The other week I was in Athens for a few days, mainly to attend the World of Coffee but rather than spending three days at the event, I took a few days to explore the Greek capital in my own time. I really like Athens. It’s got a super interesting vibe. There’s ancient architecture, boundless culture, a newfound can-do spirit and really great food.

In the years since I was last there, however, many of the coffee placed I reviewed in 2018 had closed down. The pandemic was not kind to them. Thus, on this occasion, I set out to discover some new spots, one of which was KUDU. Originally recommeded to me by Nicholas Pastellopoulos from Formative Coffee in London, KUDU is one of Athens’ leading specialty coffee roasters with a really lovely flagship store in Neo Psychiko. From where I was, I had to jump on the metro for a few stops and head north east and then walk a few blocks.

The café has a huge covered terrace with plenty of seating where iPad sporting waiters take your orders. The menu is expansive and includes many different brunch options as well as freshly baked pastries. You can read my full review of the café here.

I was mainly there to get a first impression of KUDU’s coffee and to explore whether we could work together for the August 2023 European coffee roasters box. I started off with a cup of a competition level coffee from Costa Rica and then followed it up a flat white to wash down the honey-drenched cinnamon roll.

Later, I ventured inside the café to survey the coffees on offer in colourful retail boxes, which are definitely eye-catching. When Nick Ferras and his fellow co-founders set up the company ten years ago, they pooled together their different expertises and and set up a company that would allow them pursue their passion for coffee in a professional setting.

Since its early beginnings, KUDU has become a force to be reckoned with in Greece and its coffees are currently being served in cafés all over the world, from Luxembourg to Qatar.

During the public cupping event in Helsinki a few weeks ago where I invited members of the local coffee community to help me choose our August coffees, one of KUDU’s submissions really stood out to us, a washed Ethiopian coffee from Masina Guji.

This coffee has all the wonderful characteristics of a washed Ethiopian coffee, which makes it the ideal everyday cup of coffee. Guji is one of the main coffee growing regions in Ethiopia and it produces very characteristic coffees with notes of ripe fruit and chocolate undertones. These coffees are often a bit bolder in their cup profiles than coffees from Yirgacheffe or other regions in Ethiopia.

Expect notes of bergamot, clove, cacao and raspberry.

Receive this coffee along with two other picks from PIHA and Aliena as part of our upcoming August 2023 European coffee roasters box. Order your subscription, one-off box or gift box now. Ships on 20.08.2023.

The last time I caught up with him at lenght was when he was still working Watchhouse Coffee, the fast growing UK specialty coffee retail chain that is seemingly opening a new location every month. There, he was Head of Product, looking after the development of Watchhouse as a high end coffee brand and its unique presentation.

We sat in one of its larger location in downtown London where we had breakfast and where Paul disclosed to my surprise that he was learning Dutch. “I have a Dutch girlfriend from Groningen,” he explained. Consequently, he does spend quite a bit of time in my own home country.

At the time, we were planning to arrange a Watchhouse feature in our GEMS box but the timings were never right and before long, Paul had moved on from his position there to set up something new, Special Guests.

Special Guests is a celebration of some of the best and most exciting coffee producers out there. Each edition showcases a particular micro lot that Paul carefully chooses and which is then roasted to bring out the very best flavour notes of each coffee.

After bumping into Paul at the World of Coffee, we agreed that it was high time to get Special Guests featured in one of our upcoming editions and for the twelfth instalment, Special Guests has offered us an incredible Ombligon variety from famed Colombian producers Adrian and Nestor Lasso, and their friend Jhoan Vergara with whom they set up El Diviso.

The Lassos and Vergara have been at the forefront of experimenting with coffee processing and pushing the boundaries of what coffee can and should be. Their analytical approach to data and process is incredible and has resulted in some spectacular coffees that have been used by many competitors all over the world.

This is a natural coffee that comes with a complex sorting, drying and fermentation process resulting in a floral and fruity cup profile with notes of lemon and candied cherry.

Keen to order this gorgeous coffee? Visit the product page to get your hands on this limited release.

