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Vito Sportelli & Andrea Peconio Are Your Amsterdam Coffee Mixologist Champs

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amsterdam coffee festival netherlands coffee mixologists

amsterdam coffee festival netherlands coffee mixologists

Coffee cocktail-making virtuosi Vito Sportelli and Andrea Peconio have been crowned champions at the 2018’s Coffee Mixologists tournament at Amsterdam Coffee Festival. The Italians battled seven other teams of two, across four rounds, over the three days of last month’s festival in Holland. Sponsored by Tia Maria, Sanremo, and Daarnhouwer in its second year, Coffee Mixologists is fast emerging as a major new competitive coffee event, and carries with it a sizable cash prize. 

amsterdam coffee festival netherlands coffee mixologists

While 2017’s winners were a Dutch barista and bartender duo who proved to be deft partners in drink-making (and as of January, baby-making), this year’s title and €1,000 prize went to close-knit colleagues. Both are trainers at Barproject, a beverage events and consulting company in Bari, the seaport city located where, if Italy’s boot were imagined cowboy-style, the spur would jut. A 39 year old from Conversano, Sportelli also runs his own cocktail catering company, Aperinfresco, and 28-year-old Peconio moonlights as head bartender at Kabuki, a club, bar, and restaurant in his hometown of Bari.

Sportelli and Peconio’s signature drink, called the Terrone, combined two coffees from Italian specialty roaster Edo Quarta—a natural Colombian Quindio Villa Roa and a washed Kenyan Karindundo Nyery—with booze aplenty. An ibrik warmed up the spirits before smoking them and incorporating angostura bitters, thyme, and cascara.

amsterdam coffee festival netherlands coffee mixologists

For the second year of the tournament, returning judges included Anne Lunell, co-founder of Swedish roaster Koppi, and Hani Asfdaai, acclaimed bartender and owner of Noah in Rotterdam. New to adjudication this year was 2017 London Coffee Masters champion James Wise, and serving as the affable and enthusiastic MC was Dave Jameson, a twice-crowned UK Coffee in Good Spirits champion and coffee program manager at Bewley’s UK.

“I was really impressed with Vito and Andrea from their first performance,” Jameson shared with Sprudge. “They didn’t make a bad drink all weekend, and the drink they prepared in the final was just sublime! Very deserving winners and I look forward to seeing them performing again soon.”

amsterdam coffee festival netherlands coffee mixologists

Dave Jameson of Bewley’s UK (center).

amsterdam coffee festival netherlands coffee mixologists

Judges James Wise (center) and Anne Lunell (right).

Before heading to the London Coffee Festival—to hold mixology and coffee training sessions as part of the Cimbali Sensory SeriesSportelli and Peconio answered some questions for Sprudge about the contest and their careers.

The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

How did you get involved in coffee and cocktails?

Vito Sportelli: Studying and experimenting with basic products as part of being a professional Italian barista, and having the products always present in the bar where we usually work.

Andrea Peconio: My passion led me to get experience working with alcohol. That then led to experience with coffee preparation and eventually how to mix them together.

Why did you decide to enter the Coffee Mixologists competition?

VS: It was a challenge—to get out of our comfort zone and have us confront professionals beyond our own country.

AP: To set ourselves outside our home environment and see what it would be like to put that kind of pressure on ourselves.

amsterdam coffee festival netherlands coffee mixologists

Photo courtesy of Dave Jameson.

Do you consider one of yourselves more of a barista and the other a bartender, or do you both feel equally comfortable with coffee and cocktails?

VS: Thanks to all the work we have done in recent years, we are quite complementary in both disciplines.

AP: We are both bartenders though, above all, work well together as a close-knit team.

In the first round, The Signature Drink, you prepared the Terrone, which include Bols Genever 1575 and Imea Gineprina d’Olanda 1897. Did making this drink for a competition in Amsterdam influence the decision to use traditional Dutch alcohol?

VS: Absolutely. We like to create drinks that are not just perfectly balanced, but that also have cultural content. We were thinking about how to create a union between our land and the Amsterdam Coffee Festival.

AP: Terrone is the result of the Barproject crew’s teamwork. However, Dutch products were chosen to honor Dutch culture.

amsterdam coffee festival netherlands coffee mixologists

Photo courtesy of Dave Jameson.

How was working with the secret ingredients in The Mystery round?

VS: Stimulating and fun.

AP: And to succeed in these rounds, we focused on really evaluating the characteristics of the single-origin coffee that we had to use.

What was the hardest part about the competition?

VS: During the semi-final [in the Redefining the Classic round], the competition required us to reinterpret a Black Russian. The greatest effort was reinventing it without being banal. We revised it tiki-style, keeping the characteristics of the drink when in contact with the lips and letting it evolve during the drinking process so it could still carry exotic notes.

While Italy leads in the world in terms of coffee technology, your country’s specialty coffee roasting and cafe scene is still emerging. Do you see yourselves as ambassadors for contemporary Italian coffee or cocktails?

VS: We believe that a barista in Italy must necessarily know all the materials that he deals with during his work, and we work every day applying this philosophy—above all, during our shifts behind the bar.

We have been working with specialty products for six years now, incorporating them in our consumer education and catering, all while respecting the concept of made-in-Italy as well as new world trends.

amsterdam coffee festival netherlands coffee mixologists

This event includes a €1000 cash prize. Photo courtesy of Dave Jameson.

Is there something specifically Italian that you brought to this competition?

VS: Probably the all-Italian ability to communicate and excite.

What’s in store for the future?

VS: I hope to be able to continue traveling, to explore how to experiment, and maybe thanks to this victory, to have new job opportunities abroad.

AP: I would like to open a club of my own and continue to grow my professional skills.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge

Photos courtesy of the Amsterdam Coffee Festival unless otherwise noted.

The post Vito Sportelli & Andrea Peconio Are Your Amsterdam Coffee Mixologist Champs appeared first on Sprudge.


Teaching Barista Skills To Refugees At A Beautiful Mess In Amsterdam

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refugee barista training amsterdam netherlands

refugee barista training amsterdam netherlands

The last time Sprudge reported on how the coffee world was helping Syrian asylum seekers in the Netherlands, a simple, very human-level initiative was underway. The objective was to pair refugees and longtime Dutch residents with similar professional interests, encouraging the two parties to go on a coffee date and trade career tips. The setting was the Amsterdam Zuid franchise of cafe Anne & Max, which provided free beverages and an inviting third space.

Today, nearly two years later, thanks to a program offered by the Amsterdam foundation Refugee Company, this same segment of the population, which once may have accepted a coffee gratis, is learning how to make coffee professionally. And it is not just any coffee, but specialty coffee by Dutch roaster Bocca.

A nationwide coffee supplier and trainer, Bocca partnered with the Refugee Company shortly after the foundation moved its operations into the Bijlmerbajes in July 2016. The country’s most renowned bajes—local slang for “jail”—had recently been vacated and turned over to Lola, an organization that repurposes empty buildings. Entrepreneurs and small businesses moved in, and alongside their offices and ateliers, Lola birthed various refugee-staffed enterprises, including a hotel, a boxing school, the acclaimed restaurant A Beautiful Mess, and Kahwa coffee bar.

refugee barista training amsterdam netherlands

Kahwa was also where Bocca taught the refugees the fundamentals of being a barista. The lessons began in January 2017. Back then, the former prison felt far more spartan, as Bocca account manager Jeroen Vos observed last August.

