to come in.

Book release October 25th

The date for the book release is coming up. On October 25th we'd like to invite you all to our roastery and coffee shop on Godthåbsvej for a day packed with coffee fun.

There will be free cuppings, workshop for coffee brewing at home, roasting demo as well as lots of coffee, cake from Cake Lady and possibly a beer or two from Mikkeller.

The event starts at 15:00 and ends 19:00. The book will be for sale the whole day in all of our coffee shops, most of our wholesale customers (see our Google map in the right panel on our blog) as well as bookshops all across Denmark. If you happen to live far away the book can be pre-ordered through our webshop.

You can also join the event on Facebook here.

Thursday October 25th 2012
15.00 – 19.00

The Coffee Collective
Godthåbsvej 34B
2000 Frederiksberg
www.coffeecollective.dk

And as a small teaser here's a little sneak preview into the book for you reading pleasure. (Click on picture to download pdf):

Black Coffee Brew Down

After a series of very succesfull Latte Art Throwdowns we know turn out heads to the stuff that really excites us: Black Coffee !





So we're happy to welcome you all to the first

BLACK COFEEE BREW DOWN

1. price: Wilfa MALT coffee grinder

Wednesday October 10th 2012 - 19.00 hours.

THE COFFEE COLLECTIVE GODTHÅBSVEJ 34B


There will be two rounds in the competition:

1st round you bring your own coffee and equipment.
2nd round you'll get a coffee that you get to cup before the competition (- and it's not one of ours) which you choose a brew profile for. So come early if you want to get acquainted with it.

We have Espro Press, Aeropress and Harios V60s available, but if you want to brew on something else just bring it yourself.

We look forward to some seriously smashing black coffee!

Evening open on Godthåbsvej

We're now open until 21:00 every day at Godthåbsvej, so you can come by after dinner and have your evening coffee. For those who haven't been to the new location yet, we hope this is your opportunity. Here's a map for you all:

At the same time we've put Torfi's winning signature drink from the Danish Barista Championship on the menu. A concoction of berries in various forms, cold milk foam and espresso, this is not one to miss.

Looking forward to see you in Frederiksberg!

God Kaffe - our coffee book

On October 25th we're releasing our coffee book: 

God Kaffe - En grundbog for kaffeelskere. 

A 212 pages Danish book on quality coffee by The Coffee Collective.

A bit of background (to those who care to read it):

A few years ago at a dinner after a board meeting at the collective we were talking about where the average Danish consumer's knowledge of quality coffee were at. If we compared to wine we lacked behind. Most people know about grape varieties, which temperatures to store and serve at and had an idea about the difference in cheap and expensive wine. When it comes to coffee we're not there yet. So we thought about how to change this on a broader scale and came to the conclusion that a book might be the best idea. We looked at the book selection available in Danish and there really wasn't much. Either it's translated books with tons of romantic histories or else they were laden with recipes for biscotties and tiramisu that no-one cares to actually make. And none of them focused on what makes coffee taste great.

So we decided then that we should write a book. We immediately approached one of our good friends and one of the most regular customers, Marie Holm, who is a food writer and book editor. We've know her since the very beginning of our company, when she did a fantastic article on us, that really boosted our confidence. She instantly jumped on the project and helped us shape our thoughts into a real project. Next thing was getting a publicist and it was important for us to have distribution all over Denmark. We don't want this book to only speak to our own customers in Copenhagen. The young and progressive book publisher People's Press didn't hesitate and said yes. And what surprised us most of all, they didn't have any demands. They trusted us 100% to write what we thought would be best.

They even agreed that we would get to work with our dream team for making the book. Maria P is one of the best photographers we know, specializing in food. Together with graphic designer Ann-Britt Balle and the aforementioned Marie Holm, they have made a little unit called Pigerne på Fabrikken, who just so happens to reside above our new roastery on Godthåbsvej. (They were actually the ones who tipped us about the location). The trio have worked on some of the most successful cook books in Denmark in recent years, and for us it meant a great deal to have someone who knows us well and whom we trust to take on this project.

For the past months we've been writing, rewriting, taking photographs, making illustrations and putting it all together. It's been amazing to see the effort and dedication the girls have put into it. We decided to keep it on the low until we were certain this book was actually going to be a reality. But now it's being printed right now and on October 25th you'll be able to buy it in bookshops across Denmark, in coffee shops and of course from us. We hope you like it and are thrilled to share it with you!

New Home Barista Courses

Demand for our home barista courses have certainly increased in the past year. So from now we're hosting courses every second week (in stead of monthly) in the hope we can keep up.