Though New Zealand is incredibly far away from where I live – Amsterdam – I’ve had the fortune to have been there twice in my life. Once, when I was doing a work and travel stint to Australia at age 18 and then a few years later, while traveling around the world with a friend after graduating from university.

In a way, New Zealand is the Pacific’s answer to Iceland. Both are relatively remote island states that have breath-taking natural beauty and a very high quality of life. Kiwis are friendly and welcoming people, while Icelanders are more reserved and alternative but without a doubt, both of these countries inspire dreams and fictional worlds like Lord of the Rings and the famous Icelandic Sagas.

Many coffee professionals cite down under as the place where they first experienced great coffee culture and for good reason. Australia and New Zealand both have incredibly vibrant specialty coffee industries and in many ways, provided the blue prints for modern coffee shops, brunch places and roasteries. Pierre Guérin co-founder of Bordeaux based roasters PIHA also had his epiphany down under, more specifically while kite-surfing at Piha beach on New Zealand’s North island.

Auckland, the country’s biggest city is close by and surrounded by gorgeous scenery. I can definitely imagine how such a place would inspire someone like Pierre to hatch an idea like setting up his own specialty coffee business back in France upon his return. Carole Laffargue, the other half of PIHA’s original team, joined Pierre a bit later and truth be told, I initially thought PIHA was a portmanteau of the founders’ names and with Pierre being one of them, I wasn’t too far off.

Bordeaux is in the southwest of France, not far from the Atlantic and from some of France’s own best surf. The city carries the name of the famous wine region and is also somewhat of a specialty coffee Mecca. Oven Heaven, another local roaster, has been featured a few times in our past boxes.

After first launching as an online brand in 2016, PIHA then opened the doors of its own café and roastery in 2017, and has since been a local favourite for coffee lovers. In 2022, after the team added Christophe and Jérémie, they opened Hangar 5, an artisanal roasting and café space in the Bacalan neighbourhood of Bordeaux.

The team is passionate about seeking out the most delicious coffees and roasting them to perfection. They want to showcase that coffee really is something unique and beautiful that deserves the same amount of curiosity and passion that French people dedicate to their cuisine and wine.

At our cupping in Helsinki a few weeks ago, PIHA’s coffees were all standouts and it was challenging for us to make a choice. In the end, I called the shot and we picked a crazy good natural processed Indonesian coffee from Frinsa Estate for the upcoming August 2023 European coffee roasters box. Funnily enough, the last time we featured this producer, the coffee in question also came from a French roaster, Lomi.

Frinsa is located in West Java, the Indonesian island that gave coffee one of its many names. It is owned and run by Wildan Mustofa and Atieq Mustikaningtyas who grow their own coffee and partner with local farmers who deliver their crops to be processed at their mill in Bandung. Their background was not in coffee but in potato farming and exporting, however, their interest in building value for the local community that is often affected by landslides and flooding motivated them to look into the production of specialty coffee as a means to offer a different crop.

Today, Frinsa Estate is widely regarded as one of the best producers in the country and their coffees are favourites amongst many leading roasters from around the world.

Expect notes of rum, blueberries and mango.

Receive this coffee along with two other picks from KUDU and Aliena as part of our upcoming August 2023 European coffee roasters box. Order your subscription, one-off box or gift box now. Ships on 20.08.2023.

Italy is the cradle of so much history and culture that it sometimes feels like modern-day Italians were all born with a massive trust fund that they’re not even really aware of. I guess if you grew up in a historic medieval town, eating delicious nonna cooked food every day and speaking a language that is a direct descendant of Latin, it might just seem totally normal to you. As a foreigner, every time I am in Italy, I am fascinated by the blend of old and new, by the beautiful way that Italians talk using their hands and by the diversity of Italy’s cultural heritage.

If you leave historic buildings, paintings and other things aside, there is another thing that Italy has a rich history with. Coffee. And yet, if you’re into specialty coffee, you might wrinkle your nose at Italian coffee. Truth be told, I’ve had some horrific experiences drinking caffé in Italian espresso bars. Dirty portafilters, completely unchecked coffee to water ratios, sour and stale espressos. The list goes on. Despite the country’s culinary wealth, specialty coffee was slow to take off. Does anyone still remember the massive uproar that was caused by someone complaining about the price of an espresso at Ditta Artigianale last year? That was something.

