The Speciality Coffee Scene is constantly developing and now starts to reach broader recognition in many cities globally. Like in wine or slow food, a close bound is being created between Micro-Farmer, Speciality Roaster and individual Coffeeshop to protect the high qualities of coffee beans from Crop to Cup.

Our Coffee
At THE BARN we feel very passionate about coffee. Our mission is to serve our customers the best coffee beans we can possibly source.  We share all of our knowledge about coffee. Our aim is to create awareness for better coffee.

We want to know where exactly our coffeebeans originate from and how they have been treated. Most of the time direct relationships are being kept between roaster and  coffee farmer. In direct trade the farmer receives a higher price for higher quality. This price is usually much higher than fair trade pricing. Direct trade has many other advantages: The farmer builds a long-term relationship with the roaster, he is proud of his product, he receives higher returns to his door rather than having too many middlemen getting a cut. This money can be invested in better equipment, education, higher wages for pickers and so on.

We are very proud to be trusted by some of the most gifted Micro Roasters with their coffee beans. Our main supplier of coffee beans are Square Mile Coffee Roasters (London). An amazing team of dedicated and humble people are working hard to roast superb coffees. The beans are being delivered to us fresh every week. We also serve guest coffees from other high end roasters such as Tim Wendelboe (Oslo), The Coffee Collective (Copenhagen) or Ecco Caffe (Santa Rosa / California).

Coffee Guidelines
Along our way we have established a few guidelines on how we prepare and serve coffee. We ask for your understanding: They are driven by care and not by attitude.

• Baristas find their way to us through passion, attention to detail, skill and desire to learn more about coffee. We move as one team and evaluate our views in regular coffee meetings.
  

• Our coffees are always fresh and change throughout coffee seasons. We are dialing in all coffees daily by looking at various factors such as Brew Ratios or extracted Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) using a VST Mojo Refractometer. With the latter we make sure that our coffees are extracted at an optimal range of 18-22%.

• While all this is relevant, the most important thing is taste and judgement of our baristas who are building on experience and exchange with others.

• Next to our search for better espresso shots, we regularly create a Brew Bar Menue for our Single Origin Filter Coffees. We decide which of our coffees taste best on our Hario V60 ceramic drippers, Woodneck with linen cloth filter, AeroPress or Syphon Vaccum Coffee Maker. All coffees are made-to-order and freshly poured.
  

• Our brew coffees have a spectacular range of notes and flavours. They are roasted lightly and with great care to bring out the individual characteristics of a bean. We advise to drink these coffees without milk or sugar to take all of this in.
  
  
• We carefully observe the maturity profiles of our coffee beans. Brew coffee beans are being served as close as possible to their roast date. We usually dont use brew coffees beans that are older than 15 days. Our espresso beans bring out best tastes between 6 to 15 days after roasting.
  
  
• For our espressos we are using a Synesso Hydra Machine that was tailormade in Seattle.
  This machine allows us to extract wonderful espresso shots by offering accurate temperature control and pressure profiling per group head. We use VST baskets to achieve more even and balanced espresso extraction, Ditting and Mazzer grinders and tampers by Reg Barber and John Gordon.

• No good comes out of dirty equipment. It is second nature to us to keep all of our equipment clean at all times. A Formula-One-Driver would certainly not start the Grand Prix of Monte Carlo in a dirty car – we keep that picture in mind when we are doing our job creating a good cup of coffee.

• Our water is being filtered and re-mineralised by a Reverse Osmosis System. Not only improves this the water taste it also keeps our machines and boilers clean.

• The new water quality has a tremendous impact on our Teas also. Next to our fresh peppermint and ginger teas, we offer an small selection of high end teas provided by Waterloo Tea (Cardiff). We usually serve a Black, Oolong, White and Green Tea.

• Luckily, one of the few remaining farmers offering fresh milk in Northern Germany is an organic village just outside of Berlin. Brodowin milk is pasteurized and produced following Demeter rules. It is being delivered to us within 24 hours from cow to customer.
  

• Milk is steamed individually per order. Each drink gets fresh milk that won´t be heated twice. It is also important to us not to steam the milk too hot and keep it within an accurate temperature range. This keeps the milk alive and naturally sweeter.
  
  
• We do advise not to use sugar for various reasons but mainly because it distracts from wonderful coffee flavours. However, if you must we offer Whole Cane Sugar from dried unrefined natural sugarcane juice.
  
  
• Unlike more refined sugars, it is not heated and spun to transform it into a crystalised form, and, as a result, it is much richer in vitamins and minerals. It is also much easier for the body to digest, and is metabolised more slowly than white sugar.