Tim Wendelboe

New website in english, this blog will be moved

2008-12-07T20:26:00.003+01:00

I am happy to announce that we finally can launch our website in English.
That means this blog will be moved to our new site. (We will no longer post anything on bogspot.)

If you are subscribing to this blog, I recommend visiting http://timwendelboe.no/news/ and start subscribing to our news feed.

We will be continuing posting news and rants about coffee on the new site.

Thanks to Chris Kolbu for HTMLing the new site.

The second film

2008-12-04T23:37:00.003+01:00

Here is the second film in our production.
The film is about adjusting the espresso grinder.
We hope you like it.

Critical documentary about Fair trade

2008-12-03T18:08:00.002+01:00

Our national television NRK sent a very interesting and critical documentary about fair trade yesterday.
You can watch it here

Although we endorse the principals of sustainable trading and also care about the welfare of the workers that in our case pick our coffee, we have never been huge fans of the fair trade organization.

The reason for this is because we believe it does not benefit the farmer in long term, because there is too little focus on the quality of the coffee and the certification is too expensive and the control system is not efficient.
We have also experienced that most fair trade stamped coffee is of poor quality.

Therefore we have a different take on the principals of fair trade:
We pay more for better quality and try to create a relationship with the coffee farmers in order to make them focus on quality of the coffee as well as for their workers. You can only get the farmer and the picker to do a better job if you pay them well for it.

An example of this is our project in Colombia with Finca La Lomita. We are currently paying USD 2,50 per pound of green coffee for Mr. Alvaro Diaz' coffee which is over USD 1,20 above the market price and the fair trade price. We know that Mr. Alvaro Diaz is getting his money and we know he pays his workers well.
How do we know? We communicate with him and we visit him and talk to him and his neighbours as well as with the cooperative he works with.

Although we are paying more for a better coffee, we cannot call the coffee "fair trade coffee". Despite this my conscience is a hell of a lot better.

Yet another film

2008-12-02T18:12:00.002+01:00

Here is another film that was made by Mediaplanet a month ago.
It is not part of our film series, but I thought you might enjoy it anyway.

&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;

(And, yes, I had cold during the shooting of this film..)

Our own films: introduction to espresso

2008-12-01T23:48:00.000+01:00

We are very happy to present a series of short films about espressopreparation and milk steaming basics. The films are made in assosciation with espressospesialisten in Norway and will be published on their and our website.

The films were actually shot over a year ago, but due to my busy schedule and some new adittions to the family of the editor, it has taken a lot of time to get them finished.

Credits and thank you to Patrick Watz from espressospesialisten to give us the kick in the ass so that we finally made our film plans become reality.

Our very own Ola Brattås, who has a history of being a film director, is currently in the editing room to put his final touch on the films.
Therefore we will launch the films one by one as they get ready.

Here is the first one:

Of course it is in Norwegian at this point, but we might have to translate and dub them in English in the future.

If you liked the first film, make sure you pop in to our blog every day during the following 2 weeks and you will get more...

Mr. Alvaro Diaz of Finca La Lomita in the news

2008-11-30T15:57:00.000+01:00

Here is a link to a small article about Finca La Lomita and Mr. Alvaro Diaz getting payed a premium (by us) for his quality coffee. Scroll down on the page and you will see a picture of his wife and son as well as the boss of the cooperative he is part of.

Last batch of Gatundu

2008-11-30T15:43:00.000+01:00

We roasted the last batch of Gatundu this week.
Unfortunately we have run out of this lovely Kenyan coffee.
If you haven't tried it yet, or if you are one of the Gatundu fans, I recommend trying the last brew of it on an Aeropress.

After our internal Aeropress championship, Tim Varney brewed a really characteristic and well balanced cup of the Gatundu coffee. His recipe is as follows:

18 grams of slightly fine filter ground Gatundu
2dl water straight from the water boiler.
15 seconds steep time after 3 vigourous stirs.
Press and enjoy.

For a picture series of how to brew with the Aeropress visit our Flickr page.

New espresso blend

2008-11-26T00:25:00.000+01:00

Our new espressoblend is now for sale.
New seasonal coffees have arrived from Colombia and Ethiopia and therefore we want to highlight the new coffees in our espresso blend.

The blend now consists of 4 coffees:
30% Finca La Lomita, a washed Caturra from Huila, Colombia.
30% Mununga, a washed coffee from Kenya.
25% El Agrado, also a washed coffee from Huila, Colombia
15% Aricha #32, a natural processed coffee from Ethiopia.

As you might see from these coffees, the new blend is all about fruit flavour. Fruit, fruit, fruit and more fruit. Tutti Frutti, you might say. It is a very nice contrast to the previous blend that had 50% Indian coffee in it with tons of chocolate flavour.

The Lomita coffee contributes with citric acidity and a very soft and pleasant aftertaste. The El Agrado is a bit more citric and has more body at the same time. The Kenya contributes with sweetness and pulpy black currant and rose hips flavour. The Aricha is all about flowers and strawberries, ripe sweetness and creamy mouthfeel. Add all these together and you get a very fruity, bright, lively and sweet espresso.

For a full flavour profile, you need to either taste the blend yourself or read it on the bag in the store.

We hope you like it.

New Aricha lot for sale

2008-11-17T12:51:00.001+01:00

Finally the Aricha #32 has arrived.
If you fell in love with our previous Aricha #7, you are going to love this new Aricha lot #32. This is a natural processed coffee from Ethiopia with an exceptionally clean and intense fruity flavour. The taste of the coffee is very similar to Aricha #7 and fortunately the green coffee is vacuumpacked to ensure optimal freshness and taste.

The Aricha #32 will be for sale after 2pm on Tuesday the 18th of november for kr. 160,- pr. 250 grams.

Here are the taste notes:
Aroma: Fresh fruity aromas of fresh strawberries with cream and stonefruits.
Acidity: Ripe and refreshing berrylike acidity.
Mouthfeel: Very creamy and sweet. Refreshing aftertaste remniscent of ruby grapefruit and hoppy beer.
Flavour: Intense fruity flavours of strawberries, stone fruits, hoppy beer (IPA) and jasmine. As the coffee cools, flavours of ruby grapefruit and fruity and floral hops are more present.

The coffee is extremely lightly roasted to intensify the fresh fruity flavours and aromas.
Coffee from Aricha has been of great success this year. Not only did the Swedish Barista Champion, Daniel Remheden get 4th place in the World Barista Championship this year using only Aricha coffee, our very own barista Chris Kolbu used it as a part of his presentation when he took 9th place in the same competition.
We also won the Nordic roaster competition this year, competing with the sold out Aricha lot #7.

Coffee from Finca La Lomita finally for sale

2008-11-11T12:55:00.000+01:00

This years main crop of Finca La Lomita is finally for sale in our store.

The taste description is as follows:

Aroma: Hints of red forest berries and orange blossom.

Acidity: Mature and refreshing berry-like acidity.
Mouthfeel: Juicy and soft coffee with great balance. Long, sweet aftertaste remniscent of sugar cane.
Flavour: Complex coffee with floral, fruity and chocolate notes. Notes of red mature forest berries molasses and cane sugar.

We will also start using this coffee in our espresso blend in a couple of weeks.

Lomita is in the house

2008-11-06T20:29:00.000+01:00

The coffee from Finca La Lomita arrived this week.
We will roast the first batch for sale next tuesday.
More info to come...

New coffee, new blend

2008-10-27T15:49:00.001+01:00

Since we are out of Aricha #7, we have made a new espresso blend.
This will be the blend until we get the new coffees from Aricha and Colombia in just a week or 2.

The new espresso blend consists of:
50% Badnekhan Estate, washed coffee from India
50% Mununga, washed coffee from Kenya.

The flavour profile is:

Aroma: Smell of marzipan, chocolate and raisins.
Acidity: Berry-like and ripe acidity.
Mouthfeel: Heavy sweetness and creamy texture.
Flavour: Cocoa, biscuits and chocolate notes with hints of raisins and nuts.

We have also started selling Mununga, a washed Kenyan AB, alongside our best seller Gatundu, a washed Kenyan PB.

The Mununga is a bit sweeter than the Gatundu and the flavour profile is a bit different:

Aroma: Intense aromas of melted butter and blackcurrants
Acidity: Mature blackcurrant and grapelike acidity.
Mouthfeel: Marmelade like sweetness. Lively and refreshing.
Flavour: Blackcurrant marmelade, rose hips, hibiscus and raisins.

We only have 80 kilos left of the Gatundu peaberry, which is the crispiest and most intense Kenyan coffee we have had so far. Make sure you get to try the Mununga side by side the Gatundu before it disappears.

Video from Finca La Lomita

2008-10-20T14:04:00.000+02:00

During my visit to Finca la Lomita last month, my friend and exporter Mr. Alejandro Renjifo shot some film on my handycam.

Although Mr. Alvaro Diaz is speaking spanish and it might be hard for those who don't know any spanish, most of the things he is talking about is translated by Don Alejandro.

There is some great information on the video, and it reflects on the everyday life of a coffee grower. I personally find it very interesting.

There are also a lot of pictures from the farm here.

While we are waiting

2008-10-17T16:18:00.000+02:00

When I was in Colombia a couple of weeks ago, I visited Cooccentral, the cooperative where we found the Finca La Lomita coffee last year.
I arrived there on the sunday night after being a cupping juror in the 2008 Colombia the Cup of Excellence, so my palate was pretty calibrated and fine tuned to detect excellent coffees. We were presented 6 coffees on the table and we tasted them blindly. In other words, I did not know which coffees we were tasting.
After a 30 minute quiet cupping, we all agreed that one of the coffees on the table were outstanding and of very high quality. I described it as extremely sweet like sugar cane, fruity and floral aromas and flavours and a very nice balance. I scored it 89 points out of 100, using the Cup of Excellence format.
When we revealed the grower of the coffee, it turned out to be my friend Mr. Alvaro Diaz of Finca La Lomita.

Once again he had surprized me with his excellent coffee.
Since one of my reasons for going to Colombia was to visit Mr. Alvaro Diaz, I was extra happy to be able to tell him when I met him the day after that his coffee was tasting great.

We have now agreed upon working together in order to improve his coffee and of course his quality of life even more. Therefore we have agreed that we will buy his coffee for a premium price of USD 2,50 per pound (456grams) for the next 3 years, if he is able to deliver good quality. This is far above market price which in Colombia as of today is about USD 1,50 per pound for his quality of coffee. For Mr. Alvaro it means an extra dollar per pound straight in his pocket.

In return for getting better payed, Mr. Alvaro will invest in better equipment on his farm and also do a lot of changes in order to improve quality of the coffee, reduce his impact on nature and also improving the life of his family.

If you want to read and learn more about the project, we have uploaded a lot of pictures and text on our Flickr account.

Book recommendation

2008-10-17T12:55:00.000+02:00

Last year we got a book in the mail from Mr. Scott Rao.
Unfortunately, since the opening of Tim Wendelboe, there has not been a lot of time left for reading books.
The Professional barista's handbook written by Scott Rao is a great read and a must for all professional as well as the espresso enthusiast.

The book describes brewing techniques to the fullest and is up to this day the most updated book on the market when it comes to espresso extraction.

And while you are reading, it might be wise to also enjoy a last cup of our Aricha #7...

The last of the Aricha #7

2008-10-17T10:31:00.000+02:00

The wonderful Aricha #7 from Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia is having it's final days here at Tim Wendelboe. Aricha has been very good to us, it helped Chris perform so well in the World Barista Championships in Copenhagen this year and more recently contributed to us winning the Nordic Roasters Cup.

Please don't miss out on experiencing this incredible coffee. We have about 10 250g bags remaining for sale and as always it is available on the Clover - can't promise there will be much left after the weekend...

Aeropress recipe

2008-10-14T13:10:00.000+02:00

We have published a 10 step recipe on how to make great Aeropress coffee.
Go to our Flickr page to see it.

We are still looking for a part time worker

2008-10-01T21:37:00.000+02:00

Go here to read more.

2008 Colombia Cup of Excellence Winner

2008-09-20T04:19:00.000+02:00

The winner of the 2008 Colombia Cup of Excellence is Mr. Eduardo Valencia, Finca Villa Loyola in Narino.

This was by far my favourite coffee during the competition and I scored it twice at 97 points out of 100.

A spectacular coffee that is remniscent of red wine. The intensity of the flavours and acidity is amazing. My notes for this coffee were as follows:
Aromas: Vanilla, Floral, Fruity and buttery.
Acidity: Intense, crisp and red wine like (Burgundy). Very mature and lively.
Mouthfeel: Sweet, velvety and refreshing. Very transparent and clean. Spicy finish.
Flavour: Red currants, rose hips, black currants (when cool) Coffee blossom, hibiscus and grape juice. Some lingering cinnamon and sweet fruit in the finish.

A very well balanced and intense coffee. Just the way I like it!

I have to say that meeting the farmers and talking to them has by far been the most greatful moments of this trip. It is very moving to see how much this means to them and a great experience that every person involved in coffee should be able to experience.
I was lucky to get a picture with the person representing the winning farmer right after the award ceremony. He was of course very happy and busy talking with the Colombian press.

Now we will celebrate with a dinner with the farmers.

