Jonasty part 1 (Dutch)

Met een gezonde nieuwsgierigheid en een kleine portie zenuwen meldde ik me
op maandag 7 november aan bij Caffènation, mijn nieuwe werkgever. Niet dat
de zaak een nobele onbekende voor mij was, integendeel, reeds verschillende
jaren kwam ik er over de vloer voor mijn dagelijkse dosis cafeïne. Deze maandag
zou ik echter niet plaatsnemen in de comfortabele zetels, maar zou ik de
manschappen achter de bar vervoegen, en mijn eerste voorzichtige stappen
zetten in de koffiewereld. Mijn collega’s kende ik gelukkig al bij naam wat de
eerste kennismaking uiteraard vereenvoudigde. De werknemers van Caffenation
zijn niet op hun mondje gevallen, zo heb ik het graag, en mijn onwennigheid
verdween daardoor als sneeuw voor de zon. De eerste dagen werkte ik aan
de ‘koude kant’, ice-tea’s maken, filterkoffies zetten, de afwas doen, ... Ik had het
vrij snel onder de knie. Bert duwde me als eerste de portafilter in de hand, en
spoedig bemerkte ik dat er meer komt kijken bij een goed kopje koffie dan ik op
eerste zicht ooit had vermoed. Het niveau ligt hier hoog.
Na enkele weken had ik de eer om privéles te krijgen van Roeland, waarbij me
in een ijl tempo de basics bijbracht van wat er allemaal reilt en zeilt rond de
koffiemachine. Wederom stond ik ervan te kijken hoeveel kennis er te vergaren
valt omtrent dit zwarte goud. Zelfs over de exacte temperatuur om de gestoomde
melk te serveren bestaan er hele theorieën, doch Caffènation heeft overal een
eigen filosofie over en vaart zijn eigen koers. Binnenkort krijg ik zeker de kans
om eens een kijkje te gaan nemen in de branderij.
Wat me nu de komende weken vooral te doen staat is mijn plaatsje achter “den
bak” proberen op te eisen tijdens rustige momenten zodat ik mijn koffieskills kan
verbeteren en mezelf binnen aanzienbare tijd op te werken tot volleerd barista,
en een volwaardig lid van het Caffènationteam.

Jonas, nieuwbakken Caffenation Barista.

Espresso Bar Stories Augustus 2010

Every week brings another story. Some more interesting, some a bit boring. This week I took a couple of photo's to write about it.

Saturday :
Sylvie (or was it Sylvia?) is a very loyal and friendly woman. Sometimes she's passing by on her own, sometimes with her son, I don't know the name off.
Last Saturday morning she's enjoying her tea in one of those 'leather' seats opposite of the bar. While her son is reading a comic at the bar she goes to the bathroom and comes back with a book. "Look what I found!" she yells at me very excited."Where did you find this book?" I asked.
"It's a 'free book' meant to be found and read. It was stuck in the bathroom behind the pipes. I'm very happy with it, I think it's a good one.

The Road, written by Cormac Mc Carthny, Pulitzer price winner.
And on the first page we see a handwritten message.
It's a bookcrossing book.
This intrigues me and I go to the website and after a couple of clicks I find this.
Thanks Elena you picked our bar for this initiative and good luck Sylvie with your book.

Monday :
Laurent is a 5 year Caffenation Veteran. He came in sight the days he was dating blond Charlie. That didn't last long, but meanwhile he kept on coming for his favourite 'Muscat' cappuccino's.

This time he came along for a take away mocha.
While waiting at the bar he was babbling on and on about this upcoming Motor bicycle exam and how nervous he was.

Probably a bit too nervous. He puts the mocha cup on the roof on his car, then gets in, but .... forgets his drink.
He seems to be a careful driver Laurent; it was only 25 meters further up the road the mocha decided to take a dive. Hopefully Laurent was more lucky on the bike....

