This Week's Diary

The new opening hours at Hopland are a big hit.
Not for this extra morning hour, but between 1800 and 1900 hours it's very busy.
Now it's every weekday from 8 till 8, but possibly we'll cut the first and last half hour later on.

New Anfim Grinders arrived yesterday.
Their smallest model, the Haus Self, is the perfect grinder for me to sell to home Barista's or restaurants. I was thinking this could be a great thing to line up 4 of them with some nice single origins in each one of them and a good boiler to brew french presses. Wouldn't it be fantastic to have a small coffee card like you have a wine card? It would finish of the diner in a perfect way. "You want a fruity Ethiopian Yirgacheffe or a more punchy Indonesian Mandling or a mild Brazil Cerrado sir?"
Now all restaurants in Antwerp having an expensive espresso machine, but not handling it the way they should. Stupid.

Later on a full review.

Yesterday I met my friend Jeanne Gennar at our mother house. And she was not alone. Stephan Weber came with her to present his company Weber Packaging. This Stuttgard company is mastering the art of producing the ideal take away coffee cups. I directly ordered 4000 of their Guatemala cup action. Beautiful 4 color prints and for every cup 1ct to this charity programme for Guatemala coffee farmers!
And also Steffen Schwartz came along. It's always a pleasure to meet someone who is more fanatic about coffee than I am. Yes, Steffen was, as always, unstoppable, demonstrating a new drip brewer, discussing the newest Latte Art Championship rules, talking about Gabriel from Fazenda Cachoeira, promoting the Coffee Consulate services, and so on and so on...
Unfortunately we only had one hour, but it was a nice, warm and productive meeting. And good luck with all of your projects Jeanne.

Tomorrow I'm heading to the new Bodum dealers for our region. I already did some Bodum sales, but nevertheless the quality was outstanding, sales never went great.
For our online project I think this could work out better.
Their showroom is really close by, so we'll drop by tomorrow to see their newest products. Curious.

Next Sunday October 19 : Barista Jam.
On the list : Isabel and Tine, Ben, Kristien, Marleen, Fanny, Laurent, Dirk, Addie with 6 people from Inspire Coffee, Daan, Pieter, Simon and all the others I forget. 6.45 pm.

And to finish off a small word about our espresso of the week : Indonesian Makassar.
Very strong, wild, earthy, rustic and deep flavors ready to shaken up your buds for a while.
As usual our trader couldn't tell a lot about the beans. One thing is sure : it's a washed one and the screening is a 20 (i guess). Huge.
The roast is a full city ++, or the way I like Indonesians the most.
Come on in and check it out for yourself.