For the first time, coffee from Vienna (AT), and not three but four coffees this month.
Friends we can always count on in need from Bucharest (RO), and a bit of Urban Exploring in Nederokkerzeel (BE)
Recently, he has discovered the wonderful world of specialty coffee.
He captures all this in his unique way.
Jerry is already a fan of your work for a while.
Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
It’s a real honor to be featured by you!
As you know, I got quite late into coffee myself, but you turned me into an addict really fast. :)
I have been into (urbex) photography for a few years now.
I love capturing forgotten places where time stood still for many years.
Besides photography, I also do some videography.
Google Maps takes me places, and my camera captures it and of course, a good cup of coffee to get going.
Have there been any recent discoveries?
Whenever I go traveling I always check if something is interesting nearby.
Can you explain this one a bit?
Cara is the ideal beer to cool down during a hot summer, especially if you drink it at room temperature or heated in a microwave.
Photography is a creative outlet for me, I will keep on posting my perspective of the world.
Been playing guitar for over 20 years now, and I always need some good tunes surrounding me.
I’m also a big movie buff, especially classic cinema, from the silent era ‘till the late 80’s.
So doing better than, doing more than, the existing norm.
For most people, Normo needs no introduction.
It started as hanging around in coffee bars as a student product development.
In 2008, he started his coffee bar and in 2011 he began to roast his coffee.
Who does the beautiful branding of Roastopus?
We had seen Miklós’ works several times before, and only his personality which we got to know at the first meeting was more impressive than his projects.
We knew in an instant that we had to proceed with him.
An energetic personality and handles the complete process of appearance as a whole, every detail is important to him.
Can you tell us about the coffee scene over there?
We think the direction is good, but we still have a lot of work to do, we want to introduce as many people as possible to how magical and diverse coffee is.
However, this is how we were able to ensure that everyone deals with the subfield that really interests them, and is therefore really good at it.
Broadly speaking, among the company's founders, Gabi is responsible for marketing and all official matters, Ákos is the man of numbers, and Balázs' area is everything related to coffee.
We would not be able to list everyone, but we would like to thank everyone who contributes to our mission every day.
You can also rent a bicycle and go around the lake.
In autumn, the landscape is truly enchanting.
Also, it reaches a fairly large audience, so we share the experience with quite a few people.
We’ve bean waiting for you! :)”
Exactly one year ago we had the honor to have Brander.
Awesome branding and definitely mouth-watering coffees!
Can you give us a bit of background on your career so far?
We fell in love with specialty coffee the year before, and after a lot of training and testing, we launched our coffee.
Nowadays you can find our coffee in gastronomic restaurants, coffee bars in Belgium and abroad, and at the homes of coffee enthusiasts.
Have you never had plans to do more with this, some artwork for example?
By the way, it is called Titus.
Others used it to print on T-shirts and other stuff.
But we stick to coffee.
It determines the taste enormously.
While roasting, it is our goal to respect the work of the farmer and reveal all the flavors that are in the beans.
If you roast too dark, you lose a lot.
That is why we love light roast coffee.
Because some nice coffee (like Brander for instance) is roasted outside the large cities.
We will learn the Italians about good coffee ;)
We love to walk the dog and enjoy simple things in life.
"Enjoy!"
Like every month, we are looking for the best coffee roaster.
This month we are in Vienna, drinking coffee at Jonas Reindl.
And do you know why they invented the croissant, yes yes not the Frenchmen ;-).
Across the street from our first Café stands the Viennese traffic construction Schottentor, which is the inspiration for our name.
Major Franz Jonas had it built in 1961.
The word “Reindl” is Viennese for an oval cooking pan.
Since this tram station resembles a Reindl’s shape, the locals dubbed it “Jonas Reindl”.
"We know which farms our coffee seeds come from and undertake origin trips to see these fascinating estates for ourselves.
We appreciate the hard work and the risk that farmers take, by choosing to grow coffee varieties renowned for their unique flavour rather than their yield.
We roast and brew to extract the full potential of the coffee in your cup; that is how we honour the hard labour, that was put in before us at the farm-level."
Friends we can always count on in need from Bucharest!
So does this mean that 'I know Jerry from Toronto' has been a good experience?
We love to collaborate with subscription boxes, we think it’s a great way to experience many different coffees and roast styles.
We hope Jerry will keep on growing.
Has it changed much in the meantime?
Yes, the pandemic life.
It was nice actually, it gave us some time to develop some new projects.
This spring we managed to fulfill one of those dreams we kept postponing: we opened a flagship store in the heart of Bucharest where you can come and drink any of the coffees in our offer and learn more about each of them.
People's habits changed: the office areas are semi-deserted, and people don’t grab their coffee on their way to work as they used to, so the areas for coffee shops to strive are different now and the approach is more of a leisure experience.
This is great because we always said that coffee and specialty coffee in particular is all about the experience: the sensory experience and the human experience.
So the coffee scene changed, some coffee shops closed but so many learned their lesson from what failed, and with newfound energy a wave of coffee shops opened in spring.
“It is close to miraculous and you should cherish it.”