Saturday, again :
Thomas from Balen studied at the Plantijn Hogeschool around the corner 3, 4 years ago. In those days he liked sitting at our bar more than going to school and so it happened one day he came in touch with Little Patrick.
Patrick and his brother had the luminous idea of opening an Antique furniture shop annex Espresso Bar in Hudson, a city in between New York and Albany. And Thomas would be their man behind the bar.
The idea lasted long, but the store never opened.
So Patrick had to find a new profession. And he found one : I Phone sales man.

In those days he was getting his hands on hundreds of IPhones and his office was ..... in our bar. The business was prosperous and Patrick ambitious, but bit by bit the Americans were blocking their IPhone sales to foreigners and Patrick had to shop somewhere else.
After a couple weeks of negociating he found himself a new dealer .... in China.

The day his big box full of IPhones arrived he was all tensed and curiously he opens the box.
What a dissapointment to discover the only thing inside was a pair of sneakers.
Because Thomas never had his promised job, Patrick offered him the shoes.
Up to now Thomas is the only guy I know wearing 16000 dollar sneakers. What a way to walk the streets. :-)

Mark Weinberger Special

This man Mark rolled in the bar in 2006.
Nobody knew where he came from, nobody knew what he did.

For years he came in on hot summer days to drink espresso's, semi-sweet soda's and a cappuccino left and right, meanwhile playing on his Sony laptop and smoking Verellen vanilla cigars.
Strange dude indeed, but he was very liked by all other clients, except for the cigar smoke of course :-)

Last year we were waiting for him to come back from his winter holidays. His habit was going off for skiing for a couple of months and come back by spring.
No Mark to be seen for the full summer.
Yes we missed him.

And by the time we were really woried we read this article online.

'Our' Mark seemed to be one of America's most wanted 'criminals'. Serious? Yes.
The days he arrived in Antwerp he was on the run. He had several cases running against him and while he was in Greece, at what seemed to be his last trip as a free man, he took off.
And ended up at ... Caffenation, home of the brave.

Our weeks espresso blend is made to remember his days at the bar.
A blend of Malabar, Yirgacheffe and a part of Costa Rica. A Mark Weinberger Special.

Probably in jail for the rest of his life, but tasty in a cup today.

Remember Leslie Buck

This is for me the most legendary coffee cup ever.
It's called the Anthora and this week in the news because of the death of the inventor : Leslie Buck.

It reminded me at a day in New York city. It was Saint Patricks day, almost day to day 7 years ago. I was strolling around in the city center, on my way to central park 5th avenue, for a good spot to see the parade.
I stopped at a small street booth nearby the park and ordered a coffee to go. I knew this kind of coffee's were mostly undrinkable, but I decided to give it a go anyhow.

The Anthora cup came up the counter and brought a smile on my face. 'This is a legend' I said to myself and then ..... burned my fingers (on the cup).

I think it's a fantastic looking cup with a big history, but without a kraft sleeve/jacket.....

The coffee was so hot that I was already walking on the heights of 72nd before I was able to take a sip without burning my tongue.
It's taste was a big dissapointment and all the effort of walking around with a boiling hot coffee was a waste of time.
But the cup is still in my memories. An icon.

May your soul rest in peace Leslie Buck.

Trick with the Coffee Spoon

There was also a nice young girl who had some very exciting tricks with a coffee spoon, but no pics unfortunately.

Singapore Coffee

Keefe was our WEHTMMM gallery man last summer.
In September he visited his parents in Singapore and brought along a small bag of typical Singapore coffee.

They roast it pitch black and with sugar.
A real hell of an experience to drink this as an espresso. It is actually impossible, even for Heavy Metal Cuppers.
Brewed like the Asians do, with a sock/filter it tastes like.....charcoal, but drinkable. Also Keefe gave it a sip, ... smiled and said "Hm, this feels like home". :-)

A espresso bar story on itself.

Good luck in A'dam Keefe (and Josefine).