“You have to imagine that when they started here, there was nothing in this building,” says Vos. “There was no wood, there were no plants, there were no colors. It was cold.”

He was addressing the dozens of people who had filled the half-garage, half-foyer-like space for a graduation ceremony. Sixteen refugees from Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, and Syria had freshly completed the training.

“In five months’ time, they exerted a lot of effort, did a lot of work, and it became a very successful little business here,” Vos adds.

Boris Montanus, Bocca’s head trainer for the project, called the students one by one. Abiding by the community’s convention, he used only their first names. They were handed diplomas and—no Dutch festivity goes flowerless—cellophane cones holding a fuchsia gerbera daisy or pink and white lisianthus. Depending on a recipient’s preference, Montanus spoke English or Dutch, and shared a personal anecdote or accolade about them.

refugee barista training amsterdam netherlands

“You were here when the machine broke down, right?” he said to a graduate named Kosai. “He lifted up the cover of the machine and he put his hands inside it, to help,” he explained to the audience. 

He described another barista named Rafi: “He was really, really tense every time I tried to examine him, but he kept sending me beautiful pictures of latte art, so I knew he could do it.”

“Samir may be the loudest barista I’ve ever met,” Montanus said, laughing. Turning warmly to the diploma recipient, he added: “Here you are, man.”

Onlookers stood clapping and digitally documenting. Some leaned on the wood furnishings, rudimentary though brightened by photography, paintings, and pillows. Two geometrical pendant lamps twinkled over Kahwa’s two-group La Marzocco Linea Classic and Ceado E37S grinder. Passing through the machines was a seemingly bottomless supply of Bocca’s Fatima espresso, washed Catuai and Bourbon beans from Brazil.

refugee barista training amsterdam netherlands

The ceremony dovetailed with a meet and greet, allowing members of the city’s horeca industry to get acquainted with the graduates as potential hires. In intimate group conversations, refugees gave glimpses of their past lives.

“I know coffee. I come from East Africa,” noted a former security guard from Eritrea, while also sharing a newfound appreciation for the drink’s taste. “The way they roast the beans is very nice.”

An Iraqi talked of having had some coffee-serving experience back when working at a shisha lounge, though he lost the opportunity after the venue was bombed. “Alles is weg,” he said—Dutch for “Everything is gone.”

refugee barista training amsterdam netherlands

Months after the graduation ceremony, a second group of refugees was in the thick of the barista course. Montanus had just returned from a trip to Ethiopia and was showing photos of coffee. Yosief from Eritrea and Ben from Zambia politely glanced at his phone, though the red cherries and green beans appeared far less exotic to them than to Montanus’ usual Dutch trainees.

“You’ve seen more coffee than me,” said their teacher, reminded that at Kahwa he could usually zoom through the course’s agricultural history, given the students’ backgrounds. Anyway, demanding more visual attention that day were the steamed milk hearts that Yosief and Ben were working on.

“First, swirl. All the bubbles out.”

“Start high and then bring it low in one go.”

“Most Dutch people will find this to be too little milk.”

The constant feedback had a positive effect on the forms appearing in the foam.

refugee barista training amsterdam netherlands

Kahwa was as hospitable a place as it had been in the summer, but the sun set early during these fall afternoon lessons. The season’s quickly cooling temperature made attendance seem like even more of a commitment. Many visitors would reach the Bijlmerbajes by metro. The stop is about a 15-minute walk from the Refugee Company’s headquarters, though arriving as such means having to follow an awkward path. It is so narrow that two pedestrians can barely pass each other without one having to step off the pavement into the marshy flora. On wet days, small black slugs speckle the way. Should anyone forget that the hunkering six towers once housed the country’s most notorious convicts, the moat and the concrete wall serve as reminders.

The barista class met twice weekly, but it had to be woven into the time-consuming bureaucratic requirements that asylees must simultaneously navigate. Ultimately, they are expected to pursue Dutch language and integration courses, settle into permanent housing, and secure work. Behind the bar, students had to demonstrate the ability to pull an espresso, steam and pour milk, clean an espresso machine, and dial in a grinder. A form hanging on the wall listed these skills and, if they struggled, “we just did it again and did it again,” Montanus said. “It was a bit like pre-runs for a barista competition.”

Besides common English and Dutch words in “hospitality slang,” as another posted printout termed them, the trainees were kept up to speed with specialty coffee lingo (the synonym-spawning flat white was particularly conducive to quiz material).

refugee barista training amsterdam netherlands

In December 2017, Yosief, Ben, and two Syrian classmates had their own graduation. That made for a total of 20 refugees who, within the year, completed the training with Montanus or his former Bocca colleague, Jasper de Waal.

One especially passionate diploma-holder was Rafi, the tense yet talented latte artist Montanus had praised at the August ceremony. When Sprudge caught up with him half a year later, the 24-year-old was balancing intensive Dutch classes with work as a part-time barista and waiter at Restaurant Merkelbach.

“Bocca gave me everything to really make me a barista, so I can say that I’m really a barista,” he says, sipping an espresso at Merkelbach on a day off.

refugee barista training amsterdam netherlands

Before moving to the Netherlands, Rafi had what he described as an internship with Costa. But before transitioning into a job with the multinational coffee company, he had to flee, leaving his hometown of Lattakia, Syria. After finishing his current studies, he hopes to attend hospitality school and pursue a career in coffee.

“I want to have my own cafe. That’s my dream,” Rafi says. Ideally, he added, his business would yield a whole chain of cafes, spanning the Netherlands, Lebanon, and one day, Syria, too.

In the meantime, a new hospitality course for another group of refugees has begun at the Bijlmerbajes. Bocca continues to provide the barista training, though Kahwa as its own entity no longer exists. Earlier this year, the bar merged with A Beautiful Mess and reopened in March as part of the restaurant’s vibrant renovation.

A Beautiful Mess is located at H.J.E. Wenckebachweg 48, 1096 AN Amsterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge

The post Teaching Barista Skills To Refugees At A Beautiful Mess In Amsterdam appeared first on Sprudge.

Booth Beat: Our 5 Favorite Booths From World Of Coffee Amsterdam

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world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

Dutch winds blew chilly outside World of Coffee 2018, but inside, at the Amsterdam RAI convention center, June 20th to 23rd were hot-ticket days.

Breaking records this year, nearly 11,000 professionals registered for WOC, according to its organizing body, the Specialty Coffee Association. At a pre-ribbon-cutting press conference prior to the trade show’s official opening, SCA chief events officer Cindy Cohn cited a presence of 271 exhibitors and called it “the best-looking event we’ve put on.” Later, on the competition floor, Agnieszka Rojewska from Poland made history by becoming the first woman in the contest’s 18-year existence to win the title of World Barista Champion.

Visitors to Amsterdam sometimes joke that they can’t remember much from their trips to the famously live-and-let-live city, but these five WOC booths proved unforgettable.

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

Kees van der Westen

Nothing lights up a Dutch coffee event like the indigenous splendor of the Kees van der Westen brand, and everybody, from everywhere, was getting revved-up to see the debut of the Mirage Slim Jim. Presaged in a 2016 Sprudge interview with Kees van der Westen himself, this new espresso machine is “kind of a mixture” between others in the existing seQries, explained Yvette van der Westen, who oversees marketing for the company that her father heads. “Technically, visually, and price-wise, it will offer users an experience that falls somewhere between the Mirage and the Spirit.”

