Sunday, February 26, 2012

2nd Belgian Aeropress Championship


Hello everybody.
I'm happy to announce the second edition of the Belgian Aeropress Championship (#BAC) to be held at our Roastery, Braziliëstraat 10, Eilandje, Antwerp, Easter monday April 9 at 14h.

3 (professional) judges will taste (blind) to see which competitor prepares the tastiest cup of coffee, brewed by the AP.

Caffenation will send all competitors a bag of the same coffee 2 week upfront.

We are looking to 12 or 16 (max) persons to compete. You don't have to be a professional. I think it's very good to have some amateurs on stage as well.

It's free entrance and every competitor will win a price.

Limarc will provide a mobile brew and espresso bar.
Now we only need sunny weather.

First come, first pressed : email me to step in.

Rules & Regulations :

The rules are fairly straight forward, 3 International judges will evaluate (blind), purely based on taste, the best filter style brew from the Aeropress. We want the competition to be as transparent as possible, with the intention of fine tuning the hugely varied technique used to brew on the Aeropress.

General Rules : everyone will use the same coffee, graciously donated by Caffenation Specialty Coffee Roasters.

The coffee will be preroasted one month before the championship. One 300 grams bag of this coffee will be send to all competitors.

At the championships we will have the same coffee, 7 day old.

The required volume of the drink is 2dl, which has to be served in the supplied cupping cup. It is up to the competitor what kind of water is used, no added ingredients are allowed. All competitors will have a 8 minutes comp time. Failure to serve the drink in that time will mean disqualification. The technique used by the competitor must be in writing and given to the judges this will not be considered in judging.

Equipment : The supplied equipment will be all grinders and boilers at Caffenation. Competitors are welcome to bring their own grinder.

We will have 1 Big Mahlkonig Lab Grinder. You may test this grinder up front.

You can bring your own, but there are Aeropresses available for those interested.

Any modifications to the actual Aeropress will need to be authorised by the Head Judge and if need by the organisation.

Water - Is not decided on yet.

Rounds : There will be qualifying rounds. Probably we go with a one against one knock out system. More info later on.

After each round, competitors must use the judging time to clear their station ready for the next round of competitors.

Competitors must have the Belgian nationality or must live in Belgium since 1 year.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Future of Coffee


This probably is going to be a long one, because its my imagined future of both slow and express.
And this in bars, not at home.

The future of coffee is black. Our slogan on the espresso of the week bags is for real.
But of course its not only black coffee that's changing.
All over the world the Flat White is on the rise. There are a lot of different recipes and stories about this drink, but all around i see the double ristretto based cappuccino, size approximately 18cl-6oz, becoming the favourite drink of the new generation.
The 1 oz espressoshot became a double ristretto, very strong, high on acidity and very siropy. The milk is fresh and steamed at +/-60 degrees. The mugs mostly brown or white and from Italian origin. The equipment is somewhat more flexible. For grinders its mostly Mazzer, by preference the Robur, and left or right an Anfim Super Caimano. For machines La Marzocco is king, but Synesso, Slayer, KVDW and the upcoming Nueva Simonelli do have a bright future.

No special espresso stuff at the horizon?
Not really. The flavored lattes are mainstream but not supported very well in the 3rd wave bars.
The nice sig drink ingredients from championships are left behind on stages or in training rooms.
And the cold coffees are no longer espresso but slow & cold brew based.
And as someone who commented on the 'lungo post', why not promoting Americanos/ Long Blacks? Even when you tune them in perfectly and promote them all the time, they hardly become very popular. They lack the mouthfeel of the espressos and aren't as aromatic as the filters. I stopped putting my energy in this beverage.

This brings us to the other side of black; filter/press coffee or the slow menu.

The history in bars is very short, so it's hard to tell how the future is gonna look like.
Just as Marco rep David Walsh cited before; the quality of manual pour over is very shaky. This knowing; the most popular drippers in the espresso bar, the Hario V60 and the Chemex, are the most shaky of all.
Besides of this they are very time consuming and time is money, certainly in Belgium.
These 2 problems is the reason i advice most starting espresso bars to go with the Abid Clever dripper. It's faster and more stable. And cheap.
The Aeropress is another possibilty. The main advantage : it's hard to screw up. The main disadvantage : it's hard to excell. If you compare our 2 (winning) recipes, one with a Yirg and the other with a Kenya, on 2 consecutive World championships and you see they are night and day.

