We are on a seven-hour drive from Armenia to Neiva in the middle of a weeklong whirlwind through the coffee-growing regions of Colombia during what is called the fly crop*. It is the summer of 2024. In the driver’s seat is our guide Tyler Youngblood, an American who exports green coffee and has been living and working in Colombia for over fourteen years. Tonight, the national football team will beat Uruguay and make it to the finals of the Copa America. We have eaten at least three fruits on this road trip I have never seen in my life. Even more memorable is how the countless hours in the car have given us ample time to discuss the complex issues raised by this visit.
One year earlier, in the lounge of our Copenhagen restaurant, with the windows wide open and the garden in full bloom, I find myself speaking to Tim Wendelboe, our trusted Norwegian roaster for the past ten years. He is over for a few days to spend time with our head barista Carolyne so they can (hopefully) perfect a new-ish brewing method he developed for our restaurant. This technique will allow us to serve a more consistent high-quality cup: in less time, with less coffee.
As we sit down for a break, he asks: “So Mees, when are you guys going to start roasting your own coffee?” It’s a question we have asked ourselves on occasion but have never truly explored, likely because we cherish our time with Tim so much. But here he is, giving us the final little nudge of encouragement to venture out on our own. What are you waiting for? The dream of roasting for our guests at once makes us envisage something bigger. Can we roast fresh coffee for people at home? It is the perfect moment, just as we are working on transforming from a restaurant to a place that, among other pursuits, produces flavors to be tasted in many households all over the world. We immediately throw ourselves head over heels into researching the possibilities of the project, helped by our friends in Oslo who are kind enough to personally train us to roast. It will be less than twelve months until we serve our own roasted coffee to the first guests.
Back in the car on that bumpy road crossing Huila, the conversation grows more animated as we begin to draw comparison between the progress of the natural wine movement and that of specialty coffee in a town like Copenhagen: unlike the contemporary wine scene, the specialty coffee world tends to be more concerned with winning competitions than the farming behind the coffee that wins those awards. From the Cup of Excellence for farmers to the Barista Cup for, well… baristas, much emphasis is placed on these events, where sometimes all that seems to matter is how much a coffee can stand out (hence the recent popularity of co-ferments.) Of course, there are roasters and shops and restaurants out there who source coffee that is farmed organically, and who also make sure that everyone in the supply chain is provided with a living wage, if not more.
And sure, we have to acknowledge that the world of coffee is knottier than the world of wine: producers are much more dependent on outside factors than a vigneron, beginning with the essential fact that they grow fruit in places that have long been suppressed by enslavers, dictators, and colonialists; they have to contend with a global market that controls the price of the beans for them, and a widely spread production chain from crop to cup. But that doesn’t mean a comparison should not be drawn.
As the week progresses and we continue to climb the steep forested hills of the farmers we visit, I find myself having the same conversations as with any of our grape growers, or the producers of the tea we served in Kyoto, or the sake brewers who spend their summers in the rice paddies. We overlook a valley. We dig our hands into the soil to smell its life. We speak about the rain (or the lack thereof). We taste a seed.
All these drinks, from wine to coffee, will be served on the same table.
It feels like the beginning of something exciting. In this complicated market, can we find a way to forge the same close relationships to our farmers, to find like-minded projects and build a future together? There is so much to talk about and plenty of road ahead of us.
Thankfully, there will be fruit along the way.
* Thanks to its unique climate and in the true spirit of magical realism, Colombia has multiple harvests per year instead of just one cycle: the small fly crop around June and the main crop or harvest in late autumn. We encounter coffee trees that are simultaneously in bloom and giving fruit. This is wild, given that the plant normally needs nine months to go from blossom to harvest.