The course is in Danish, last 3 hours and covers all the basic barista techniques, so you'll be able to brew proper espresso at home and steam milk.

You can buy tickets on our webshop.

15.09.2012 L.A.T.

Throwdown!!

On the 15th of september The Coffee Collective at Torvehallerne will play host to yet another night of milk pouring madness.

We’ll start at 19.00 and stop when the winner has been crowned and the beer has been downed.

This time it’s back to basics. Still one-on-one, but the patterns you choose and you snooze you loose.

20 kr. entry fee goes into the pot and the winner takes all.

So get your pouring power on and join us for yet another night of milky goodness!

UPDATE:
Wilfa Denmark has sponsored one of their new impressive manual brewers, the Wilfa SVART, as the first price to the winner! So besides the pool of cash there is now something extra at stake:

Torvehallerne turns 1

Sunday September 2nd is the birthday of Torvehallerne. One year has passed already (where did all that time go?) and it's only appropriate to celebrate the one and only food market in Copenhagen.

We thought long and hard about what to do for this special day. So we've dragged this old thing out of the closet and into the middle of the square:



Yes, that's our first roaster. The Probat L12 that we started our journey on back in Kastrup in the early days and since moved into Jægersborggade, later to be replaced by the newer Probatone 12. For the birthday of our coffee shop we'll be roasting in the square between the two halls, to showcase how we roast and give the crowd an insight into the transformation from green bean to roasted.

We hope to see you there!

New York Times Ristretto takes a look at our new roastery

Oliver Strand of New York Times has written a great piece on our new roastery and coffee shop. The shakerato, the bar cupping and our brewed offerings get a nice mention. We'll highly recommend those drinks ourselves.

See the whole slideshow and read more about his experiences at our shops here:
Ristretto | First Look at the New Coffee Collective Roastery and Coffee Bar

The Coffee Collective is growing up: the small roaster opened a handsome coffee bar and roastery in Copenhagen’s quiet Frederiksberg district earlier this summer. The distinctive coffees have always had a devoted following; now they have an elegant setting to match.

Barista Job

Vi søger baristaer bade fuldtid og deltid til vores kaffebarer.

Arbejdet består primært af betjening af kunder, vejledning og brygning af kaffe.

Erfaring som barista er selvfølgelig en fordel men ikke et krav, så længe du er interesseret i at lære mere om kaffe. Vi har et omfangsrigt oplæringsprogram, hvor du både vil lære om kaffens smag og hvordan man kan brygge en exceptionelt god kaffe og arbejde effektivt i baren. Du skal ha lyst til at yde enestående kundeservice, arbejde professionelt, smage på kaffe og udvikle dig som barista.

Hvis det har din interesse, så send din ansøgning med CV til os hurtigst muligt på job@coffeecollective.dk. Mærk ansøgningen med "deltid" eller "fuldtid" samt kontaktinfo inkl. email-adresse.

Tak for alle ansøgningerne. Vi har nu fået stillingerne besat, men skal nok slå op næste gang vi skal bruge folk.

Panama 2012

In the end of April I went down to visit the good people at Hacienda La Esmeralda in Boquete, Panama. This was my first time in Panama and having enjoyed drinking the Esmeralda coffee  alot for the last couple of years I was very interested to finally go visit and see what it is that makes this coffee taste so different than any other coffee.

After some amazing days in Portland, Oregon, withnessing the US Barista championship I was ready to trawel further down south to Panama and for some fresh mountain air.

The first thing I noticed when I got to the area of Boquete was how lush the area is. I arrived pretty much right in the end of dry season and expected the land to be way drier. This is definitely one of the freshest greenest coffee growing areas I have been to.

Boquete is located in an enclave of mountains with rain coming in from the Caribbean Sea from the north and rain from the North Pacific Ocean from south. This creates a crazy microclima around town, which has rain coming from the two different oceans on each side of the town. Therefore the coffee varies quite a lot even though it’s from such a small area.

The high elevation along with the huge amounts of clouds almost year around coming in from the seas in Boquete, makes the use of shadow trees almost redundant. There still is a lot around but it is not crucial for the cherries to ripe slowly.

Rachel Peterson was kind enough to take some time away from her very busy time schedule. I pretty much came just before the yearly auction and everything was very hectic and busy.

For a couple of days Rachel showed me around their different coffee farms surrounding Boquete. The different lots that are called Esmeralda Special from Hacienda La Esmeralda are from different coffee farms. In some cases smaller lots get blended if they are found to suit each other. So in most cases the lot name is the name of the farm that specific coffee came from such as Montana and Mario San José but it is not always the case.