First days in Colombia

2008-09-17T20:33:00.000+02:00

The first round of tasting is over in Colombia, and after 44 coffees spread over 6 cupping sessions for 2 days I am relieved that we have found some great coffees on the table.

My personal favourite coffee was on the last table today and I really think that this coffee will win the 2008 Colombia Cup of Excellence if it is as good tomorrow.

Tomorrow (Thursday) we will taste all the coffees we have given 84 points or more again and all the coffees that still gets 84 points and more after tomorrows round will be auctioned out on the internet in just a few weeks. On Friday we will cup taste the ranking 10 best coffees and rank them in order.

It is very comforting to know that the coffees are being tested so many times as we have allready seen quite a few coffees that have had defects in the first round.

Tonight I will get statistics on how I have been scoring the coffees compared to the other jurors. I am really looking forward to see how that turns out. I have felt much more comfortable cupping this time and feel I have focused more than I ever have on a cupping like this. The cupping sessions have been extremely well organized which has given the jurors the perfect conditions to consentrate when scoring the coffees. Not to mention the beautiful cupping facilities.

Yesterday we all went to a farm in Caldas after the cuppings.
The farm was very beautiful and located on a steep hill with a beautiful view over the valleys in Caldas. The farmer showed us both his roasting facilities(he was roasting his own coffee to sell to the locals.) and his wet mill and of course his plantation.

I even got to pick my first coffee ever. Although this is not harvest season, the farmer showed us a couple of trees that had some ripe cherries on them.
Picking coffee really opened my mind and reminded me once again of how much work is behind each cup of coffee. I picked for about 10 minutes and probably got enough cherries to make 2 espressos. In adittion, the hills where the trees were planted were so steep I had to hold on to the tree in order not to fall down the hill. I can't even imagine how tough this job must be during the main harvest.
And some people still think coffee is expensive! Those people should be forced to work on a coffee plantation for a day or two...

Right now I am resting after all the cupping and waiting to go to another farm.
I will write more from Colombia during the week and for those of you who miss our La Lomita coffee, I am proud to announce that I will be visiting the Lomita farm on Sunday...

Here are some more pictures from Colombia:
Shade Grown coffee. The trees have been cut down to improve yield.

Sun drying coffee. Look at the steep hills in the background.

Discussing the coffees and checking score statistics after a cupping round is a good learning experience and quite fun too.

There are more pictures in our new flickr account

Colombia Cup of Excellence

2008-09-15T23:23:00.000+02:00

Only hours after our Nordic Roaster victory, I had to get on a plane leaving for Colombia. My quest is to be a jury member of the 2008 Colombia Cup of Excellence.

After 24 hours of travelling I arrived Manizales, where the cup tasting will take place.

Today, Monday he 15th, the jury of about 30 professional cup tasters from around the world cupped 3 rounds of 8 samples with 4 cups in each sample.
In the first 2 rounds we cupped the same 8 samples in the same order. It might seem a bit silly, but it took some time to get used to the slightly darker roast profile than I am used to as well as water and air at 2200 meters above sea level. The water boils at about 93 degrees celsius which means the coffee cools a lot faster than at sea level. It was also a very good excersize to cup the same coffees in 3 rounds, where the order was the same in the 2 first rounds and in the 3rd round the coffees had been switched around randomly in order to challenge the judges to find the coffee's number from the 2 previous rounds. This was a good way to check how consistent we are judging.
I was happy to see that I scored very consistently, except for one coffee where I came over some defects in one of the rounds.

I have to say that the coffees we cupped today was not fantastic, but fortunately they did not get high enough scores to reach the Cup of Excellence competition. ( A coffee needs more than 84 points out of 100, consistently through the 5 screenings that the Clomombian jury has gone through before the international jury gets to taste the coffees.) This means that we will probably taste much better coffees from tomorrow and on, when the real competition-cupping starts.

I can't wait to start the tasting tomorrow and it will also be fun to see if I am as consistent in my scoring as I was today throughout the next 4 days, because at most we will cup and score some coffess blindly 3 times, and we get all the statistics by the end of the competition.

The beautiful cupping surroundings in Manizales.

Nordic Roaster 2008

2008-09-14T00:03:00.000+02:00

We are very proud to announce that we actually won the Nordic Roaser 2008 competition.

This year the competition was only for filter coffees. 10 roasteries from the Nordic Countries participated in the Competition, and were asked to roast their best coffee or coffee blend to be brewed on a Bunn filter brewer. We could only choose the coffee, the roast profile (we roasted it in our own roasteries) and the amount of coffee to water ratio.

All the attendees at the Nordic Roaster Event that took place on the 12th and 13th of September got to taste the different coffees blindly and they all got one vote each to vote on their favourite coffee.

We competed with a micro lot coffee from Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia called Aricha #7.
This coffee was roasted very lightly (Colorette 115) to preserve the coffees natural aroma and not to get any roasty notes in the cup. We truly believe that our coffees should reflect the terroir and its origin and therefore we roast our coffees very lightly in order not to get any roast flavours or diturbing aromas that was not in the green coffee naturally. The coffee was roasted on the 4th of September and was brewed and tasted on the 13th. That means 9 days of degassing in a sealed and nitrogen flushed bag. I have to say that it tasted beautiful today and this is actually one of my all time favourite coffees. Today it was really intense in flavour and it had a very clean and distinct aroma of strawberries, peach, jasmine and forest berries. Since this is a naturally processed coffee, the sweetness is also very mature and the mouthfeel is very creamy.
We recommended the Coffee to water ratio to be 70 grams per liter of water.

The Aricha #7 is of course for sale in our store for a whopping kr. 165,- per 250 grams.
This is a very small lot of coffee, so I think we will actually run out of ths coffee within 1 - 2 months, as it is allready one of our best sellers. But rumours has it that we are expecting a new lot called Aricha #32 pretty soon, as well as some other goodies from Ethiopia...

A big hand to Ola Brattås, our roast master, who roasted the coffee and also to all the staff at TW and our customers that challenges us every day so that we always strive to become better.

Cielito Lindo

2008-09-11T19:46:00.000+02:00

We are very happy to announce that from Friday the 12th of September our first ever self bought Cup of Excellence coffee will be for sale.

Cielito Lindo, the 4th place winner from this years Honduras Cup of Excellence went for a whopping 14 US$ per pound. In adittion we have vacuum packed the coffee, so sales price is NOK 700,- per kilo, but we think it is worth it.

We also make it on our Clover for 45 kr. a cup.

We have roasted this coffee very lightly to bring out its delicate fruity flavours and a juicy mouthfeel.

We really hope you like it.

Slow food

2008-09-09T12:58:00.000+02:00

We had some visitors from the Norwegian Slow food organisation.
Here is what they wrote about us. (In Norwegian)

My 10 year anniversary

2008-09-01T16:16:00.000+02:00

On Monday the 1st of September I celebrated 10 years in the coffee industry.

I remember I applied for a job at Stockfleth's Lille Grensen in late August 1998 and that I had a job interview with Mr. Arvid Skovli 2 days before the 1st of september that same month. Arvid told me that they needed people immediately since they had nobody working full time in the small coffee shop. Since we were only 2 people applying for 2 vacant jobs, we both got the job.

I actually did not drink coffee at that time (I had tried it, but did not like the coffee from the supermarket very much) and I had never heard about coffee shops either. However, I have to say that the coffee I drank at that job interview (a cup of Monsooned Malabar) really tasted delicious compared to what I had tasted before.

I got the job, and after a 3 hour espresso class with Mr. Willy Hansen on september 1st, at Solberg & Hansen, I started working in the coffee shop in Lille Grensen.

One thing lead to another and I soon started managing that store. After a couple of years, I met with Alexander Jensen who started working at Kaffefuglen in Oslo. He learnt some tricks from me and after a year or two, we opened more Stockfleth's branches together. Managing a lot of stores was not my right element, so I decided in 2005 to quit Stockfleth's in order to follow my own dream...

In the meantime I had already competed in some barista competitions with quite good results. And I have to say that these competitions have been some of the biggest influences in what I have learnt and how I approach coffee today.

Looking back, there are several things that have changed. Here are 4 of the most amusing:
1. I don't drink double mocha with hazelnut syrup anymore.
2. The espresso I serve is not 60 ml anymore, but less than 30ml. (maybe it will be
0ml in 10 years??) But it still costs 20 kr.
3. We don't sell coffee called Colombia anymore, but coffees from specific farms from Colombia.
4. I don't work for a boss anymore!

There are also a couple of things that never change:
1. Coffee is more fragile than ever, and the shelf life for roasted and green coffee is not very long.
2. Most people still need to buy a grinder.
3. Running a coffee shop is still hard work and features endless days and long hours behind the bar and computer.
4. Taste is what matters!

While sitting and eating a delicious cake (shaped like a coffee bean) that my wonderful girlfriend sent me, I can't help to think that everything I have accomplished is because I have had a great team of people around me during the last 10 years. (Including when I was freelance for 2 years)

There are numerous people that I would like to thank and that have influenced me in positive ways during the past 10 years in the coffee industry. I am not going to list them all here, because I think they probably know who I am talking about.

Last but not least, I would like to thank the TW crew: Ola, Tim V, Ingrid, Hanne and Chris. Thank you for being so patient and making TW into a wonderful playground for coffee.

I really hope to have fun in the coffee business for at least another 10 years.

Tim W

We still need a part time worker

2008-08-28T09:36:00.000+02:00

Go here for more information.

New espresso blend and new Indian coffee

2008-08-26T17:44:00.000+02:00

We have got a new Indian coffee from Badnekhan estate in store.
Badnekhan Estate is located in Karnataka in Chikmagalur in India and has won the Flavour of India Award several times. It is a very clean and sweet Indian coffee with aromas and flavours remniscent of nuts, cocoa and cedar wood.
The coffee is very subtle and is not overly bitter like many other Indian coffees tend to be. This is actually quite a delicate and sweet coffee to be an Indian.

We have also updated Tim Wendelboe espresso since some new coffees have arrived.
The new blend consists of:

40% Badnekhan Estate, washed SLn9, from Karnataka, India.
45% Mununga, washed SL28 from Kenya
15% Aricha #7, Naturl processed coffee from Aricha, Ethiopia

The flavourprofile of the new blend is:

Aroma: Sweet smell of strawberry jam, chocolate and nuts on the nose.
Acidity: Balanced mature acidity
Mouthfeel: Heavy sweetness, creamy texture and long bittersweet aftertaste.
Flavour: Cocoa and strawberry jam. very sweet and soft in the mouth. Aftertaste starts with fruityness and ends with sweet cocoa.

I really hope you enjoy the blend and the new Indian coffee. Personally I think this is the best espresso blend we have done so far.

Also, the Honduras Cup of Excellence coffee we bought is right around the corner, so it seems we will have a wonderful fall with great tasting coffees.

Square mile

2008-08-15T10:40:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we recieved a kilo of Square Mile and Stephen Morrissey's WBC espresso blend. (thank you Square Mile)

We will be serving shots from this blend on monday the 18th of august.
Since we only have one precious kilo, first come first serve principles are applied..

We need a part time worker

2008-08-12T12:49:00.000+02:00

Tim Wendelboe is aiming to be among the best coffee roasters in the world. The company will strive to be a leading resource within the coffee world.

We are currently seeking a part time worker that can work 1 to 5 shifts a week, preferably Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends.

Experience is preferred and an interest for coffee and taste is a must.

If you are interested, then visit our web page and send an application and a CV to the e-mail on the page.

If you want to read this "ad" in Norwegian, then visit or web page.

Nordic Roaster Event

2008-08-12T09:48:00.000+02:00

I am pleased to announce that Norway will be hosting a Nordic Roaster Event instead of the Nordic Barista Cup that did not happen this year.

Subjects that will be covered are:
Preventing fires in a roastery
Describing taste
Cup tasting different origins and roasts
Roasting techniques
Presentation of Dietrich roasters

and also the Nordic Roaster Competition will take place.

I recommend all roasters and people interested in roasting to attend.

More info here.

Goodbye to burlap

2008-08-07T10:43:00.001+02:00

During our first year of roasting, we have discovered a lot of things. Among them are that green coffee is much more fragile than we thought. When I started with coffee 10 years ago, I learned that green coffee was fresh for at least 1 year before it started tasting past crop (like dry straw) and lost its volatile aromas and freshness.
By our experience the truth is very far away from those old facts. Although our Kenyan coffees have shown great flavour after one year in storage, some of our central american coffees have faded a lot faster - anything from 2 to 4 months after arrival to Norway.

To prevent this from happning, we have experimentet a lot with vacuum packing the green beans and storing them in differet environments. So far we know that the burlap sacks (jutesekker) are very far away from an ideal storage container for coffee. The coffee normally tastes baggy after some time and looses its moisture and aroma quite fast. In an experiment we found that after only 4 months there was a huge diference between coffee that was vacuum packed in plastic bags vs. the coffee stored in burlap. The coffee in vacuum bags smells fresher, tastes fresher and has a more lively acidity and aroma.