Unlike the Mirage, the Mirage Slim Jim is a multiple-boiler machine. Available in a Douette or a Triplette configuration, the groups have been given plenty of love and attention, each having its own two-stage progressive pre-infusion cylinder, a shot timer, a thermometer, and a pressure gauge. Other features include a dual hot water temperature knob and a dual volumetric lever.

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

The Slim Jim Idrocompresso model shares many of the same specs as the standard Slim Jim, but its prominent lever group cylinders have been built to be fully encased in hot water. This produces “a water cushioning effect which takes off a bit of the pressure and it won’t hit you in the face,” said Yvette, explaining that the lever on previous Idrocompresso models was susceptible to shooting up if a barista forgot to load the portafilter.

All four prototypes showed unique details, including interchangeable legs, front and side panels, cup rails, awnings, and knobs, plus various colors and room for customized logos. Still, they all shared a nostalgic Americana automotive design sensibility, so much so that baristas might start pulling out their Pomade and poodle skirts.

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

Following WOC, the Van der Westen family—all members showed up, including Yvette’s two sisters, now also her colleagues—were due to cruise back to headquarters in Waalre. Their road map foresees a few more technical tweaks, a pre-production series, and finally, the Mirage Slim Jim’s availability by early 2019.

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

Qima Coffee

At WOC Amsterdam, the launch of Qima Coffee, a London-headquartered company sourcing specialty beans from Yemen, was bittersweet. “The Yemen Coffee Revolution Starts Here” read the slogan on the stand’s backdrop, a lively mocha- and gold-toned illustration of Sana’a’s ancient skyline. Helping lead that revolution is Faris Sheibani, a UK-born Yemeni who founded Qima in late 2016, seeking to do something for his parents’ country of origin, where civil war has killed, wounded, and displaced thousands of people since early 2015.

Booth-side, Sheibani and colleagues warmly received visitors, telling them about Qima’s debut collection. Some 800 smallholder farmers across northern and central Yemen produced about 250 coffee lots, which were cupped and scored by Dutchman-gone-Californian Willem Boot of Boot Coffee. For the expo, Cafe Keppler co-owner Kees Kraakman roasted sample beans and praised Sheibani, a former SCA course student of his, for “how he combines a moral cause with a commercial enterprise.” Some farmers can now earn 20 times more income working for Qima, said Brahim Boukadid, Qima’s commercial manager in the Netherlands. He reported that 10% of profits get reinvested in the farmers’ villages, supporting agriculture and education projects, though above all, he emphasized: “We want to give them hope with this coffee.”

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

Attendees showed avid interest in Qima, suggesting its commercial prospects in Europe are real. Those glimmers of hope, however, were overshadowed by a conspicuous absence: that of four Yemeni farmers and a Yemeni NGO worker who were expected to be part of the company’s Amsterdam delegation. Their visa requests to visit the Netherlands were denied twice after what Sheibani described in an impassioned video message as an arduous, time-consuming, and humiliating application process filed via the Dutch embassy in Amman, Jordan. The visa denial made headlines and generated social media posts hashtagged #freeourfarmers. Qima has been outspoken about the decision’s unjustness and its irony. In the same video, Sheibani stated: “The Dutch East India Company took—smuggled—seedlings from Yemen, coffee seedlings from Yemen, to Amsterdam to plant them in the botanical gardens in Amsterdam, illegally. Four hundred two years later, we wanted to legally… together with the Dutch, celebrate coffee culture.” Qima has since published a follow-up video, captioned as a “message of hope and coexistence from the farmers of Yemen to the people of the Netherlands and the world!”

At the time of writing, three of the farmers remain in Amman, Sheibani told Sprudge in an email shortly after he returned to the UK. He said that he is helping the farmers apply to other global coffee exhibitions so they can personally represent their coffees. “If they go back empty-handed, it would be a devastating blow to thousands of farmers following the events from Yemen and a significant setback to the Yemeni coffee industry in general,” wrote Sheibani. (For the latest news, follow Qima on Facebook.)

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

Department of Brewology

It was a sight for sore eyes and some salve for the soul to spot the Department of Brewology making their WOC debut. The dauntless design duo from Austin, Texas, was selling wearables and wall art featuring their Filter Coffee Not People slogan, among others.

“It’s been great, actually. We love coming to Europe,” said company operations manager Brett Cannon, when asked their reception outside the US. New items on show included two coffee blossom pins and mini-prints of their iconic illustrations commingling botanicals and barista tools. Company designer David Salinas also told Sprudge about a new campaign, expected to launch in the coming months. For it, the Department of Brewology is working with The Lucy Foundation, a New Zealand-based organization promoting greater visibility of people with disabilities in the coffee industry. In the same spirit that sees proceeds of the FCNP T-shirt going to the Refugee Services of Texas, the new initiative will help raise funds for The Lucy Foundation. These designs are a collaboration between Floridian illustrator Anna Coleman and Salinas, and will be anchored by their own slogan. Those words are not yet public, but the campaign is geared “to really advocate for coffees that do good as opposed to just coffees that taste good,” said Salinas.

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

Collezione Henk Langkemper

Not a booth but a veritable buffet table, the Collezione Henk Langkemper snaked its way along one side of the trade floor’s food court. On show were 25 vintage espresso machines and grinders manufactured between 1936 and 1972, and now belonging to Dutch coffee industry vet Henk Langkemper. His entire 110-piece collection of such relics is usually at Espresso Service West, his three-decade-old coffee import and distribution company in The Hague that has become synonymous with supporting Dutch baristas in national and world competitions.

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

Asked for his most cherished, Langkemper pointed to what he called “any collector’s favorite:” the Rondine, described as the first La Marzocco one-group ever made, in 1953. The journey to get the machines to Amsterdam was tumultuous, said their owner: the idea began hatching at last year’s WOC Budapest, was slowed down by uncertainty about where on the expo floor the display could be accommodated, got called off after Langkemper had a heart attack in November, and then by February, reignited when an ESW customer pledged to provide the display bars. Before long, friends of Langkemper, from Seattle to Hong Kong, pitched in to help restore the machines. And so there they—and their owner—stood, back in shiny working condition.

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

Coffee Pixels

Winning this year’s Best New Product Competition in the category of food was Coffee Pixels Cascara, one of two edible coffee bars being sold by Latvian cousins Raivis, Andris, and Gundars Vaitekuns. Former specialty cafe owners in Riga, the trio today forms the company Solid Coffee, which started producing Coffee Pixels in 2017. Raivis described it as an idea born from necessity or, more precisely, withdrawal while traveling. Recounting instances when gas station or airplane coffee was their only option, he said they asked themselves “how we can take the quality of experience and the values that we have in specialty coffee truly on the go.”

The 10-gram bars are made from cocoa butter, Ethiopian coffee, coffee cherries, sugar, and salt. The “Milk” version contains 33 milligrams of caffeine and the winning “Cascara” contains 50 milligrams, the equivalent of approximately 30 milliliters of espresso. Sourced by Panama Varietals, the cascara comes from Nicaragua, and its choice as an ingredient reflects “the other part of the drive to build this product,” said Raivis, which is “to really tackle the waste produced in the coffee industry.”

world of coffee amsterdam netherlands

Raivis, Andris, and Gundars Vaitekuns, founders of Coffee Pixels.

