A humble apology for the lack of updates lately – I’m finishing up my masters in applied cultural analysis at Lund University, and it has been taking up all of my concentration. On the bright side, I just recently made a trip back to Sweden for a few seminars and meetings, and got to visit one of Malmö’s newest coffee bars right before it opened.

Rosie’s Coffee & Wine is the name, and it’s located in my old neighborhood near Rönneholm, not far from Kronprinsen. When I visited they hadn’t opened yet and the windows were covered, but it’s in a space that will get a lot of sunlight – don’t let the pictures fool you! Jake Haynes is running the coffee program there, bringing barista experience from a number of world class cafes (most recently Coffee Collective in Denmark). Malmö is a small town so you are never too far from good coffee options, but this neighborhood didn’t have a great place to roll out of bed and into brunch with a good coffee.

Rosie’s is primed to fill that niche, serving espresso drinks and brewed coffee by Coffee Collective (possibly the first shop to do so in Malmö?), as well as fancy icecream from Svaneke, soups by nearby Spoonery (another nice addition to the neighborhood), sandwiches, pastries, and soon they’ll be offering wine in their next-door space. My only gripe is that they didn’t open sooner while I was still living next door!

Map and directions below. Give them a visit, and wish them luck as they have just opened two weeks ago.

Rosie’s Coffee & Wine
Beridaregatan 8, Malmö, Sweden
Check Rosie’s Facebook for current opening hours.

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3rd Floor Espresso’s owner, Colin Harmon, has won the Irish Barista Championship twice, and both times placed 4th in the World Barista Championship (2009 and 2010) – which is no easy feat! 3FE uses Hasbean coffee, a world class roaster based in the UK, as well as guest roasters. I haven’t had occasion to visit Ireland, but I recently came across pictures of 3FE’s newest location that give those of us who haven’t been a hint of what we’re missing.

The minimalist space was designed by Cian Corcoran and Ahmad Fakhry of Designgoat with the goal of removing distractions and placing the focus squarely on the coffee. It’s always interesting to see how cafe architecture and design articulates the underlying assumptions about how coffee should be consumed and imagined as a social practice. I like some of the simple touches Designgoat has used to highlight 3FE’s approach – repurposing utilitarian materials, building in literal transparency, and creating a large space that opens up the possibility for casual interaction between guests and baristas. The latter feature seems especially well suited for 3FE’s tasting menus, which pair two distinctly different coffees brewed as espresso, cappuccino, and filter for groups of two or more. This is something I wish more cafes would do!

Our goal was to create an interior that reflected the work that 3FE do in a cost effective and user-considerate manner. They serve coffee of the utmost quality and pay close attention to the tiniest of details. For us to re-create something so unique we set about designing every aspect of the space. Lights, furniture & work spaces were all custom designed with both barista and customer in mind. We wanted to keep everything as simple as possible so that, when in the space, one can fully enjoy the experience of the coffee.

We decided to use scaffolding and plywood to build the furniture but steered away from the austere nature of these materials, creating an elegant and minimal aesthetic. This was achieved through unconventional use of the scaffolding joints and using subtle angles with, what is normally, a crudely assembled material.

The brew bar was designed as a space where customers can interact with the barista and learn about the coffee being brewed. It was important to separate this area from the rest of the space through lighting and furniture. The high stools were designed just for this. A big part of brewing coffee is the transparency and honesty of the process. To refelect this we left the brew bar counter un-panelled, allowing the customer to see that there is nothing else going on besides what is in front of them. It also encourages open conversation between the barista and customer.

It’s an interesting space and I look forward to visiting some time! If you’ve ever had a chance to visit, please let me know how it was in the comments below :)

All photos courtesy of Designgoat.