Barista Job Search Stories

Last week we had a good one :

Girl walks in and asks : "A Soy Decaf Flat Latte please". And 5 seconds later : "And do you have a job for me?"
At least she was polite. And drinking (some kind of) coffee. Lots of people asking for a job don't even drink coffee. Do we look that good?


Last year we had another good one :

Guy walks in and orders a 'Latte de Pooh'. This is a latte sweetened with honey (on top).
One hour, or something, later he walks out without paying. Bird yells at Katrien that she needs to get the guy. Katrien storms out the bar and chases him.
When she comes back in with the guy on her heels something funny happens. He pays his dept and without a shame he then asks us if we don't have an open position for him.

I don't know his name, but he's still coming and drinking his poohs. But I think he found a job somewhere else now. :-)


Oh yes; for those interested : we're not looking for new people right now.

Pierre & Joseph : Caffé Serré

Parisians never really talk about their coffee. Its something one sips when the other is giving its latest views on socialistic politics. Coffee is just there, and according to them, the best of the world, fin de discussion.

I never really agreed with their assumption, coffee in France isn't even french, it's Italian. If you ask an espresso you will more than probably get a watery coffee in a small espresso cup. The best thing is actually to ask for a caffe serré, as this will come very close to what is know in the rest of the world as an espresso.

So when I asked around where the coffee might be better than the accompanying cookie, I was referred to Verlet in Rue St Honorée.

When entering it was clear that they were serious about their business, there was loose tea and some precious spices displayed alongside their speciality coffee house blend. There was also no bar for hanging and talking, only tables, this was a place for savouring and tasting,

All tables were full so we decided to go upstairs to the second floor. To our surprise there was another espresso machine, a grudgy looking Faema 2 groups.

The menu was pretty small, we took the espresso of the house blend. Jeff was already weary and took a sencha green tea to share, something we have been exploring lately. We were curious about the running time so we actually timed it, after 30 seconds we were looking worried. Our concern grew after another 10 seconds, turning into disbelief after another 15 seconds, than there was denial and afterwards acceptance. The espresso ran for a whopping one minute and forty two seconds, while the barista was looking at it in a very concentrated manner, all the time holding the cups firmly under the sputtering machine.

It is unnecessary at this point to make a serious review about the coffee. If something was unique in that bean it was now shattered and cooked beyond recognition. The same could be said of the green tea, witch was served on cooked water, way to warm for any serious delicate extracion.

The cookie however was, as always in Paris, vraiment impeccable.

Like thirsty men in a desert of bland blends we just cave in to our needs and went into a random café around the corner of Le Bon Marché on Rue du Bac, it was called Café les Mouettes. We had the lowest of expectations, nonetheless we ordered deux eXpress, to our amasement it wasn't all that bad. It's been years that I tasted a factory produced coffee. I have long had a theory that these mass produced brands actually adjust to the end producer of the coffee, for example the cafe's of France. They adjust their roasting procedure and select their beans specifically for/or to tolerate underextraction (wich in the case of France happens very often). It is only logical and cheaper than training every possible barkeeper. Underextraction using the beans in Caffenation would have a dramatic impact on the taste, the espresso would be very acidic. This is not the case in the bar in Paris.

Pierre & Joseph,
Antwerp Baristi à Paris

Espresso and Sushi

Can you believe I like this combination?
At noon a couple of espresso's to survive the rush and then a good handroll salmon with wasabi soy sause on top. The best!

Espresso Bar Verhaal (Dutch)

Happy people smiling
Originally uploaded by Miodrag Bogdanovic

Ik zal deze foto per toeval en dacht toen aan een grappige toevalligheid die ons in de bar onlangs te beurt viel.

