The Coffee Compass

Your Guide for Craft Coffee

Book Review: The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers

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Dave Eggers has always been connected with specialty coffee in my mind. I purchased my first Eggers’s novel from Quills Coffee and Books on Kentucky St. in Louisville’s Paristown neighborhood. (Due to a bad landlord situation the shop closed. When it reopened on nearby Baxter Avenue, the “and Books” was dropped from everything but legal documents). The book was What is the What, a novel based on the true story of a Sudanese refugee who barely escapes his village being slaughtered by rebels and eventually gets to America, where he encounters hardships of a different kind. To this day, whenever someone mentions Eggers I’m transported back to that small corner café, with Quills’s distinctive red mug and a coffee-stained book.

It turns out the association between Eggers and coffee was misguided but strangely prescient. Eggers latest book, The Monk of Mokha, chronicles the true story of Mokhtar Alkhanshali, the founder of …

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The La Marzocco Turkey Showroom Opens in Istanbul

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Few people could have predicted the way specialty coffee has boomed in Istanbul over the last five years. It wasn’t that long ago you could count the number of specialty coffee shops in Turkey’s largest city on your fingers. Now that list is well over 60, and the lion’s share of those cafés have a La Marzocco espresso machine on bar.

The Florence-manufactured espresso machines are truly an icon of contemporary coffee culture, especially in brand-conscious Istanbul, where a La Marzocco espresso machine often symbolizes a larger commitment to quality. But the machines are not just on display in cafés anymore….

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Introducing Bellwether Coffee: A Zero-Emissions Roaster

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Bellwether Coffee roaster

With the most pessimistic reports predicting the near extinction of arabica coffee in the next fifty years due to climate change, the specialty coffee industry has an invested interest in reducing coffee’s environmental impact. But most coffee roasters utilize technology that is more or less a century old, and far from fuel efficient. A conventional drum roaster burns a lot of fossil fuels, not to mention the by-products that are put into the atmosphere. But a new in-shop roaster from Bellwether Coffee aims to change the way the industry roasts coffee. We interviewed Bellwether Coffee’s COO Arno Holschuh to find out how their zero-emissions roaster works, and why he thinks it could disrupt a whole industry. 

Bellwether Coffee is manufacturing the first zero–emissions coffee roaster. I’m sure your technology is proprietary, but can you tell us something about how the roaster works?

I can tell lots of things about how it works! For starters, our roaster uses a fixed-drum roasting architecture. This is also known as the “modified drum” architecture. What I mean is that the roasting drum is made out of stainless steel and does not rotate; the beans are mixed to assure even roasting by “paddles” that lift the beans off the drum surface and loft them into the air. (This design was popularized by …

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How to Make Iced Coffee with the December Dripper

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Last year, the December Dripper emerged on the scene with a simple but revolutionary design. The brewing device uses a silicon gasket to adjust the flow rate with a simple twist. One of the more interesting applications of this design feature is making flash-chilled iced coffee– sometimes called Japanese iced coffee or an iced pour-over.

The biggest problem with brewing over a bed of ice is that it’s difficult to get a full extraction. The best iced pour-overs are light and bright with a lively acidity, but they lack the deep sweetness of a fully extracted coffee. The ability to slow and even stop the flow rate with the December Dripper means you can …

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Meet Martell Mason of Arabica Trading House

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Small coffee roasters face numerous challenges, but Turkish roasters face a bigger obstacle: access to quality green coffee. Most coffee in Turkey is imported twice: first by an European or American importer, that by a roaster in Turkey. Martell Mason, an American expat based in Istanbul, is trying to change that. Arabica Trading House is one of the first specialty coffee importing companies to import coffee directly from origin into Turkey. We met up with Mason at ATH’s office in Çukurcuma to find out what inspired him to move from Oslo to Istanbul….

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Sunergos Coffee Opens Fourth Louisville Location in Deer Park

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Sunergos Norris

Long time readers of The Compass will remember our first post highlighted an exciting new espresso bar in Downtown Louisville. That espresso bar, of course, was the third retail location for Louisville specialty coffee pioneers Sunergos Coffee. Just shy of 6 years later, the Sunergos retail family is growing again, though their fourth location couldn’t be a sharper contrast from the closet-sized standing room-only espresso bar, in the shadow of Michael Graves’s famed Humana Tower. Sunergos Norris place occupies a refurbished garage, in quiet Deer Park. We caught up with Sunergos’s co-owner Matthew Huested to find out how the project came together….

