A humble apology for the lack of updates lately – I’m finishing up my masters in applied cultural analysis at Lund University, and it has been taking up all of my concentration. On the bright side, I just recently made a trip back to Sweden for a few seminars and meetings, and got to visit one of Malmö’s newest coffee bars right before it opened.

Rosie’s Coffee & Wine is the name, and it’s located in my old neighborhood near Rönneholm, not far from Kronprinsen. When I visited they hadn’t opened yet and the windows were covered, but it’s in a space that will get a lot of sunlight – don’t let the pictures fool you! Jake Haynes is running the coffee program there, bringing barista experience from a number of world class cafes (most recently Coffee Collective in Denmark). Malmö is a small town so you are never too far from good coffee options, but this neighborhood didn’t have a great place to roll out of bed and into brunch with a good coffee.

Rosie’s is primed to fill that niche, serving espresso drinks and brewed coffee by Coffee Collective (possibly the first shop to do so in Malmö?), as well as fancy icecream from Svaneke, soups by nearby Spoonery (another nice addition to the neighborhood), sandwiches, pastries, and soon they’ll be offering wine in their next-door space. My only gripe is that they didn’t open sooner while I was still living next door!

Map and directions below. Give them a visit, and wish them luck as they have just opened two weeks ago.

Rosie’s Coffee & Wine
Beridaregatan 8, Malmö, Sweden
Check Rosie’s Facebook for current opening hours.

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3rd Floor Espresso’s owner, Colin Harmon, has won the Irish Barista Championship twice, and both times placed 4th in the World Barista Championship (2009 and 2010) – which is no easy feat! 3FE uses Hasbean coffee, a world class roaster based in the UK, as well as guest roasters. I haven’t had occasion to visit Ireland, but I recently came across pictures of 3FE’s newest location that give those of us who haven’t been a hint of what we’re missing.

The minimalist space was designed by Cian Corcoran and Ahmad Fakhry of Designgoat with the goal of removing distractions and placing the focus squarely on the coffee. It’s always interesting to see how cafe architecture and design articulates the underlying assumptions about how coffee should be consumed and imagined as a social practice. I like some of the simple touches Designgoat has used to highlight 3FE’s approach – repurposing utilitarian materials, building in literal transparency, and creating a large space that opens up the possibility for casual interaction between guests and baristas. The latter feature seems especially well suited for 3FE’s tasting menus, which pair two distinctly different coffees brewed as espresso, cappuccino, and filter for groups of two or more. This is something I wish more cafes would do!

Our goal was to create an interior that reflected the work that 3FE do in a cost effective and user-considerate manner. They serve coffee of the utmost quality and pay close attention to the tiniest of details. For us to re-create something so unique we set about designing every aspect of the space. Lights, furniture & work spaces were all custom designed with both barista and customer in mind. We wanted to keep everything as simple as possible so that, when in the space, one can fully enjoy the experience of the coffee.

We decided to use scaffolding and plywood to build the furniture but steered away from the austere nature of these materials, creating an elegant and minimal aesthetic. This was achieved through unconventional use of the scaffolding joints and using subtle angles with, what is normally, a crudely assembled material.

The brew bar was designed as a space where customers can interact with the barista and learn about the coffee being brewed. It was important to separate this area from the rest of the space through lighting and furniture. The high stools were designed just for this. A big part of brewing coffee is the transparency and honesty of the process. To refelect this we left the brew bar counter un-panelled, allowing the customer to see that there is nothing else going on besides what is in front of them. It also encourages open conversation between the barista and customer.

It’s an interesting space and I look forward to visiting some time! If you’ve ever had a chance to visit, please let me know how it was in the comments below :)

All photos courtesy of Designgoat.

Map, Directions and Hours:

32/34 Lower Grand Canal, Dublin 2 [Shown Above]
Mon – Fri: 8:00 – 17:00
Sat – Sun: 11:00 – 17:00

54 Middle Abbey St, Twisted Pepper Building, Dublin 1
Mon – Sat: 10:00 – 19:00
Sunday: 12:00 – 18:00

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Tonx Coffee is offering a $10 discount on subscriptions. If you’ve followed the specialty coffee industry for any length of time, you’ve probably seen or heard the name Tonx float around. Tonx is Tony Konecny:

Tony began his descent into coffee madness as a barista and then head roaster at Seattle’s seminal Victrola Coffee and later went on to bend the coffeebar genre as part of Intelligentsia Coffee’s notorious Los Angeles project. He has the dubious distinction of being among the first “coffee bloggers” for which he sincerely apologizes. Tony thinks better coffee makes for a better life.

