ÍSLAND KAFFI [III] Surprise Meetings and Crater Brews

ÍSLAND KAFFI [III]

Surprise Meetings and Crater Brews

After four hundred kilometres of driving, one gorgeous hot springs bath, and one night on what could be likened to the surface of the moon with the added joy of harsh wind and pouring rain, we finally rolled into the northern city of Akureyri, Iceland’s second biggest after Reykjavík.

Actually, rewind a bit and join us as we spend the morning on the gravel moon road, smashing through giant puddles and passing between two incredible, yet invisible glaciers beyond the eternal fog. I get a very coincidental response email from the prolific coffee gal, Sonja Björk Grant (another great contact from Tumi) explaining how she was just arriving to Reykjavík from coffee meetings in Dublin, but would be flying to Akureyri on the following day. Ironically, we’d be waiting to meet her.

We didn’t know much of what was going on in Akureyri in terms of coffee, besides the location of another Te & Kaffi in a well-known bookstore chain, so we gladly took advantage of their late opening hours to charge our tired bodies and electronic stuff. We also happened to make good friends with the passionate barista, Viktor Hollanders. He was thrilled to learn we were meeting with Sonja, and we invited him along.

SONJA BJÖRK GRANT

“Iceland is weird, because it’s small, but everyone wants this feeling of exclusivity. It’s like a middle class who wants to have butlers.”

Sonja had joined us back in Te & Kaffi around noon to exchange stories and drop some Icelandic knowledge.

As it turned out, she was actually a carpenter to begin with. She was always working alongside men, always hustling, every day, and it set her off on a life of hard work. One day, she had come across a micro-roastery in Reykjavik that was run and owned by a woman. This was Kaffitar, another well-known Icelandic coffee roaster, and this was when she decided what she wanted to do.

Several years and a million espresso shots later, she opened and co-owned Kaffismiðja Íslands which we now know and love as Reykjavik Roasters. They opened two months after economic crisis struck Iceland, she explained, but they had vinyls and a record player, so they played a lot of disco to lighten the mood. She took everything she learned from the previous 13 years in coffee, and just did her own thing – it got five years of Best Café in Reykjavik.

KAFFIBRUGGHÚSIÐ | CAFÉ

This led Sonja to her latest project – Kaffibrugghúsið [Coffee Brew House]. Originally they wanted to be called “Ministry of Coffee” translated into Icelandic, but it didn’t really go over well when registering as a business, as you might expect. There’s an old harbour, in the 101 area of Reykjavik, 250 square metres, and they wanted to use this space for something special.

“I’ve been in the coffee world for 23 years now and got tired of the typical coffee stuff going on. I need to push forward, and do something different.”

There will be five major elements: café, roastery, food, education, and collaboration. In terms of food, they want to have the kitchen a lot more connected to coffee origin itself – Colombian dishes, Ethiopian foods, Indonesian snacks. They’re also going to have beer and Prosecco on tap, ‘cause that’s important!

In terms of collaboration, they already have two girls in there making a body scrub from old coffee grounds, as well as other natural cosmetics with cucumber and berries. Collabs are also taking the form of fellow roasters; by the time I finished this article, they already had a Polish guy by the name of Lukasz come in and start roasting under the label Kaffibrennslan Kvörn, buying Sonja’s old 1 kg Giesen roaster, and borrowing the 6 kg on occasion. That’s true coffee camaraderie!

THE FOCUS ON SERVICE

At the former Kaffismiðja Íslands [Reykjavik Roasters] they had a lot of people coming in making requests about the amount of milk they wanted in the drink, how much coffee, how hot, how much foam… if you’ve ever worked in coffee, I’m sure this sounds familiar. In response, they developed a few special menu items for the picky folks, Create your own hell which was a double espresso with steamed milk on the side so you can add as much or as little as you like. The Two-Barreled Gun you already know about, a standard cappuccino served with a single espresso on the side to try with and without milk.

Sonja believes there’s a lot we can do to improve service in the specialty coffee sphere, and at Kaffibrugghúsið, they want to have a very open concept – no separation between coffee and client. Workstations will be all on wheels so it can be rearranged on a whim, and all the pipework will thus hang from the ceiling rather than being affixed to the ground.

“It’s a bit of a human experiment, but we’re hoping it will help the dynamic. I’ve always trained my staff to let the apron absorb all negative energy from any clients throughout the day, so that when you take it off at the end of the day, nothing sticks. You wash it, and move on.”

When there’s no separation between barista and client, it creates more transparency. As Sonja put it, the client would have to be very nasty to make a negative move, because everyone and everything is so close together, no barriers. It reminded me of the Apple Store approach, which I think also works quite well in terms of client connection.

FOURTH WAVE

As with Tumi from Ísland Kaffi [I], we all got onto the hot topic of what actually might be the next wave of coffee. We talked about the potential of machinery itself.

“Espresso itself has developed so well, but maybe the grinders are a bit behind? Filters are more or less the same as ever, but at the end of the day, maybe we should just focus on making the old stuff even better rather trying to advance the technology too quickly. Some say we haven’t even finished the 2nd or 3rd wave yet, but our industry’s Achilles Heel really is Service.”

You can always make things a little bit better with science, but eventually the nitty-gritty details gets lost on the actual market, the clients themselves, and there is so much more to explore on a the simple level of human interaction – good ol' service.

Super inspiring talk, Sonja. Thanks for taking the time!

CLIMBING CRATERS

After wishing farewells to Sonja, we continued along Route 1, climbed a crater, made some coffee, set up camp, and watched Aurora Borealis for the first time.

Again, huge thanks to Lagoon Car Rental for collaborating with us on the entire journey, and all the other passionate people we met along the way. Though Iceland has a long history of strong coffee culture, I can tell this is still a beautiful beginning for the growing coffee community and this incredibly magical country.

I'll definitely be checking back shortly.

PS.

In further communication, Sonja also tells me that Kaffibrugghúsið is the first roaster in line at the new super cool global coffee subscription company, Modern Recreation out of Toronto. You’re gonna wanna look into it.

FOOTNOTESCollabs:

Lagoon Car Rental, Original Grain Watches, Reykjavik Roasters, Reykjavik Distillery.