Searching for the Best Coffee in Stockholm – Part 1
Another post long overdue! During Easter break I took my first trip up to Stockholm (“sthlm” to the Swedes), riding one of the cheap Veolia trains that look like they’re from the 1950s. Stockholm at Easter is a city full of people relaxing in the park, barbecuing, or vacationing out in the country. Those good...
Solde Kaffebar – Malmö, Sweden
This post is incredibly long overdue given that one of the first people to welcome me to Sweden was Dan Stenqvist, blogger, barista extraordinaire, and roaster for Solde Kaffebar in Malmö. It’s been about nine months since I arrived, and I think I’ve been to Solde more often than any other coffee bar in Malmö....
Cafe 14 – Malmö, Sweden
UPDATE: Sadly Luis has sold his shop, but I’m pretty sure we haven’t heard the last from him! Keep an eye out for future updates. When I heard from Oscar that Luis from Cafe 14 was competing in next week’s Swedish Barista Cup (the winner goes on to the World Barista Championship), I had to...
Espressamente Illy – Seoul, Korea
A lot of coffee drinkers stumble upon Illy in their initial quests for better coffee. It’s hard to miss their shiny silver and red packaging in the supermarket or at the cafes serving their coffee. Established in the 1930s, Illy is family owned and known for pursuing scientific coffee research, and creating standards for brewing...
Coffee Collective – Copenhagen
Coffee Collective is a world renowned Danish cafe and roastery, part-owned by 2006 World Barista Champion Klaus Thomsen, along with Peter Dupont, Casper Rasmussen, and Linus Törsäter. Their coffee is highly regarded and I’ve seen their bags proudly displayed like trophies behind the bar or in the back rooms of specialty cafes around the world....
Bear Pond Espresso, Tokyo
Bear Pond is one of the better known specialty coffee destinations in Tokyo, having made a good impression on a number of blogs, magazines, and newspaper articles over the past few years. According to scattered reportage, owner Katsu Tanaka lived in the US for quite a few years and apparently worked as a trainer (or...
Paul Bassett, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Paul Bassett’s shop at Gosok Terminal in Seoul, Korea (article here), was one of my most frequented shops due to its consistently great espresso (though its convenient location didn’t hurt). They also have a shop in Tokyo that I had a chance to visit this past summer. It turns out that Paul Bassett’s Shinjuku cafe...
Streamer Coffee in Tokyo, Japan
Streamer Coffee is a cool cafe located in a more residential part of Shibuya, not far from the station. It’s run by Hiroshi Sawada, a latte art champion, along with Takehiro Kato. They have quite an ambitious array of branded products (t-shirts, leather cup-holders, glass jars, etc. etc.), including some co-branded with Espresso Parts (you...
Anniversaire Cafe, Tokyo
Omotesando is a neighborhood known for its cluster of high-fashion flagship stores (Chanel, Dior, Prada, you name it, it’s there), as well as its boulevard lined by Zelkova trees that provide welcome shade and refreshing greenery. It’s in this setting that we visited Anniversaire Cafe and found ourselves in the midst of a wedding ceremony,...
Cafe de l’Ambre: Old School Coffee in Tokyo, Japan
Cafe de l’Ambre is a quirky Tokyo legend, located a few zigzagging side-streets away from the main shopping area at Ginza. You may have seen it mentioned before when Australian barista champion Scott Callaghan wrote about his trip around the world here. The coffee bar and roastery has been around since the late 1940s and...
Pot Luck @ Opening Ceremony, Tokyo
Update Jan 13, 2012: A reader in the comments writes that this cafe is now closed, replaced by an Italian restaurant. Enjoy the post below for historical purposes :) Here’s the first in a series of reviews I’ll be posting from my trip to Japan last August. I was only there for five days so...
Cafe Norden in Copenhagen
Man Seeking Coffee recently posted a link to Coffee Collective’s google map of cafes using their beans, which gave me a starting point for exploring Copenhagen’s cafe scene when I visited yesterday. The first location, called Cafe Norden, basically ticked off all the boxes on the list of preconceptions I had for what a ‘European...