Op een bepaalde dag komt er een klant afrekenen en wandelt vervolgens buiten om daar bij zijn fiets aangekomen te zien dat hij zijn sleuteltje kwijt is.
Vervolgens komt ie terug binnen, op zoek naar zijn verloren sleutel.
Zoeken, zoeken, zoeken, maar niks te vinden.
Neen, ook wij wisten nergens van, maar gaven hem, met al onze ervaring in dit soort voorvallen, de raad om al zijn zakken maar eens grondig te doorzoeken.
De man doet dat één, en ook een tweede maal, maar geen sleutel te vinden.
Dan maar naar huis voor de reservesleutel.

Een week later komt hij terug de zaak binnen en vraagt Bert hem : "En heb je ondertussen al je sleutel terug gevonden?"
De man reposteerd : "Oh ja, direct bij mijn thuiskomst." Waarna hij met een brede glimlach verder gaat : "Ik zette mijn pet af toen ik mijn huis binnen ging en 'rinkel' daar viel de sleutel op de grond. Ik had de sleutel in mijn verstrooidheid in mijn pet gegooid en die vervolgens opgezet, en ja, wie gaat daar nu een sleutel zoeken?"

Wij intussen plat van het lachen en meteen een mooie espressobar story rijker.

Happy Birthday Cake

Sometimes we serve a small cake with candle for people's birthdays.
It's a small nice gesture that brings a smile on peoples faces.

The other day we brought over this small lighted dish. The girl was happy, blew the candle, drank her latte, but did not touch the cake.
When she left the bar, I lighted the candle again and gave it, for fun, at a nice client at another table. "U2 a happy birthday", I said, joking.
This girl looks at me like I came from another planet. .... "How do you know?" she said.
I said : "What?".
"That today is my birthday?"
What an accidental, but fortunate coincidence. With some magic and luck I shot two for the price of one.

A story that will stay in my mind forever.
And let's see it as a big honour people come to us at their anniversary.

Espresso on the Streets of Antwerp

One of the nicest things about espressobars is having all different kind of people mingling into one space, ... enjoying their cup ... and live in peace.

These men can't come in on Saturday, so they have their espresso on the sidewalk in front of the bar. While one man signs with his fingers the amount of espresso's needed, we prepare our tray. It's mostly 7 or 8.
And we serve them outside. Why not?

Yes it reminds some people at the Godfather movies. :-)

Cup or a Glass?

Bird asks some clients if they prefer their lungo (cafe creme) in a glass or a cup (glas of een tas? - Dutch).

One day Patrick, from across the street, answered : "You can serve it in a don't care what, but add some milk"!
Bird made it in a tray, which resulted in this work of art.

Besides of this story : I prefer a cup. And you?

Iced Salami Latte

After the ongoing discussions (from consumer's point and Murky's point of view) about clients rights and Barista's freedom in drink preparations or refusal doing so, we had an interesting order yesterday.
"Can you fix me a Salami Milkshake?"

And we made him this .... Iced Salami Latte.

Do you have a weird drink in your freaky mind? Our fingers already get itchy.

Oh yes : after this Murky thing we made ourselves a triple shot on the rocks.
NOT good. The Murky guy had a point. And his solution to separate the espresso from the ice was smart ; in Spain people order a thousand times a day an espresso with a glass full of ice cubes on the side. But there they sweeten the espresso first and then mix it up. Cafe con hielo, yummy!

Oh yes, don't forget to watch the Jack Nicholson's clip in the link. And the 333 responses on the subject. Do you have 3 hours? :-)

Oh yes (2), our dude liked the drink. LOL.

Marcel D'Anvers

What a team we have on super Saturday's.
And stylish. ;-)
(on the other side of the camera there were plenty of girls)

Caffenation Customers Signature Drink

For our 5 years existence we asked the customers to invent coffee drinks, comparable to the signature drink at Barista competitions. So, based on coffee and without alcohol.

At Friday 13th we had our 5 nominees entering the competition, together with their fan club and Caffenation Staff.
So all together 25 people having a fun eve with great coffee. At least, that was the idea.

