Denmark - Country of Barista Champions

As many of you know Denmark has had 4 world barista champions, this factor alone immediately indicates a very high standard of coffee quality. I would like to talk about certain barista champions and what they are up to these days ..

It is really good to see that all past barista champions from Denmark are still involved in the coffee industry.

Martin Hildebrandt (Miami, 2001), I had the opportunity to meet one of the pioneers in barista competition world. He is currently busy managing Europa café, which is located in the heart of Copenhagen. An outstanding espresso bar that raised three World Barista Champions.

Fritz Storm (Oslo, 2002) – I didn’t have the opportunity to catch up with Fritz this time, as he doesn’t live in Copenhagen, he is very busy and involved with lots of trade shows and general barista education.







Troels Poulsen (Seattle, 2005) – Very much involved with Kontra coffee today, Troels is in charge of barista education at Kontra coffee. Troels gave me a very detailed tour of europa café, we got to catch up and talk a lot about coffee. I cannot express how genuinely nice he is. After our little europa experience we ended up at Kontra rostery. I must say that the space that they have is amazing. They occupy 2 levels of space. On the first level you will find anything from domestic single group espresso machines to the most professional toys in the coffee business. On that same level; a big probat roster with a nice cupping room at the back of the facility. Downstairs is mostly education with a nice room with a projector screen and seating as well as few different espresso machines (da la corte and la marzocco). Further down the hall you will find a spacious storage facility with spare parts and miscellaneous wares. This rostery is backed by the owners of europa, a very successful roastery. The roastmaster is Michael a very knowledgeable roaster, on top of things a great gentlemen.

I thoroughly enjoyed visiting kontra coffee rostery, it is good to see that Troels is heavily involved in the coffee industry and doing to great things in barista education and marketing for Kontra . Kontra it is also a shop; you can easily visit their roasting facility without booking an appointment.

Klaus Thomsen (Berne, 2006) – now part owner of coffee collective coffee rosting company. Him and 3 other guys have joined forces to open a pioneer rostery in copnhagen. They all came from estate coffee so have a very high standard in anything and everything. I can without a doubt say that they are one of leading rosters in the industry. These guys are perfectionists in just about everything that they do, very involved in research. I couldn’t help to compare their philosophies to what Tim Wendelboe’s doing in Oslo. The coffee is fantastic, they are not getting ahead of themselves, they only roast few different coffees and absolutely perfect each and every one! You can see their selection on the website. The other great thing is that they try to use direct trade. They are very active in traveling the world in search of best plantations and keep a blog about their ventures, you must check it out. I received very generous welcome from Klaus and the crew. If you are in town in the neat future, you must check this place out as it offers an unforgettable and rewarding experience. As you know we did water cupping at the rostery, feel free to check out my previous post…

This blog turned into my experiences at Coffee Collective and Kontra, unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to go to Estate Coffee rostery, but I do hear amazing things about it so if you have time I strongly recommend visiting them too.