Dario Fociani, the founder of Faro specialty coffee in Rome was one of the country’s early pioneers when it comes to bringing third wave coffee culture to Italy’s capital. Like so many other Europeans, Dario had his coffee awakening during a visit to Melbourne where he realised that Italian coffee culture was really just one very specific aspect of coffee and that there was so much more to it. His eyelids fluttered open and he saw the light!

After returning to Europe and moving to London, Dario began his coffee training in earnest. His experience as a waiter and a barman gave him a good basic set of skills but working with specialty coffee was a whole different ball game. He then spent some time living and working for The Barn in Berlin before relocating to Rome where he eventually opened Faro together with Arturo Felicetta and Dafne Spadavecchia.

Faro, or lighthouse, was one of if not the first specialty coffee bar in Rome that served coffees from different roasters around Europe and worked hard towards offering education and access to highly sceptical Italian coffee drinkers. Luckily, Rome has its hefty share of tourism that provides a solid flow of custom for places like Faro. This has definitely also helped others like Orso Nero and the aforementioned Ditta to get off the ground.

In the years since opening Faro in 2016, Dario and co built a solid reputation for their business and this success encouraged them to set up their own roastery, Aliena, in 2021. A few months ago, Dario and I began talking about the possibilities of a partnership and I got quite excited by the idea of working with Aliena. Everyone I spoke with who had tried their coffees was full of praise and the packaging is really something to behold.

Aliena, as the name suggests is inspired by space, extraterrestrials and the unknown. In a way, it’s a fun synonym for the Italian discovery of specialty coffee, though let’s be real here, it’s not just Italians who are still discovering this wonderful beverage. I really like Aliena’s elegant and tongue-in-cheek packaging, and the coffees inside are absolutely stunning.

When we first cupped some of Aliena’s coffees back in June with the aim to feature them in our July box, everyone at the public cupping event in Warsaw was delighted and surprised because not many people are aware of Aliena outside of Italy. Though we ended up picking one of Aliena’s coffees for the June box, the packaging wasn’t ready and we had to postpone their debut feature by one month.

The coffee that we fell in love with is from Rwanda. This washed Red Bourbon from producer Musasa Ruli is an exceptional example of the finest coffees that are produced in this small East African country. Rwanda is seen by many as one of the most stable and forward looking African nations though it has been ruled by the same former rebel leader turned President, Paul Kagame, since 2000. Rwanda’s bloody history is still fresh on many peoples’ minds and it will take a long time for the wounds to heal.

Having said that, specialty coffee is one of the country’s most important exports, offering thousands of people a way out of poverty. Musasa Dukunde Kawa cooperative runs four wet mills in the rugged northwest of the country with Ruli being their original first washing station. Located at 1.999 meters above sea level, it is one of Rwanda’s highest washing stations and known for producing crisp, juicy and delicious coffees like this one.

Expect notes of blackberry, rose and blueberry.

Receive this coffee along with two other picks from KUDU and PIHA as part of our upcoming August 2023 European coffee roasters box. Order your subscription, one-off box or gift box now. Ships on 20.08.2023.

Here in Amsterdam it’s mild and cool. I’m looking out over the parking lot behind our warehouse and see a grey sky. Oh well. I guess I shouldn’t be complaining about the weather so much after all. I prefer this over 40°C every day.

This month’s brew guide includes recipes from our five brilliant July roasters including Coffee Collective, Manhattan, Formative, Metric and Archers. I am not including a custom recipe of my own this time. I think there’s plenty for you to work with, however, I did brew the coffee from Formative for this shoot using my beloved Hario Switch. It’s a great brewer, don’t you think?

Enjoy and most importantly, stay hydrated!

Basic Setup

As in any good kitchen or bar, you want to be sure to have a few key items at your disposal that will aid you in preparing a delicious cup of coffee.