Patrick, the man on the photo, came in first with his 'Orange Truffle Mocha'.
A cold drink with a double espresso shot base, then mix with orange juice, unsweetened cacao powder, caramel, ice cubes and some milk on top.
Great, very inventive and good looks. A bit comparable to our Iced Americano, but sweeter and fruitier. Good job Pat.

Than it was time for Annelies and her sister Catherine. 'Iced Speculate'. A redesign of our Italiano, or an espresso shot blended with lots of quality vanilla ice cream, milk and some kind of gingerbread (speculoos). Fantastic!

3rd was the group of Nina and Christina ; young and lovely students who are the perfect type of new styled coffee bar visitors. Their 'invention' was called 'Siberian Sweetheart'. Two shots of our famous espresso, one scoop of ice cream with some American cookie crunch, cream and again some cookie crunch and chocolate syrup on top. Yes!

4th man in the battle was Björn. A young man who, the same as Patrick, can say he was there 5 years ago when i was standing all alone behind the bar, waiting for costumers. Björn is 5 years later still coming and on Friday he prepared a very original drink with crunched Werchters bonbons, a strong Mokka Harrar Lungo, topped with some foamy milk and chocolate syrup. Damned good cup of coffee it was.

Last but not least we had the cockroach gang. 3 friends who invented a bizar coffee drink with Indian cockroaches. Luckily this wasn't their selected drink that night. 'Da Mintzkoff' was the name and the cup was filled with good espresso, an After Eight (mint)chocolate, cream and cocos syrop on top. The taste was a mixture of Colgate tooth paste and strong coffee. Surprisingly good though!

And the winner is : Iced Speculate. Now for 5 months on the menu at Hopland 46. Check it out!

Coffee Kids Day Today

Today was the day.

The whole afternoon Caffenation was packed with very enthusiastic and generous coffee lovers.
924,97 euros is the incredible amount we collected for the Coffee Kids Organisation.

Thanks Dieter, Bird, Daisy, Katrien, Noömi, Jessie and Elisa for the support. I'll count on you again for next year Easter Monday.

I'm very happy and satisfied with this beautiful day and hope the organisation can use this money in a good way.

A Saturday at Caffenation

Since a while i was willing to write about what's all happening at a busy day in an espresso bar.

Today i was smart enough to take notes of a Saturday, that's usual pretty busy, hectic and ... fun!

With me opening the joint, Dieter and Bird popping in as young, funky and strong Barista's ; that's the team for today. Let's go.

These days there is a lot of kissing to do. New Year's wishes. Mostly a firm hand shake for the male part and 3 kisses for the girls. As none of us was shaved the girls had a rough day. But they're used. I guess a majority of Caffenation men as not shaved on a daily basis. That's 2008 in Antwerp it looks like. And that's what i said to some girls. They didn't mind my 5 day old beard.

Julia is a fine young student, some days sitting at Caffenation for hours and hours. As she did today. Bird noticed she still had a price tag hanging out at the back of her new (sales) shirt. Time for me to bring out the scissors and give her a helping hand. I couldn't help her out with her need for internet. After years of (on and off) wifi, it's seems to be 'off' for ever.

Then Andrea, fashion professional from Switserland, is another favourite. Because she thought of Bird while she was over in her home country for Christmas with buying him a delicious bar of espresso flavored Suisse Chocolate, he gave her a bouquet of flowers. Love is in the air. :-)
Those Swiss girls, hanging together drinking cappa's and smoking cigarettes, are mostly very loud, making fun all the time, which brings in great atmosphere of course. We like that, even it sometimes sounds like goats and this brings us back in time when first coffee beans in Ethiopia were found by goats who started 'dancing' thanks to the caffeine in these mokka beans. Isn't coffee the best drug?

My auntie Josefine is over 80 years old, but still fit enough to travel over 60 km to enjoy a Chai Latte every 3 or 4 months. Today again she came in with this big smile, together with another positive grand mama. They definitely wanted to be in the smoking area, to combine chai, latte, honey, nutmeg and a smoke. Yeah the youth of today.

