Thanks for having me!

I usually get inspired by ordinary people and their ordinary stories.

A woman sitting in front of me on a train with really loud music in her ears, or a tragically stupid guy from a reality TV show I'm watching. 

I love it when I can see silly hopes or dreams come shining through, there’s a lot of humor in these things. 

Irrelevant stock photos used in Facebook ads or bad angles of people in vacation pictures.

You see, I don’t even have to go outside too often, to get inspired.

In my sketchbook and on the walls of friends :).

I only recently started to take myself seriously as an illustrator, so I hope to be drawing for some fun occasions or magazines in the near future.

For those who love sending cards, keep an eye on my label ‘dutsclub’, I will be releasing a new series of illustrations there soon!

Haha, yes I can do a decent Shakira!

Impersonating her is also one of my favorite pick-up tricks. :)

I got interested in all forms of art at a very young age, and never really wanted to quit one.

Not because I'm particularly good at all of them, but because they really complement each other and can’t replace one with another.

Music and singing give me energy, theatre is best for articulating all my thoughts, and drawing puts me in a meditative state of mind.

These are different compartments of the brain, and I love putting them all to work.

But the downside, it also might take me a lot longer me to become a real pro in all of them!

I’m a big fan of Rebekka De Wit’s writings.

She’s so funny and to the point.

I love her observations on life. 

If she ever needed illustrations to go with her written words, I would love her to call me!

More than ever, I love going to the market on Saturdays (Theaterplein), because it’s the closest feeling to being at a festival.

I know it’s risky with all those people, but I miss those moments when you lose track of the conversation with a friend, because of all the distractions happening around.

I don’t really have a favorite area in the city, but I do like a walk or run on Linkeroever from time to time. 

There’s something about looking at de Schelde, that calms me down.

I’m not someone who can’t start the day without a shot of cafeïne, so you won’t find me in coffee bars really early.

I love to get some work done in the morning so that I can really enjoy my coffee at noon at Normo.

That way, I don’t feel guilty if I hang around a bit longer than I planned.

After a long time of thinking about starting a roastery with Noir and when Jasper and Dick moved back to Belgium in the summer of 2019, we started roasting in a rented location a few kilometers from Leuven.

It took a few months for us to officially found the company and now, one year later, we have our own roasting space and a Probat P5 next to the Stella Artois brewery.

However, the founders of Tāne have been working in coffee for a while.

Kris opened up his café (Noir) in Leuven 9 years ago. Jasper worked for coffee companies in Australia, NZ, The Barn in Berlin and 32cup in Antwerp.

Lastly, Dick has worked in the coffee fields in Indonesia, for an Amsterdam-based specialty importer and in Kris’ café as a student for a few years before joining forces.

We are a Cooperative by design.

This means that our customers can become a part of Tāne and co-decide what coffees we would source.

The idea is to share the knowledge with those with the same values as much as possible.

Those parts of the CV can decide to learn more about roasting and eventually rent the machine to do their own batches.

We want to open up the coffee industry by sharing knowledge and skills instead of focusing on keeping everything a trade secret.

The specialty coffee industry is very young and needs to be more sustainable in every aspect.

By being a cooperative we want to join forces with our customers to push the industry forward.

All of these things are very true haha!

Dick and Jasper grew up around the area and Kris has lived and had a business there for over a decade.

The city is quite small but has a great influx of internationals every year.

Somehow, they tend to flock to coffee bars to meet new people or just read a book/study.

For a small city like Leuven, there is definitely an advanced coffee culture because of this.

You could re-use by ordering the refills on the website.

These are shipped in home-compostable bags which you can throw with the organic waste.

As soon as it arrives you can put the beans in your bottle or any other container.

Or perhaps you can take it to your nearest coffee bar and ask them to refill it for you.

Put any brand of specialty coffee in it we say!

As long as you’re avoiding single-use coffee bags, we’re happy!

The bottle is sealed, but this seal could make a popping sound when opened.

Don’t worry too much about pressure: the coffees are degassed first, and the bottle is strong enough to take what pressure still builds up.

To be honest, the psychedelic coffee series started as an inside joke and we just had a lot of fun with it.