Another edible coffee benefit is that it “will be micro-dosing itself within your body,” he said. Because the caffeine is in saturated fat, it takes longer for the body to absorb, with its effect lasting up to four hours, Raivis estimated. He also pointed out that cascara contains antioxidants, so “this clean boost” accompanies the caffeine kick. “It feels like you have more energy in the head.”

And no wonder WOC Amsterdam was full of superlative highs and yet, still so memorable.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge

The post Booth Beat: Our 5 Favorite Booths From World Of Coffee Amsterdam appeared first on Sprudge.

More Coffee, Less Fossil Fuel: Bitter & Real Is The Netherlands’ Eco-Coffee Truck

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bitter and real netherlands

bitter and real netherlands

In the Northern Hemisphere, official fun-in-the-sun season is over. Yet some lucky autumnal gallivanters in the Netherlands are finding themselves at events with a parking spot reserved for Bitter & Real. After a busy summer, the electric mobile specialty coffee company that advocates “more coffee, less fossil fuel” is still on the road. Upcoming stops include Rotterdam’s creative lifestyle-outfitting Swan Market, Amsterdam’s annual jewelry fair, and a culinary disco bash in a Breda church.

It was at a food truck festival in Amsterdam’s Westerpark that Sprudge caught up with owners Laura van der Have and Minos Eigenheer. Amidst all the vying vehicles and victuals at Rollende Keuekens this past May, Bitter & Real stood out. Finished in matte indigo paint, the 1971 Citroën HY Van is haloed by a hand-drawn wood cutout of the brand’s name and logo—a lightning bolt striking a black demitasse.

bitter and real netherlands

Eigenheer and Van der Have

Van der Have and Eigenheer have been serving specialty coffee from the fully electric vehicle since fall 2015. They spent months refurbishing, essentially, a rusty cab and chassis after purchasing it secondhand from, in their words, “a Citroën old-timer freak” in Germany. Today, 300-kilo electric batteries get all three tons of it moving “90-ish kilometers per hour,” says Van der Have, who assures, “with the wind on your back, it can go up to 107.”

Li-ion batteries also power the equipment inside. That includes a Tetris-like arrangement of a two-group Kees van der Westen Spirit, a Victoria Arduino Mythos One grinder, a Mahlkönig EK43 grinder, a 3Temp one-group Hipster Brewer, a Marco Ecoboiler WMT5, as well as two fridges (to hold a couple hundred liters of milk, nitro cold brew, beer, and iced tea kegs), an oven to bake fresh sweets (rhubarb frangipane tartlets, anyone?), and a dishwasher.

bitter and real netherlands

To charge its batteries and run all the appliances, a single cord from within the vehicle can plug into some on-location power source. Additionally, 12m2 of solar panels line the roof, producing 1800 watt-peaks of solar energy—asked for a layperson’s equivalent, Van der Have estimates that “on a nice summer day that is enough to constantly use a hairdryer.”

Of the choice to use solar panels, she explains: “We wanted to be able to power all this coffee gear anywhere without taking a generator, so we can also function off-grid. And that’s what we often do for catering [at events] where a 400-volt phase power supply is not available.”

bitter and real netherlands

Indigenous to warm climates though they may seem, the couple met while snowboarding in Eigenheer’s native Switzerland. Before moving to the Netherlands, he had worked for Revita, a small company that designs water turbines. Van der Have started in the hospitality industry at age 15, at boutique hotel and restaurant Villa Augustus in Dordrecht. A 15-minute train ride from Rotterdam, the river-surrounded city is nowadays Bitter & Real’s headquarters. Van der Have’s parents have an estate there, which hosts their chicken coop, a garden yielding ingredients for their baked goods, and an old barn sheltering the parked truck and their Diedrich IR-12. Since January, they have been roasting their own line of coffees, providing for themselves, online customers, and, recently, Villa Augustus.

At a typical festival, five or six Bitter & Real staff work in two shifts, and up to five can simultaneously—and seemingly merrily—fit in the tight space. On a good day, they report selling 800 coffees. It is a compact, classy operation, but eco-friendly portability comes with concessions.

bitter and real netherlands

“Often at catering locations, there is no power outlet that can handle a Spirit and all the espresso bar gear without the help of a big battery bank with inverter,” says Van der Have. “During peak hours or while the espresso machine is warming up, we need about six times more energy, which gets drawn from the battery.”

Plus, it is “paper cups most of the time—we very much prefer using porcelain.” Still, she maintains: “We have sooo many people come to drink coffee that you wouldn’t have in a cafe.”

Bitter & Real have undoubtedly upped the standards in mobile coffee—this year all the more apparent with the brand’s freshly roasted beans onboard. However, that was not their explicit intention. Rather, it was “his sustainability vision and my coffee vision [that came] together in this van,” says Van der Have of their enterprise. And, she points out: “It was not that I really wanted to change festivals. We kinda rolled into it.”

Once autumn ends, “we have a semi-winter sleep,” she says, though admits that preparations for the upcoming summer never stop. An exciting project will be putting the finishing touches on their second electric vehicle creation, a 1984 Citroën ideal for hauling extra crew, supplies, and really, anything under the sun.

For more information and their schedule, visit Bitter & Real’s official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge

The post More Coffee, Less Fossil Fuel: Bitter & Real Is The Netherlands’ Eco-Coffee Truck appeared first on Sprudge.

De Poezenboot! We Brought Coffee To Amsterdam’s Delightful Floating Cat Charity

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de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands
de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

Photo courtesy of Djaro G.

De Poezenboot. Goedemorgen?” That translates to “The Catboat. Good morning?” and it is how Judith, in a warm yet clearly down-to-business voice, answers the office phone. She is the manager and the public—human—face of a cat refuge long moored in the Singel, a large canal that once moated Amsterdam’s medieval center and still provides the embankment for Golden Age mansions.

By contrast, De Poezenboot (pronounced “POOH-sen boat”; poezen is Dutch for “cats”) appears as a simple wooden rectangle floating on concrete, in a boat style known as an ark. Hardly of Noah dimensions, the shelter can hold 50 cats at a time—this month they’re the chosen charity supported by sales of Santa Claude, a special holiday coffee collaboration between Sprudge, Cafe Imports, Roundhill Roasters, and Dutch Pack. Currently, there are 17 in-house cats, each with a distinctive personality, and while most of the cats at the shelter are rehomed in short order, some are too rascally to place with families, and now call De Poezenboot their forever floating home.

de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

Kasumi is a yellow-eyed Persian that hams it up for the camera, but gets pushed aside by her housemates during mealtime and pees where she pleases. Samus, the dead ringer for Scut Farkus, comes with his own scratch-warning sign and last year posed in a photo with Ricky Gervais.

On a recent Wednesday, one of the two days the boat is closed to the public, Judith sat at her desk in the reception area. Between fielding calls, she talked about De Poezenboot and sipped a drink that Sprudge picked up prior to the interview. Good Beans, a nearby espresso bar which this past summer came under new American-Norwegian ownership, prepared Judith’s hot chocolate and an Americano with their own Rwandan Bourbon roast. The coffee went to Michi, a feline portrait artist and the volunteer that morning taking care of rigorous kennel cleaning.

de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

Even though stray animals are not a systemic problem in the Netherlands, De Poezenboot has plenty of work. It takes in cats that are occasionally found on the street, orphaned, aging, or otherwise too difficult for owners to continue tending.

