Category Archives: The places

Istanbul’s new coffee scene

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Istanbul is a place of great history, glory days and huge contradictions. It is also the place that the first coffee shop is said to operate, when Ottomans brought the magic beans in Contantinople around 1450.
Today this crowded city has numerous cafes, most of them serving traditional ibrik coffee in the special pot and some of them acting the modern way.

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During the last two years a new coffee scene has been created, contemporary coffee shops express the new wave and form a modern coffee culture in the city where was supposed to find only turkish coffee.
These two years I keep a close eye to the new coffee scene, participate in local events either as a judge to the contests held or by organising workshops.

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This Christmas I visited Istanbul during the first Coffee Festival. I organised three workshops on “sensory skills” and cuppings on different coffees. Not only professionals but also consumers attended, a big turnout, many more people came than originally expected.

In general Istanbul Coffee Festival achieved great success and this fact strongly confirms the new situation developing in Istanbul coffee. Kronotrop, Petra, Caffeetopia, Cup of joy, Brew Lab are some of the new coffee shops that star in the modern coffee scene.

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I visited Kronotrop in Cihangir neighborhood, in a bigger place that their previous spot, that now hosts Bew Lab. I enjoyed a Panama espresso, from Don Pachi farm, of typica variety. The reason I chose this particular coffee is that the beans come from a familiar source, Taf coffee has provide the green coffee to Kronotrop.

Seoul: tablets and coffee culture

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Seoul is for Asia what New York is for the world.
Overcrowded -but still very clean, with normal car noise. People move fast, everybody holds a tablet, they walk and chat, they move quickly, loading like internet pages. It is not possible for someone to get lost in this big city; people are very willing to help you find your way, using their tablets- the fastest way of giving information about anything. The politeness of its citizens is remarkable.

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I visited Seoul for the World Coffee Leaders Forum, the first international coffee forum in Asia.
It was held for the first time in 2012, in Korea and is officially supported by the International Coffee Organization. It is a series of discussions considering new trends, sustainable development, new methods, social reality as well as the future of coffee.
Coffee culture in Korea has developed greatly, the consumption has been increased, and although it may all started from instant (soluble) coffee on big coffeehouse chains, now there are a lot independent respectable coffee shops offering excellent coffee. Traveling to coffee origins, I usually meet green coffee buyers and that is how I get to know that some of them (in Korea) buy the best microlots.

During the event, I had the chance to visit some of these coffeehouses. The two I liked most are:

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Terarosa, a big coffeehouse near the embassy of Japan, in a neighborhood where offices and financial services are situated. The place has a major collection of old coffee objects and books. The beverages are made by skillful baristi and are served in old fashioned cups. I have known Lee, who is in charge for green coffee buys and the research of the exceptional raw material. I knew I would have found something really special. I had the chance to try the microlot Las Macadamias – 14, which took the seventh place in Guatemala Cup of excellence 2014.

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Libre, a coffee shop near Yonsei Univercity, small size, impessive services. We got lost and we were making rounds and rounds to spot it, as street blocks are small and even the tinest alley crossing local markets, is concidered a street and has a name. In Libre I sipped a Gesha espresso from Costa Rica, excellent cup with refreshing acidity.

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Quality at Brew Lab, Nicosia

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Here I am in Nicosia in Cyprus, to give a seminar about espresso and also to promote Taf Coffee in the local market. One year before I had visited Nicosia because a new espresso bar opened its doors for the first time, it was the Brew Lab. I am glad to return and so satisfied to see this coffee shop actually gained reputation only by insisting in quality.
Chris, the owner is devoted in Taf quality, he takes the right steps in preparation so that the beverages have
standard taste and hight quality.

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Nicosia, like Athens,  is currently facing economic crisis, however coffee services are not influenced. There is no quality discount. It reminds me a lot of the first months back in 2009 when Taf was launched in the Greek marketplace. We were in the middle of an economic hurricane; we had to insist again and again that even in hard times you must chase high quality. Today we are sure that it was worth trying.

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The coffee I am trying is a single estate espresso from La Bandera farm, a red Catuai variety, from the region Copey de Dotta, in Tarazzu Costa Rica. The red beans have matured in altitude of 1850- 1950 m. above sea level. This was the lot I had chosen on March 2014 for its genuine cup profile and especially the intense sweet acidity, the brown sugar finish. I bought it for Taf and now here it is in my cup in Cyprus on a shiny day of 20° C, accompanying me in browsing the coffee book “The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee”. Chris prepared the espresso shot using 21 gr. of fresh coffee in the double portafilter of La Marzocco Linea, water temperature was 92,5 °C and extraction time 23 seconds.
The seminar of the ideal espresso preparation is about to start.

Josh et la fin d’été grec

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The calendar shows 17th of October 2014, in Athens temperature reaches 28 Celsius (in Greek islands is a bit higher). Greek summer is not finished just yet.  For the last years Josh lives in Mykonos – from early May until late October, while spends the rest of the year between Tokyo and Zurich. He is a passionate believer in quality and invests his time into writing his blog mesubium where he shares techniques, recipes and ideas about gastronomy. When I asked why there is anything about his biography in his blog, he answered that he is not interested in receiving any recognition or interaction from the readers; he only likes sharing information about food, wine and taste. It is a blog about the meaning of food through the way of living. In mesubium some times he also writes fair critics about restaurants, so he doesn’t want to reveal his name. People sometimes are not ready to accept strict critic on a restaurant with a Michelin star!

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 I visited him at home to say goodbye and we had the chance to discuss about a new concept coffee shop he is interested in developing. His home kitchen with high standard equipment is similar to a professional one and of course the espresso machine is GS 3 Marzocco.  We tasted Ethiopia Sidamo Guji Garde 1, six days after roasting by Taf. This freshly roasted coffee gave us a marvelous cup profile: sweet, creamy with citrus acidity and black tea finish. I made it using 19 gr. on a temperature of  92,5 Celsius degrees on GS3.

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We enjoyed our shots after a vegetarian- vegan lunch that Josh had prepared as he knows my preferences in vegan food. Along with the coffee we also enjoyed the house’s amazing panorama, at the edge of the hill in Psarou gulf, the endless serene Aegean sea. Unforgettable shots in this astonishing environment with the quiet view fed us with ideas about Josh’s future coffee shop.

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The great closure of the evening came with an old Yellow Chartreuse, the famous liqueur made by monks using 130 herbs and flowers. It was named after the monastery at Chartreuse Mountains in France.  Josh tried an old trick to take out the cork: “The cork made me fish it with a metal rod, a handy tool, I used a 1mm inox spear as the cork tried to slide into the bottle. This is a very useful technique to grab a falling cork. This yellow Chartreuse was marvelous with a unctuous floral viscosity – a perfect bottle of delicious medicinal sweet digestif”, writes on mesubium.

La fin d’été grecque. A beautiful day to end Greek summer.