When we first released the Biloya (anaerobic natural) from Ethiopia we found this trippy video edit of an aerobics class with a techno track in the background which we had to share!

It was the moment we decided not to take ourselves too seriously anymore and just mess around a bit.

The coffees in the series either have a non-standard processing method, come from cool/unique origins, are new varieties or are simply so funky that you’re not sure what you’re tasting.

Erik: After I graduated from sociology, I was not sure what should be my job so I decided to travel to Rwanda as a volunteer for half of a year.

I didn´t like coffee at all before.

I suppose it was connected with the quality and roasting of mainstream coffee in Europe before 2010, in general, the quality was very bad.

In Rwanda I stayed in the middle of the mountains, surrounded by coffee and tea farms.

I never forget one specific light-roasted, specialty coffee made in a French press that I tried there.

It completely changed my perspective on coffee.

After that, I knew I wanted to offer the opportunity also to other people to enjoy such good taste.

We co-founded Goriffee with my younger brother Matej and his former classmate Amir who became one of the best roasters in Central Europe since then.

Definitely, I like art.

It is also my second job.

As a writer, I published 4 books – 2 books of poetry and 2 novels.

But it has become more like a hobby now when I do business most of my days.

And what about art in Bratislava?

It is full of small galleries with contemporary art, for example, the Antimuseum of Julius Koller.

Before pandemics were very alive, with a lot of options for concerts, theaters, etc.

Now it is of course a bit more difficult during pandemics, with not many cultural events going on.

You can still find real wilderness in Slovakia, but for sure there won't be a reason for a fight as wild animals are really scared of people which is very reasonable.

And we have the same,  sad problem as the rest of the world - the wilderness is in retreat.

There is a big movement to claim 5% of the country as a non-intervention area by law.

But there is too much corporate interest in our forests, I am not going to mention specific... yeah well, IKEA.

Anyway, Slovakia is a good spot if you like skiing, hiking, spas, caves, castles and great wine.

And I never thought about this one until last summer when my friend from the UK was visiting, there is a humongous amount of ice cream spots here, and people even wait in long queues to get their ice cream.

It seems Slovaks really love it, so if you also love ice cream it could be like paradise here for you.

Yes, we tried.

There is a crazy amount of natural springs here which you can drink directly without any filtration.

But sadly most of them have too high TDS for coffee.

Some of them are even naturally sparkling, we tried also that.

The effect is similar to adding baking soda to your espresso :))

I think the Slovak specialty scene is on a good level and mature after the last decade of evolution.

I can recommend for example Diamonds Roastery or Illimite.

It all started in 2012 when my father decided to open small coffee roasters next to his house.

I was a student back then.

Next year I decided to join him and started to roast coffee!

I was a love at first sign!

Since then we moved to a bigger place and changed our name to HAYB Speciality Coffee.

We were thinking about a new name for our roastery and it was my friend who invented the name!

We were thinking about something unique and unusual.

It comes from „how are you doing?”. „How are you brewing?”

was supposed to be our name but then we realized the abbreviation of it sounds great!

That's how HAYB name popped up!

We are working with the best European importers like: Falcon or Ally, but also with smaller importers that are working only with specific farms from Ruanda or Brasil.

We are focusing on the freshest crops available so the coffee is fresh and doesn’t lay in warehouses for months before roasting.

It's a usual way I would say, but we are doing our best to develop relations with farmers so we can import directly from them.

The most important thing is good quality water and products.

If you have those two things- keep it simple with brewing! 6g coffee for 100g water, temperature 96C.

Do not change too many parameters.

Play with grinding settings and find a perfect spot so coffee is properly extracted!

It's a family business, since the beginning it's me and my father :)

I love traveling.

I’m doing my best to explore the world as often as possible!

I love South America.

Right before the global pandemic, I visited Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

I can’t wait till it all will be over and we will be able to travel freely!

My other hobbies are sport, cooking and wine!

Haha, yes!

We have like two guys who are dubbing everything.

Fortunately, all movies in cinemas are with subtitles :)

“I have my Q grader certification tomorrow so fingers crossed guys <3"