What about the good old French Press?
Bit by bit we notice in slow coffee a change in flavors. Where in espresso we notice much more stronger&explicit tastes, the filter coffees turn more subtle and cleaner. And it's on the last part the French press is failing. And that's because of sediment we find back in the brews.
Of course you can, as we did with the Trifeca, filter the 'pressed' coffee again after the brew, but then again time and cost are not on our side. Temperature stability neither.
Trifecta is very expensive as well and the machine seems to be not as sturdy as an espressomachine or big filter machine.

What's the future now?
World wide i don't have a clue, but right now and here, I have a couple of interesting slow bar projects in the pipe line though.

One is a large pour over bar with the Grindripper drippers. Weird enough these dripper demand less skilled pouring. I pour in to bloom and then i fill up the dripper, with a rinsed Hario size 1 bleached filter, 2 or 3 times, depending on the volume. I use in between 10 to 15 grams.
The result is stunning and i'll show you all once it is installed.

Another project i want to install in a couple of bars is with the help of the Bunn ICB brewer. This programmable flat bed brewer is the best machine i know for quick top class coffee. With more top class containers you can give all who are interested samples. Probably soon at your favourite bar.
I keep you guys informed.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The Hatred of the Lungo


Long ago when the first espresso machines were hitting the Belgian and Dutch restaurants and bars the machines were programmed to offer us coffees the size of a 'normal' cup, say in between 12 and 18 cl, 4 to 6oz.

The extraction parameter of a 25 seconds run was correct. The grammage of the dose and temperature of the machine were almost correct. And the average roast and origin of the beans were not too bad either. But still we had a cup 'full of mistakes'.

People were getting used to drink this kind of beverage and the taste of it didn't change a lot over the years. Most probably it became a bit stronger and dirtier and people started to add more and more sugar and nutroma/coffee milk.

When I was younger I barely drank these kinds of coffee, called a 'koffie'. Sometimes people think I've always been a big coffee drinker, but the opposite it true.
The days I discovered Italian espresso a new world opened up, but because in Antwerp I couldn't find a decent place were this beverage was offered my coffee intake continued to be very low.

At the age of 28 I started my first espresso bar. Influenced by the Italian original and New York copies I saw a hole in the market.
Those days I thought that Illy, Lavazza and Segafredo were the only brands that offered beans that were good enough to brew the small shots and it was this last company that offered us the best help and a free 2-group espressomachine with grinders.

We learned the difference between a real espresso (3cl) and a lungo (15cl). The extractions were not too far off and the milk frothing was ..... a bit Starbuckslike I think, but at least the cappuccinos and lattes were espresso based and the place was booming.

But there was still one drink on the menu that I totally disliked and that was the lungo, or the coffee we served when people ordered a 'koffie'.
In those days I thought the mistake we made was the type of Segafredo blend we used, the strongest one.
But one day I tested a lighter blend, that was conceived for lungo's and that cup was very dirty as well.

At the age of 35 I started Caffenation and had 3 espresso's and 5 or 6 lungo's on the menu. This helped me to show all my coffees and blends to my clients, but myself I never liked the lungos. They were tasting better then the Segafredo ones, but still I felt something was wrong.
Of course I knew in Italy a 'normal' coffee was 3cl, the French and Spanish the double, but still I had a hard time understanding why our lungos were so bitter and dirty and nasty.

Now in 2012 we walked the walk and talked the talk, we are way better informed now and 2 years into slow coffee century we are bit by bit ready to bury the classic cup.

I knew for years the espresso machine was never made to brew 15cl cups, but as the market demanded this garbage we were used to serve it. STOP.

When you cup a normal or good arabica you can taste all different characteristics and the lighter you roast (I don't say 'bready'), and the better your bean you pick, the more you can taste coffee is a type of fruit. The suble nuances, fruity notes, enhanced acidity and overall sweetness is 2 die 4.
When we later on brew this freshly ground coffee with a decent filter or press we have an almost perfect beverage.

Then when we roast the beans a tad darker and we pull a correct espresso and again we have an almost perfect beverage. Of course totally different from the filter coffee, but still wonderful.

Then we take the same espresso roast, grind it a bit coarser and use the espresso machine to make a lungo, we at once discover all kinds of 'off tastes' that were not in the original cupping and neither in the filter or espresso brew.