I have always wondered why coffees from this region and especially La Esmeralda have such distinct aromas. I have cupped a lot of Geisha coffees from other regions and other countries as well but nobody seems to be able to create the same distinct flavour.

One of the main reasons, as Peter also mentioned in his blog post from when he visited, I think is that they cup a lot. And they are very good at cupping. The Petersons are very aware about what they look fore in the cup. This along with their extreme quality in their drying of the coffee I am sure is what results in this great flavour.

They use demucilators to remove the pulp. Then wash and dry using both patio and mechanical driers. They do all of this in house so they have total control of the quality all the way from when they plant the coffee to the green beans are ready to ship.

Another thing that stroke me was the water from Boquete. The first cupping I did there I noticed that the coffee tasted like nothing I have ever tasted before. The body, aromas and sweetness in the cups were crazy.

Therefore I got a sample straight out of the mountain to bring home for analyzing. It is the cleanest water I have ever measured. With a content of only 7 ppm!

Is this what causes such great tasting coffee? That they get so much flavour from their brews, which result in them having it, easier to tell if they did something good?

Kieni Espresso is back !

Back by popular demand: Kieni Espresso.

There was quite an outcry last fall when we finished with the Kieni Espresso, so we're very happy to re-introduce it to our line-up.

This is also the coffee that Torfi used for the WBC and Danish Barista Championship. It's of course the fresh crop that came in a few weeks ago. It's extremely lively and aromatic. A real fruit bomb of an espresso. Ripe black currants and fresh raspberries dominate the aromas. Still is has a oily mouthfeel with great sweetness and vibrant aftertaste. We've roasted this a little slower but it kept it quite light for an espresso, in a way where we've managed to keep the aromas but muting the acidity a little bit. The result is an espresso out of the ordinary with wild aromas and amazing flavour.

The Kieni Espresso will be available in our coffee shops on Friday and through our webshop.

Godthåbsvej Roastery and Coffee Shop Opening

We’re ready! After many weeks of building and renovating, we’re now ready to officially open our new roastery and third coffee shop.

Friday June 15th at 7.30 we open the doors to The Coffee Collective Roastery & Coffee Shop on Godthåbsvej 34b, 2000 Frederiksberg.
The Loring SmartRoast is now operational and we’ve already roasted the first batches. We’re very excited about what we’ll be able to do with the new roaster. So far it looks extremely promising and we’ve seen improved clarity in the cup. We’ll try to write more about what we experience later on. On the brewing side of things, we’ve also had a few weeks to get to know the La Marzocco Strada. Pressure profiling is certainly an interesting thing and the Strada is a joy to work with. For all the black coffees, we’ve installed an Uber Boiler from Marco and it’s simply splendid. We’re actually happy to see how fast it works and how precise the temperature is. The build in scale is also such a nice feature. It’s situated in the middle of the bar, so you can have full view of how we brew your coffee.

All in all we just really look forward to bid you welcome to our new place. In many ways this bring back memories to when we opened in Jægersborggade. That was a big step for us back then, just like this is for us now. And we’re very humbled and appreciate all the warm wishes we’ve received from our customers, friends and colleagues abroad. Hopefully we get to see a lot of you on the 15th.

A short introduction to Torfi

A few weeks ago one of our baristas won the Danish Barista Championship. Today we had his grand rehearsal before going to the WBC and we thought we should probably introduce him a little better to the readers of this blog.

His name is Torfi Þór Torfason. Yes, that's not a traditional Danish name. Torfi hails from Iceland and has been living in Denmark with his wife and daughter for the past 3 years. Before getting into coffee Torfi worked as a chef at some of the best restaurants in Denmark and Iceland, amongst other michelin-starred Ensemble (now closed unfortunately), Umami and Dill. But a growing interest in coffee and the desire to be closer to the guests brought Torfi our way, for which we are very grateful.

After working with us full time as a barista for about a year Torfi took on the challenge of roasting as well, and together with Casper he has been responsible for roasting pretty much all our coffee until recently, when the competition has taken over more time. Torfi has selected and roasted his own coffee for the competition and has been dialling in the roast profile he wanted for the past many months. Since the Danish championship he's been working hard on bringing his ideas to life for the WBC.

Today he absolutely nailed it for his last run-through of his presentation. To test his nerves we had invited a bunch of friends and colleagues. Amongst them Troels Poulsen and Martin Hildebrandt - two of the former World Barista Champions - who gave great feedback and helped both testing Torfi's nerves and get him absolutely ready for the WBC. A big thank you to everyone who showed up and helped cheer and act as audience for Torfi.

