Coffee Adventures in the North

North = The Netherlands.

I've been driving my car through a lot of provinces in The Netherlands this year.

Like last month when I needed to pick 2 old sample roasters. I was hoping Wilfred Giesen - the Dutch master Coffee Roaster designer - was able to repair these old monsters. And he was, but the work load was so serious, the price to pay would be too high. Meanwhile I found my friend Wouter prepared to give it a look. Together with another Probat Sample Roaster that I aquired last week, we sure can mix and match all the parts into 1 mean sample roasting machine.
Tomorrow drop off in his working space in Eindhoven and then towards Designhuis, Stadhuisplein 3, where I may spot his ES2 machine pulling some bad ass LGB shots.

This machine is something unique. The technique in his own words at the bottom of this post.

In Nijmegen at Caffeina, at the big square in the centre of town, they know how a good espresso should taste like.
They opened 2 years ago. The styling is a bit 'middle of the road', but the espresso and cappuccino are top notch. And their main roaster Single Estate is not over roasting the beans, in revanche to most of the Dutch coffee roasters.
I tasted a yellow bourbon Pereira estate shot and was surprised, so late into the season, how fresh it tasted. Sweet, good texture, nice after taste. Go Cynthia and Erwin.

My first visit ever to the city of Arnhem was an instant succes.
Since Maaike Van Den Berg started her mobile bar True Barista and Lauré Van Houten picked up our coffees for her bar Let's Coffee, we are proud to be serving our best roasts to coffee lovers in Arnhem.

Maaike had a maiden showcase last week at the 8Bahn area festival. Look at this 'van' and Barista Maaike in action. Woeha!

At Let's coffee there's still some work to be done, but this street (Nieuwstad 9), bar and lovely Barista girls do certainly have a big future ahead of them. 

Next Wednesday i'm heading to Groningen (again) to deliver the first buckets for Black & Bloom. Good old Gerben is working his ass off right now to prep this beautiful shop in the centre of Groningen.

 At such a nice location, with his barista skills, great gear and freshly roasted Caffenation black, I'm a 100% sure this place is gonna rock.

The same a little bit in Amsterdam where Koko found a spot. Caroline and Karlijn are die hards. It was a long and windy road, but they finally found the budget and a lovely place in the centre of town to fullfill their (and mine) dream. Hopefully more about the opening soon.  Go girls!!

Extracting With the ES2 you can pressure profile and temperature surf as much as you like. The manual hand lever lets you control the flow. The temperature of the water is easely adjustable but while extracting in can be very stable.

Brew Water Cold water can be poured in the copper funnel on top, it will subsequently heat up. A manual probe can be attached for on-the-spot measurement. Once the water reached the set brew temperature, the machine will stabilize.

Brew Group The extraction chamber supports up to 70 cc of water to extract in one pull. Under the group fit various baskets sizes, 7 grams, 14 grams and 18 grams. The Design of the group allows for a very subtle pre infusion.