My journey into specialty coffee

Henning the coffee guy

I get asked a lot how I got into specialty coffee. 

This is actually really simple. I was an avid coffee drinker all my life. I am not claiming that the coffee was any good for the majority of it. I started with around 15 - drinking about a pot every day preferably with my buddies while hanging out. I then moved to bean to cup machines in the office (probably the best coffees in my pre-specialty phase) - I had a  pad machine in between and later a capsule machine. A Mokka Pot was usually with me on trips. 

I can claim that I did not have a cup of instant coffee in my whole life. I tried a sip once and ended up drinking tea. 

I worked in IT for most of my adult life and my coffee consumption was high. When I gave up my career to do “something different”, I started reading about coffee - then I ordered my first bag of specialty coffee and I was instantly sold. I read more, roasted in a popcorn pot over my camping gas hob, drank better coffee and ended up buying a sample roaster.

I never knew coffee could taste like this. No milk, no sugar needed to cut through the bitterness, instead only fantastic flavours in my cup. Just like a little bit of magic.

I love good quality food and try to live without mass-produced produce wherever possible. I know the flavours are different and unique and I love it. 

The same is true for coffee. How would I have known about a fruity Ethiopian bean? Or a chocolatey Brazilian. There are more coffees out there than I will ever be able to sip - but I might as well try. 

I am eternally fascinated by the fact that a bean inside a cherry-like fruit can fool us into thinking there is mango in the coffee - or raisins - or jasmine tea. Without any infusion of those flavours. 

I love being able to bring out these flavours and to create coffees that bring a sparkle to whoever tries it.

Coffee is like a Pandora's box - full of Pandora's boxes. We have not yet grasped enough of the topic on a purely scientific level, that it still feels a little bit like magic. 

I am certainly under its spell.