Therefore, we have decided never to store our coffees in burlap again.
Although we always try to buy the green coffee and get it vacuum packed in the producing country, most of the coffees we get are transported in burlap. This is because the technology is "new" to the coffee industry and the equipment and extra labour is quite expensive. Fortunately, there are more and more buyers like us who insist on vacuum packing the coffee.

(3,5 tonns of Kenyan gold in our storage facilities)

I recently had to spend 2 full days, re-packing the coffees that just arrived from Kenya. 3,5 tonns of coffee has been packed and at some point it felt a bit idiotic to do so, but I know it will preserve our coffees better until next harvest. It also got me thinking of how much labour that is behind every kilo of coffee that we buy, and I remember especially the guys I saw in Colombia that were standing in a 40 degree celsius warehouse packing the green coffee, much like I had to do with this Kenyan coffee. I have to say that it is extremely hard labour.

And still some people wonder why some coffees cost more than others. In my opinion, coffee is still one of he cheapest luxury products there is..

(Hard working Colombian coffee packer - with a similar physique as my own)

New coffees

2008-08-04T09:22:00.000+02:00

We have got some great new coffees in store. We launched them during our Black week, which was quite fun.
The new lots are from Kenya and Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian is a natural processed coffee from Aricha in Yirgacheffe.
This coffee is developed by the Bagersh family together with green coffee exporters Ninety+. Although the coffee is a bit pricey (Nok. 660,- per kg) it is one of the best coffees I have ever had. It has a very floral tropical fruit and strawberry aroma.
A creamy, yet very juicy and refreshing mouthfeel. It has an incredably mature strawberrylike sweetness and the flavours we find is anything from ripe melon, tropical fruits, stone fruits and last but not least wild strawberries.

This coffee is so intense and full of flavour that when we serve it chilled like an iced coffee (like the signature drink in Chris Kolbu's WBC performance) we have gotten comments that it does not taste like coffee and more like fruit juice.
Some people feel that it really is too far away from what they say "coffee" should taste like, but I totally disagree. I believe that coffee really can taste like anything, and that the days where we tried to teach people what coffee SHOULD taste like are past and now we are more in to showing people what coffee really CAN taste like.

Fortunately the Aricha lot 7 is vacuum packed as green coffee in Ethiopia before it was shipped to ensure freshness. Unfortunately there is only about 400 kilos left of this coffee which equals about 300 kg of roasted coffee.

(Sun drying and sorting the ripest cheries is one of the reasons for the Aricha coffee's complex and mature flavours.)

Since the coffee is so good and the lot is so small, we have bought another Aricha lot no 32 that will arrive in september October. This coffee will arrive in burlap, so I have a small job vacuum packing it when it arrives Norway. This will hopeully ensure that we have enough of this delicious Ethiopian coffee until Christmas.

(The people behind the Aricha coffee. Notice the african drying beds for coffee in the background.)

We have also bought a fantastic small lot from Gatundu coffee growers society in Kenya. This lot is only 500 kg and is a washed peaberry selection. The coffee displays an extremely crisp acidity, mature berrylike sweetness and tons of black currant and rose hip flavours. It is a fantastic Kenyan coffee, but the quantity is very small. This might be due to the fact that Kenya has struggled with both coffee berry disease and also a lot of internal conflicts during the past year. Fortunately we also got our hands on a bigger lot from Mununga, that we are currently using in our Espresso blend.
Since this coffee has to last until next years harvest, I have allready vacuumpacked the coffee as soon as it arrived Norway in its burlap bags. The plastic vacuum bags really help keep the green coffee fresh until next years crop is ready for sale.

I really hope you like our new coffees. We are also expecting the Newly bought Honduras Cup of Excellence coffee to arrive in september and maybe some other good stuff too...

Honduras Cup of Excellence

2008-07-08T21:15:00.000+02:00

I am very happy to announce that we just bought the 4th place in the 2008 Honduras Cup of Excellence.

This is by far the best coffee I have tasted in all the Cup of Excellence auctions this year, and I am very proud to have payed 14$ per pound for the coffee (about 30 US$ per kilo) especially when about 80% of that money goes back to the farmer. (Fair trade price is about 1,30 US$ per pound)

I think this coffee really displays the very best Honduras has to offer and I remember it is very similar to the best coffees I tasted when I was in Honduras as a jurymember of the 2005 Cup of Excellence.

You can se all the results from the auction here.

I can't wait to get it to Norway so our customers can taste this fantastic coffee!

Time for a glass of champagne...
Yours truly
Tim

Happy 1st Birthday Tim Wendelboe's

2008-07-07T16:45:00.000+02:00

An incredible year a Tim Wendelboe's was celebrated this weekend with an impromptu BBQ in the park with the people closest to us. Tim got 4 different Blanc de Blancs and some of Oslo's finest sausages. We were the poshest people in the park.

It has been a huge year for us here, plenty of visitors from around the globe, some 20 or so amazing coffees, around 4 versions of the Tim Wendelboe espresso blend - moving with the seasons, great feedback and press, incredible professional staff - boasting the Norwegian barista champion and Norway's 4th best cupper ( i'm going to milk it a little more ).

Thanks to everyone for their support and contribution over the past year.

Our hats must come off to the man behind the name. Tim Wendelboe!

Congratulations!

Black week # 2

2008-06-30T12:51:00.000+02:00

New coffee lots from Ethiopia and Kenya has arrived and we will celebrate this by only serving black coffee, espresso and other black coffee drinks, both hot and cold, from Monday the 7th of July until Monday the 14th of July.

This means we will not be serving milk drinks during the whole week.

We assure you that you will be offered some great coffees with fantastic aromas, so this is a great chance for you all to try something new and get new taste experiences.

We will post more info about the new coffees during the week...

Congratulations

2008-06-23T14:49:00.000+02:00

First of all, a huge congratulations to Stephen Morrisey who won the 9th annual World Barista Championship. His performace had such fantastic energy and plenty of noted conversation starters on technique and his chrome dome signature drink.

We would also like to congratulate our part time barista Chris Kolbu for his fantastic performance which gave him the 9th place in the WBC, scoring only 11 points from a place in the finals.

We are really proud of the effort Chris has put in to the competition. Juggling university exams and training required a huge amount of energy. We also can't wait to get our hands on the recently arrived Ethiopian coffee he used in his presentation so that all our customers will have the chance to taste his signature drink. We will post more info on when this will happen soon..

We have all had a particularily special time in Copenhagen. The combinaion of catching up with new and old friends and generally the amazing amosphere created by the WBC.

We will post more info on when this will happen soon..

First we need some rest form all the champagne..

What a performance

2008-06-19T15:48:00.000+02:00

Chris has just completed his WBC presentation here in Copenhagen and what a great job he has done. Without jinxing it and giving away too much we are all really happy with his performance and are confident he'll score well. So now, we are relaxing and drinking some well deserved champagne...

Wonderful Copenhagen

2008-06-18T20:31:00.000+02:00

It's been two days in copenhagen for Team Norway and things have gone swimmingly. Tuesday was spent making last minute preparations and buying bits and pieces for Chris' presentation. Chris has been battling with the high pollen count of the Copenhagen air which has forced Tim and myself to feed him with various drugs to clear him up - in the process making him very drowsy. The guys at Kontra gave us the opportunity to play with some biodynamic and organic Danish milk, which proved to be just right for the cappuccinos.

Wednesday morning we started with a cracking breakfast in the Hotel Fox lobby and briskly moved onto the meet and greet at the WBC venue. A record 52 countries are competing this year, which include many solid baristas, who together create a vibrant and energetic atmosphere. Chris was given an hour to get a feel for the machine, taste the various roasts of the espresso with Danish water, perfect the milk and immerse himself in the presentation. The coffees, i must add, are tasting fantastic.

The 3 of us are very relaxed and have been rewarded with good preparation and fantastic help from various people including the Solberg & Hansen guys who shipped all the gear over, our beloved roaster Ola who has nailed the roast for the coffee, support and from the super barista gals back home - Ingrid and Hanne, and multiple others who have contributed in various ways.

Chris will be on tomorrow at 1pm and can be watched live, streamed from the WBC website.

WBC coming up

2008-06-17T18:26:00.000+02:00

Chris will be competing in the World Barista Championship at about 13.00 on thursday the 19th of june.
You can see live footage from the competition on the WBC website

We will of course blog a little bit about his performance on this blog.

Don't hesitate to write some cheering words for Chris in our comments section.

We all wish him good luck.

WBC Preparations

2008-06-09T23:39:00.000+02:00

Last night, the TW Crew and other expert members of the Oslo coffee world, got a taste of Chris' upcoming WBC performance. The details of the signature drink and concept of the presentation will be kept tight lipped - much like an upcoming Apple iphone release. That said, the focus of the presentation is simplicity and highlighting contrasting aromas and flavours.

Plenty of invaluable feedback was given to which Chris conscientiously noted. The next few days will be spend refining the presentation, perfecting the drinks and ironing table cloths. Thanks to all who were there to support and give feedback.

Nik Orosi

2008-05-21T09:49:00.000+02:00

The 2 times barista champion from Croatia, Nik Orosi is testing our coffee and will hopefully use it in his WBC performance in Copenhagen in June.

Nik is probably the only independent coffee shop in Croatia, Eli's caffe (Independent as in not having sold his soul to an Italian espresso brand in order to get cheap machines, cups, etc.) Nik believes in true quality of coffee and espresso and as we all know the true quality is not made by a brand, but the coffee farmer himself together with all the pickers, sorters, roasters, baristas, etc, etc.

We all wish Nik good luck with his WBC preparations and look forward to meeting him in Copenhagen in a month.

Nik in Tokyo WBC 2007

Organic miracle-product

2008-05-20T16:11:00.000+02:00

Did you know that spent coffee grounds is a great firtilizer for flower beds?
It will even keep cats, dogs and snails away from your flowers and garden bushes if you spread some spent grounds around the edges of the flower beds. The best part is that it is 100 % organic and also free (that is if you enjoy the coffee first.)

We have started to separate the spent coffee grounds from our garbage disposal, so if you are interested in collecting some coffee firtilizer, then contact us in the bar and we will be happy to give it away.

Appletree

2008-05-16T16:02:00.000+02:00

Congratulations to Appletree that opened last week in Vibesgae 15 at Majorstua.
Appletree is an interior design store that sells vintage and new stuff for interior design junkies. They also sell coffee from us either to go or to sit down and relax while you enjoy coffee and all he different stuff they have got in the store. The best part is that everything inside the store is for sale. Even the furniture that is used by the customers.

Here are some photos of the store in Vibesgate 15

New espresso blend

2008-05-06T16:24:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we released our new version of Tim Wendelboe Espresso.
We are moving more and more towards buying smaller coffee lots and have decided that Tim Wendelboe espresso should reflect the coffee season that we currently are within at all time.
This means that the blend not only will change more often but the taste will also be very different from blend to blend.

This time the blend consists of 2 Colombian coffees that I came across when I went to Colombia in November. In adittion we have added some Ethiopian coffee to compliment the floral notes in the colombian coffee.

The blend is now:
50% Tarqui Quituro, a washed coffee from a farm located in Huila in Colombia.
30% Finca La lomita, a washed coffee from Huila, Colombia (see previous post)
20% Bera Tadicho, washed coffee from a small coop located in Dale region in Ethiopia.

The flavour profile of this blend is as follows:
Aroma: Sweet smell of red berries an jasmin.
Acidity: Mature and ripe fruity acidity.
Mouthfeel: Soft, sweet medium bodied. Bittersweet grapefruit-like aftertaste.
Flavour: Red ripe berries, citrus and elderflower.

The roast profile is slightly different from our previous blends.
We have to roast the Sidamo coffee from Ethiopia separately but we roast the 2 Colombians together. We do this because we want to preserve the acidity and floral notes in the Ethiopian coffee and therefore we roast this it faster and lighter to just before 2nd crack begins. The colombians are roasted a bit slower and darker at 10 seconds within 2nd crack in order to get a full bodied and sweet espresso without roasting away the fruitiness of these two coffees.

Brew parameters for this blend should be close to :
• Brew water temperaure 93,5°C +/- 0,5°C
• 9 bar pressure
• about. 25 - 28 ml including crema per espresso.
• 9 – 9,5 grams of coffee per espresso (18,5 gram per dubbel)
• Ekstraction time 25 – 28 sekunder.

We hope you will enjoy he new blend. It is way different in taste profile than our previous blends, but we hope it will be a positive experience for most of our loyal customers.

Please give us feedback if you like it or not.

Finca La Lomita

2008-05-02T16:03:00.000+02:00

It has been a while since I visited Colombia and it has also taken some time before I got to write about what I discovered there. I am very proud to be able to tell you that we did not only find great coffee there, we also found a plantation that we are trying to work out a relationship with. Mr. Alvaro Diaz who owns Finca La Lomita is very much in to quality and a man with great visions and ambitions.

The story goes back to when I was visiting a cooperative for a cup tasting of their coffees from Huila, Colombia last November. Mr. Alvaro Diaz who had heard about some forreigners visiting the cooperative, wanted us to taste his coffee too, so he got on his motorbike and drove for 3 hours in order to get some feedback from us on his coffee. When he arrived we were just about to pour the water over the coffee we were tasting so he came a bit late. We felt a bit sorry for him not only because he came late but also because his coffee was still in parchment (not roasted). We decided to wait for the guys in the tasting lab so they could roast his coffee. 20 minutes later we could finally taste his coffee against the other cofees from that area.