“Sometimes we have a whole family crying here because they have to bring in their cat,” says Judith.

As a schoolchild, she was one of De Poezenboot’s earliest volunteers, and eventually became a friend and a caregiver to Henriëtte van Weelde, the woman who began the sanctuary. That was in 1968, on a barge one canal over. Van Weelde died at age 90 in 2005.

de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

Today, the De Poezenboot has 22 volunteers, organized into fixed teams that rotate boat shifts. Their main responsibilities are feeding, administering medicine, and cleaning. They also keep an eye on the neighborhood swan that likes to swim up to the deck and out-hiss its water-wary canal-mates. Some volunteers double as foster parents, socializing and nursing cats to more adoptable states. Judith had planned to do precisely that with a once “really tiny and scared” kitten, she recalls, but eight years later, Jumi is her family pet (as is a merle-coated Chihuahua named Rosa).

The boat survives on donations, with money put towards cat provisions plus mooring and other houseboat-related costs. The small fee that adopters pay largely covers health costs, including sterilization, vaccination, chipping, and sometimes deworming.

de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

This past June, De Poezenboot celebrated its 50 year anniversary. Feline-themed festivities aside, the jubileum allowed the organization to raise funds for a campaign to help financially struggling Amsterdammers get their cats spayed and neutered “almost for free,” says Judith. The program is scheduled to run in February 2019.

In the meantime, rehoming remains the main mission. Would-be adopters who see a listing on the website or via social media can call or visit to inquire if they might be a good match.

“We do want to have the cats go to the most suitable house,” Judith emphasizes. “If we have a cat, for instance, that is scared of kids, but really beautiful, and somebody comes in and says, ‘Oh I like that beautiful cat,’ but she has three screaming kids, she will not get the cat.”

de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

Yet, most adopters are, much like the creature they covet, sensitive and self-assured.

“We get nice people, people that think about what they’re doing, not people who are like ‘Oh give me a cat, and I don’t mind what kind of cat. Just give me one,’” says Judith.

Included in that group are business proprietors that seek a mouser or, for whatever reason, a whiskered workplace companion. Up the block, Café Kobalt got “a red one from us,” notes Judith, “and Café de Doelen also.” More recently, a local cigar store requested neither a cafe lounger nor a lap-sitter, but rather “an independent cat that goes his own way.” The satisfied owner has already emailed photos, says Judith. “Everybody loves him and he’s running through the store.”

de poezenboot amsterdam netherlands

De Poezenboot is located at Sigel 38G, Amsterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge.

Support De Poezenboot and drink delicious coffee with Santa Claude! Worldwide shipping available.

The post De Poezenboot! We Brought Coffee To Amsterdam’s Delightful Floating Cat Charity appeared first on Sprudge.

From Amsterdam, A New Soap Made Of Coffee Grounds And Orange Peels

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soop coffee soap

soop coffee soap

Though there is no Ctrl-Z for much damage done to the Earth, there are ways to boost environmental sustainability. In this spirit, one product making a splash in and around the Netherlands is SOOP, a hand and body soap made from coffee grounds and orange peels.

SOOP is the signature product of BeeBlue, an Amsterdam-based collective working to upcycle organic waste streams, converting them into ecological, social, and economic resources. Robert-Willem Dol and Noor Buur co-founded the company in September 2016. Two years later, SOOP became available internationally. It comes in three bar variants (coffee with orange oil, coffee with orange oil and peels, and orange peels with orange oil) and two liquid (orange and coffee, which both contain orange oil).

To learn more, Sprudge spoke with Buur and, at BeeBlue headquarters, got the opportunity to witness coffee’s full sudsy potential.

Your website describes how in his own kitchen, Robert-Willem started playing around with coffee grounds and orange peels to come up with the idea of using them in soap. What prompted the experimentation in the first place?

Robert-Willem started experimenting with the idea of “stop wasting my waste,” which was sparked by frustration with how we treat waste in our societies. Waste is a human concept; nature does not “produce” waste. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands alone, the consumption of coffee and fresh orange juice produces 155 million kilos of coffee grounds and 250 million kilos of orange peels each year. These resources are widely considered an inevitable part of our day-to-day consumption and get discarded into organic waste streams. But this can be handled better if we see waste as a resource and use it in a circular way. Coffee grounds are a powerful natural scrub, and orange peels work as a natural skin booster and fragrance. The shift towards a circular economy and a more sustainable economic system feels abstract and big, but SOOP, as circular soap, makes it tangible.

soop coffee soap

Robert-Willem Dol and Noor Buur

What sets SOOP apart from other soaps?

SOOP is made of palm-oil-free certified resources, is biodegradable, and does not contain microplastics. In this regard, SOOP stands out but is not unique (fortunately!). SOOP is unique, however, in using “waste” as a valuable, function-serving resource.

How exactly do the coffee SOOPs get made?

SOOP is produced by existing soap-processing factories in the Netherlands. The bars are produced using a palm-oil-free soap emulsion; the liquid is a Marseille soap. Our coffee grounds and orange peels are treated in a way that makes them safe, functional ingredients in accordance with Dutch laws on soap and cosmetics. The smooth coffee bar is made with dried coffee grounds and orange oil extracted directly from orange peels; the textured coffee bar also contains pieces of orange peel. Both are effective as an exfoliant, colorant, fragrance, skin booster, and cleaner.

soop coffee soap

Where do you source the grounds and peels?

Our innovation in the field of the circular economy started with product development, yet in order to actually produce SOOP, we quickly had to get familiar with the world of waste. Because the logistics involved in collecting, drying, and treating coffee grounds and orange peels are so major, we cooperate with professionals in different fields. We work with PeelPioneers, an orange peel-recycling company in the Netherlands, which sources peels from Dutch retailers (for example, supermarkets with a fresh juice press in store). The coffee grounds are currently collected for us by a production company, but we are in the process of trying to find waste management companies to team with. Presently, the coffee grounds come from everywhere, but for the future, we’re focusing on collecting them mainly from the offices of companies, organizations, and hotels.

BeeBlue has made clear that the organization also values social return. How is that incorporated into the SOOP business model?

SOOP partners with Amsterdam’s social-return employment company Pantar (which gives jobs to people who for circumstantial or personal reasons experience disadvantages on the labor market). Individuals employed through Pantar service the coffee machines at the City of Amsterdam’s various offices, and collecting the grounds had been part of their daily work. Due to our scalability needs, we eventually had to turn to another, larger-capacity service that could collect the grounds, but Pantar currently does the handling for SOOP, which includes packaging, product labeling, and part of the transport.

soop coffee soap

Tell us about the packaging.

Incorporating sustainability into packaging is a challenge, but it is very much needed. The SOOP bar’s cardboard wrapping is made of recycled carton, which can, in turn, be recycled. The SOOP liquid bottles are made of recycled PET, which can also be recycled. The product labels are FSC-certified.

Your Facebook page shows photos of SOOP at the Dutch Embassy in Ethiopia and at a Hotelschool The Hague presentation. How did SOOP find its way to those events?