Together with Nik Bauman of Foodzie.com, the duo have created a nicely designed subscription coffee service that ‘curates’ small batches of coffee, roasts it and ships it fresh to your door every two weeks. You can delay shipments if you’ll be out of town, too. The website is simple, smart, and effortless; all you have to do is look forward to that little box of joy to arrive in the mail.

They’re also expanding – having just added Nick Griffith to the team this week. You can read more about that in this write up by Joshua Lurie at FoodGPS:

Konecny and Griffith first met in 2006, when the former helped recruit the latter to work for Intelligentsia as they were starting a Glassell Park roastery and Silver Lake coffeehouse. Six years later, Konecny said, “We’ve wanted to put together the best team, and I think Nick has one of the best palates that I’ve ever encountered in coffee, and he’s no bullshit, and those two things don’t always go together.”

I had been meaning to try their coffee as I’d heard many good things, and the $10 discount was irresistable. If you’ve also been waiting, now might be the time to give it a shot – $28 for two shipped bags of coffee is a bargain.

London is blessed with a great coffee scene, numerous cafes, and no less than two World Barista Champions who call the city home. I’ve been slowly cataloging the cafes I visited on my trip to London, but if you’re planning your own vacation a new guide book has come out that’s worth your while.

The Independent Coffee Book – London is a beautiful little labor of love, put together by Vespertine Press, “a Brighton-based independent publisher dedicated to making practical, beautifully printed guide books that showcase the very best exponents of specialty coffee in the UK.” It’s part of what looks to be a burgeoning series; you can pick up another edition centered around the coffee in Brighton & Hove on England’s southern coast.

What I like about the London book is that it gives you a local’s introduction to each cafe, providing you with the context and history that gives each shop its character and charm. This is great when you’re just in town for a short time and really gives you a greater appreciation for what you’re experiencing. For London residents, it might also shed some new light on your favorite spot to grab a coffee, or point you towards other worthy cafes. The book is conveniently organized into regional sections that focus on the City of London, the West End, as well as North, South, and East London.

The book also has practical information that could come in handy, especially for tourists – like which shops have public restrooms, their hours, and the nearest public transit stops.

In the second half of the book, you’ll find a wealth of brief educational articles written by some of London’s specialty coffee professionals. These include: “A History of London Coffee Houses;” a map of World Wide Coffee Production; discussion on “The Ethics of Coffee Buying,” “Coffee Roasting,” “Brewing Methods,” and a handy flavor wheel.

All in all it’s a nice overview and introduction to specialty coffee and to London’s coffee culture – a great gift to travelers, Londoners with an interest in coffee or local indie businesses, and anyone else curious for a taste of London’s coffee scene.

The book is available for £10 on Vespertine’s website. Shipping in the UK £2, and most other countries is £4.

The Whitney museum has surprisingly good coffee, a fact I discovered with the help of Oliver Strand’s contribution to the ever-useful New York Times’ app, “The Scoop.” Past the long lines for museum admission that wrap out the door, you’ll find Untitled, a restaurant and coffee bar down stairs serving a refined take on diner food. The choice seems fitting for a museum of contemporary American art, a nod to one of Americana’s classic spaces.

Located at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Untitled is a new restaurant from Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group, offering a contemporary, farm-to-table take on the classic Manhattan coffee shop and the simple, comforting and seasonal cooking of Executive Chef Chris Bradley (formerly the Executive Sous Chef of Gramercy Tavern.) Untitled is open for breakfast and lunch daily, brunch on weekends, and dinner Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

The all-day menu features updates on coffee shop classics, all made with carefully sourced, local ingredients: freshly baked breakfast pastries, eggs and omelets, pancakes, salads, soups, sandwiches and burgers, Four & Twenty Blackbirds pies, Betty Bakery cakes and Blue Marble ice cream for dessert. Visitors can also stop by for Stumptown Coffee.

Nestled under the museum’s concrete brutalist architecture, the space still manages to be surprisingly bright, airy, and warm. The food was also pleasant, simple fare that highlights fresh ingredients. I enjoyed the spinach, roasted tomato and mozzarella cheese omelette with sourdough bread. They also serve a three course dinner from Thursday through Saturday.