Alvaro Diaz cupping his great La Lomita coffee at the cooperative cupping lab.

After tasting the coffees we were all amazed by the quality of the coffee that Mr. Diaz had given us a sample of. The coffee was extremely mature, soft, sweet, crisp and had a lovely berry and jasmin aroma. In fact we all thought it was one of the best coffees on the table.

We decided to pay his farm a visit later on that afternoon to see what he was doing to his coffee in order to get it to taste that good.
The farm was beautiful and Mr. Diaz was doing a lot of good work. He was very focused on sustainable growing principles. The wet mill he had on the farm was so clean we could eat from it and he was even picking out defects from parchment before he delivered his coffee to the dry mill. I am posting some pictures to give you an idea of the farm.

While we were at the farm Mr.Diaz asked if we would like to buy the coffee he had drying on the patio at that moment. We explained to him that we needed to get a sample of he coffee sendt to Norway and taste it at under familiar surroundings before we could answer his request. The reason for this is that it is very easy to get emotionally affected by the great people behind the coffee, and this will of course affect the taste of the coffee too. Therefore we always blind taste the coffee at home with Norwegian water, before we decide what to buy.
We agreed that he would hold the coffee for 14 days in order to give us time to go back to Norway to taste the coffee. (This meant no income for Mr. Diaz for 14 days, which is hard when you live on a hand to mouth basis.)

We got to Norway but did not get to taste the coffee until after 15 days. The coffee was still great, so we immediately made a call to our exporter in Colombia in order to purchase the La Lomita Coffee. When our exporter called Mr. Diaz, he was allready on his way to sell the coffee to the FNC, which would have given him USD 1,50 per pound. When he heard from us, he immediately turned his car arround and drove straight back to celebrate. We finally agreed on a price of USD 1,90 per pound for twenty 70 kilo bags.

Next step is to try to get Mr. Diaz to commit to a contract where we invest a little bit in the local school and some processing equipment in order to try to improve the quality of the La Lomita coffee for the next years and also in order to improve the lives of the people behind the coffee. What could we get back for doing so? A lot of knowledge and an amazing coffee!

Here is some facts about the coffee and Finca La Lomita:

Prodcer: Mr. Alvaro Diaz
Harvested: November / December 2007
Origin: El Socorro, El Pital, Huila, Colombia.
Growing conditions: 1650 - 1750 m.above sea level. Restricted use of some banana palm trees for shade. Average air temperature 20°C.
Size of he plantation: 10 hectar whereas 7,5 h. for growing coffee. Of the 7,5 hectares used for coffee, Mr. Diaz is intercropping by growing beans and various vegetables for his family.
Coffee variety: Caturra

Processing: Alvaro Diaz is picking his coffee togeher with his family and some hired freelance pickers. The Coffee cherries are pulped on his farm every night after picking. The pulper uses very little water in order not to pollute the sorrounding environment. In addition, the water used for processing the coffee will go through a buffer where it is filtrated by nature before the water is let out to the surroundings. The left over pulp from the cherries are used as compost.
Mr. Alvaro Diaz with his wife and kids.

After pulping, the parchment beans are fermented in water tanks for 18 to 30 hours depending on the temperature. After fermentation, the beans are dried on african suspended beds which is covered by transparent plastic in order o protect the beans from rain. The beds are divided in to small boxes in order for the workers to take them out 1 by 1 so hat they can sort out the defects from the beans. After drying, the parchment beans are transported to the local cooperative where he parchment is removed, the beans are sorted and defects are picked out. Then the coffee is packed in jute sacs before they get shipped to Norway.

Since the coffee is not always vacuumpacked in origin, we are currently experimenting with vacuum packing of the newly arrived coffee in order to keep it fresh for longer.
So far the experiments seem to work well, so in the future it looks like we will be vacuum packing all of our coffees.
Coffee does not only have a short shelf life after roasting. It looks like the green coffee will only stay fresh for 2 to 8 months in jute sacs and possibly up to a year in vacuum bags.

Taste profile:

Aroma: Intense aromas of red berries, spices and jasmine.

Acidity: Mature and sweet acidity like in fresh red berries.

Mouthfeel: Rich and soft at the same time. Juicy sweetness and oily texture.

Flavour: A complex coffee with some delicate jasmine notes. Intense notes of red berries. Mild but long aftertaste of spices like cloves and cinnamon.

The La Lomita coffee is allready available for purchase in our store and will probably be in stock until this autumn.

Mr. Alvaro Diaz o the right. We are sitting on one of his drying patios. (my t-shirt is courtesy of M'lissa)

Drying beds on Finca La Lomita.

Picking out defected beans.

Fermentation tanks.

Intercropping at the farm.

Article in Aperitif

2008-04-30T12:40:00.000+02:00

Here is a recent article in Aperitif about me/us, written by Alf Kramer.

Finnish Barista Championship

2008-04-16T20:38:00.000+02:00

A while ago, our friend from Finland Victoria Nuottanen won 3rd place in the Finnish Barista Championship using our espressoblend.
We are very proud of her and that she chose to use our espresso in her presentation.
Congratulations to Victoria from all of us at Tim Wendelboe.

(Victoria second from the left..)

Our phone is not working.

2008-04-01T16:01:00.000+02:00

We are currently having problems with our IP phone. Therefore we might be hard to reach. We will solve this problem within a couple of weeks, but until then you can call us on 91 84 30 89.

Rancilio madness!!!

2008-03-18T11:22:00.000+01:00

Update: We are sold out of Rancilio Machines and grinders...

We are celebrating the increase in price on Rancilio Products by reducing our price.

We only have 2 Rancilio Silvia machines and 1 Rancilio Rocky grinder in stock, and we are selling these to a reduced price until we're sold out.

Price on a silvia machine is 4500,-
Price on a Rocky grinder is 2500,-

First come first serve..

Happy easter holidays.

Åpningstider i påsken

2008-03-17T14:43:00.000+01:00

Åpningstider i påsken

Vi holder stengt i påsken fra og med skjærtorsdag til og med 2. påskedag. Gulvet skal lakkes og veggene males igjen. Du bør derfor huske å kjøpe inn kaffe til påskeferien innen onsdag den 19.mars.

Etter påske vil vi komme med spennende kaffenyheter, så det er bare å glede seg.

God ferie.

Television

2008-03-06T19:04:00.000+01:00

Here is a short interview and newsstory about coffee filmed in our store today.

Pictures from Kaffefest.

2008-03-05T12:47:00.001+01:00

Here are some pictures we have taken from Kaffefest this weekend.

Article about the new champ and Kaffefest

2008-03-02T17:15:00.000+01:00

Here is an article in Norwegian about Kaffefest and the new norwegian barista champion on Aperitif's web-page

The Norwegian champion is....

2008-03-02T11:10:00.001+01:00

Yesterday, our part time barista Chris Kolbu managed to win the Norwegian Barista Championship. Chris was very surprized to win and I think we all are in a state of shock after the announcement. We were allready thrilled to be in the finals, but had never actually thought about winning the whole competition.
Nevertheless, Chris was very steady during his performance and served great coffee to all judges which in he end gave him the victory.
Congratulations to Chris! We are all very proud of your performance and wish you good luck in the World Barista Championship in Copenhagen in June.

We would also like to congratulate all the other finalists and especially the
3rd place winner Thomas Jørgensen who used our espresso blend as well as some of our lovely guatemalan El Socorro y Anexos in his drinks.

Bar TW

2008-02-28T09:00:00.000+01:00

On friday the 29th. we will be hosting a bar for Kaffefest and all the people attending Kaffefest. However if you are interested in coffee and hanging out with coffee people you are welcome to join us for a glass or two.

We will have a pre launch of our new coffee that I sourced in Colombia (more info about this coffee later) and also launch our new coffee from Brazil, a natural processed yellow bourbon from Fazenda Rainha.

We will also be selling beer and wine and possibly offer some snacks of choice.
The bar will be open from 19.00 to 00.30 in our shop in Grünersgate 1.

First unofficial world aeropress champion is

2008-02-10T14:14:00.001+01:00

Mr. Anders Valde fro the Cupping Collective
Second place was awarded Lars K Huse, our new apprentice at TW. Third place went to Chris Kolbu who tried to saave his reputation by offering home made chocolate cake after the competition.

In the picture: The winner, Mr. Anders Valde in the middle, Runner up Mr. Lars K Huse to the right. Chris Kolbu to the left took 3rd place.

The 3 competitors had vastly different brewing methods on the Aeropress, but at the final showdown the perfected technique of Mr. Valde gave a cleaner and more soft and elegant cup.

He used the following recipe to brew coffee from the El Cauchito farm in Colombia:
Rinse the paperfilter in running clean water for about 10 seconds.
Put 16,5 grams of coffee ground to fine filter (5,5 on the ditting 804 grinder) in the aeropress. Fill some water brought to the boil over the coffee and give it a slight stir to wet the grounds. Fill the aeropress full of water straight from the water boiler. Press immediately and drink.

We congratulate Anders with the victory. The 1st prize was of course honour and reputation as the worlds best aeropresser. In addittion he got 2 kilos of coffee free of choice.

Fans waiting for the competition to begin.

The rules are out...

2008-02-02T17:19:00.000+01:00

If you go to our web page you can download the rules for the unofficial Aeropress competition to be held on sunday the 10th of february.

If you want to compete in the competition, please send us an e-mail so that we know that you are coming.

Unofficial Aeropress championship

2008-01-24T13:43:00.000+01:00

Since we have recently started to sell the ever so fantastic and popular little brewing device called Aeropress, we are curious to learn the potential of this brewer.
Therefore we are inviting all Aeropress brewers to compete in an unofficial Aeropress championship.

We have set the date to be Sunday the 10th of February at 12. o'clock.

The rules will be posted next week, but we can tell you that there will be water and an aeropress available for use and everyone has to brew the same coffee that we will pick out in advance.

The winner will recieve a prize... (to be announced)

If you are interested in competing, send us an e-mail on : tim at timwendelboe.no

El Cauchito

2008-01-21T16:12:00.000+01:00

Prior to my trip to Colombia I bought a micro lot from a farm called El Cauchito in Cauca, Colombia.
The lot size was only 100kg and therefore it has taken some time to get it milled, packed and shipped to Norway. The good thing is that the green coffee is packed in vacuum sealed bags instead of the traditional jute sack. This really keeps the coffee a lot fresher and hopefully you will be able to taste the freshness in he cup too.

The reason for buying such a small lot was that I was tasting 10 smaller lots of coffee from Colombia that was going to be mixed togethet into one blend of lots and then shipped to Norway. The El Cauchito coffee really stood out with its smooth and sweet mouthfeel and tropical fruit aroma. I asked if it was possible to buy only that micro lot, and the answer was of course yes.

We have now started selling the coffee for Kr. 125,- for 250g. So if you are interested in trying some great Colombian coffee from El Cauchito, don't wait too long, because we only have 84 kilos left...

We will of course launc more coffees from Colombia n the future. I really found a hidden treasure when I was there...

Mr. Israel Sanchez, proud producer of El Cauchito coffee..

New espresso blend

2008-01-14T14:24:00.000+01:00

We have got a new lot from Brazil to replace our beloved coffee from Fazenda Santa Alina.
Our new Brazil coffee is a natural processed Yellow Bourbon from Fazenda Rainha.
I visited the farm last may and Took really good notes from their production which was quite impressive, but I won't go too much into details. The coffee is extremely sweet with a nice texture and body. Slightly more on the fruity side which is different from the more almondy and peanutty Santa Alina.

The new Tim Wendelboe espresso blend will replace our current blend within the week and will consist of the following coffees:

50% Fazenda Rainha, Brazil, Naturally Processed
26% Bera Tadicho, Ethiopia, Washed.
24% Korokoro, Kenya, washed.

The new blend is more fruity than the current one mainly due to the Brazil. It has an aroma that reminds me of cherries and marsipan. It tastes similar to eating a cocktail cherry dipped in nut-liquor. The espresso is really sweet, creamy and has a sweet lingering aftertaste.

Hopefully you will all like it.

Ps. we will start selling the Fazenda Rainha as a single estate coffee in February.

Ken Stringfellow

2008-01-07T11:18:00.000+01:00

Some of us still remember Ken Stringfellow and Ola was able to recognize him in our store the other day. The best thing is that Mr Stringfellow liked our coffee. see what he writes about us and also Oslo in general on his news page. on 6th of january.

Thank you Ken for your kind words and the 12 inch single.

Breakfast TV

2007-12-11T12:44:00.000+01:00

This morning I was giving advice on how to prepare better coffee for christmas on our national morning TV-show at NRK.
It is quite rare to be able to speak about coffee without having to make espresso and cappuccino, so I was quite happy to be able to just talk about coffee for once.
The program can be viewed at the NRK website. The program is of course in Norwegian, but click the "Frokost tv 11.12" folder and cick on "Lag god kaffe" and "julekaffe" links and I will start to talk..