Map, Directions and Hours:

32/34 Lower Grand Canal, Dublin 2 [Shown Above]
Mon – Fri: 8:00 – 17:00
Sat – Sun: 11:00 – 17:00

54 Middle Abbey St, Twisted Pepper Building, Dublin 1
Mon – Sat: 10:00 – 19:00
Sunday: 12:00 – 18:00

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Tonx Coffee is offering a $10 discount on subscriptions. If you’ve followed the specialty coffee industry for any length of time, you’ve probably seen or heard the name Tonx float around. Tonx is Tony Konecny:

Tony began his descent into coffee madness as a barista and then head roaster at Seattle’s seminal Victrola Coffee and later went on to bend the coffeebar genre as part of Intelligentsia Coffee’s notorious Los Angeles project. He has the dubious distinction of being among the first “coffee bloggers” for which he sincerely apologizes. Tony thinks better coffee makes for a better life.

Together with Nik Bauman of Foodzie.com, the duo have created a nicely designed subscription coffee service that ‘curates’ small batches of coffee, roasts it and ships it fresh to your door every two weeks. You can delay shipments if you’ll be out of town, too. The website is simple, smart, and effortless; all you have to do is look forward to that little box of joy to arrive in the mail.

They’re also expanding – having just added Nick Griffith to the team this week. You can read more about that in this write up by Joshua Lurie at FoodGPS:

Konecny and Griffith first met in 2006, when the former helped recruit the latter to work for Intelligentsia as they were starting a Glassell Park roastery and Silver Lake coffeehouse. Six years later, Konecny said, “We’ve wanted to put together the best team, and I think Nick has one of the best palates that I’ve ever encountered in coffee, and he’s no bullshit, and those two things don’t always go together.”

I had been meaning to try their coffee as I’d heard many good things, and the $10 discount was irresistable. If you’ve also been waiting, now might be the time to give it a shot – $28 for two shipped bags of coffee is a bargain.

Trade shows bring out some wacky ideas for coffee. I almost dismissed this press release, thinking it was vaporware, but it turns out there’s a working prototype and it’s actually quite intriguing. It mechanizes the siphon brewing process, and adds some interesting features that make it easier to manage and customize for different brews. The video below goes into more detail, watch and be amazed. I’ll update this post as more information is released – you can check out their website, but it’s a bit of a placeholder. They will be showcasing this at the 2012 SCAA Event in Portland, so if you’re attending drop by and have a look!

Alpha Dominche from khristian bombeck on Vimeo.

London is blessed with a great coffee scene, numerous cafes, and no less than two World Barista Champions who call the city home. I’ve been slowly cataloging the cafes I visited on my trip to London, but if you’re planning your own vacation a new guide book has come out that’s worth your while.

The Independent Coffee Book – London is a beautiful little labor of love, put together by Vespertine Press, “a Brighton-based independent publisher dedicated to making practical, beautifully printed guide books that showcase the very best exponents of specialty coffee in the UK.” It’s part of what looks to be a burgeoning series; you can pick up another edition centered around the coffee in Brighton & Hove on England’s southern coast.

What I like about the London book is that it gives you a local’s introduction to each cafe, providing you with the context and history that gives each shop its character and charm. This is great when you’re just in town for a short time and really gives you a greater appreciation for what you’re experiencing. For London residents, it might also shed some new light on your favorite spot to grab a coffee, or point you towards other worthy cafes. The book is conveniently organized into regional sections that focus on the City of London, the West End, as well as North, South, and East London.

The book also has practical information that could come in handy, especially for tourists – like which shops have public restrooms, their hours, and the nearest public transit stops.

In the second half of the book, you’ll find a wealth of brief educational articles written by some of London’s specialty coffee professionals. These include: “A History of London Coffee Houses;” a map of World Wide Coffee Production; discussion on “The Ethics of Coffee Buying,” “Coffee Roasting,” “Brewing Methods,” and a handy flavor wheel.

All in all it’s a nice overview and introduction to specialty coffee and to London’s coffee culture – a great gift to travelers, Londoners with an interest in coffee or local indie businesses, and anyone else curious for a taste of London’s coffee scene.