On behalf of the whole collective we wish Torfi, his family and his helper Omar (Danish 2nd place finisher) a fantastic trip to Vienna. We would all be going there if it wasn't for the big project of opening our new roastery and coffee shop taking all our time as well as some of us having babies and stuff. Linus will be going and we hope that everyone there will help cheer for Torfi for us. We will definitely be watching the live stream and sending good vibes.

Held og lykke Torfi!

Kontormedarbejder til TCC

Vi søger en fuldtid kontormedarbejder.

The Coffee Collective er startet i 2007 af de 4 ejere, som i dag driver virksomheden. De seneste år er vi vokset en del og er nu i alt er ca. 35 medarbejdere fordelt på tre kaffebarer, risteri og kontor. Vores administrative opgaver forøges i takt dermed. Derfor søger vi nu en fuldtids kontormedarbejder til vores nye kontor i forbindelse med vores risteri og kaffebar på Godthåbsvej 34B.

Vi tilbyder arbejde i et innovativt, ungt og dynamisk miljø. Vi brænder for at udvikle og udbrede kvalitetskaffe fra de bedste producenter i verden.

Arbejdsopgaverne vil primært være:

• Bogholderi (inklusiv debitor bogholderi)
• Telefon service (ordremodtagelse, kaffevejledning mm.)
• Varebestilling til kontoret
• Holde orden på kontoret
• Vareafsendelse fra risteriet

Du vil være den faste person på kontoret, og der vil derfor i tillæg til de primære opgaver være kontoropgaver, som aflaster de andre ledende medarbejdere i virksomheden. Herunder vil der specielt være en del ad-hoc opgaver fra vores direktør.

Vi forventer, at du kan arbejde serviceminded, struktureret og ansvarsfuldt.

Kontoruddannelse og/eller -erfaring er en nødvendig forudsætning. Erfaring med bogholderi er en stor fordel, men er i sig selv ikke et krav. Interesse for kaffe vil i sagens natur også være en fordel.

Stilling bliver lønnet efter kvalifikationer.

Tiltrædelse vil være 15. august 2012. Deadline for ansøgninger er fredag d. 15. juni.

Send din ansøgning og CV på email til mail@coffeecollective.dk
eller med post til The Coffee Collective A/S, Jægersborggade 10, 2200 København N eller kom ind med den i en af vores kaffebarer.

Mærk tydeligt ansøgningen "Kontormedarbejder".

Fresh coffees are in!

Today is a very special day for us as we're roasting the new crop Kieni and Esmeralda Special.

This is the third year we buy coffee from the Kieni cooperative and we continue to be very impressed by their quality. You can read much more about Kieni in this blog post from our visit there in January. It's has a lively, juicy acidity and both blackberries and black currant in the aroma. But it's also very clean and has a huge mouthfeel at the same time.



The Esmeralda Special, as you may know, is only sold on their own auction. We were lucky to get a small lot together with our friends Phil & Sebastian in Canada.

The prices this year were very high all around. The highest bid was at USD 66.00/lbs but what was more interesting was the high price all around and that the lowest price was an astounding $29.00. We paid $44,50 to Esmeralda (and then you can add shipping, coffee import tax, roasting loss etc.). You can see the whole auction list here: http://auction.stoneworks.com/ES2012/final_results.html

Yes, it is a very expensive coffee and yes, you could buy lots of other great coffees for much less. Some will say that the prices are driven up purely by the name or novelty of this coffee. But honestly there is not any coffees out there that matches the Esmeralda's incredible aromas. There's quite a few Geisha's around (and a some that are similar and thus labelled Geisha) and we've cupped a lot of them. But nothing so far has been as aromatic, clean and defined as the Esmeralda. So to us, this is a coffee we just feel we need to be able to present to our customers here in Denmark, no matter the cost.



As an industry we have come a long way trying to make coffee a "noble beverage" (in the words of Georg Howell). But we're still struggling to pay wine-like prices for the coffee we buy, because we still struggle to get consumers to pay those prices. For us the Esmeralda again and again has shown people that quality is worth paying for and that it is in general an under-priced luxury.

Due to the higher price this year, we've decided to sell it in 125 g. bags instead of 250 g. to make it accessible to more people. And please, if you're in Denmark, make sure to brew it on bottled water of good quality.

Both coffees will be in stores on Friday the latest and is available through our webshop.