Strictly english and Colombia

2007-11-29T17:09:00.000+01:00

I have decided to write on this blog in English and English only.
There are several reasons for this:
1. I will be writing more frequently as I dont have to spend time translating everything.
2. Most Norwegians speak English anyway.
3.I give in for all the people that asks me why I did not start writing in English in the first place.

I am currently sitting in the airport of Bogota, Colombia, waiting for a plane to take me to Cartagena. After 5 days of travelling around in Colombia looking for and cup tasting excellent coffees, I am glad to get a few days off.
I will try to give a full report of the trip as soon as possible, but a lot of impressions have to be settled and I also need some sleep.

Clover - o'rama

2007-11-08T22:38:00.001+01:00

Denne uken har vi konvertert..
All dagens kaffe blir nå laget på vår nye og fantastiske Clover maskin. (nei, jeg er ikke sponset av Clover, men gode produkter fortjener god omtale.)
Etter å ha prøvet å feilet en hel del har vi brygget oss fram til ulike bryggeprofiler for våre nye kaffe partier.
Vi har sluttet å servere den tradisjonelle "dagens kaffe" som vi lagde på presskanne, og har istedet bestemt oss for hver dag å tilby alle kaffene vi har i huset, brygget sporenstreks og på bestilling fra gjestene våre. Clovermaskinen brygger nemlig en og en kopp på ca. 1 minutt, hvilket betyr at kaffen alltid er fersk og velsmakende om man følger bryggeoppskriften.
Dermed kan du smake deg gjennom ulike kaffevarianter og velge kaffe etter humør, eller be om en anbefaling. Du kan for eksempel unne deg en fantastisk kopp med velbalansert og kompleks kaffe av Aidas Grand Reserve til kr. 45,- eller slurpe i deg kaffe fra El Socorro y Anexos, som er kaffe fra samme farm som vant årets Guatemala Cup of Excellence, til kr. 35,-

Vi tilbyr også en clover smaking til Kr. 120,- der du og dine venner kan få presentert og få smakt på alle kaffene våre brygget på cloveren. Dette forutsetter at det ikke er kø til døra selvfølgelig.

I am happy to announce that we have converted.
This week we stopped using the good ol' french press for making "coffee of the day".
We are now solely using the Clover for brewing all our black coffees.
After fiddeling around with a lot of different parameters, we finally agree that our coffees are ready to be brewed on the Clover. Or should I say, we finally feel confident that the coffees we make on the clover is more pronounced and more tasty than what we can achieve by using the french press and a thermos.

This means that we no longer have the "coffee of the day" on our menu, but instead we offer all our coffees brewed instantly by order (at the spur of the moment) every day. The coffee is therefore always served fresh and our guests can pick and choose what they like, whether it is a delicious and well balanced cup of Aida's Grand Reserve at about 8$ pr. cup, or a full bodied El Socorro y Anexos from Guatemala with hints of ginger and orange zest for about 6 $ a cup.

And if you really want to explore our wonderful coffees, you (and your friends if you would like them to join)can order a Clover tasting for about 20 $ where we will present and serve our single origin coffees to you. (however, if there is a line out the door, we might have to pass on the request)

Feilsitering / Misquote

2007-11-01T10:05:00.000+01:00

I gårsdagens sending av OsloTV på TVNorge ble jeg atter en gang feilsitert.
Vanligvis lar jeg slike ting passere i det stille og om det er skrevne medier sørger jeg som regel alltid å lese korrektur på sitater. Erfaringsmessig går det ofte for fort med pennen fordi journalistene har tidspress, så da er det lurt å sjekke eventuelle skrivefeil.
Denne gangen var Oslo TV og filmet i over 1 time og ikke minst har de jo alt på tape, så da var jeg ikke like varsom med å kontrollere hva som blir sendt. (Etter noen TV opptredner gjennom tidene lærer man seg til å holde seg unna skandaløse utsagn om det ikke er absolutt nødvendig.)

Undertegnede hadde en god følelse etter intervjuet og følte at vi fikk fram et bra budskap om kaffe og ikke minst korrigert journalistenes oppfatning om at jeg hevder å lage verdens beste kaffe. Allikevel klarte de kunststykket å feilsitere dette 2 ganger. En gang i overskriften til saken og en gang under reportasjen.

Vi har riktignok som mål å være blandt verdens beste kaffebrennerier og et foretrukket ressurssenter for kaffe uavhengi av grenser, men dette er et mål vi har satt oss slik at vi har noe å strekke oss etter hver dag. Vi skal alltid bli bedre.
Å vri dette til at jeg hevder å lage verdens beste kaffe er vel å ta litt hardt i.
Uansett, all pr er god pr, så neste gang skal jeg trippelsjekke.

I was misquoted 2 times on the TV programme yesterday, even though they have everything taped they made a big thing out of a misquote and I feel that for once I will not let it be.
I normally always read through interviews and articles about myself and the store because I hate to be misquoted and also feel responsible that the facts in the articles are right. After the TV journalists had been filming here for 1 hour I really had a good feeling about the whole thing and thought we had made a nice feature about coffee for their show. Since they had everything on tape I felt confident enough not to double check the final cut before broadcasting.

That is why I was a bit disappointed that they launched the whole feature with the header that I claim to make the best coffee in the world. This is despite the fact that I explained to them (after they tried to get me to say that I did make the best coffee in the world) that our goal is to be among the best roasteries in the world. We have set this as our goal to have something to strive for and to inspire ourselves to improve our skills every day.
To twist and turn this into a misquote where i supposedly have claimed we make the best coffee in the world is just unbelievable.
Lesson learned. I will triple check everything from now on.

Cupping

2007-10-31T21:18:00.001+01:00

Lurer du på hva cupping er, kan du enten stille opp på en av våre daglige cuppinger klokken 16.00 eller lese denne artikkelen av Alf Kramer på Aperitif sine hjemmesider.
Der kan du få et innblikk i hvordan verdensmesterskapet i cup tasting blir gjennomført og ikke minst kanskje bli inspirert til å delta neste år..

Oslopuls

2007-10-31T17:35:00.000+01:00

I dag, onsdag 31.oktober er det anmeldelser av kaffebarer i Aftenpostens Oslopuls (aftenutgaven.).

Dette er en test som har blitt gjort regelmessig nesten hvert år siden jeg begynte med kaffe, og er en slags målestokk på et lite utvalg av kaffebarer i Oslo. I årets utgave er det som vanlig Norsk Kaffeinformasjon som har utført testen med Aftenposten. De har valgt seg ut 7 steder som har blitt vurdert utifta kvaliteten på espresso, cappuccino, atmosfære og service.
Vi er stolte av at vi fikk 5 poeng av 6 mulige. Dette fordi vi faktisk ble testet under vår Svarte uke da vi faktisk ikke serverte cappuccino. Med andre ord testpanelet har antagelig sett det positive i at vi ikke hadde melkedrikker på menyen men kun espresso og svart kaffe. Det er over all forventning.

Jeg må samtidig benytte anledningen til å gratulere min gamle arbeidsplass, der det hele startet for min del, Stockfleth's lille Grensen med 6 poeng og dermed full pott.
Thomas Jørgensen, som driver avdelingen i lille grensen er en av de hyggeligste baristaene jeg vet om og har også masse kunnskap om kaffe. Han kom på 5. plass i årets NM og så vidt jeg husker vant han også Cup tasting konkurransen.

Today there is a feature in a local newspaper about various coffee shops in Oslo.
The feature is actually a test of different coffee shops and is a regular test that has been around for at least 8 or 9 years.
The test is based on 2 persons (From Norsk Kaffeinformasjon, which is a promotional organization for coffee in Norway) checking the quality of the espresso, cappuccino and the service and ambience in the various stores.
We are all extremely happy to get 5 points out of 6 considering that the test was taking place during our "Black week" which meant they did not get a cappuccino to test. Instead they tried a clover brewed Aida's Grand Reserve and it seems that they really liked it. I am very glad that they could see the positive things in not serving milk drinks for a whole week.

I also have to congratulate my old workplace and where it all started for me, Stockfleth's in Lille Grensen who won the test getting 6 points. Thomas Jørgensen, who got 5th in this years Norwegian Barista championship and is the reigning Norwegian Cup tasting Champion, is the manager of the Stockfleth's store and really one of the most friendly, knowledgeable, humble and passionate baristas I know.
Well done!

Kaffebilen / The coffee car

2007-10-31T09:56:00.001+01:00

I dag kan du lese om en av våre trofaste kaffekunder, Kaffebilen i Nettavisen.
Kaffebilen er en av Tim Wendelboes første kaffekunder og reiser rundt til bedrifter, festivaler, messer og lignende for å spre deilig kaffe til trøtte og tørste kaffedrikkere. Et meget godt initiativ og ikke minst får man veldig god kaffe der som er laget på en Leva maskin, slik vi har i sjappa vår. (Typen der man bruker fjærsystem for å lage trykk og ikke elektrisk pumpe) Kaffen blir utrolig sødmefull og fyldig når man lager den på slike maskiner, så om du ser bilen et sted så ikke nøl med å prøve kaffen de serverer.
Om du har ønske om å få besøk av kaffebilen der du jobber, så er det bare å ta kontakt med Bernard eller Nicolay. Se nettsidene til Kaffebilen for mer info.

One of my first whole sale customers Kaffebilen is featured in Nettavisen today.
They use a lever machine which makes wonderfully sweet and full bodied espresso almost no matter what you do with it. Kaffebilen drives around to offices and festivals to serve thirsty coffee junkies and to save them from the push button machines in their offices. The car is so adorable that it is almost impossible to resist an espresso when it pops up in the parking lot outside office buildings. A great idea that I really hope will evolve in the future. The 2 guys who run the car have actually already ordered a 2nd one which will be here in a few months. I wish them good luck.

Oslo TV

2007-10-30T16:43:00.000+01:00

I morgen (Onsdag 31. oktober) blir det innslag fra Tim Wendelboe på Oslo TV på TVNorge.
Sendingen starter klokken 17.30, 18.30 og 23.30, med andre ord den går i reprise 2 ganger så det er ingen grunn til at du ikke skal sitte klistret foran skjermen under sendingen for å få med deg litt info om kaffe, Clover og annet kaffesnakk.
Desverre er sendingen lokal, så du bør befinne deg i Oslo området for å se sendingen.

Tomorrow there is a feature on a local TV station about Tim Wendelboe (the place).
Unfortunately you have to be in Oslo to see the program as it is only broadcasted in Oslo and the area around our small city.

By the way. If you wonder how our black week went, I am happy to announce that it has been our best week so far. most people were very responsive to tasting various coffees , so I think we will do it again when we introduce next years crops.

Vi søker ekstrahjelp.

2007-10-22T11:07:00.000+02:00

Tim Wendelboe skal være et av verdens beste kaffebrennerier og ikke minst et ledende ressurs- og innovasjonssenter for kaffe og espresso.

Formålet til bedriften:

1. Å drive et kaffebrenneri, kaffebutikk og en kaffebar som skal være en spydspiss i kaffemarkedet.

2. Å drive en kaffeskole der profesjonelle, bedrifter og privatpersoner skal kunne lære om ulike aspekter ved tilberedning og kafferelaterte emner.

3. Å drive med kafferelatert innovasjon og produktutvikling.

Vi er ute etter en ny ekstrahjelp som skal jobbe i kaffebaren men også hjelpe til der det trengs etter behov. Arbeidsmengden og tiden vil variere og avtales etter skiftplan, men vi er hovedsakelig ute etter en person som kan jobbe 1-4 skift i uken og særlig i helger, tirsdager og onsdager.

Erfaring ikke nødvendig, men interesse for baristayrket og kaffe er en stor fordel. Arbeidstiden vil normalt være mellom klokken 07.30 til 19.00. Enkelte dager vil det holdes kurs på kveldstid der man må regne med arbeidstid utover kvelden.

Har du lyst til å jobbe for oss, kan du sende søknad og CV til Tim Wendelboe

Vann og kaffe / Water and coffee

2007-10-17T20:04:00.000+02:00

Etter å ha våknet opp til store overskrifter om at drikkevannet i Oslo inneholder skumle parasitter var det første som slo meg at dette ikke hørtes bra ut for vår svarte uke. Ikke nok med at vi ikke tilsetter melk i kaffen, men nå fryktet jeg at vi ikke lenger kunne tilsette vann til kaffen.
Etter litt undersøkelser på internett kom jeg til konklusjonen at vi er i trygge hender. VI bruker osmose filtere som fjerner over 99,9% av partiklene i vannet, inkludert parasittene. Ikke nok med det, så er vannet i La Marzocco espressomaskinen vi bruker nær kokepunktet over lengre tid slik at eventuelle parasitter hadde kokt ihjel før de i det hele tatt fikk smake på kaffegruten vår. Vi filtrerer og koker også vannet til presskannekaffen vi lager og i følge diverse amerikanske eksperter er dette godt nok for å fjerne parasittene. Med andre ord, vi kan trygt drikke kaffe nå også.
Forøvrig så har det kun vært ca 5 kunder hver dag som har snudd i døra og som absolutt vil ha melk i kaffen. Ellers har dagene vært over all forventning og våre gjester har vært meget positivt innstilte til å prøve våre ulike kaffer og ikke minst clover kaffe.
Jeg kan vel si at så langt har El Socorro y Anexos som espresso og Aidas Grand Reserve brygget på Clovern vært de mest ettertraktede kaffene og som vi har fått meget positive tilbakemeldinger på. Det er veldig hyggelig.