The book is available for £10 on Vespertine’s website. Shipping in the UK £2, and most other countries is £4.

I love this coffee maker designed by Florian Seiffert for Braun in 1972. It has a retro-futuristic charm to it, similar in some ways to the classic Moccamaster or Technivorm. Unlike the Technivorm (which makes great coffee), this design is no longer made and you can only find one if you scour Ebay regularly or purchase from a gallery, where it typically goes for about $300. I can’t say whether it’s any good at temperature stability and actually making coffee, but at least you can live in a moment of ’70s sci-fi fantasy while you drink it.

The KF 21 is a remarkable column of a coffee filter machine. Its vertically aligned elements are stacked so that it resembles a water tower. Like a water tower, its formal character is governed by the principle of gravity. Yet the dramatically cantilevered reservoir and filter at the same time seemingly defy gravity. And this tension, between the stringent formal delineation of function and its undercutting, is symptomatic of a more general crisis within Braun design of the late ’60s and early ’70s.

Quoted above is an excerpt from an interesting piece on the place of the KF 20 series in Braun’s declining design program, and in terms of the history of Functionalism in industrial design more generally. You can read more about that over at Das Programm.

The Whitney museum has surprisingly good coffee, a fact I discovered with the help of Oliver Strand’s contribution to the ever-useful New York Times’ app, “The Scoop.” Past the long lines for museum admission that wrap out the door, you’ll find Untitled, a restaurant and coffee bar down stairs serving a refined take on diner food. The choice seems fitting for a museum of contemporary American art, a nod to one of Americana’s classic spaces.

Located at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Untitled is a new restaurant from Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group, offering a contemporary, farm-to-table take on the classic Manhattan coffee shop and the simple, comforting and seasonal cooking of Executive Chef Chris Bradley (formerly the Executive Sous Chef of Gramercy Tavern.) Untitled is open for breakfast and lunch daily, brunch on weekends, and dinner Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

The all-day menu features updates on coffee shop classics, all made with carefully sourced, local ingredients: freshly baked breakfast pastries, eggs and omelets, pancakes, salads, soups, sandwiches and burgers, Four & Twenty Blackbirds pies, Betty Bakery cakes and Blue Marble ice cream for dessert. Visitors can also stop by for Stumptown Coffee.

Nestled under the museum’s concrete brutalist architecture, the space still manages to be surprisingly bright, airy, and warm. The food was also pleasant, simple fare that highlights fresh ingredients. I enjoyed the spinach, roasted tomato and mozzarella cheese omelette with sourdough bread. They also serve a three course dinner from Thursday through Saturday.

What piqued my curiosity, besides the food and space, was the nod from Strand that their coffee program was above average for a museum restaurant. They use Stumptown coffee, offering a house blend prepared on batch brewers, cold brew, and espresso. The espresso was well prepared and enjoyable. The drip coffee was dubious at first, coming out piping hot and obscuring the flavor, but if you let it cool to a palatable temperature it is a mellow blend that has just enough sweetness and fruity acidity to make it a pleasant companion with your food, or as takeaway to nearby Central Park.

Bottom line: above average coffee and simple but refined food in a unique space. Recommended if you’re in the area.

Hours:
Breakfast & Lunch – No reservations
Tuesday – Friday 8:00 am – 3:00 pm

Brunch – No reservations
Saturday 10:00 am – 3:00 pm
Sunday 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

Dinner – Reservations accepted
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday 6:00 pm – 9:00pm

Map & Directions:


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Hope your week has been great! Here are some suggestions for your soundtrack to your Sunday afternoon coffee.

1. Massive Attack – Teardrop.
A down tempo classic shared by @Mark_Lief.

2. Cut Copy – Lights and Music
A suggestion from @jesperbood, inspired by his morning aeropress of da Matteo over in Sweden.

3. Caro Emerald – That Man
A little more up beat to get you going once you’ve finished your coffee, also shared by @Mark_Lief.