What piqued my curiosity, besides the food and space, was the nod from Strand that their coffee program was above average for a museum restaurant. They use Stumptown coffee, offering a house blend prepared on batch brewers, cold brew, and espresso. The espresso was well prepared and enjoyable. The drip coffee was dubious at first, coming out piping hot and obscuring the flavor, but if you let it cool to a palatable temperature it is a mellow blend that has just enough sweetness and fruity acidity to make it a pleasant companion with your food, or as takeaway to nearby Central Park.

Bottom line: above average coffee and simple but refined food in a unique space. Recommended if you’re in the area.

Hours:
Breakfast & Lunch – No reservations
Tuesday – Friday 8:00 am – 3:00 pm

Brunch – No reservations
Saturday 10:00 am – 3:00 pm
Sunday 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

Dinner – Reservations accepted
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday 6:00 pm – 9:00pm

Map & Directions:


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Toby’s Estate is a new cafe and roastery in Brooklyn, with Australian roots. I’ll be writing more about them later (the short review: nice coffee, great sandwiches, cool space), but for now I wanted to share that they are offering public cuppings every Wednesday. I went a few weeks ago and had a great time.

If you’ve never done a cupping, it’s basically the standardized method for evaluating a coffee. Multiple coffees are ground and brewed simply, in bowls or cups, with the floating bits skimmed off the surface. You go around the table to note the aroma, and then taste with a spoon, slurping to aerate it, and spitting to avoid fatigue that can impact your ability to taste. If you want to learn more about coffee you should hit up every free cupping you can find — it let’s you systematically compare and contrast the impact of a multitude of qualities and characteristics, including the farm, variety, processing, and roast. Doing this simultaneously with multiple coffees is always an eye-opener. If you’re lucky, you can also get in on cuppings of acids, defects, or even cuppings of different brewing water, all of which highlight how many variables affect the flavor of a coffee.

Our cupping had a few surprises, one being a distinctly aromatic coffee, with fragrant notes of brown sugar, spice, cinnamon, and herbal tea. I was really looking forward to getting to it on the tasting round, but when I did it was lacking in acidity and tasted fairly generic and roasty. It turns out it was Panama Esmeralda roasted for espresso by Coffee Collective  – the most highly lauded coffee, and one of the best roasters in the world. Coffee intended to be brewed as espresso is generally roasted a little darker, which is why the flavor didn’t come through in the cupping. The aroma makes me wish we could have tried it as espresso!

The star of the show was a Kenyan coffee that Toby’s is serving in their cafe. It smelled to me like baked raisin bread, had a red grape acidity, and I wrote “plum and citrus” on my notes for flavor. There were also some other interesting flavors on the table, like a Brazil with a strong peanut butter note.

Unless you’re a veteran coffee professional or have other tasting experience, you’ll probably come away from a cupping with a distinct sense of the limits of your vocabulary. It’s really difficult to put words to the aromas and flavors you experience in the coffee, but that’s why cuppings are so valuable! Also, if you’re at all like me, you’ll be wishing you’d had breakfast and a coffee to wake up your mind before the cupping; it requires focus and attention, and goes by quicker than you’d expect. Be advised!

If you’d like to visit one of these cuppings, space is limited so make sure you get your name on the schedule by contacting Toby’s Estate.

I wanted to share a few photos I took of Tapped & Packed, a specialty cafe with two locations in London – marked on the outside only by their street numbers “114″ or “26.” Each space is different, with No. 26 feeling more like a cozy neighborhood haunt, and No. 114 like a destination you’d go out of your way to visit to soak up the light and do some people watching through its large windows. During my trip I was happy to finally meet Sang Ho Park (@Koreanbarista), who was Head Barista at Tapped and Packed at the time and had just come back to London after volunteering for the Coffee Common event at TED. He’s recently moved on and is now working with Square Mile and preparing to compete in the UK Barista Championship, so keep an eye out for that and send some good vibes for the competition :)

When I visited Tapped & Packed, they were using a custom blend of Nicaragua Lemoncillo from Has Bean, one of the best roasters in the UK. If I recall correctly, this was a Pacamara variety and the blend was 60% Washed, 40% Natural processed. It was really a delicious shot with complexity and an enjoyable acidity that came across like lemon cream in milk. They also had a more typical blend for milk drinks with stronger chocolate and roast notes. Tapped & Packed rotates through other roasters as well, including Climpson & Sons, Origin Coffee Roasters, Square Mile, and Union Hand Roasted.