PS. Om du er i Milano for å gå på kaffemesse denne uken, så kan du smake på Tim Wendelboe espresso og et par av våre normalbrente kaffer på Clover om du finner en Australiensk barista ved navn Kiril Shaginov.

We are having major problems with parasites in the drinking water in Oslo today and probably for the next months. I woke up with the news this morning and realized that not only are we not adding milk to our coffee this week, we might not be able to add water neither.
After some research on the web I found out that the reverse osmosis filters that we are using removes all particlels , including parasites from the water. In addition our wonderful FB80 Marzocco machine has separate boilers for the espresso water where the temperature is kept very stable at 97 + degrees. This means that even if we did have parasites in the water, they certainly would not survive the trip through our La Marzocco machine, so no coffee for them..

The black week is going really well. Our bestsellers and the coffees that people seem to like the most so far is the El Socorro y Anexos as espresso and of course the Aida Grand Reserve brewed on the clover. I am really happy that our visitors are so positive and willing to try new coffees. Only about 5 people leave without having bought anything each day because they are desperate after a latte.
I think it is fair, I can imagine myself if I was desperate after an espresso and the barista in the bar only served latte.

I also think that one of the reasons why our customers are really responsive to our Black Week is because our staff are really good at communicating why we are doing it. Instead of just saying "we don't serve latte this week" we say "this week we are only serving black coffee because we have got new coffees in the house...."
It is not about being a soup nazi like the one in Seinfeld. It is more about trying to broaden our customers horizon and I think most people are eager to experience new things in life. just some thoughts anyway..

PS. If you are in Milan, try to look for Mr. Kiril Shaginov. He is making espresso with my new blend and also som of our new Single origin coffees on the Clover..

Rapport fra Svart uke, dag 1 / Status quo after day 1 of Black week

2007-10-15T22:25:00.002+02:00

Til vår store glede har de fleste av våre kunder vært meget positive til vår svarte uke. Det virker som om de fleste som har vært innom har tatt oppfordringen vår på alvor og dermed prøvd flere typer kaffe under besøket. Dette har resultert i mer kaffeprat noe vi bak disken synes er moro og ikke minst lærerikt.
Det har selvfølgelig vært enkelte (faktisk bare 4-5 stykker i dag) som har snudd og tatt turen til nærmeste Kaffebrenneriet når de oppdager at vi ikke serverer caffe latte denne uken, men det må de jo få lov til. Da har de iallefall tatt et valg, og det respekterer vi.
Det mest overraskende er at vi faktisk aldri har hatt en bedre mandag når det kommer til besøk og antall drikker vi har laget. Det er over all forventning når bestselgeren ikke står på menyen...
Vi har også fått meget god respons på Clovermaskinen og ikke minst Aidas Grand Reserve som er den eneste kaffen vi brygger på Clovern denne uka.
Vi gleder oss til resten av den svarte uka...

We are happy to announce that our customers have been really positive to our Black week concept. It seems that most of our customers today have taken our challenge seriously and therefore tried 2 or more coffees during their visit. This has lead to more discussions about our favorite topic, coffee, and we feel that both our customers and our staff have learned a lot today.
There were only about 4-5 customers that turned around and walked out to get a caffe latte at the nearest coffee shop when we told them that we only served black coffee . We really don't blame them for doing so. At least they made a choice, and we respect their decision.

The biggest surprise today was the fact that in terms of visitors and sales, we have never experienced a better Monday. (I personally really did not expect that to happen and to tell you the truth I was quite pessimistic about how the customers would react to the Black week, especially when we don't serve the best selling drink on the menu, the Caffe Latte.)
We are also happy to see that people really like the Clover and of course the only coffee that we brew on the Clover this week, the Grand Reserve coffee from Aida Battle.
I am really looking forward to the rest of this week...

Foto av / Photo by: Chris kolbu

Svart uke / Black week

2007-10-14T22:50:00.000+02:00

Fra og med mandag 15. oktober til og med søndag 21. oktober gjennomfører vi "Svart uke"

Dette betyr at vi ikke selger kaffe med melk. Med andre ord ingen caffe latte, cappuccino, kaffe med melk eller fløte.
Hvorfor gjør vi dette? Nei, det er ikke for å være vanskelige og vi er heller ikke imot å blande melk i kaffe. Vi gjør det fordi vi har fått inn nye kaffepartier. Kaffe smaker alltid best når den er fersk og dette gjelder også råkaffe. I tillegg har vi brukt mye tid på å smake oss fram til akkurat den kaffen vi nå tilbyr. Dette ønsker vi å feire ved at vi kun tilbyr kaffe i sin rene form enten det er espresso, presskannekaffe eller kaffe fra vår nye Clover.

Noen vil kanskje stusse på hvorfor vi tar bort bestselgere som cortado og cappuccino fra menyen, men det er nettop dette vår espressobar er laget for. Vi skal ikke pleie våre kunders vaner men utfordre dem.
Jeg oppfordrer derfor alle våre stamkunder såvel som nye kunder til å smake minst 2 ulike kaffevarianter denne uka. Det synes jeg kaffebøndene vi har kjøpt kaffe fra fortjener.

Lurer du på hva vi tilbyrinn av kaffe, så kan du gå inn på produktsiden vår og laste ned litt informasjon om de ulike partiene vi har kjøpt.

Menyen denne uken vil bestå av følgende :

Ukens meny:

Espresso:

El Socorro y Anexos, Guatemala
Fyldig kaffe med søt syrlighet. Smak av appelsinskall, syltet ingefær og moden frukt.

Eeagads Estate, Kenya
Frisk kaffe med distinkt smak av solbær.

Tim Wendelboe espresso
Ny espressoblanding. Blandingen består nå av følgende komponenter:
48 % Fazenda Santa Alina, Brasil
19 % Korokoro, Komothai, Kenya
18 % La Esperanza, Colombia Cup Of Excellence
15 % Bera Tadichio, Sidamo, Etiopia

Presskannekaffe:

Bera Tadicho, Sidamo
Kaffe med en frisk sitrusaktig syrlighet og middels fylde. Florale aromaer av rose, jasmin og bergamot. Lett snerp i avslutningen.

El Socorro Y Anexos
Fyldig kaffe med søt syrlighet. Smak av appelsinskall, syltet ingefær og moden frukt.

Cloverkaffe med Aidas Gran Reserve

En Clover er en slags espresso maskin for svart kaffe der hver kopp brygges på bestilling. Kaffen kan sammenlignes med vakuum brygger og presskanne. Siden man bruker et fint metallfilter for å filtrere kaffen blir kaffen ren og klar samtidig som mye av kaffens oljer og smaksstoffer bevares bedre.

Farmene til Aida Battle (Kilimanjaro, Mauritania og Los Alpes) ligger i 1450 meters høyde over havet ved byen Santa Ana nord/vest i El Salvador og er drevet av Aida Batlle Giammattei.

Aida’s Gran Reserve er Aida Battles navn på kaffen som inneholder bare Peaberry-bønner. De er samlet fra hennes tre farmer. Bønnene heter Peaberry når det ligger kun én bønne i kaffebæret mot normalen som er to. Flere mener at bønnene dermed får med seg mer av bærets sødme og fruktighet noe som kan resultere i at kaffen får mer intens aroma. Disse bønnene er derfor spesielt ettertraktede.

Kaffen har middels syrlighet og fylde. God balanse og sødme. Frisk smak av modne røde bær og frukt.

As stated earlier the week between the 15th of October and the 21st. is black week at Tim Wendelboe. This means that we will not be serving any cofee mixed with milk. In other words, bestsellers like cortado, cappuccino, caffe latte and macchiato is off the menu.

Why are we doing this? We are certainly not doing it to be annoying, nor are we against adding milk to coffee. We are doing this because we have just recieved the new lots we have bought, and we firmly believe that green coffee is at its best when it is fresh. We have also spent a lot of time to find the new coffees that we have bought, so we are extremely proud that we are able to present such tasty coffees. Therefore we feel like celebrating. But nstead of celebrating with champagne we want to salute the farmers who have grown these coffees by drinking their coffees in it's pure, whether it is a french pressed coffee, a single origin espresso or a delicious Clover coffee from our new Clover.

Some people might wonder if we have lost our minds when we take bestselers like caffe latte from the menu. After all we have only been open for 3 1/2 months. But this is actually one of the reasons I made an espressobar in our roastery. We have not made an espresso bar to please the habiths of our customers. We have opened an espressobar that shall challenge our customers. Therefore I am challenging all of our regular customers as well as new visitors to at least try 2 different coffees during the next week.
Hopefully we will be able to give you a new and positive coffee experience.

Our menu of the week will be the following:

Espresso:

El Socorro y Anexos, Guatemala
Eeagads Estate, Kenya

The new Tim Wendelboe espresso blend with the following ingredients:
48 % Fazenda Santa Alina, Brazil
19 % Korokoro, Komothai, Kenya
18 % La Esperanza, Colombia Cup Of Excellence
15 % Bera Tadichio, Sidamo, Ethiopia

From the french press:

El Socorro y Anexos, Guatemala
Bera Tadicho, Sidamo

From the Clover:
Aida's Gran Reserve, Santa Ana, El Salvador (From Aida Battle)

Aida kommer ikke allikevel / Aida is not coming after all

2007-10-10T15:56:00.000+02:00

Det er beklagelig å måtte meddele at vår gode venn og kaffedyrker Aida Battle ikke kan komme til Norge neste uke allikevel. Dette er grunnet sykdom. Vi kommer allikevel til å lansere den fantastiske kaffen hennes, som vi skal slurpe i oss samtidig som vi ønsker Aida god bedring. Forhåpentligvis vil vi få til et møte med Aida ved en senere anledning.

Unfortunately Aida Battle is not able to come to Norway next week due to illness.
We will probably get to meet with Aida at a later stage in Norway. Until then, we can enjoy her wonderful coffee as we wish her all the best.

Ny høst / New harvest

2007-10-08T11:49:00.001+02:00

Mandag den 15. oktober lanserer vi ny kaffe fra årets innhøsting.
Vi har kjøpt inn Aidas Gran Reserve kaffe fra El Salvador som skal brygges på vår nyinstallerte Clover. Dette er et lite eksklusivt parti med kaffe på kun 180 kilo og prisen blir derfor 940,- pr. kilo. Alikevel føler vi at kaffen er verd prisen da den smaker fortreffelig. Pr. kopp blir jo prisen kun 12 kr. til sammenligning kjøper man jo vann på flaske i kiosk til 20 kr. Vann får vi jo tross alt i springen..
Vi får forøvrig besøk av Aida samme uke, men dette kommer jeg tilbake til.

Vi lanserer også ny kaffe fra Sidamo i Etiopia, samt en skikkelig snadderkaffe fra Guatemala som er fra samme plantasje som vant Cup of Excellence i Guatemala i år.

Vår nye espressoblanding vil også være i salg.

Siden vi har fått inn så mye god kaffe ønsker vi at alle våre kunder skal smake på disse delikatessene. Derfor serverer vi kun kaffe fra presskanne, clover eller espresso i hele uke 42. Med andre ord, latte, macchiato, cappuccino og alle andre drikker med melk blir tatt av menyen. La oss kalle det en svart uke.

On monday the 15th of October we will be launching our new crops.
We have gotten our hands on 3 bags of Aida Battle's Gran Reserve which we will be brewing on our newly installed Clover
Although the Gran Reserve costs about 940 NOK per kilo (157 US$) we feel that the coffee is worth every cent. Per cup it is quite cheap anyway and definately a bargain compared to what people are willing to pay for a bottle of water, which can be drunk for free from the tap in Norway anyway.
We are also proud to announce that Aida Battle will be visiting us during the same week.

We will also be launching our new Sidamo, from Ethiopia, El Socorro Y Anexos from Guatemala (same farm that won the COE) and of course our new espressoblend.

Since we are launching so many delicious coffees at the same time and also the Clover, we will only be serving coffee brewed on a french press, a Clover and pure espresso in week 42. That means the good ol' latte,cappuccino, macchiato and all the other milk based drinks are off the menu for the whole week. You might call it "the black week."

Økologisk / Organic

2007-09-27T20:53:00.000+02:00

Jeg har lenge tenkt på å teste ut økologisk melk etter å ha lest en del om emnet og ikke minst hørt hva andres erfaringer med økologisk melk er i det store utland. Handlingslammet som man er når man åpner sin egen kaffebar og brenneri så har dette vært nedprioritert lenge, men etter å ha hørt på et foredrag om økologisk mat under årets Nordic Barista Cup fikk jeg endelig ånden over meg til å gjøre noe med dette.
Vi gikk derfor til innkjøp av økologisk melk i vår kaffebar og tested denne mot vanlig melk. Jeg blindsmakte på resultatene og kort oppsummert var konklusjonen følgende:

1. Økologisk er bedre å steame
2. Økologisk melk smaker fantastisk mye bedre enn vanlig melk
3. Økologisk melk er mere bærekraftig (Takk Gro for det uttrykket)
4. Økologisk melk finnes desverre bare som lettmelk.
5. Lenge leve økologisk melk!