4. Grimes – Genesis
I’ve been digging this track, it keeps me happy despite the fact that my water filter isn’t working and all my coffee has tasted terrible these last few weeks x_x.

Share what you’re brewing to on Twitter using the #m2b2 tag. Coffee and new music is a lovely combo :)

Toby’s Estate is a new cafe and roastery in Brooklyn, with Australian roots. I’ll be writing more about them later (the short review: nice coffee, great sandwiches, cool space), but for now I wanted to share that they are offering public cuppings every Wednesday. I went a few weeks ago and had a great time.

If you’ve never done a cupping, it’s basically the standardized method for evaluating a coffee. Multiple coffees are ground and brewed simply, in bowls or cups, with the floating bits skimmed off the surface. You go around the table to note the aroma, and then taste with a spoon, slurping to aerate it, and spitting to avoid fatigue that can impact your ability to taste. If you want to learn more about coffee you should hit up every free cupping you can find — it let’s you systematically compare and contrast the impact of a multitude of qualities and characteristics, including the farm, variety, processing, and roast. Doing this simultaneously with multiple coffees is always an eye-opener. If you’re lucky, you can also get in on cuppings of acids, defects, or even cuppings of different brewing water, all of which highlight how many variables affect the flavor of a coffee.

Our cupping had a few surprises, one being a distinctly aromatic coffee, with fragrant notes of brown sugar, spice, cinnamon, and herbal tea. I was really looking forward to getting to it on the tasting round, but when I did it was lacking in acidity and tasted fairly generic and roasty. It turns out it was Panama Esmeralda roasted for espresso by Coffee Collective  – the most highly lauded coffee, and one of the best roasters in the world. Coffee intended to be brewed as espresso is generally roasted a little darker, which is why the flavor didn’t come through in the cupping. The aroma makes me wish we could have tried it as espresso!

The star of the show was a Kenyan coffee that Toby’s is serving in their cafe. It smelled to me like baked raisin bread, had a red grape acidity, and I wrote “plum and citrus” on my notes for flavor. There were also some other interesting flavors on the table, like a Brazil with a strong peanut butter note.

Unless you’re a veteran coffee professional or have other tasting experience, you’ll probably come away from a cupping with a distinct sense of the limits of your vocabulary. It’s really difficult to put words to the aromas and flavors you experience in the coffee, but that’s why cuppings are so valuable! Also, if you’re at all like me, you’ll be wishing you’d had breakfast and a coffee to wake up your mind before the cupping; it requires focus and attention, and goes by quicker than you’d expect. Be advised!

If you’d like to visit one of these cuppings, space is limited so make sure you get your name on the schedule by contacting Toby’s Estate.

Several days ago a conversation broke out on Twitter between a few coffee industry heavy-weights talking about the relative impact of variety (and cultivar, both of which are often confused with the term varietal) in the taste of a particular coffee. You’ve probably seen the words (Typica, Caturra, Catuai, Bourbon, SL28, Pacamara, and so on) on coffee bags with little explanation as to their meaning or import. If you were ever curious to learn more, you should check out the blog that emerged from that Twitter conversation:

Within the coffee industry, how coffee varieties impact taste is a relatively marginalized topic; among most coffee drinkers, it’s hardly a consideration. Most identify coffee by origin – the country, or region, or farm – rather than variety.

Should we pay closer attention to varieties? What is the impact on flavor? A spirited exchange followed on Twitter, and after some discussion it was decided to move the conversation to Tumblr, where the character counts aren’t limited and where the dialogue, hopefully, will be easier to follow.

I’m glad the conversation has shifted to a space that’s easier to follow and reference in the future. If this piques your interest, head over to read more at Wet Mill. So far only Peter Giuliano of Counter Culture, and James Hoffman of Square Mile have chimed in, but if people are reading, perhaps it will spur a more interesting dialog between the many participants. You can also make use of the Tumblr “Ask me a question” feature if you have any ideas or questions of your own.