THE ESPRESSO MACHINE HAS NEVER BEEN DEVELOPED TO BREW LUNGOS. NEVER EVER.

Why do we still have a lungo of the week on our menu?
Over the years we stopped making classic lungos, but never found a beverage to replace our lungo of the week. Here we use the fine (espresso) ground, appr 14 grams, dose it in a double portafilter basket and pull a 13 cl coffee, with of course a 25to30" extraction. This coffee tastes in between a double espresso and a classic lungo. Yes it's dirty and yes a filter coffee is way better, but we came from very far and still hundreds of clients believe this coffee is the one and only. Possibly more for its texture then for its taste.
We tried to convince them to switch to filter/press coffee, but they think that's too light. We tried to push them towards doppio's, but they think that's too strong or small.
The day - it's not the planning but a thought - I open I new bar it won't be on the menu, but so long we still make them, like 25 times a day. My heart is almost bleeding every time they order one, but it's not easy breaking metal with bare hands and so we try to live with it.

So yes I hate the lungo and yes I love the espresso and filter. For sure it's the original and for sure it's the future.
And .... this future is black. :-)

Monday, February 20, 2012

First La Marzocco Strada Testing


I first laid my hands on a (proto type) Strada in Atlanta 3 years ago.

Compared to Synesso and a new machine called Slayer, presented at a booth next 'door', it had a paddle for full pressure control.
The Synesso and Slayer had in the beginning a 2 pressure point paddle; one (half way) for 3 bars and one for full pressure.
The pressure control idea came out of the Seatlle corner and should be seen as an improved version of the good old lever machine. This type of espresso machine has always been loved by coffee enthousiasts all over the world thanks to the full flavor velvety shots produced; mainly because this machine starts at low pressure and slowly builds up to 8-9bars to press out all flavors. Also the logical long pre infusion can be a big help in search of a God shot.

I heard the Strada had, just as the first Slayers and Synesso machines, some hick-ups and children diseases, but the newest EP version, with programmable interface, is on its way to take over the coffee scene bit by bit.

At the Venuez fair 2 weeks ago we had the honour to play around with the manual Strada for 2 days and that was a real joy.
Almost all shots came out very 'full'. The rich siropy coffees had improved mouthfeel and nice balance.
But of course it wasn't the easyest of rides; the smallest change in profile gives a different result and since controling the pressure is very difficult .....

Talking about this matter with 'Strada' techniciens made things clear. Unfortunately i'm technically not strong enough to understand the whole story and certainly not to explain it to 3rd persons, but the general conclusion is that the manual machine is only manageable by a single fully trained professional Barista.
The programmable EP version is a different ballgame though. Here you pay a whole lot more, but this means that you search the 'perfect' profile back stage, program it and then reproduce it on stage time after time.

The paddle that steers the group head feels fantastic. The machine is unbelievable silent. Each group head has its separate boiler. The drip tray is the easiest ever. The machine is lower and the general design is awesome. So, it's not only the profiling part that's different from other La Marzocco machines.

Besides of the price tag the biggest draw back seems to be the steaming department. The on/off button and the steam wand/pipe are placed very awkwardly. Stupid even. Hopefully you easily get used to it.

Now the 1 million dollar question : Do I want to buy one?
Totally! All machines have their good and bad things, but if you add up all the plusses, this Strada seems to be one of the best, if not the best machine on the market today.

Competition machines from Synessso and Slayer seem to keep track, but are much more expensive and don't have the same technical support today.

And to finish : The Spirit. Kees Van Der Westen starts to launch his new espresso machine called Spirit as well. Here we have a machine were the creator decided on the profile himself. A slow start and then building up. Comparable with a lever machine, but with the flexibility of dosing the shots. Hopefully I'll have a chance to test this one to collect enough info for a future blog post on equipment.
Keep you posted.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

2 Years of Slow Coffee (at the bar)


Of course we discovered the merits of a good filter or press coffee since very long, but it took a while before putting it on the menu in our bar in Hopland.

And that's almost 2 years ago.

And we weren't even the first in Antwerp, since Jens (Barchoq-Normo) launched his Aeropress of the week formula a couple of months before we did.

Why? Why would we serve filter coffee for our clients? That was the question.