Det er særlig punkt nr.4 som bekymrer meg. Vi i Norge er jo så heldige at vi har en fantastisk organisasjon som TINE, som er flinke på veldig mange områder, men som er så store at de ikke alltid klarer å tilfredsstille de små sære kundene som f.eks. en liten kaffebar på Grünerløkka. Jeg tok kontakt med TINE og spurte hva sjansen var for å få økologisk H - melk. Svaret jeg fikk var meget informativt, men desverre ikke helt slik jeg ønsket. Kort oppsummert fikk jeg vite følgende:

1. TINE er de eneste produsentene av økologisk melk i Norge.
2. TINE produserer kun økologisk lettmelk
3. Om TINE skal utvide med flere typer økologisk melk, så blir dette i lettere varianter.

Jeg har ikke noe imot at majoriteten av melkedrikkerne i Norge foretrekker lettmelk. Jeg foretrekker faktisk å drikke kald lettmelk selv når jeg skal spise sjokoladekake eller nybakt brød med brunost og smør.
Det er allikevel en ting jeg har erfart over 9 år i kaffebransjen. Espressobaserte drikker smaker fantastisk med steamet H-melk

Jeg synes at alle kaffebarer i Norge burde bruke økologisk melk. Vi fokuserer en hel del på hvor viktig det er med gode råvarer hva gjelder kaffe (som ofte er dyrket etter økologiske prinsipper, men som desverre ikke er sertifisert økologisk fordi dette koster den fattige bonden penger. Penger han / hun ikke garantert vil få igjen når kaffen alikevel selges som "vanlig" kaffe)
Jeg tillater meg å estimere at i en gjennomsnitts kaffebar selges det omkring 80% caffe latte. I en caffe latte er det ca. 90% melk og 10 % espresso. Hovedproduktet er altså melk og ikke kaffe. Allikevel er det veldig få som stiller krav eller spørsmål ved kvaliteten på denne melka. Kanskje fordi vi ikke har noe valg? Ikke vet jeg.

Grunnen til at jeg skriver dette er fordi jeg ønsker å samle alle kaffebarer og andre interreserte i en slags underskriftskampanje for å få innført økologisk H-melk.
Forhåpentligvis vil vi i allefall legge litt press på produsentene slik at de må ta stilling til våre krav. (Det værste som kan skje er at de lar ballen ligge)

Så om du ønsker Økologisk H-melk, legg igjen navn og/eller navn på kaffebar eller bedrift og gjerne hvor mye melk du / dere bruker i uka.

I have been thinking about trying organic milk for a whole while, but for some reason I have had little time to experiment for the last 6 months. After listening to a presentation about organic food in this years Nordic Barista Cup I finally got inspired to take action.
The other Tim in the roastery and espressobar ordered some organic milk and we did a sample tasting of steamed milk and a cappuccino made with organic milk and regular milk. I tasted it blindly and the conclusion was the following (in short terms):
1. Organic milk textures better than the regular milk.
2. Organic milk tastes a million times better that the regular milk.
3. Organic milk is more sustainable.
4. The Norwegian organic milk only comes in the low fat version
5. Long live organic milk!

My biggest concern is the no. 4 above.
Although having a big (almost monopoly) producer of milk products in Norway may have its benefits there is always a downside to it. In this case, TINE, which is a huge company in Norway, are not able to please their smaller customers like a coffeeshop at Grünerløkka. Despite being a small coffeeshop, I decided to contact TINE to check the possibilities of getting Organic whole milk. Their prompt and informative answer can be summarised to the following:

1.TINE, the biggest and one of 2 Norwegian milk companies is the only producer of organic milk in Norway.
2. TINE only produces low fat organic milk.
3.If TINE decides to get a bigger range of organic milk it will be with a 1% fat content or even skimmed version and not the whole milk.

I know that the average consumer prefers low fat milk to drink, and I personally do to, especially when I drink it with chocolate cake or bread with brown cheese and butter. (This is the only occation I drink cold milk)
However, there is one thing that I have learned during my 9 year coffee career and that is that whole milk tastes a lot better in espresso based drinks.

I believe that all coffeeshops in Norway (and the rest of the world) should use organic milk. We, as baristas, focus a lot on the quality of the coffee that we serve. (which often is grown fully organic without necessarily being certified as organic because it costs money for the poor farmer and he / she is not guaranteed to get that investment back since there is more organic coffee being certified than the market is demanding.)
I estimate that in an average coffee shop in Norway at least 80% of the total drinks served is a caffe latte. In a caffe latte there is normally about 90% milk and 10% espresso. The main ingredient in a latte is milk and not coffee. Despite this paradox most baristas (in Norway) do not care that much about the milk quality. Maybe because we really do not have a choice since there is only 2 milk producers and the biggest one delivers the unrefined milk to the smaller producer.

The reason for writing this is because I would like to gather opinions about organic milk and to see if there is any interest in the Norwegian market for organic whole milk. I would like to gather as many signatures / posts from Norwegian coffee shop owners, baristas or consumers in order to try to put some pressure on the milk producers to go organic.

So, if you are based in Norway, and you consume milk, please leave a post on this blog with your name and / or the name of your coffee shop or business and the amount of milk you consume per week.

James hoffmann vant VM

2007-08-05T19:09:00.000+02:00

Min gode kaffevenn James Hoffmann fra UK vant WBC forrige uke. Du kan se alle deltakerene på zacharyzachary.com

Einar kom på 19.plass, kun 50 poeng fra finaleplassen.
Han gjorde en stor innsats, men litt fikling med kværna gjorde at han ikke nådde helt opp. Det er slikt som skjer når man jobber under press. Gratulerer med god innsats, Einar.

WBC Finalists

2007-08-01T11:29:00.000+02:00

This years finalists are: Switzerland, Brazil, USA, New Zealand, UK and Japan.
Congratulations to all finalists.

And to my dear friend and colleague Einar: I am extremely proud of you! You did a fantastic job and you made me cry of joy many times during the past month. Thank you for giving me the pleasure and opportunity to work with you.

Einar er ferdig med sin presentasjon i WBC

2007-08-01T05:24:00.000+02:00

I går konkurrerte Einar i WBC. Årets konkurranse er større enn noen gang og rundt 3000 publikummere var på plass da den japanske deltakeren hadde sin presentasjon. Det var rett og slett rørende og imponerende å oppleve jubelbruset da hun helte 4 nydelige cappuccini. Nok om det. Einar gjorde en kjempeinnsats og fulgte programmet vi har trent på de siste månedene.
Signaturdrikken smaker alltid fortreffelig og cappuccinoene tror jeg smakte fantastisk. De så iallefall veldig bra ut og vi fant en melk dagen før konkurransen som virkelig brakte fram sjokoladesmak og kaffesmak i cappuccinoen. Deilig!

Espressoene klarte jeg ikke å følge med på. Litt grunnet nervøsitet og litt fordi jeg måtte følge med på tidsskjema for å plukke eventuelle feil der.
Einar var ferdig 15 sekunder før tiden og om espressoen ble like bra som den ble på morgenen så har jeg tro på at han har en god sjanse til å komme til finalen.
Men dette blir tøft for i år er det ekstremt mange gode baristaer her og jeg kan med hånden på hjertet ikke forutse noen finalister. Slik har det aldri vært før...

Vi krysser fingrene. Resultatene kommer senere i dag.

Tening

2007-07-30T17:14:00.001+02:00

I dag har Einar fått en og en halv times trening på konkurransemaskinene. Espressoen smaker enda litt røyk fra brenningen, men jeg tror den vil være vesentlig bedre i morgen når han skal delta. Cappuccinoene smakte himmelsk av sjokolade og kaffe. Einar har funnet en melk som både smaker og skummer bra.
Litt nerver på slutten av dagen, men etter en lengre pep talk og litt stryking av skjorter, så er jeg sikker på at Einar vil gjøre en kjempeinnsats i morgen. Da er det kun opp til dommerne og ikke minst de andre deltakerene, hvem som går videre til finalen.
I år er nivået på deltakerene og ikke minst dommerne høyere enn noen gang så dette skal bli moro!!!!

Tening

2007-07-30T17:14:00.000+02:00

Aftenposten

2007-07-25T20:41:00.000+02:00

I dag var jeg så heldig at jeg fikk nesten 2 sider i aftenposten. En riktig så hyggelig journalist var innom i forrige uke og resultatet kan du se her.

www.timwendelboe.no

2007-07-24T10:01:00.000+02:00

Da var den nye nettsiden min oppe. Fortsatt under utvikling, men det er deilig at den iallefall er operativ. Vi kommer til å oppdatere den fortløpende etter at jeg kommer hjem fra Tokyo den 5. august.

My new webpage is finally up and running. For now it is not very informative, but at least it is up and running. I will translate everything to english once the norwegian version is done.

Einar the champ

2007-07-23T08:58:00.001+02:00

De siste månedene har jeg hatt en fantastisk jobb i tillegg til å åpne sjappa.
Årets norgesmester i baristakunst, Einar Kleppe Holthe skulle veiledes og trenes opp mot årets VM i baristakunst som går av stabelen i Tokyo neste uke. Det har vært intenst, spesielt den siste uka hvor vi ikke ga oss før presentasjon og drikker var perfekte. Einar dro i går for å venne seg til klima og tidssone, jeg drar selv ned til helgen for å bistå Einar i konkurransen. I tillegg sitter jeg i styret i WBC, så jeg skal drive en frivillig kaffebar på stedet der publikum kan kjøpe drikker av gjestebaristaene. Inntektene skal gå til å støtte baristaer fra land som ikke har midler til å sende sine mestere til vm.

I år er det over 40 konkurrerende nasjoner og jeg har allerede satt opp en liste over hvem jeg tror kan hevde seg i år. Jeg tipper at Einar må slå Island, New Zealand, Sverige, Usa og ikke minst England og Australia, for å kunne bringe hjem gullet.
Det tror jeg blir tøft, men om Einar leverer det han viste på øvelsen vi hadde på lørdag så har jeg stor tro på at Einar kan vinne VM.

Uansett resultat kommer dette til å bli en fantastisk opplevelse. Jeg får fortsatt frysninger av å se presentasjonen til Einar når han presterer på sitt aller beste selv etter å ha sett den tusen ganger.

Jeg kommer til å poste nyheter om VM direkte fra Tokyo på blogen og ikke minst på WBC sine hjemmesider

Vi ønsker Einar lykke til og om du vil gjøre det samme, så kan du poste en hilsen på denne blogen.

Her er en artikkel Aftenposten gjorde om Einar, forrige fredag.

During the past months I have had the fantastic opportunity to train Einar K. Holthe, the 2007 norwegian barista champion. We have perfected his presentation for the World Barista Championship (WBC) and finally on saturday he proved that he can really give me the chills down my spine when he performs at his best, even after seeing his presentation a million times.

I truly believe that Einar can win, but I suspect he will get very tough competition from Iceland, Sweden, USA, New Zealand, Australia and England.

Einar is allready in Tokyo to adjust to the 9 hour timedifference and the very hot climate.
I will be down in Tokyo on the 29th to coach him prior to the competition. I am also on the WBC board of directors and will be organizing an espresos bar that will serve the spectators. The bar will be featuring star baristas from all over the world and the income will go to a fund for helping baristas that do not have sponsors to come to future WBC's.

I wish Einar good luck and if you want to you can do the same by posting a message on this blog.

I will be posting news from Tokyo on this blog (mainly about Einar) and also on the WBC web page

Veiledning / Training

2007-07-18T23:40:00.000+02:00

I forrige uke fikk jeg besøk av Olga, den russiske baristamesteren.
Hun dro helt til Oslo for å få 2 dagers trening hos meg for å forberede seg til World Barista Championship (WBC)i Tokyo den 31. juli til 2. august i år.
Olga hadde vunnet det Russiske mesterskapet på ren rutine virket det som og hadde en avslappet holdning til WBC og hennes prestasjoner der. Det ble det fort slutt på etter at jeg hadde jobbet med henne i en time. Dermed fulgte 2 lange dager med hardt arbeid før hun dro videre til Solberg & Hansen for litt trening med Willy Hansen og Tone Elin Liavaag, begge pionerer i WBC. Fredagen var det duket for generalprøve og jeg må ærlig innrømme at det var vanvittige forbedringer fra det hun presanterte på tirsdagen i mitt testerom / kursrom til det jeg fikk se fredagen etter 4 dagers trening. Øvelse gjør mester heter det. Jeg er ikke så sikker på at Olga vinner, for det finnes mange sterke forhåndsfavoritter i årets vm, men at hun kan få en god plassering er helt sikkert. Men for å få det er hun selvfølgelig nødt til å jobbe enda hardere i uken fram mot vm. Det tror jeg hun har forstått også.
Alle hos Tim Wendelboe ønsker henne i allefall lykke til i WBC! Vi setter stor pris på at Olga velger å bruke Tim Wendelboe espresso i konkurransen.