No. 114 is the newer location and it has some interesting design features. The interior is full of different patinas, various woods and unpolished metals, all bathed in bright light from its generous windows. In the middle of the shop there’s a tree stump, used to hold condiments, and on the bar they have a steam-punk looking water dispenser for pour overs, and a wood-enclosed Nuova Simonelli espresso machine with a see-through window that shows off the boiler and other parts.

I enjoyed visiting, had a delicious coffee prepared by Sang Ho, and hope that things are going well there despite his absence! Check out the map below if you’d like to visit, and please share your experience in the comments.

Sang Ho is a bit of a showoff :) I’m not complaining, I got to drink these.

Tapped & Packed No. 26:

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Coffee news in recent weeks has been dominated by the highly anticipated opening of Handsome Coffee Roasters in Downtown LA. But not to be overshadowed, another noteworthy cafe called Single Origin just opened its doors. This new shop is in the Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax, next to the Grove shopping mall, and it’s run by Nikolas Krankl, the 2nd place winner of the 2011 US Barista Championship. He was previously involved with the coffee program at Gelato Bar, a neighborhood treat on Tujunga in Studio City; and before that he ran his own cafe called Taste Coffee House, which was recently acquired by coffee legend George Howell of Terroir Coffee.

Single Origin shares its Farmers Market space with Short Cake, a bakery with an impressive menu of sweet and savory goods. Their coffee is roasted by Verve in Santa Cruz, California, and as the name implies, Single Origin will highlight coffees from single estates, some of which will be exclusives not available at any other Verve accounts.

I asked Nikolas to share a little bit about what they’re offering:

Currently we are using a lot from Latin America. Now playing on the espresso bar is a farm called, “Bola De Oro,” from Guatemala. It’s a wet-process coffee that comes from the region of Chimaltenango and is comprised of bourbon, caturra and catuai varietals. The shot it produces is clean, sweet and round with notes of chocolate/raspberry.

Presently the hand-brew V60 bar = El Porvenir, El Salvador….It’s a wet-process bourbon from the region of Chalatenango. Sugary and sticky reminiscent of pepsi-cola.

Lastly we do a machine brew (Fetco Extractor) using a Guatemalan coffee from the farm, “Puerta Verde.” This is also a bourbon varietal from the region of Antigua. Flavor notes = tropical fruit, refreshing, crisp.

These coffees will change. As you know, coffee is a produce, and our goal is to rotate (our produce) seasonally in order to brew fresh and delicious coffee year round.

It’s great to see LA’s coffee options steadily growing, and especially nice to see a shop like Single Origin open at the busy Farmer’s Market. Give them a visit and let me know how your experience was in the comments below!

All pictures by Dana Maione, courtesy of Single Origin Coffee LA.

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Blue Bottle has been one of the bigger success stories in specialty coffee, garnering press and praise since the early 2000s, starting with its locations in San Francisco. Since then, they’ve expanded rapidly, with recent profit growth of 50% each year. Blue Bottle excels in creating and telling its own trend-setting story about coffee, using props like siphon bars and other references to Japanese coffee culture. Blue Bottle was also one of the first specialty cafes I visited back in the mid-2000s, opening my eyes to what coffee could be as I sat and sipped two espressos back-to-back in front of their Linden Alley coffee counter.

However, from people in the industry I see and hear a lot of frustrated grumbling about their coffee sourcing being hit or miss, or that their roasting and brewing can be inconsistent (for just one of many critiques, see Chris Tacy’s ‘State of SF Coffee’ series written at the end of 2009). Indeed, you can see in their brewing recipes a different style and philosophy compared to the norm at other leading specialty coffee companies (e.g. Blue Bottle favors larger doses of coffee when brewing, while I believe the wider trend has been away from this). I can’t speak to sourcing or roasting criticisms, but I personally think both brewing philosophies can taste good, for different reasons. I haven’t had any opportunities to try their coffee since that visit in 2006, save for a trip to Tokyo in 2010 where their coffee was expertly prepared by Masahiro Onishi at Potluck, a cafe that used to be in the basement of Opening Ceremony. Given that the company has been expanding relatively rapidly, perhaps some loose ends are to be expected?

