Music is South African band Goldfish, track: “Get busy living” which you can buy here.

Wanting to track down the spirit of Copenhagen; we boarded the first flight from Frankfurt and let Copenhagen’s Metro spit us out at Torvehallerne. By 10am we had a COFFEE COLLECTIVE espresso pulled on Kees van der Westen‘s prototype, the SPIRIT espresso machine,

and a V60 Kieni in our hands.

 
But that was not enough. We wanted to get to the roots of COFFEE COLLECTIVE. So we jumped on the next bus no. 5A and  headed to Jægersborggade 10.

We felt like we were stepping into someone’s small kitchen with a giant PROBAT roaster and La Marzocco GB5. It was so unexpected and felt like a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland, where everything else appears small and just the coffee big.

The atmosphere was fantastic, with Jens Lekman singing on the ipod and the Panama Esmeralda brewing for us on an inverted aeropress. 16g of the Geisha Variety, 170g water off the boil and 2 min later, we had a delicate, floral brew with the typical bergamot and apricot flavour profile produced by the Peterson family at Hacienda La Esmeralda. It was worth every bit of the DKK 50.
There was a continuous line of people waiting for a coffee, and the staff were relaxed and always with a smile. It felt good to be here. To end our coffee day, we ordered an aeropress of the Kenyan Kieni, with the aeropress producing a bolder and fruitier cup than the Kieni we had had earlier as a V60 pourover. It was pure deliciousness and simply wonderful to spend a Sunday at home with the COFFEE COLLECTIVE.

Another MUST and just across the road from COFFEE COLLECTIVE, is MEYERS BAGERI at Jægersborggade 9, 2200 Copenhagen N. The flours used are organic, cold-climate grain from the Nordic region.

Their Hindbærsnitter, a kind of Linzer bar, is out of this world, and we wished we could eat our way through the selection of breads and other pastries. It wasn’t difficult to come to the conclusion, that what really makes us happy, is a good coffee and a good bakery. And, of course, a Lufthansa crew to get us there!

Om nom nom nom, to paraphrase the Cookie Monster when indicating Deliciousness. Up to now, we’ve always thought that Frankfurt was something of a desert when it comes to Speciality (as opposed to Commodity) Coffee. But sometimes one is lucky enough to discover a diamond. This we did at Hoppenworth&Ploch, two youngsters, both students finishing their degrees; Julian, in biochemistry, and Matthias, in Economics. So strong is their obsession with coffee, that both see their degrees as valuable input, but the output is COFFEE. Both are passionate and obsessed.

We were served cup after cup of Deliciousness. Our highlight was the Sidamo Nekisse, roasted by Wolfram Sorge. Wolfram is the German Barista Champion who started the micro-roastery, Backyard Coffee. The Sidamo we tasted, was the same coffee and roast he used a couple of days ago in Bogota at the World Barista Championships. The Nekisse comes from the region of Neji and has been naturally processed without any water. The coffee cherry is dried in the sun on elevated tables and the coffee seeds are extracted after the cherry has dried. It’s flavour profile is of intense blueberry and strawberry and is incredibly sweet. It’s beautiful as an espresso and takes milk equally well, reminiscent of a blueberry milkshake as it cools.

Julian and Matthias have also started roasting their own beans and we were treated to their 60:20:20 blend Sidamo: Costa Rica: Peru, as well as a single origin Sidamo, enjoyed as an espresso. We loved the subtle tea-like, fruity qualities, with a hint of bergamot and cider.

Experiencing the passion of Matthias and Julian, it was easy to leave our treasure of Espresso Lab’s Panama Los Lajones with them, Matthias later sneaking a bag of Hoppenworth&Ploch Sidamo under our arm, a worthy substitute for our (travelling) aeropress.

Well worth a visit, HOPPENWORTH&PLOCH, www.hoppenworth-ploch.de

“The best creative people, in any disciplne, are usually the ones who are most obsessive. Obsessive about crafting every pixel. Obsessive about constantly refining every word and punctuation point. Obsessive beyond reason and beyond the call of duty. Obsessive about making great work.”