Last week I got a visitor from Russia. Olga, the russian barista champion had come all the way from Moscow to do 2 days of hands on training with Willy Hansen and Tone Elin Liavaag (both WBC pioneers) at Solberg & Hansen and 2 days with me in my new shop and roastery. I think you all know by now that Olga will be competing in the coming World Barista Championship at the end of the month. Therefore I expected her to be 80% ready to go for the competition when she arrived Oslo.
But Olga surprised me having a more relaxed attitude towards the coming WBC than one would expect since it was only 3 weeks left to train for it. She was quite coinfident after winning the Russian championship and therefore optimistic about her chances in the WBC. Now, I tried to be mild and nice to her when we started the training ( I think I have become softer allready at the age of 28) but 1 hour later I think she realized that there was a lot of work that needed to be done if she would stand a chance in the WBC. As I saw it she was relying on her routine to perform in the WBC and to be honest, routine is not good enough in the WBC. There you need extraordinary skills to win these days as the competition is getting harder and harder every year.
After 2 long days with a lot of hard work, Olga headed for Solberg & Hansen for some more practice. On the following Friday she had a trial presentation for Willy, Tone, Gunvor and myself and I must say that she had allready improved a lot since the presentation she gave me on tuesday morning. Nevertheless, there is still alot of work to be done for Olga if she wants to be among the very best. I am sure she will not dissapoint any of us that has worked with her during the past week. I am confident that she can do quite well if she works hard for it.

It was a pleasure working with Olga again and all the staff at Tim Wendelboe wishes Olga the best and good luck in the WBC. We are honored and very proud that she chooses to use our espresso in the competition. Good luck Olga!

Cupping

2007-07-13T13:19:00.001+02:00

Vi arrangerer cupping eller cup tasting / kaffesmaking hver dag fra 14.00 til 15.00.
Så langt har det kommet besøkende kaffesmakere hver dag med unntak av 2.
Vi har 6 ledige plasser og smakingen er gratis. Førstemann til mølla prinsippet gjelder, så det er bare å stille opp så kan du bli med å smake på deilig kaffe.

Her er noen bilder fra gårsdagens smaking.

We are hosting cupping sessions every day from 2 to 3 pm. We have 6 open spots and first come first serve principles apply.
Above is a link to some pictures from yesterdays tasting.

flere bilder / More pictures

2007-07-05T22:27:00.000+02:00

Chris har lagt ut flere bilder fra åpningen lørdag 30. juni
Chris has posted more pictures from the opening night.

Spisekartet.no

2007-07-04T20:17:00.001+02:00

En liten artikkel om Tim Wendelboe på Spisekartet

bilder fra åpningen / pictures from the opening day

2007-07-03T12:35:00.002+02:00

The pictures are taken by Chris kolbu, our barista.
Alle bilder tatt av Chris kolbu.

Bilder fra dagen før åpningen / pictures from the day before the opening.

2007-07-02T18:50:00.000+02:00

Her er noen bilder fra fredagen før vi åpnet. Bilder fra åpningen kommer så snart de er på plass.

Here are some pictures from the last day before the opening. pictures from the opening day will come as soon as I get them from Chris the photographer.

Our roastmaster(or soon to be roastmaster) Ola Brattås looks happy with the new installation. / Min kommende brennemester Ola Brattås ser lettere fornøyd ut med utstyret.

Brick layer laying the tiles in the bar . The tiles came the day before the opening.. / fliseleggern legger flisene som kom dagen før åpning.

Our bar manager Tim Varney admiring the probatino in our cupping and testing lab. / Tim Varney som skal drifte kaffebaren beundrer 1 kilos brenneren på teste og kursrommet.

Our flowergirl Ingrid organizing the bar / Blomsterpiken vår Ingrid organiserer baren.

Our kick ass barista Chris is unwrapping the probatino. / Chris, vår lovende barista pakker ut Probatinoen.

Eneste bra bilde av baren klokken 03.30. På tide å få litt søvn... / The only good picture of the bar at 3.30 AM. Time to go home..

Åpning / Opening

2007-06-26T12:52:00.000+02:00

Tim Wendelboe åpner endelig dørene Lørdag 30. juni klokken 12. Du er herved invitert til en deilig kaffeopplevelse i Grünersgate 1 på Grünerløkka. Vi holder åpent til klokken 17.

Åpningstider ellers vil være på hverdager fra 8 til 18. Lørdager og søndager fra 11.00 til 18.00.

Tim Wendelboe is finally opening the doors on Saturday, June 30th. Opening hours will be from 12 to 5pm. I would love to see everyone there.

Brenner / Roaster

2007-06-21T00:22:00.000+02:00

Her er bilde av brenneren. Den byr på mange utfordringer da lokalet er trangt og brennerutstyret tar mye plass.. Nå er jeg helt utslitt etter flere uker med lite mat og lite søvn. Jeg merker det går ut over humøret og kreativiteten. God natt.

The roaster is slightly too much for my location which means I have some challenges when it comes to placing everything in a functional yet space saving way. It also have to be in line with ventilation pipes and chimney pipes. Now I am exhausted. No sleep and not much food for several weeks is definately not healthy, especially not good for my temper and creativity.

Good night.

Shock!

2007-06-19T21:56:00.001+02:00

I dag da jeg kom til lokalet etter å ha veiledet Einar Holthe for WBC oppkjøring på Solberg & Hansen , fikk jeg litt av et sjokk. På fortauet utenfor lokalet sto brenneren min med tilbehør. 4 paller fulle av stål, jern og dippedutter.
Sjåføren hadde i kjent stil bare satt fra seg varene og dratt. Ikke en gang tilbudt seg å hjelpe til med lastelemmen for at brenneren skulle komme inn i lokalet. SVIN!

Heldigvis har jeg fantastiske håndtverkere på stedet og alle tok i et tak i tillegg til Ola og meg selv. Etter ca. 2 timer var brenneren på plass i lokalet. Det tok 6 menn og masse muskler og gode ideer for å få det til. Brenneren veier over 700 kilo, så vi måtte ty til egyptiske pyramidebyggeteknikker for å få det til. Ikke spør hvordan, men det gikk til slutt.
Jeg har ikke ord for hvor takknemlig jeg er for den hjelpen jeg fikk.

Jeg hadde ikke med kamera, så bilde av brenneren kommer i morgen. (Om den fortsatt står i samme etasje og ikke har falt ned...)

Today, when I came to my location after a WBC-training session with Einar Holthe at Solberg & Hansen, I was shocked to see that my roaster had arrived.
The driver had (like all other drivers that have delivered goods to my store)just put all the equipment out on the street. 4 pallets of steel and gear.
Fortunately I am blessed with a fantastic gang og craftsmen working on site so they all volunteered together with Ola and myself. 2 hours later the roaster was in place. It took 6 men, a lot of good ideas and some old egyptian pyramid building-techniques to get it inside as the roaster wheighs over 700 kilos.
Unfortunately my camera was left home, but I promise pictures tomorrow.

Busy

2007-06-17T19:13:00.000+02:00

Det har vært litt stille på blogen i det siste. Det er fordi jeg har jobbet fra 7.00 til 24.00 hver dag og brukt ca. en time på mail fra 24.00 til 01.00 hver dag. Dermed blir det lite blogging.

Forrige uke begynte jeg å bygge bardisken med ikeaskap som min nye brennemester Hr. Ola Brattås hjalp meg å skru opp.
I tillegg har jeg gjort en del innkjøp, blandt annet av en Mazzer Robur 3 fas kværn og en Compak K10 kværn. Brenneren kommer til uka og det skal espressomaskinen også.

Nå gjenstår det bare en del håndverksmessige ting som skal på plass samt ferdigstilling av disker og møbler.

Jeg antar å åpne den 30. juni, men mer info om dette kommer snart..

It has been a while since my last post and the reason why is that I am working from 7 am until 1 am every day now. I have started building the bar counter with a little help from my new roastmaster Mr. Ola Brattås

Last week I got my new 3 phase Mazzer Robur, ordered a Compak K10 grinder and did a lot of other purchases. The remaining to-do's are minor electrical and gas installations, ventilation system, some painting and finishing touches before all furniture is put in. My roaster should arrive this week as well as my La Marzocco FB80

I expect to open on the 30th of june, but more exact info will come.

Mestere / Champions

2007-06-05T23:27:00.001+02:00

Forrige helg var det 2 mesterskap. Det ene var Finalerunden i Russland der min gode venn Olga Melik-Karakozova stakk av med seieren.
Olga brukte Tim Wendelboe Espresso i semifinalen som hadde blitt sendt med DHL et par dager i forkant. (Regningen ble på 3000,- kr) Hun brukte SH espresso i finalen da hun aldri tidligere hadde jobbet med min espresso og valgte å gå for en trygg blanding hun har jobbet mye med tidligere og også i forkant av mesterskapet. Gratulerer Olga!

Dere kan se video av Olga i aksjon i semifinalen her:

Olga 1

Olga 2

There were 2 championships last weekend. First of all the Russian Barista Championship where my good friend Olga Melik-Karakozova won and which means she will be representing Russia in the WBC in Tokyo. Olga used Tim Wendelboe Espresso in the semi finals, but chose to use SH espresso in the final round as she had never worked with my blend before and had been practicing with the SH espresso for a while. You can watch Olga in her semi final round on the 2 links above called Olga 1&2. Congratulations Olga!

The other championship was an internal championship among all the university cafes in Norway. It happens bi annualy and my friend Ricardo Draaisma won the whole thing. He also used Tim Wendelboe Espresso and have been practicing with it for a couple of months. Ricardo has also given me valuable feedback on the blend. I really think he deserved his victory as he has been working for so many years as a barista and still he is very humble and willing to learn and practice to become even better. Congratulations Ricardo! Ricardo told me he was not feeling very well when he competed as he had a cold for almost a week, but all the judges liked his drinks a lot and his signature drink with vanilla icecream and lime was heaven!

Den andre konkurransen som var forrige helg var student samskipnadens interne baristakonkurranse som holdes annet hvert år. Min gode venn Ricardo Draaisma gikk helt til topps nok en gang og gjorde dt med Tim Wendelboe espresso. Ricardo har faktisk trent med espressoblandingen i flere måneder og gitt meget konstruktiv tilbakemelding som gagner oss alle. Takk for det Ricardo og gratulerer med seieren.

utsikt / view

2007-06-05T23:21:00.001+02:00

Da er vinduene på plass og gulvet ferdig.
Fantastisk deilig å få lyset tilbake igjen!

The windows have finally arrived and the floor is finished. I can finally see the light again..

Interview

2007-06-04T23:14:00.000+02:00

Her er et intervju som ble gjort for Barista Guild of Taiwan over e-mail i hui og hast. Jeg trodde sannelig de skulle redigere det før det ble publisert, men de syntes det var så bra at de publiserte rubbel og bit. Jammen godt jeg ikke sleivet alt for mye, men jeg hadde nok svart det samme om jeg hadde brukt mer tid på det også.

Interview part 1

Interview part 2

The links are to an interview done over e-mail for the Barista Guild of Taiwan. I was actually a bit brief when I answered their questions as I had very little time to answer at that point. I also thought they would edit it before it was published, but they didn't. I guess the answers would have been more or less the same if I had more time to answer them anyway.

Snart ferdig med gulvet / almost finished with the floor

2007-06-03T00:56:00.000+02:00

Her er en liten oppdatering. Jeg har begynt å male vegger og tak, så nå er det ikke lenge til det begynner å ta form. Skal ta frem umbraconøkkelen fra IKEA på onsdag..

The floor needs 2 more coatings and I have allready started painting the walls and ceiling. On Wednesday I am charging my electrical screwdriver and getting my IKEA-allen key ready for some serious furniture building.

ying yang

2007-05-28T12:30:00.001+02:00

Før / Before:

Etter / After:

Gulv / floor

2007-05-24T22:41:00.000+02:00

Det blir ikke noe pinseferie på meg. Gulvet skal nemlig beises og lakkes.
Dette er en real drittjobb, men jeg har lakket utallige mange strøk på Stockfleth's Lille Grensen og Tinghuset tidligere, så jeg vet hva jeg går til. Jobben i seg selv er ikke så ille, men at jeg må vente et døgn mellom hvert strøk er en tålmodighetsprøve. Jeg skal ha 2 strøk beis og 9 strøk med lakk. Mellom hvert lakkstrøk er jeg nødt til å finslipe gulvet for å få et fint resultat.. Estetikk koster krefter...

Åpningsdatoen er utsatt med nesten 2 uker. Dette er fordi arbeidstilsynet vil ha ventilasjonen oppe å gå før de ansatte får lov å jobbe der. Det holder ikke med åpne vinduer, selv om sommeren.

This weekend is a holiday in Norway, but I will get little rest. I have to paint the floors and it is a hell of a job. I have done several floors before at Stockfleth's so I know what is waiting for me.. It is not the job itself that is boring, but the fact that I have to wait 24 hours between each coating. I am painting 2 coats with black paint and 9 coats of matte transparent paint. Between each coating I have to sand down the previous coating so that the finish gets extraordinary nice. Being a perfectionist isn't easy...

The opening date has been moved to the end of june... Probably the 30th.
This is because the authorities will not allow me to have employees working for me without having a ventilation system up and running. The good ol'opening the windos is not good enough anymore. Even if it is summer in Oslo.