Despite all this, I visited their new location in Manhattan with an open mind and good memories of my experience long ago. It had been just one day since they’d opened, so I won’t make many generalizations based on this one unique visit. I did however try an espresso and a cappuccino, before venturing upstairs to the siphon bar. The espresso and cappuccino were pleasant, sweet & balanced crowd pleasers that should go over well with visitors from the next door Chelsea Market and the High Line.

The Siphon Bar Experience

The siphon bar is one of Blue Bottle’s most well known imports, and this Manhattan location has a small space in the back dedicated to slow, personalized service. It seats just six, with no room to spectate from behind, and the view out the front window is almost completely obscured as well. Perhaps this was planned, directing your focus towards your companions, the barista, and the coffee.

I really enjoyed the experience at the siphon bar, which started with a complimentary cascara tea, made from coffee cherries, paired with a marshmallow cube that had been infused with bourbon. While we weren’t directed towards any particular drinks, we started with the siphon, trying the Cerro Gacho Cup of Excellence from Honduras, and an Ethiopian from a number of farms that they label ‘Tuktant.’ They are brewing very light and tea-like with the siphon, as you can see in the pictures. This highlighted the acidity and sweetness in the coffees, but perhaps obscured some of their complexity. Nevertheless, the Honduras Cerro Gacho was enjoyable with some cherry and rasin-like subtleties coming through. Paired with the earlier cascara tea, this light brew felt like a natural progression.

Next, Blue Bottle owner James Freeman showed up and treated us to a Nel, or cloth-filtered pour over of the Tanzania Mbeya Mshikamano. If their siphon philosophy is guided by a tea like delicacy, the nel is the polar opposite – updosed to a brew ratio of 40-50g of coffee ground coarser than French press, producing 185ml of coffee poured out over 3:20 minutes (that’s their published recipe, what we were served may have differed slightly; please correct me if I’m wrong!). The result is a cup with strength, body, and sweetness that balances the sour, and acidic notes brought out by the brew method’s low temperature (175F) and coarse grind. This goes against a lot of what the specialty coffee vanguard preaches, but I did enjoy this cup, and the entire experience for what it was: an inspired West Coast fusion of American and Japanese coffee cultures. It was different and certainly enjoyable, though not exactly my preference.

The service at the bar was also gracious, welcoming, and professional. If there hadn’t been a cluster of people standing and staring impatiently, waiting for seat, we could have lingered for a while. If you’d like to try Blue Bottle’s Japanese-inspired brews, see the map below – the High Line is down the street, and Chelsea market is right across the way. Enjoy a few more pictures from the rest of the day’s adventures :)

Map, directions, and opening hours for Blue Bottle Manhattan:

450 West 15th Street, New York NY
Mon-Fri 7-7
Weekends 8-7
Siphon bar and toast 9-4

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La Frontera, as the bag explains, is the name given to a collection of small family coffee farms in Peru near the border with Ecuador.

In 2007, we began our work with five small cooperatives of farmers in a valley with no name, calling the project Valle del Santuario. It has been our most successful small-scale farmer relationship to date – we’ve sourced incredible, organic coffee directly from small farmers, delivering premiums for quality, and have built rewarding personal relationships at the same time. Over the past couple of years, we’ve sought to expand our work beyond the little valley, to the surrounding mountains where other small farmers grow coffee with the same dedication and passion. This year, we’re introducing a new label – La Frontera – to bring these great new coffees of northern Peru to you. La Frontera means “the Border,” since these coffees are all from the mountainous northernmost border area of Peru.

‘La Frontera’ is a washed blend of the Caturra, Bourbon, Pache, and Catimor varieties. The aroma ranges from intense dark chocolate with hints of spice and cherries, to something reminiscent of the sweet smell of fresh cut wood and sap crackling on a camp fire. In the cup it’s a balanced but sophisticated coffee, with pronounced raisin-like sweetness, the complexity of a single estate dark chocolate, and a nice red grape acidity.

This coffee has been submitted to the upcoming Coffee Common event at TED in Long Beach, and I can see why. It’s nuanced but accessible, a real treat. You can try this coffee at Coffee Common if they have a public event in Los Angeles (or if you’ve got the deep pockets to attend TED), or order direct from Counter Culture’s website. Let me know what you think if you’ve tried it!