At Doubleshot we are surrounded by obsession, whether it’s Kees van der Westen’s Mirage espresso machines, equal parts art and science which have garnered a cult following, James Hoffmann blogging or doing a podcast with Peter Giuliano of Counter Culture Coffee, talking about coffee processing and yeast experimentation; Mark Prince writing realms on an espresso filter basket and the influence that the exit surface area and hole size have on extraction, Aida Batlle, one of the world’s most passionate coffee producers, explaining her standards for red for her pickers and blending various levels of ripe cherry for optimal body, sweetness and ripe fruit flavours; our roaster, Espresso Lab Microroasters, perservering to get an even cleaner, fruitier cup and sourcing the best coffees they can find, showcasing various single estate coffees. The list in the coffee world is endless!

Then there’s Ryan Arenson, artist, translating his own obsessive circle-making and obsession with the purity of lines and the spaces between them into art; Plett’s Kevin Evans, South African mountain bike marathon champion, cycling to be the best. The architects, graphic designers, pastors, gallerists, writers, carpenters, photographers, philanthropists, land-artists… all who meet and converse over a cuppa. The magazines at Doubleshot are filled with obsessive creatives, the music we play is by artists who are extraordinary. We are surrounded by things and ideas borne out of obsession and passion. Our croissants now come from Ile de Pain, Knysna. Markus Färbinger is a master baker, creating breads and patisserie that are baked out of absolute passion, with a kind of religious fervour and an addiction to quality of life.

Surrounded by obsession and passion, we love the space we’re in.

Photo by Marie Stark-Condé. Cold drip at Postcard Cafe.

On a recent trip to the Postcard Cafe, aptly named with its fabulous surroundings, I was inspired by the passion of Marie Stark-Condé to bring the flavourful elixir that coffee is to the people in a rare form. Marie has created a kind of „Penny University“ in an unusual  setting: unusual in that it is out of the city boundaries and thus only accessible by car and with the help of google maps. At least for your first visit. It’s on a wine estate, off the beaten track, in the Jonkershoek Valley, close to Stellenbosch.

Coffee and wine have endless similarities, so it is absolutely appropriate that Stark-Condé Wines offer the experience of Postcard Cafe. Actually as I write this post, I am sipping on a 2008 Stark-Condé Three Pines Cabernet Sauvignon unfined and unfiltered. It comes from a microlot of grapes on a higher altitude section of the farm, where some of the best cab grapes are to be had.

Marie uses Espresso Lab Microroasters beans and offers either  a Japanese-style cold drip or V60 pourover on the menu. I opted for a cold drip of Costa Rican Don Mayo, curious to taste a coffee we know well from our espresso blend and as a V60 pourover. It’s flavour overwhelmed me, and although it comes Tokyo-style, with a small jug of both sugar syrup and cold milk, I had it naked, poured over ice, and brimming with distinctive chocolate-orange notes.  It moved me in a spiritual way good coffee does, and since then we have been experimenting with our own kind of cold brews.

It is a challenge to mirror Marie’s elixirs from Postcard Cafe’s beautiful, hand-crafted cold drip stations, but we’re having fun and experiencing coffee in a different way. Our current method involves a plunger glass, coarsely ground coffee and roughly five times that amount of water, left overnight at room temperature, then cloth-filtered after removing the crust. So far we’ve cold-brewed a Kenyan Karimikui, a Yemen Mocha Harazi, and a Costa Rican Puente Ecologico Tarrazu, all from Espresso Lab. Our customers are loving sharing in this coffee journey.

“Gosto de cafe”, photo courtesy of Peter Maurer

It has often been said, that the world’s problems are solved over a cup of coffee. Well, for months we had been drinking countless cups of coffee, pondering a way to redesign our logo. We simply lacked a vision that would mirror our name and bring market recognition. It wasn’t until Caitlin Truman-Baker, a graphic designer by trade, was having one of those doubleshot moments, that everything started to fall into place. Sipping on her daily flat white and totally oblivious to the fact that we wanted to change anything, Caitlin got a bee in her bonnet and started penning onto paper what she was experiencing at Doubleshot.

I’ve always been drawn to things visual…

She shyly showed us and we were thrilled. Barely two months on and thanks to Caitlin, Doubleshot has reinvented itself. We love the way the font pours like latte art.

Sometimes a photograph sets itself apart from the rest. A moment, when the photographer seems to capture more than just the people in it. The photographer seemingly captures a mood or a feeling. The framing and the timing are spot on. This photograph taken by Peter Maurer recently at Doubleshot, is quite awesome. The coffee cups are secondary. It’s something one could call a kind of “Annie Leibovitz moment”, which is splendidly portrayed in the documentary film, “Annie Leibovitz; Life through a lens“.