SOOP finds its way all over the world, and that is simply because people we talk to and work with see themselves as ambassadors of SOOP and tell our story. For example, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency arranged to have SOOP sent to Dutch embassies worldwide as a leading example of circular innovation that has sprung from Dutch soil. SOOP was a part of the Next Way of Living pop-up store at Dutch Design Week. SOOP has also found its way into the promotional and Christmas package sector, such as through sustainability-focused gift companies and Geschenk met Verhaal.

soop coffee soap

SOOP at Hotelschool The Hague

Sales of SOOP began in late 2018 at Dutch and Belgian home goods chain Dille & Kamille. Your products have also been made available online through Next Way of Living. What’s in store for the future?

We’re developing SOOP for institutional dispensers, so it can serve as a day-to-day soap in offices and hotel settings. To reach individual consumers, we will continue partnering with our existing webshop and retail partners. This is not a regular soap, but we want it to become your regular SOOP!

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge

The post From Amsterdam, A New Soap Made Of Coffee Grounds And Orange Peels appeared first on Sprudge.

In Amsterdam, The Latest From Friedhats Coffee Is A Big FUKU

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fuku friedhats amsterdam netherlands

fuku friedhats amsterdam netherlands

It’s true that 2018 WBC second runner-up Lex Wenneker and his business partner Dylan Sedgwick named their new cafe—FUKU—after the Japanese term for “good fortune.” If you speak with them, Wenneker, a three-time Dutch barista champion, will tell you how as a visitor to Japan he was impressed by all the small spaces where each day a single individual “puts the same attention in every cup.” In the same breath Sedgwick, a New Zealander with much international coffee experience, might cite Japanese craft precision as “inspiration for our workflow.” But if you’re like me, you might have doubts. The explanation’s a touch too cute for these two.

These are, after all, the guys behind Friedhats Coffee Roasters, a name they gleefully admit has led confused consumers to believe the company deals in French fries and attracted email spam targeted at milliners. What’s more, Friedhats’ aesthetic—most obvious in its packaging but now also at FUKU—might be summarized as ska-meets-psychedelica in a Roy Lichtenstein palette. Any way you cut it, their goofiness and subversion are colorful, contradicting any “expectations that we were gonna do something super chic and Berlin-style,” as Sedgwick puts it.

So while the cafe FUKU is pronounced to rhyme with “cuckoo,” it seems its nomenclature arose from the same place it does when the four-letter word is carved into an elementary school bathroom stall: frustration.

fuku friedhats amsterdam netherlands

“There was a point that I was pissed off at the whole [coffee] thing… I was gonna quit,” Wenneker tells me. “I just got back from the WBC in Dublin and everything was normal again, and I just couldn’t hear one more complaint about the light-roasted coffee. People didn’t get it. I just couldn’t do it anymore, and that’s when I wanted to stop.”

He continues: “Then we decided to look for a cafe again, as a solution—to have something new to do. And as a joke, I wanted to call it ‘the Friedhats’ Fuck You Cafe.’”

His defiance was likely sparked earlier, by the shuttering of Headfirst, a micro-roastery Wenneker co-ran and where he and Sedgwick started working together. Its closure came suddenly after Amsterdam authorities accused the venue of violating rules about what it could sell as a designated retail spot rather than a food and drink vendor. That was in late 2015, when Headfirst, at just two years old, was quite popular among locals and coffee tourists.

In fact, the name Friedhats is no enigma—it is an anagram. Scrambling the letters of “headfirst” has provided at least a linguistically sentimental reincarnation of the old business. As for FUKU’s present-day semantic scrambling—the idea came from much closer than Japan.

“He was in Paris and he saw this place called ‘Fuku,’” recalls Wenneker about Sedgwick. “It kinda says ‘fuck you’ but not really.”

“A sushi place,” his partner specifies.

fuku friedhats amsterdam netherlands

fuku friedhats amsterdam netherlands
All that said, guests at FUKU, which opened in September, get no sense of being rebuffed or shooed. Before even going inside the cafe, a sight of delight appears on an entranceway door: a vintage column of feeder trays from legendary Dutch automat chain FEBO. Today, instead of hamburgers or krokets, they dispense coffee beans in Friedhats’ signature plastic jar packaging (nominated for a 2018 Sprudgie Award).

Wenneker and Sedgwick built the bar themselves, leaving a large façade for their illustrator (and part-time barista) Ivo Janss. The most prominent equipment is a rare Kees van der Westen three-group Mistral. There are three grinders: a Mahlkönig EK43, an Anfim Super Caimano Barista, and an ever-so R2D2-esque Lyn Weber EG1. Around the bend is a moss green Slayer Single Group, which patrons can get a courtside view of when seated in the front window.

fuku friedhats amsterdam netherlands

Asked if his past titles up the pressure to perform in everyday work, Wenneker is candid, mentioning some particularly painful early feedback.

“There was this guy who came in. He was like, ‘Ah, I expected a bit more because he’s the almost-World Barista Champion, and it was just like a nice coffee that I got.’ It hit me quite hard,” he admits, with a good-natured laugh.

“Don’t come with too-high expectations,” Sedgwick half-jokes.

“Nah, that’s not true,” says Wenneker. “We’re doing something new now, I think, in the cafe with the long list of coffees that are available for espresso and filter. I don’t think any cafe in Amsterdam has that.”

Most remarkable is the menu’s “Super Specials” subsection, described by Wenneker as “coffees you just don’t find anywhere because they’re very expensive” and “usually rare or hard to obtain.” Often competition coffees, they are standardly prepared by V60 and cost 7.50 euros. On a recent visit, that list included Brazil Daterra Laurina, Colombia Gesha X.O., Colombia Sudan Rume, and Ethiopia Gesha Village.

fuku friedhats amsterdam netherlands

Because they have all the necessary licenses, FUKU can serve alcohol—the wines lean towards natural and French—and food; the venue has begun with short hours and easy-to-eat carbohydrates, but eventually plans to stay open well past sunset. The back patio, with an overhang, is ready for warm even if wet days.

Wenneker and Sedgwick have two part-time staff, and Wenneker’s brother is their accounts manager. Still, the pair works six days a week, splitting their time between cafe and roastery. The latter, which they moved into in September, occupies a section of shared space in a hangar-like unit. Compared to the former roastery, it is the boondocks, though has no shortage of storage or parking for the new company car, a secondhand Volvo wagon used for local coffee deliveries. Most international orders are sent within Europe, though the US and Canada are catching on, they report.

Meanwhile, Wenneker maintains he is done competing. Earned in June 2018 at the WBC held only six kilometers south of FUKU, his latest, second place, ranking satisfies in far more ways than I expected to hear.

fuku friedhats amsterdam netherlands

Lex Wenneker

He explains: “If you get first place, you have all these obligations, you have to go everywhere, people expect you to show up for stuff. We were already talking about the cafe, so we knew we couldn’t really do that. So before the whole competition started I was like, ‘Yeah, second. I’ll go for second.’”

“I was really happy,” says Wenneker of the outcome. “Second place is kind of what I really aimed for.”

The response is quintessentially Dutch: modest, pragmatic, evenhanded. It is also an elegant way of celebrating one’s good fortune while still issuing, to the powers that be, a big FU.