For me it's simple : I thought it was a great way to extend the experience. You have a great (slow) coffee and time at the bar and with taking the coffee home and brewing it there you can enjoy it over and over again, and also share it with friends and family.
And that's much more complicated with espresso.

Filter/Press coffee is also a long drink. It's a quality drink to enjoy for 15 minutes or longer. Even better ; it takes minimum 5 minutes before the coffee grows to its peak. Espresso is express. Filter is slow.

I remember philosophizing about this subject with Rick from Espressofabriek Amsterdam. And we thought that offering filters or presses was business wise a tricky thing. We had this magical espresso machine guaranteering a fast top class experience that people almost couldn't copy at home. And now we were playing with the idea offering a coffee that was close by the coffee we drank when visiting granny.

For me there was no discussion. I wanted to reach more people outside my own bar. Distributing coffee to other bars and restaurants was one way. Serving filters and selling the filter beans at the same time is another.
When I chatted with my hero Geoff Watts about this subject, he shared exactely the same opinion and it were the Intelligentsia bars who showed us very well how to serve filter coffee in a bar.

Now 2 years later the volumes didn't go very high. I guess maximum 10% of our turn over is filter/press coffee.
But it brings in a lot of atmosphere and sales of filter beans are probably triple of espresso beans, which means (appr.) X 6 compared to 2 years ago. (By the way : espresso bean sales certainly didn't go lower).
And .... we like to drink it ourselves; over and over again. I think filter coffee is more addictive than espresso coffee.

The slow bar menu : it has been very shaky over those years : From V60's and Aeropress, we switched to Abid Clever Dripper to Trifecta to filtered Trifecta and again I feel it's time for the next step (up).
So keep an eye on my tweets and don't forget to drop on by for the next filter of the week.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Technivorm Mocca Master Review


We start with the link : Technivorm Mocca Master Brewer.

And I also start with the beginning : the first encounter. (sounds like a movie)
Visiting Willem Boot in San Francisco bay for our Roaster class (Jan 2010), Jeff and I were wondering what those small American Coffee Brewers were all about.
Willem used the Mocca Masters to prepare his cup of coffee and to test filters. Of course not only with this machine, and certainly his main reference with a classic cupping, but still he used them al lot, it looked like.
It wasn't very convinced by the taste, but wasn't so sure this 'off taste' came from the brewer or the coffee. Most probably it was the combination of both.

Then we had the Cup Tasting Championships in London. I followed this comp from close by because Bert was our Caffenation man to defend the National pride.
When Rose Van Asten first and Bert later on started to complain about the over extracted and dirty cups my opinion about the company that brewed the cupping cups, Technivorm, was not too positive.

One more year went by and the boys from The Village in Utrecht started their bar with a Technivorm boiler and also had a couple of those brewers on the shelf.
First I didn't really pay attention, but when Marc Berendsen from It&M came to visit me a couple of months ago all dots connected, and the brewers were not American at all but very Dutch!!

This tickeled my curiousity and in stead of refusing the offetr on those Technivorm brewers I decided to buy a couple to give it a decent test.

Because I still believe manual pour over is a lot of work and very unstable, and at home we could use an automatic brewer with thermos, the KBT 741 was a logic choice.

Once on the shelf I liked the look and feel of the machine. Retro and robust, easy handling and good cleaning posibilities. On top of that it had a good price tag.

The first brews were not bad, but not good either. From the first sip on I was catapulted (?) back to San Fran and had this little burnt taste in my mouth.
I checked water temp and noticed 92 degrees celcius was not to my liking.
For medium roasts or dark roasts I don't see a problem, but for our filter roasts this temperature is way too high. For not loosing any flavors 90 degrees should be seen as a maximum.
The boiler at Caffenation or The Village also gives 92 degrees, but here we don't pour the water directly on the coffee grounds, which means most of the hand pouring water is 5 to 10 degrees lower.
The same for our Trifecta were we program the machine on 86 degrees.

I wouldn't be the good old Roberto Bergami and throw in the towel from the first day on, so I went searching, together with my taste bud companion Martijn, for a solution.

I started with getting the lid of the dripper. It was like a boiling pot there and this way it had more cooling.
The impact in the cup was minimum, so we started thinking of making the drip arm higher so the water would loose temp by falling from higher, but we never managed.