Tino is a fine young black fellow working next doors on Saturday. Mostly he just comes in for a Soy Cappuccino for the owner of World Express Yvette. Today he wanted to try one of our famous chocolate drinks. Bird yelled at him he was already 'dark' enough, so he took a white chocolate drink. Big laughter. And so it's going on and on.

Michou, with her curly black her and ongoing smile, is another favourite client. She's studying for mid wife, which is her passion ... besides of coffee drinking of course! Today was her 3rd time in succession she asks for a free chair at a table and the person sitting at that table stands up and offers not only the spare chair, but the full table as well. What's that all about? Nice, now we got another thing to tease her with.

At 3 i see 3 girls painted and dressed for 3 kings day coming in and i ask them if they want to sing us (and the other 40 people hanging around) a 3 kings song. They agree with a big smile and wave in 7 more people, all dressed up very spectacular and weaponed with a big ghetto blaster! They start dancing around as mad girls and sing us 3 very funny songs. Of course we turn of our Hifi and enjoying this as the highlight of the day. And they made good money. Deserved!

There is this very fancy, expensively dressed, lady (tourist) ordering two Latte's to go. And she asks for a bottle of water. I tell her i can't give this, but offers a glass of (free) water in stead. She finishes it in one draft and asks a refill. No problemo. Again she asks a refill and is finishing this one the same way. Refill? Ok, and the third glass (25cl) follows the same path. Is there still some space left for that Latte? Incredible!

And i think i don't even noted half of the happenings, but i want to finish with this excellent moment were Bird, he again, asks a guy where he was celebrating his new year's eve. He's totally surprised and tells him they met one another that night. In return Bird asks him where that was. Can you believe he forgot? Big laughs of course at both sides of the bar.
I tell you we make a lot of espresso's ... and fun at the bar. Being Barista is probably the best job in the world ... for us.

Espresso Bar Stories

As is most public places people meet and strange meetings happen.

Last month we had a drunk. Not the first drunk ever off course, but this was a special one.
The look? Leather jacket, greasy black hair, 45 years, drunk. The smell? Alcohol.

It was a saturday afternoon 2 o'clock and he was polite when he ordered 'a coffee'. I was a bit afraid of having him at the big table with the other customers, and that was the direction he walked up to. Luckily his chosen chair was a couple feet away from the others and he kept his mouth shut. Because of this man's peaceful glow i was not really afraid for any bad things to happen, but you never know.
Ten minutes later he waggles, with a half cup and a cigarette in his mouth corner, back towards me and the bar, sits down and asks if we do not sell anything alcoholic? "No". At this part of the bar it is not allowed to smoke, but it didn't want to argue so i allow him to do so.
Then he finishes his cup and he comes at the cashing, gets a 2 euro piece out of his pocket and asks : "Can i ask you a question?" I am curious about what's going to happen. "Yes, off course"
"Can you tell me where i am now?" he asks.
I give this question a small thought, while i see a couple of other people following my conversation with this odd man. As far as i could judge this man and his question i answer : "You are in Antwerp, Belgium", which seems to be the right answer. "Antwerp?!" he yells, meanwhile almost losing his balance.
So, i ask him, since i noticed from the first second on he was dutch : "Where you from, Amsterdam?" "Yes," he said, not even wondering how i guessed it right. "You want to go back to Amsterdam now?" was my next question? "Yes, yes," he stumbles.
So i tell him, if he needs to get to the train station, how to walk. It's a very easy walk from us to (the most beautiful) train station (of the world).
"Oh yes, well thank you," he answers, waves his arm and walks zig zag his way out.

People all thought this was great fun after all and i could go back to my usual routine of orders, espressi, small take, jazz, iced cold tea's and other Saturday rituals.

(photo by Thomas Hawk)