These include:

• • Scales (with or without a timer – you can use your phone or your watch)
  • A good quality burr grinder such as the Comandante Grinder
  • Your favourite brew method (Origami, Kalita Wave, V60, AeroPress etc)
  • A clean vessel for brewing and decanting
  • A ladle or stirrer for agitating the grounds
  • Water for brewing
  • A pouring kettle but a regular kettle will also do, however, it requires more precision

Feel free to take a look around our shop to see if there are things that you might like. We have a nice selection of items from Timemore and other brands to help you brew delicious coffees.

It’s very important to always freshly grind your coffee just before preparation because coffee is very volatile and quickly loses its full aroma in a matter of minutes.

You can also vacuum pack your coffee in portions, name and number each batch and then keep it in a dry cool place or put it in the freezer. More information about freshness and how to rest your coffees can be found in this article.

For espresso, I use my home espresso machine, a Profitec Pro600 espresso machine and a Profitec ProT64 grinder.

Coffee Collective’s recipe for filter:

V60: 16g of coffee medium coarse. Water: 250g at 30ppm and 94°C. Bloom: with 40g for 30 seconds. Total time: 1:45 minutes.

Coffee Collective’s recipe for espresso:

18g of coffee ground fine. Water: 38g at 100ppm and 94°C. Pressure: 7bar. Brew time: 26 – 30 seconds.

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Manhattan Coffee’s recipe for filter:

V60: We like to work with a brew ratio of 1:16.5. Use 20g of coffee with 330g of water. Medium coarse grind. Bloom with 50g of water for 30 seconds. Total brew time shoud be around 2:30 minutes.

Manhattan Coffee’s recipe for espresso:

For our espressos, we like to work with a ratio of f 1:2-1:2.5. Think: 19g of coffee in and 38g of espresso out.

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Formative’s recipe for filter:

V60: 15g of coffee ground medium fine. 275ml of water at 94°C. Bloom at a 3:1 ratio (45 ml of water). Follow up with two pulses split equally (115ml each). Aim for 2:30 – 3 minutes total contact time.

Formative’s recipe for espresso:

Ratio 1:2.5. 18g of coffee with a 45 ml yield. Extraction time: 29 – 31 seconds.

Metric’s recipe for filter:

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What did you think of these recipes and and the coffees themselves? Feel free to leave a comment down below to share your own recipes with other Coffeeviners or visit this rating form to leave us more detailed feedback.

DELICIOUS PREVIEW: Check out the spectactular coffees we’ve picked out for the upcoming August 2023 editions.

A week ago, I hosted a public cupping in Helsinki for the second time in as many years. The wonderful people of Kaffa Roastery welcomed us back into their space and together with members from the local coffee community, I picked out the winning coffees for our upcoming August 2023 European and Global coffee roasters boxes.

For this summery edition, I am thrilled to share that we will have five Coffeevine debutants, i.e. five brand new roasters who have never been featured in any of our boxes before. In fact, for the European coffee roasters box I specifically looked for roasters from around the Mediterranean or south of Europe while for the Global coffee roasters box, I wanted to venture to the Far East and bring you two of Asia’s hottest names.

I am really chuffed with this selection as it will showcase a very diverse range of roasters, regions, origins and processes. Learn more about the selected roasters below and keep an eye on our blog for more full-length articles about each roaster and their coffee coming soon.

PIHA from Bordeaux

A few years ago, Pierre Guérin and Carole Laffargue were travelling around New Zealand, surfing on its pristine beaches and enjoying the local coffee scene when they decided that they wanted to bring a touch of Down Under back to their native France. Based in the Western French city of Bordeaux, which is close to the Atlantic coast, PIHA is named after a beach near New Zealand’s biggest city Auckland.

Some of the guys who work at PIHA have been Coffeevine subscribers for many years and previously reached out to me to find out when they could potentially get featured in our box. I invited them to send some coffees for the August editions and they blew everyone’s mind at the cupping event in Helsinki last week. Our collective cupping squad selected PIHA’s outstanding natural processed Indonesian coffee from famed producer Frinsa Estate as one of its top three favourites for the month. This coffee is a great representation of Indonesia’s finest coffees, offering a rich and syrupy flavour profile.

