Awesome Japanese TV commercial "BOSS" coffee with Tommy Lee Jones

Not only the Japanese can prepare worlds best coffee, they also make funny coffee commercials. Tommy does beter than George for sure.

WAC and WBC 2014 : Jeff finishing 3rd.

4 times our head roaster Jeff Verellen was able to defend the colors of our country at the World Aeropress Championships and 4 times he's going home with a medal.

After bronze in London and gold in Milan and Melbourne he became 3rd again in this years finals.

A fine result after a fine day.

Report :

While Bert and I were still on our way from Bologna to our apartment in Riccione, Rimini, our 2 roasters Jeff and Simon were moving towards the fiera to see Charlene De Buysere doing her thing at the Barista World Championships.
First WBC ever for Charlene. Never easy and no semi finals for her.
Curious to know the final results I went surfing on the World Wide Web, but can't find any info, except for the finals. Unbelievable.

I have the feeling all these competitions are losing interest. A pity, but a bit understandable cause it's a bit boring to watch if you are not competing yourself or a fan of one of the champs.
The rules get more complicated by the year and there's still no chance to taste what the Barista's are prepping on stage.
If one of my Barista's want to compete next year I'll be more than happy - it's a great stage to show your skills and a lot learn - but if nobody's in, we won't be sad about it.

Luckily there's still the Aeropress Championships!! More popular every year thanks to the relaxed settings and easy rules.
This year the setting of the WAC was the best ever ; on the Rimini beach.

La Marzocco organized this event together with Tim Varney. What a splendid job. The Barista's were performing barefoot in the sand of Rimini while the sun was omni present and even showing a fantastic sun set around the finals. Brilliant!!

Simon Boone represented The Netherlands and Jeff Verellen Belgium. Both were favorites in their series. Lots of expectations on Simon's shoulders when his recipe works wonderfully at the rehearsals a couple of hours prior to the comp.
Jeff was, because of the heat in Rimini, still struggling with temperatures and the (relatively dark) coffee; a splendid Ecuador by Cafe Imports. 

Mélodie from France was another side favorite, just as Lara from Spain and Dylan from Australia.

27 competitors. That means 9 rounds of 3.
While Mélodie, Jeff and Lara advance, Simon falls off with a lightly under extracted cup. Ooooh.

The comp goes on and on and judges Tim Styles, James Hoffmann and Tim Wendelboe keep on cupping. Finally we see the Japanese Presser Shuichi Sasaki wins the finals, after uber Judge Tim Varney had to cup through all 3 cups because the judges were undecided on what the best cup was.

More info, photo's and recipes here.

Every year we see more and more country's organizing an Aeropress Championship. Mostly in a bar with the crowd side by side with the competing Barista's. Beer, coffee and friendship go hand in hand and people can taste the recipes after the judges decide on the heats' winner.
The design of the posters and T-shirts are becoming an event on itself and we expect this competition to grow every year.
Is this the future of coffee championships? Partly, yes!

Oh yes, Japan also won the Barista Title this year.
My friend Coen van Sprang 7th! Respect!

The fun of Aeropress Competitions

Filtropa #4 Coffee Filters

We did use a lot of white Melitta number 4 filter in the past. We needed them in our bar at Hopland to go into our Clever Drippers. And in the Mocca Master brewers.

Very often we were cursing though, when - once again - they busted and so we started putting 2 in after a while. 
Very expensive at the end of the line and more work as well.

These Filtropa filters seem to be much stronger and still not expensive at all. 
Since this week we have them available in our shop at Caffenation. 
First we have to finish the small boxes of 40 pieces (at €1,40), but later on the normal sized boxes with 100 will be available at €2,45/box. 

Here a small discription on the Filtropa's by Sweet Maria's, who's selling them since a while : 
"The Filtropa are my favorite cone-type filters. They don't impart much paper taste and are very sturdy. I think they are far superior to the flimsy Melitta filters that have busted at the seams while I have brewed my coffee on many occasions. The filter is bonded without the use of any glues or chemicals, and the paper stock is certified dioxin-free. Filtropa uses an oxygen-based whitening process which produces a totally chlorine free paper."

El Salvador COE Cupping 2014

Onze eerste Cup Of Excellence koffie kwam uit El Salvador. We spreken 2010 en sindsdien zijn er vele COE Coffees gevolgd.
Nu maandag 2 juni organiseren wij, in samenwerking met 32cup, een Cupping (koffieproeverij zeg maar) met de 33 (!) winnaars van de COE El Salvador 2014. 
Vanaf 15u bent u in de bar uitgenodigd om (gratis) te proeven wat er zo magisch is aan El Salvadoriaanse Specialty Coffee.

Back to the Moka Pot. Or not?

Company Coffee in Belgium

It couldn't be a coincidence that a journalist from 'De Tijd', our highly rated daily business news paper in Flanders, called me to talk about Company Coffee. And more in particular why it's always that bad.

Well, those were his words.
I don't have so much experience on this domain, but it's true that we get almost every day someone complaining about the coffee in his or her company.

After some thinking i wrote this post last year.

One year later and after a few interesting experiences, i know better what we need to do to help people who fancy something more up level at the office or work floor.

3 things i want to say :

1) In the post from last year you can read about my hatred for lungo's. Something has changed here. I certainly need to do some more research on this one, but one thing that struck me a while ago was that the lungo (say the 15cl 'regular' cup of Joe) coming out of a full automatic machine is way better than when we prep it on a big espresso machine we use in bars or restaurants. Strange enough it is less bitter, less astringentcy and a nice fruity touch (at least with our beans).
I think it different for Italian machines, but Swiss and Dutch machines give a better lungo.

Don't go espresso on those office machines cause that's not working. The machines and grinders aren't heavy enough.

2) Meanwhile we see companies now manufacturing automatic filter machines. I need to do more testing, but this could be a winner. It goes relatively fast, it's cleaner, more people 'go black' and it saves money to the company.
The day i have more info on these type of machines, i'll let you know

3) Caffenation wants to start changing the ball game. We changed the espresso bar experience in Antwerp and surroundings by offering specialty stuff, real espresso's, fresh in season beans, lighter roasts, more service and more information on the coffee. If feel like it's time to hit the company coffee market as well.
Working now on the team and machine park and soon you hear more.  


(Dutch) Article from 'De Tijd'