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Dear Coffee Buyer: The Ryan Brown Interview

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Dear Coffee Buyer

I’ve often bemoaned that specialty coffee doesn’t have a book like Kermit Lynch’s classic memoir Adventures on the Wine Route. The story of how coffee travels from remote farms in the tropics to cafés around the world is rarely told, and when it is, it’s usually stripped down to utilitarian logistics. But an exciting new book from coffee industry veteran Ryan Brown aims to offer aspiring green coffee buyers a field guide to a largely mysterious, but incredibly important, aspect of the coffee industry. We caught up with the author of Dear Coffee Buyer: A Guide to Sourcing Green Coffee to find out what inspired the book, who’s it for, and what gear he packs when he travels. …

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A More Than Decent Espresso Machine: the John Buckman Interview

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Decent Espresso Machine

For all the talk from coffee professionals about how coffee is a science, there’s not a lot of hard research, especially when it comes to espresso. Much of the received orthodoxy surrounding espresso is a random combination of tradition, hunches, and preferences handed down from barista to barista.

But a new piece of technology promises to usher in a golden age of enlightenment, in which espresso shots neither channel nor under-extract. Or perhaps more accurately, the machine promises to inform the user when channeling occurs, as well allowing for control and customization previously unavailable from an espresso machine. This miracle machine is the DE1+, from the rather modestly-named Decent Espresso. We caught up with Decent Espresso’s founder John Buckman and asked him to explain the technology that has the coffee world buzzing.

Your new espresso machine, the DE1+, has been making waves at coffee trade shows around the globe. Exactly, what’s so special about the Decent espresso machine?

The Decent is a software-based espresso machine. Rather than having a single way of making espresso,…

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What’s the Difference Between Cold Brew and Iced Coffee?

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Iced coffee has never been hotter, but a crowded market place often leads to product confusion, and it seems one needs a degree in coffee studies from UC Davis to navigate all of the iced coffee options on the market these days. While we’re certainly not here to tell anyone how to enjoy their coffee, it helps to know the difference between cold brew and iced coffee before you get an unsolicited lecture from an overzealous barista. More so, each way of making iced coffee has its pros and cons, which is helpful to know before you drop your hard earned cash on that next brewing device.

Cold Brew

Technically speaking, all cold brew is iced coffee, but not all iced coffee is cold brew. …

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The Surprisingly Good Coffee Shops of Istanbul’s Malls

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For the most part, one can predict the sorts of places one finds a good coffee shop, and they usually don’t include malls. Sure, it’s easy to find some ubiquitous dark roast from an international chain’s kiosk, but you’re probably not expecting to get a single estate microlot next time you’re shoe shopping.

The shopping malls of Istanbul, however, are a surprising exception. As compared to the suburban sprawling concrete blocks one thinks of in other countries, most malls in Istanbul are mixed-purpose buildings, with residences and offices, many of which have won international awards for contemporary architecture. In a city with precious few parks, shopping malls occupy an important place in public life. It also turns out, many of them are a great place to get a pretty decent cup of coffee.

Kronotrop

Founded in 2012, Krontotrop is one of the oldest specialty coffee companies in Turkey. Even after changing hands and embracing an aggressive expansion plan, Kronotrop has managed to stay true to brand, with a distinct aesthetic and excellent coffees. Their newest location is in Emaar Square Mall, a mall that combines indoor and outdoor shopping in the Asian side’s Ünalan Mahallesi. It’s hard to think of a starker contrast to Kronotrop’s original surroundings in gritty Cihangir than a Gucci store, but the world is a crazy place. With two single origin espresso options and fresh batches of filter coffee, it’s hard to think of a better place to caffeinate before facing the material longing of late capitalism.

Petra

The roaster/retailer has not one but two cafés in malls: Etiler’s Akmerkez and Levent’s Kanyon. With its gravity-defying design, Kanyon remains my favorite mall in the city, even if it’s susceptible to to some pretty serious wind tunnel effects. On the ground-level floor, near the main entrance, Petra’s kiosk is a great place to get a take-away coffee, or take a break in their hidden, garden-like seating area. (Read about our visit to Petra’s massive Gayrettepe headquarters.)

Pieton Coffee

Astoria AVM in Şişli is perhaps the oldest mall on this list, but has remained relevant thanks to a prime location in Şişli, Istanbul’s central business district. Inside, tucked next to the escalator, is Pieton Coffee. The small stand only boasts one table and a bench, but brews fresh cups of coffee from Four Letter Word, a micro-roaster with operations in both Chicago and Burgazada— a small island in the Marmara Sea just off the coast of Istanbul.

Cargo Coffee Co.

Cargo Coffee Co. might be Istanbul’s prettiest café, let alone the prettiest café in a shopping mall. From the hanging birdcage-like chairs, to the sensible soft seating, every detail is carefully thought out. A minimalist menu of house-roasted coffees are offered by the cup. I wish a little more information about their coffees was available, but I found my pour-over to be sweet and well balanced.

Borderline Coffee

Borderline’s original Teşvikiye café has yet to even celebrate its first anniversary, but they’ve already expanded with a small kiosk in Emaar Square Mall. Expect coffee from a rotating cast of international roasters, good design, and the best take away cups in the Istanbul coffee scene.