Kudu Coffee from Athens

When the World of Coffee took place in the Greek capital Athens recently, I decided to head down there and spend a few days relaxing in the city before diving into coffee’s biggest get togethers of the year. On the first morning of my stay in Athens, I ventured into the neighbourhood of Neo Psychiko where Kudu Coffee has its flagship café. I had been in touch with the team for some time and wanted to pay them a personal visit to taste their excellent coffees first hand. Read my review of the café.

Kudu has super colourful and fun packaging that stands out immediately and works with a carefully selected range of producers from around the world. We selected their lovely and floral washed Ethiopian coffee from Guji Masina for our August editions, offering delicate notes of lemon and cherry.

Aliena from Rome

Dario Fociani is somewhat of a local hero in the Roman specialty coffee community and beyond. A few years ago, he opened Faro, the Italian capital’s first specialty coffee café, opening the door for others to follow and inviting specialty sceptical Italians to learn about and taste worldclass coffees. More recently, he launched his own roastery, Aliena, which is inspired by space and its vast unknowns.

The packaging design is just as otherworldly as the coffees found inside. We actually selected Aliena’s gorgeous washed Rwandan coffee from Musasa Ruli back in June already but the boxes weren’t ready so we had to postpone Dario’s Coffeevine debut by one month. Needless to say, we’re incredibly excited to welcome such a pioneer to our roasters family and to showcase this fine coffee in August. Expect notes of grape and plum.

Leaves from Tokyo

It’s been a few years since I was in Japan and though I still maintain close contact with some of the wonderful coffee people I met during my last trip (watch this space), I have been making new connections there lately. One of them is with Leaves from Tokyo who is widely regarded to be one of the most exciting roasters in the Japanese capital right now.

When I was in Paris for the coffee festival in May, I saw their coffees on the shelves at Motors Coffee and this confirmed my gut feel that bringing Leaves to one of our Global coffee roasters boxes would be a great idea. Founder Yasuo Ishii has been on a mission to become one of the world’s best roasters and he takes his craft incredibly seriously. We’re honoured to have Leaves in the upcoming August edition with a beautiful and sweet natural processed Honduran coffee from producer Alex Ramon Ponce Rodriguez. This coffee has notes of ripe Pineapple and raspberry brownie.

Momos from Busan

The other East Asian roaster that we invited to join our third Global coffee roasters box is none other than Momos, the brand founded by Lee Hyeon-gi in a tiny space back in 2007. When one of its baristas, Jeon Joo-yeon, won the World Barista Championships in Boston in 2019, things took off into the stratosphere and firmly placed Momos at the top of South Korea’s burgeoning specialty coffee scene.

The company is known for sourcing exceptional micro lots from around the world and offering impeccable service in its flagship café that is normally led by Joo-yeon who is currently on maternity leave. For its Coffeevine debut, Momos will roast for us a thick and syrupy natural Ethiopian coffee from Buku Sayisa, full of strawberry and milk chocolate sweetness.

Your box, your choice. All you need to do is start.

We offer a few different boxes to suit every taste. Our European box is the most established box we have and offers the most options for customisation. It’s available as a subscription, a one-off box or a gift box and you can choose your ideal roast profile and number of bags. The Global Coffeevine box is our newest baby and currently only available as a one-off box with two bags roasted for filter.

Get started by visiting our shop today.

When you’re preparing for your first run to become the next World Barista Champion, you might have other things on your mind than to busy yourself with finding new ways to market your coffee roastery. After all, isn’t the WBC the greatest stage for that? Well, if you’re Ian Kissick, owner and founder of Formative Coffee in London, you might see this differently.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted out of the blue by Nicholas Pastellopoulos, Head of Coffee at Formative who was interested in finding out how they could partner with us. The funny thing was, while in London for the Coffee Festival, I really wanted to visit Formative’s café in Westminster but the only day I could go was Sunday and on Sundays they’re closed. It must have been some telepathic transmission then that linked the two of us up later.

What Nick proposed was highly enticing. In a video call, both he and Ian told me they wanted to showcase a coffee from the same producer who provided Ian’s winning coffee from the recent UK Barista Championships, Colombian coffee grower Wilton Benitez. How was I ever going to say no to that?