Then I remember how an old sport once adviced me to bloom the coffee ground with cold water. I first rinsed the white paper filter with cold water, then added the freshly ground coffee and, closed the dripper underneath and added tap water ; the same grammage as the coffee.

Once the hot water dripped on the cold infused coffee I had it sit there for 15 or 20 seconds and then opened the dripper.
This coffee was already way better then the 'original' one, but still i missed some details.

Later on I grinded a bit courser and lowered the ratio to 50 on 1000 grams and this gave me a more balanced cup.

End result is a satisfying cup, but not to the level of a professional manual pour or well executed Aeropress.

So when it should be easy and decent, this brewer can give you, with a cold pre infusion/bloom, a good morning cup, but is still not a machine on the level of a flat bed Bunn brew or a decent manual 'Barista' pour.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Barista Championship Thoughts

My first remembrance were the World Barista Championships (WBC) of 2006 in Bern, when Klaus Thompson became champion, with also Picollo, Hoffman and Lunell in the finals. Those were the days.
It was a total new show for me with unknown Baristas battling in an arena somewhere in a galaxy far away from home.
And maybe this 'intergallectic' feel was what attracted me about it.

In 2005 the Belgian Barista Championships (BBC) were at the Hilton in Antwerp. Jessie and Bert (2 of my Barista's) went over watching the comp and came back to the bar telling me that these people were no competition for us, professional Baristas. Later on I learned it was a bit more complicated then we thought that day, but I guess in those days there were only 5 professional Baristas in Belgium from which 4 of them worked at Hopland 46.

In 2006, right after Bern, I was trying to motivate Bert to participate, but he didn't dare to expose and so I thought it was up to me to experience what these championships were all about.
It took me 10 phone calls and emails before I managed to get myself a ticket to ride; the organisation in those days was not very professional, but nevertheless 15 people showed up in Brussel that day in October, to fight for 8 tickets for the finals.

I remembered myself arriving with what must have been a blend of Dominican Republic and Ethiopian Harrar.
The organisation had some brand new Della Cortes installed and I never forget how Holger (DC's big man) was playing with my coffee backstage and enjoying a couple of very nice shots. Unfortunately my espresso's on stage didn't taste that well and my lack of experience and knowledge of the rules costed my a lot of points.
With the 6th or 7th place i earned a place in the finals in Gent, and a big motivation to do better.

All alone, even without a runner, I practised my ass off and did a very satisfying run in Gent. The nerves (I didn't sleep at all the last night) and the fact I forgot to yell 'stop' at 14'59" - yes, my timing was immaculate- made me lose so many points Jeroen and Peter finished just ahead of me.

From that day on the BBC and WBC became a passion and I tried to help as many people as possible.

My trainees mixed good with medium results, but since the day (september 2009) Roeland was treated totaly unfair - to my opinion - I became frustrated and I withdrew as a trainer.

While Caffenation espresso's in Belgium and Holland come day by day closer to the International type of specialty shots, the BBC stood still and also this year there's no Barista on top of the podium, and most probably Belgium will end again somewhere in between the 30th and 40th place at the WBC in Vienna.

What's the reason we have world class Belgian cup tasters, Latte Art champs, Good spirit champs and Aeropress champs, while our number 1 'Barista' is very far away from the finals, stood away first 3?
The Della Corte can be a darn fine machine for traditional Italian espresso and a good piece of equipment for the lovers of the full city roast, but the difference in flavor in comparison to La Marzocco and Simonelli is remarkable.
We made a lot of progress at Caffenation the last couple of years and since we started roasting ourselve we gained a lot of National and International praise for our type of (lighter) roasted specialty beans, but we notice these kind of beans don't work well on the D.C.
An example was the El Salvador Miralvalle. A top rated Cup of Excellence coffee and my #1 coffee last year (out of +30 single estate and +20 'blended' specialty coffees!). At the semis Emiel his shots had the right extraction and color and we only scored a 2 out of 6. That's very poor, but on the same line of all our coffees the last 2 years and less good as our 'cheaper' and darker roasted coffees 3 or 4 years ago.

Yes we can roast darker for the BBC and yes we can select beans with less acidity, something most Belgian and Dutch people aren't used to, or use a more conservative blend like our House Blend, but then we should ask us the question if we still belong in this circus.