FUKU is located at Bos en Lommerweg 136 HS, Amsterdam. Visit Friedhats’ official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge

The post In Amsterdam, The Latest From Friedhats Coffee Is A Big FUKU appeared first on Sprudge.

The Coffee In Amsterdam’s “Coffeeshops” Has Never Been Better

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amsterdam netherlands coffeeshops

amsterdam netherlands coffeeshops

You have to admit it’s getting better. So reports Karina Hof, a longtime Sprudge staff writer based in Holland, who has for years been fascinated by the disconnect between Amsterdam’s famed “coffeeshops”—lounges where legal cannabis is sold and consumed freely—and the actual coffee served therein. In a city with one of the world’s great modern coffee cultures, and centuries of history in the coffee trade, why would the famed “coffeeshops” serve high quality cannabis but such low quality brews? 

Happily that’s changing, and fast. Karina Hof reports to us today from Amsterdam, just in time for the global 4/20 cannabis holiday.

By 2016, Amsterdam had an astounding 173 coffeeshops—lounges where cannabis can be bought and consumed onsite, much to the delight of tourists, expats and yes, evens some locals. For an article on this site the year before, I went looking for an enjoyable coffee to have at the city’s cannabis purveyors, many of which offer patrons a place to sit and smoke, snack, and sip. There were a couple of OK cups, including one prepared with what could be readily identified as “specialty coffee”, but mostly I encountered over-extracted old-school-Mediterranean dark roasts and staff who were caught off guard by my inquires; sometimes it felt as though I was asking such a trivial or taboo question, like: who provides your toilet paper?

Here in spring 2019, I revisited the assignment, finding that in four years, the number of coffeeshops serving specialty coffee had quadrupled. The figure itself is not extreme, but it shows evolution—perhaps as much of specialty coffee’s democratization as cannabis culture’s mainstreaming. Five places described here use coffee from either Australian-headed, Amsterdam-founded Lot Sixty One or the longer-established Dutch operation Bocca, both of which are among the Netherlands’ larger specialty roasters. These brands appear in cafes, restaurants, and stores around the country, but to experience them in a coffeeshop imbues in that euphemism for these venues a new, true meaning.

amsterdam netherlands coffeeshops

Tweede Kamer

The arrival of specialty coffee to Tweede Kamer is just another jewel in the tiara of this coffeeshop, the most elegant around in terms of interior (art deco) and staff (as personable as professional). Now standing alongside the pre-rolled joint cones and plastic storages—many containing a cannabis selection from Amsterdam Genetics—are Tweede Kamer-branded Lot Sixty One coffee packages. The display itself reflects how much changed since Sprudge last visited, back when they were serving, “terrible coffee,” as company social media coordinator and ever-effervescent budtender Babiche Bakker puts it. “It was a lot of different beans mixed.”

Today, Tweede Kamer and its sister business, Coffeeshopamsterdam, send their staff for barista courses at Lot Sixty One, which Bakker points out is a smart move since Tweede Kamer as a training space is “too small probably.” Elbow-to-elbow seating does not deter their loyal, diverse clientele. No wonder that American tourist’s dying wish: to have his ashes preserved at his favorite coffeeshop—worry not, the urn is on a shelf well above the strains and the beans.

Tweede Kamer is located at Heisteeg 6, Amsterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

amsterdam netherlands coffeeshops

Coffeeshopamsterdam

On what Smokers Guide to Amsterdam calls the High Street owing to its concentration of coffeeshops, one that stands out for its plainly memorable (in the long, not short, term, naturally) is Coffeeshopamsterdam. Formerly known as Dampkring II, this venue, which has the same owner as Tweede Kamer though is about triple the size, also sells a cannabis selection from Amsterdam Genetics and coffee from Lot Sixty One. Both budtenders and baristas here are attentive and easygoing, whether handing over with your cappuccino a free mini stroopwaffel or a 10-euro gram of Girl Scout Cookies.

Fully embracing its polysemous branding, the business prints “Amsterdam Coffee” on its coffee packaging, baggies, and literature; accompanying the words is the image of a white demitasse with, not steam, but ascending smoke rings. Explains company digital media manager Paul James: “Advertising for a coffeeshop is totally illegal as is promoting the sale of drugs. However, promoting Amsterdam Coffee is not. We just let people make their own minds up about the connection between the two.”

Coffeeshopamsterdam is located at Haarlemmerstraat 44, Amsterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

amsterdam netherlands coffeeshops

Green House United

When, on a springy Wednesday morning, a soft-spoken server brought to the table the menu’s “Healthy Breakfast”—low-fat yoghurt, low-sugar cruseli, fresh fruits, and a sprig of mint all gingerly arranged in a custard goblet—the place suddenly seemed less like an Amsterdam coffeeshop and more like a Le Pain Quotidien. But instead of bottomless hazelnut spread, there was that common coffeeshop fixture: a glass filled with green leaves of rolling-tobacco substitute.

Sure enough, this was Green House United, the largest of the city’s four Green House coffeeshops.

With an actual kitchen, it can cater to meal-size munchies day or night and, turns out, perfectly extract a single-origin Brazilian coffee, Bocca’s Soulmate. The light, fresh fare contrasts with leathery maroon furnishings and dim lighting, though the walls are undeniably brightened by Cannabis Cup trophies, smiling stoner celebrity photos, and clips from VICE/HBO’s Strain Hunter. That show follows Arjan Roskam, founder of Green House Seed Co. and the eponymous coffeeshops, as he searches for cannabis landraces on continent-hopping expeditions that sometimes share remarkable similarities with coffee-origin trips.

Green House United is located at Haarlemmerstraat 64, Amsterdam. Visit their official website.

amsterdam netherlands coffeeshops

La Tertulia

Brownie points are in order here because four years ago, when Sprudge sought low and high for decent coffee at coffeeshops, La Tertulia delivered. The same holds true today. “We are still serving Bocca coffee,” replies Aline, the younger of the mother-daughter team who own the business, when recently asked for an update. “Moreover, all our employees are getting a training by Bocca soon!”

Whether or not the baristas will master latte art, which Aline hopes for, La Tertulia is sure to maintain its unique appeal. The coffeeshop is women-owned and women-operated, has more space than most—upstairs, small groups can comfortably work or play a borrowed board game; outside bistro chairs and tables allow for smoking and sipping al fresco and canal-side—and a respectable snack menu. The toasties come in about a dozen variations (who would have known tomato-chili chutney, zucchini, and pineapple work together?). And the pot brownie is of American-standard dimensions, homemade by a baker to whom Aline delivers her regularly collected shake.

La Tertulia is located at Prinsengracht 312, Amsterdam. Visit their official website.

amsterdam netherlands coffeeshops

Hempstory

You cannot smoke or vape here, but this hemp-heralding lifestyle store deserves an honorable mention. At its core is a bar with a La Marzocco Linea Classic, which Bocca-trained baristas use to prepare Bocca coffee drinks. Hemp milk repeats on the menu, and hot beverages come with a complimentary heart-shaped Hanf & Natur hemp biscuit.

From clothes to cosmetics and chips to cookies, much of the goods sold here are made from or with hemp. The shop also well stocks CBD products from world-renowned seed bank Sensi Seeds, whose founder, Ben Dronkers, owns Hempstory itself, the neighboring Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum, and industrial hemp company Hempflax. Despite being in the middle of the Red Light District, Hempstory is green-leaning—stylistically more Broccoli than Pineapple Express, more GOOP than Snoop—but equally respectful of the aesthetics surrounding coffee and cannabis.