And why did they want to showcase such a coffee you might ask? Good question. Formative only recently started roasting its own coffee. In fact, when Formative first made a splash on the London coffee scene, it was mostly sourcing its coffees from the likes of La Cabra and others before starting to roast in 2022 at the PLOT Roasting facilities in South London. Initially, only meant for the café, Formative quickly began selling bags to local fans and saw an opportunity to get the name out further.

That’s why, in time for Ian’s World Barista Championship run, they wanted to get one of their coffees into our box. Though Ian didn’t get into the finals, representing the UK in Athens was an incredible experience for him and helped raise the national profile of Formative from high end London coffee shop to world class brand.

For the July 2023 European coffee roasters box, Formative will roast a lush and super sweet Castillo from Wilton Benitez that was processed with a special preparation method. Wilton’s fearless approach to coffee growing has inspired many others in the region and helped coffee farmers score much better points for their coffees than they would otherwise have. Wilton’s background in chemical engineering gives him a very different perspective on coffee production and allows him to challenge the status quo by asking important questions.

Wilton meticulously measures and calculates the fermentation and nutrition levels in his many labs to ensure that the coffees achieve their maximum potential. El Paraiso 92, his farm in Cauca, is widely regarded to be one of Colombia’s best and it’s the first time that we have one his coffees in our box. Expect a wonderful cup with notes of tropical fruits and cane sugar.

Get this coffee alongside carefully chosen single origins from Coffee Collective and Manhattan Coffee in our upcoming July 2023 European roasters box. Visit our shop to see all options.

The founders of Rotterdam based roastery Manhattan Coffee Roasters hardly need an introduction but if you’re unfamiliar with them, it’s safe to say that Ben Morrow and Esther Maasdam have always liked to be on top. Ben and Esther, who have been life partners for much longer than they have been co-founders, competed for many years in a great number of coffee competitions and between them, have more than 30 years of experience in the field.

Founded in 2017 with the aim to showcase the finest coffees from leading producers around the world, Manhattan is an outward looking business that has the spirit of the Holland America Line deep within its DNA. Rotterdam is the only ‘modern’ Dutch city with a skyline full of skyscrapers and its iconic Erasmus bridge is one of the city’s landmarks. Coincidentally, it’s also part of Manhattan Coffee Roasters’ logo. Back in the day, Rotterdam and New York were connected through the Holland America line and to this day, Rotterdam is Europe’s biggest port. Much of the world’s best coffee passes through there.

In 2021, I had the first chance to work with Manhattan when they were the launch partner for our first-ever GEMS Coffeevine box. For this box, Ben and I cupped a large number of samples in their old roastery before settling on a gorgeous green tip Geisha from Janson Estate in Panama and needless to say, it was a huge hit. Since then, I’ve kept in close contact with the team, watching from a distance as their business grew. Today, Manhattan is located in a much bigger space and roasting on a huge Typhoon Coffee Roaster. There are not many people out there who use this large scale machine but given by how omni present their coffees have become all over Europe and further afield, their production needs have probably outgrown traditional roasting equipment.

I am particularly chuffed to have Manhattan as one of our partners for the upcoming July 2023 European coffee roasters box because they will be roasting for us an absolutely delicious coffee from our friend Rodolfo Rufatti Battle in El Salvador. Rodolfo even joined one of our monthly cuppings a few years ago when he was in Amsterdam and I regularly see him at major coffee events around Europe.

Rodolfo has a really interesting story. Though he was born in El Salvador, he grew up all over the world and speaks English with a very heavy American twang. His family traces its history back to Italy in the 1880’s before they emigrated to El Salvador to set up a coffee farm. The farm has been run by the Rufatti family for 6 generations but it was only in the 2010’s after modern day Rodolfo discovered specialty coffee in Berlin that he decided to initiate the migration from commodity to specialty coffee.