When one of my Barista's is willing to compete I'm still ready to sponsor with beans and pay for the participation, but there it all ends. This year I invested over 2000 euros and the results were 4th and 5th out of ..... 5!
Yes I feel stupid now.
After winning the World Aeropress Championships (with Jeff) by beating Square Mile, Coffee Collective, Tim Wendelboe and Koppiane coffees, without discussion, it's very frustrating to end last at the BBC.

Besides all this, do I think there's still a future for the BBC and WBC?

For Belgium I'm afraid it won't last.
And for the WBC i'm not so positive either. With Nespresso as the main sponsor and the lack of attractivity on stage it's not looking very promising. Also, it's every year again the same inner circle and bit by bit the press is loosing all interest.

What to do?
We have to make it cheaper to participate, simplify the rules and make it a lot more attractive to the audiance.

If they keep the WAC, Brewers Cup and the Cup Tasting on the side, I will maybe stay fan of coffee championships, and not only have to travel to a WBC for the social program and classes.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

(Joost) Leopold Coffeeschool


As this blog may be seen as my coffee diary then this story belongs here.
It's a story about Joost Leopold and his newly opened coffee school in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Its three and a half years ago i was introduced to Joost. It were the days i had all plans ready to launch an online webshop. This specialty.be would, once launched be copied into sc.nl and this was the domain of Henk from ESW The Hague
Henk talked about Joost as he was the new messias. He just worked 4 or 5 years at the golden coffee box were he learned a lot about the coffee bean. And that deep knowledge was what esw was missing those days.

His name was a bit confusing, with 2 first names, and his style that first day was a bit different from what i was used to in the third wave specialty scene, but the warmth he spread was very welcome.
Joost would be the guy in between me and Henk.
A man aint no man without a plan, and making plans has always been a specialty by henk and me. If we would have realised all plans we ever made we would have had either a bankrupt company or a big multinational. Specialtycoffee.nl is now up and running for a year in a different setting and mine is (still) in the making, but a strong friendship was born that day.
And since that day we meet regularly at championships, fairs and in bars were we chit chat like old aunts and feed one another the latest and best news.

The moves from joost at barista championships were very succesful and that was one of the reasons i asked him in the past to train some of my people. Maybe we didn't win gold medals, but the boost in confidence and knowledge i found back in my baristas after every visit was proof of his qualities on championship training.
And when my 5 caffenation baristas travelled to Utrecht last year for a staff training by Joost they came back fully charged and laughing.

The secret behind his succes seems to be his EQ. When most of trainers start and end with show casing their knowlegde and talk enlessly about their experiences, Joost preferes to start from the barista or would be barista in front of him. His 'soft' approach and higher emotional sences give him always a step ahaid on the others. And this coupled to a deep going knowlegde on most aspects of coffee make him my favourite barista trainer.

Good luck joost with this coffee school of you and hopefully we meet soon for some more endless coffee talking.

More info about this school : click the site.
(on the photo Joost with Bert drinking Stumptown coffee in Amsterdam 2 years ago)

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Rwanda coffee News

Good read on the Rwanda coffee situation at voanews.com

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

BBC 2012

Wat een mooie koffie's en strakke presentatie legden onze jongens gisteren op de mat.
Om de een of andere reden hadden de juryleden dit niet zo goed begrepen ; of was de tegenstand te sterk ; of haperde de machine net toen Roeland en Emiel op de knop duwden? ;-)
Alle gekheid op een stokje : een heel mooie finale 5de (Emiel) en 4de (Roeland) plaats voor onze Barista's.

Einde week nog de Fortaleza van Roeland en Isidro Pereira van Emiel te verkrijgen te Hopland.

Labath Barista Valentine behaalde zilver (way to go girl!).

En Louis Donk is de nieuwste champ. Good luck in Vienna!

Friday, February 3, 2012

Colombia El Meridiano (Dutch)


De Colombia El Meridiano is onze eerste poging tot Direct Trade.

Op de foto ziet u een foto van een boonanalyse van het pre shipment sample.

De kwaliteit beloofd 'cracking' te worden. Dit sample had al heel veel fruit, body en complexiteit en dan moet de echte partij nog naar de dry mill en verder gescreend worden.

De koffie zou deze week in Colombia de boot op moeten en dan tegen einde feb bij onze vrienden van Pacorini in de Antwerpse haven toekomen.

Keep fingers crossed. Opdat de koffie de hoge verwachtingen inlost en vooral .... toekomt.