Hempstory is located at Oudezijds Achterburgwal 142, Amsterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge

The post The Coffee In Amsterdam’s “Coffeeshops” Has Never Been Better appeared first on Sprudge.


Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti!

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Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti amsterdam netherlands

If Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti is too much of a mouthful, consider calling this new Amsterdam venue what the three owners sometimes do: De Schuur. That’s shorthand for Schuurman, which is one of the founders’ surnames—though it also means “the shed” in Dutch. Its usage is telling—natives of the Netherlands tend to err on the side of humble.

Located on a bright corner in the neighborhood of Oud-West, Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti serves coffee, wine, and, as its website summarizes, “creative plates to share.” It is hardly a shed. Standards-wise and aspirations-wise, it is more like a cathedral. Not that the buttresses fly, not that the glass is stained, but the values are lofty, the service is elevated, and the flavors are sublime. If the coffee—all of which comes from specialty roaster and brother business White Label Coffee—is the altar around which the enterprise was built, then the wines, all-natural, are its flickering votive candles. In this case, patrons sip their succor.

Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti amsterdam netherlands

Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti amsterdam netherlands

As to how Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti emerged, it was, to paraphrase the Bible and Bob Marley, a stone that Barry Schuurman rejected that became the cornerstone. Schuurman had worked at White Label for over three years, handling cafe operations, wholesale deliveries, and training. He was the first full-time employee and proved so endearing to his bosses, Elmer Oomkens and Francesco Grassotti, that when they considered expanding, they offered him a raise or a stake in the company.

Meanwhile, it had always been “a bit of a dream to have my own place,” Schuurman says. “But at White Label, the job was just amazing—it was really nice, always—so the dream kind of went, let’s just say, on a little back road again.” Yet when “we kinda just started talking about how things were going really well and we just wanted to do a bit more,” he explains, it was time to take what “seemed the most logical step.”

Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti amsterdam netherlands

Grassotti, Oomkens, Schuurman

Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti opened in January. In this venture, the three partners are equal. Schuurman plays down his position in their co-authored byline, but the ordering “was quite natural,” says Oomkens, adding: “Barry is like the main man here.” Schuurman, who left White Label altogether, works six days a week at Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti, managing daily operations and, like Oomkens and Grassotti, taking shifts behind the bar.

White Label is to Dutch specialty coffee what Nirvana is to early 90s Seattle rock: not necessarily the scene’s pioneers, but the group with the most impact, quickly winning over purists and piggybackers alike. When Sprudge interviewed Oomkens and Grassotti in 2015, their Amsterdam micro-roastery was a bit over a year old though very much in bloom. Both were relatively new to specialty coffee, and branding themselves as brandless—a white label—was part memo, part mantra to maintain “a clean, open-minded state,” Grassotti had said. Oomkens chimed in, elaborating: “Francesco came up with that. It’s just the unwritten-piece-of-paper idea, something that’s open, not bothered with prejudgments.”

Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti amsterdam netherlands

A half-decade later, White Label’s wholesale, nationwide and international, is a big enough undertaking to have spilled out of the back of their cafe and into a rented ex-classroom at Amsterdam’s nightclub-cum-cultural complex De School. In March, White Label participated in the first-ever Roast Masters; even though Oomkens and Grassotti “don’t really believe in the competition,” as the former says, and disapprove of its requisite espresso blending, they did not hold back their three eager staff roasters from competing—and they won.

Despite or perhaps because of all the successes so far, setting up a shop this time around, with Schuurman, they had a clear vision. “It was obvious that we just [didn’t] want another coffee place,” states Oomkens. They definitely wanted natural wines and warmed to the incorporation of a kitchen.

This past spring, the wine list at Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti had no fewer than a couple dozen entries. Categorized as sparkling, white, orange, and red wines, along with a few under beer and cider, all are sold by the bottle and half come by the glass as well. Oomkens credits Figo van Onno, owner and sommelier of Amsterdam restaurant Choux for originally turning him and his colleagues onto natural wines. Nowadays Van Onno, under the name Zuiver Wijnen, is one of three importers that Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti’s own in-house wine coordinator, Eefje Slabbekoorn, relies on; Clavelin and Winestories are the others.

Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti amsterdam netherlands

For drinkers seeking more lift than lull, however, there’s no shortage of coffee. Espresso shots are pulled on a three-group La Marzocco Linea PB. All the filter coffee—of which there is an extensive menu, columnized as “nutty and chocolaty” or “bright and fruity”—is prepared with a Moccamaster. The classic Dutch brewer’s Jubileum ‘68 models complement the surroundings’ light-touch mid-century modern design, but Oomkens notes that the choice to use the machines there and at White Label was foremost flavor-driven.

Breakfast, bar snacks, and lunch are available daily; dinner is currently served all nights but Monday. The menu changes according to seasonal availability.

“We’re trying to approach it the same way we approach the wines and the coffee,” says Schuurman. “Being food, the ability or the chances to source it locally are a lot bigger than with coffee.”

Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti amsterdam netherlands

Meats come from De Marsen, a nature reserve north of Amsterdam, and fish from the Goede Vissers stall at the city’s Saturday Noordermarkt. French chef Pauline Jacob currently leads the kitchen with precision and panache. On a recent visit, her team demonstrated how alluring and affordable vegetarian meals can be. Just 25.50 Euros covered three delicious dishes: a medley of mushrooms and potatoes garnished with seaweed and wild garlic butter; a warm bean salad with radishes and vermouth-vinaigretted baby gem lettuce; and for dessert, a buckwheat pudding in a lemon-verbena syrup, all topped with a dollop of dill hangop, candied buckwheat, and rhubarb.

It should be noted that Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti is not the only good food and wine spot to have arisen from or in adjacency to specialty coffee. Scandinavian Embassy was an early host of coffee dinner parties, and spawned cafe/wine bar/restaurant 4850. Fellow Amsterdam micro-roasters Friedhats’ new flagship, FUKU, is among several specialty cafes licensed to sell alcohol and choosing to go au naturel. The Dutch capital is waking up to natural wine.

Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti amsterdam netherlands

Still, an attribute that sets Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti apart is its accessibility. The staff has a uniquely personable mix of humility and knowledge-sharing generosity. This trait was also observable by Schuurman on first making acquaintance with his employers, back when he was a customer hanging out after work and on weekends at his local coffee bar, White Label.

“That’s what always appealed to me so much about White Label, that it’s not snobby. A lot of times in specialty coffee now as well for me, it tends to become really snobby, like you have to be someone to be able to enjoy this,” he says.

Schuurman maintains the same outlook today, from the other side of the counter.

“What really drives me is the service towards people,” he emphasizes. “No matter what background you have, no matter how much you know about coffee or how little you know about coffee—the same goes for wine—in my eyes, everyone should be able to come here and enjoy it and get something that they like.”

Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti amsterdam netherlands
Call it Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti, call it De Schuur (there is, in fact, a small wooden shed in the backyard used for storage). Whatever you call it, know that coffee, wine, and food are united here in a way that is bold and surprising yet totally welcoming. For Amsterdam, this is a holy revelation in the coffee-wine-food revolution.

Schuurmanoomkensgrassotti is located at Overtoom 558, Amsterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge

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