El Salvador may be the smallest country in Central America but produces some of the region’s best coffees, in part thanks to its topography and climate. Rodolfo makes sure that his farm is run as closely as possible in tandem with nature. They don’t use herbicides and their coffees are all shade grown. All of the picking and sorting is done by hand to ensure only the ripest cherries get processed further. The coffee that we chose for the July 2023 European coffee roasters box is a washed Red Bourbon lot that is super juicy and clean with lots of sweetness and notes of red apple, mandarin and cane sugar.

Get this coffee alongside carefully chosen single origins from Coffee Collective and Formative in our upcoming July 2023 European roasters box. Visit our shop to see all options.

Last week, while my friend Charles Nystrand of famed Swedish coffee roasters Koppi was playing some records at Foyer Coffee in Athens, I had the chance to catch up with Klaus Thomsen of Coffee Collective in Copenhagen. We hadn’t seen each other in a long time but since Coffee Collective is being featured in our upcoming European coffee roasters box for July, the timing couldn’t have been better.

The first time we had Coffee Collective in one of our boxes was when we had just abandoned our first Coffeevine iteration with our complicated tasting boxes featuring small 100g bags with different coffees from different roasters and asked Coffee Collective to be part of our relaunch alongside Caravan Coffee and Five Elephant.

Since then, Coffee Collective has made sporadic appearances in our boxes and they’ve been on my wishlist for a fresh feature for some time. As I stood there sipping on some sparkling water because, as usual for non-drinkers like me there were no suitable options, Klaus explained that Coffee Collective was growing its retail presence across Denmark by opening new shops in Copenhagen and Aarhus, home of La Cabra. We joked a bit about that but Klaus also correctly noted that the competition in the specialty coffee market in Denmark is friendly.

These days, Klaus is spending a lot of time training staff and keeping a check on quality in the shops while also dedicating more attention to the new bakery business that was added recently. Here, they work with the highest grade Danish flour, chocolate and nuts to bake sourdough loaves and exquisite pastries that go extremely well with their fantastic coffees.

Coffee Collective has always been somewhat of a trailblazer. Founded in 2007 just after Klaus won the World Barista Championships, the company eventually started roasting and right off the bat, made it its mission to offer unprecedented levels of transparency for its coffee supply chain. Working closely with farmers around the world, Coffee Collective wanted to draw attention to the massive levels of exploitation in the coffee industry and explain why direct trade can make such a big difference.

Their roastery in Fredriksberg in Copenhagen has become somewhat of a shrine for coffee lovers from around the world and they let their outstanding coffees do most of the talking. That’s why it’s such a joy to have Coffee Collective back in a Coffeevine box in July, this time with a delicious washed Colombian coffee from Planadas.

The story behind this coffee is quite interesting. It’s from near the small town of Planadas in Tolima, a region is relatively new to specialty coffee because for many years, it was controlled by the FARC rebel movement. Caravela Coffee, an exporter of Colombian coffees, is always on the lookout for new and exciting coffee regions and they introduced Coffee Collective to the farmers behind this coffee. It is said that coffees from Tolima have similiar characteristics to African coffees and that makes them particularly interesting.

We picked this coffee during our recent public cupping in Warsaw and know that this will be a real crowd pleaser. It’s well-balanced, clean and delicious with intricate notes of pear and caramel.

Get this coffee alongside carefully chosen single origins from Manhattan Coffee Roasters and Formative in our upcoming July 2023 European roasters box. Visit our shop to see all options.

Lately, I’ve been experimenting a bit more with non-alcoholic drinks and cocktails at home and exploring some really delicious flavours that I want to share with you in early July. This cold brew recipe is always solid and delicious and you can easily use your cold brew in combination with other recipes.

And who knows, maybe I’ll bump into you somewhere in Athens and we’ll have a Freddo Flat White together? Bring it on!

Basic Setup

As in any good kitchen or bar, you want to be sure to have a few key items at your disposal that will aid you in preparing a delicious cup of coffee.

These include:

• • Scales (with or without a timer – you can use your phone or your watch)
  • A good quality burr grinder such as the Comandante Grinder
  • Your favourite brew method (Origami, Kalita Wave, V60, AeroPress etc)
  • A clean vessel for brewing and decanting
  • A ladle or stirrer for agitating the grounds
  • Water for brewing
  • A pouring kettle but a regular kettle will also do, however, it requires more precision

Feel free to take a look around our shop to see if there are things that you might like. We have a nice selection of items from Timemore and other brands to help you brew delicious coffees.

It’s very important to always freshly grind your coffee just before preparation because coffee is very volatile and quickly loses its full aroma in a matter of minutes.

You can also vacuum pack your coffee in portions, name and number each batch and then keep it in a dry cool place or put it in the freezer. More information about freshness and how to rest your coffees can be found in this article.

For espresso, I use my home espresso machine, a Profitec Pro600 espresso machine and a Profitec ProT64 grinder.

My recipe for cold brew:

Use 30g of coffee and grind it quite coarse. The longer the extraction, the coarser the grind. I use a French Press to make this beverage and you can either throw in all of your coffee into the vessel or you can use a large teabag to keep the coffee in one place. Up to you.

Add 550ml of filtered water at room temperature. Then, give it all a good stir and cover the French Press with cling film. You can pop it in the fridge or leave it in a dark cool place. After 12 hours, you can either give it a stir and allow it to extract for 12 hours more or you can already remove the coffee grounds. The way I do it is I push the French Press metal filter down to trap the coarsest grounds and then filter the cold brew liquid through a paper filter like the v60 or Chemex to remove any last residue.

Store in a clean container and consumer within 3-4 days.

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The Barn’s recipe for filter:

V60: 18g in, 300g out. Pours: 50/150/250/300 every 30 seconds. Total time 2:25 – 2:35 minutes.

The Barn’s recipe for espresso:

19g in, 30 second extraction. Yield: – 43g (+1-)

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PLOT’s recipe for filter:

V60: 20g coffee ground fairly coarse – similar to a French press or slightly finer. 300g filtered or bottled water at93°C.

1. Start by placing a pre-rinse filter in the V60 brewer. Rinse the filter with hot water to remove any papery taste, and then discard the rinse water.

2. Add 20g of coffee to the brewer

3. Begin the pour-over process by slowly pouring 60g of hot water over the coffee grounds in a concentric circle. Try to pour the water evenly over all the grounds and take about 10 seconds to complete the pour.

4. At the 40-second mark, pour another 60g of hot water over the coffee. Again, pour the water slowly and evenly over the grounds.

5. Repeat this process at the 1:20, 2:00, and 2:30 minute marks, pouring 60g of hot water each time. Each pour should take about 10 seconds.

6. By the time the final pour is complete at 2:30 minutes, the total water added should be 300g. The pour-over process should be finished around 3:30 minutes.

PLOT’s recipe for espresso:

18g coffee in. 40 – 42g out. Extraction time: 30+ seconds.

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Andy Roasters’ recipe for filter:

V60: Rinse your filter paper. Add 15g of course ground coffee (EK43 on 11,5). Start with a 30g bloom for 30 seconds. Water at 91°C. Follow this by adding water up to 100g, then up to 180g and then up to 250ml. Aim for 2:10 minutes brew time.

Andy Roasters’ recipe for espresso:

18.7 g in. 43g out. Temperature at 92°C. Extraction time: 30 seconds  at 8,5 bar ppm 110.

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Proud Mary’s recipe for filter:

15g of coffee ground medium-coarse. Use 250ml of water fresh off the boil. Rinse the filter paper which preheats the brewing vessel at the same time (don’t forget⁣ to empty the rinse water out!!)⁣. Put the coffee into the V60 and give it a tiny shake to flatten the top of the bed⁣.

Start the timer and pour 50ml of water into the bed of coffee and agitate a bit, front to back, and left to right, then let it sit and de-gas for 30 seconds. At 30 seconds, slowly and steadily pour the remaining 200ml of water in circles and aim to finish pouring at 50 seconds – a constant and controlled flow rate is the aim!⁣

What did you think of these recipes and the coffees from the June 2023 Coffeevine box? Let me know in the comments down below.

Also in July, we’ll have both a European coffee roasters selection as well as a Global coffee roasters selection.

You can find all details in our shop.