2019 has been a year full of delicious coffees, working with extremely talented coffee roasters. We wanted to finish up the year on top. We’re happy to introduce Belgian roaster MOK for our December’s box.
Founder of MOK, Jens Crabbé, opened his coffee shop and roastery in Leuven in 2012. Always knowing he wanted to start his own thing, this let him develop his own approach and create his own vision. We had the chance to ask Jens a few questions!
- What is the coffee scene like in Leuven and Brussels?
Our shop in Leuven grew every year since we have started back in 2012 so this must mean the specialty coffee scene and audience is still growing. On the other hand there’s only a hand full of actual specialty coffee places and most other are still riding the more commercial wave to be honest. I feel we have really created a nice coffee community which was obvious when we hosted the Aeropress semi finals this year with 40 people competing. Brussels on the other hand is (finally!) expanding fast in terms of hospitality in general, not only coffee shops but natural wine and fine dining places are popping up everywhere... I’m moving to Bxl soon! :D
- Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?
The next big step for MOK is moving the roastery to Brussels, apart from being a roastery we will add a nice extra to the space as well., keep an eye on our social media for more details soon! After this i’m not sure where my ambition will take us but I definitely don’t want to become a chain or sell the brand to Nestle haha ;) Quality and Integrity are key and I will keep focusing on this, trying to be the best possible MOK we can be.
- Do you have a brewing recipe that you would like to share?
I must say I like to keep my brews as simple as possible, only for competitions I tend to go for a more complex approach but this hardly ever pays off. On the other hand competitions are super interesting to push your abilities and skills and learn from your mistakes. My advise for brewing is to keep things simple and focus on the most important factors: a good grind and water. We like to brew with SPA which always gives a great mouthfeel and freshness to the brew also people visiting our shop are allowed to fill up there bottle of our brewing water (reversed osmosis +-60ppm) to brew at home! For the brewing; try to make the pouring routine and timing easy to repeat and focus on pouring technique and achieving a “flatbed”.
- Many of our subscribers are tasting MOK for the first time. What can we expect from the three coffees (Mr Tessema Edima, Mr Basha Bekele and San Antonio de Esquipulas)?
We decided to enter the subscription with 3 different processing methods; washed, honey and natural as we believe these coffees are great examples of these processing methods.
Tessema is in my opinion a typical Yirgacheffe, super floral bursting with citrus flavours. We clearly find jasmine in the aroma and bergamot and black tea flavours. Try cupping this coffee before you start brewing to get a good reference of what a good brew could taste like!
San Antonio is a bit more easy going but very satisfying and forgiving, water is a bit less important to make great brews as it will always have a nice body and sweetness, we mainly taste chestnut and chocolate and that typical honey-process kind off acidity.
Basha Bekele; probably one of our most successful coffees of the (last) year! Bursting with ripe fruit flavours and floral notes and has that right amount of funkiness that keeps you coming for more.
What coffee's did we send from MOK?
Mr Tessema Edima
Origin: Ethiopia, Yirgacheffe
Process: Washed
Altitude: 1950-2150 MASL
Varieties: Kurume
Tasting notes: Peach, lavender, black tea
This is the second year MOK buys coffee from Mr Tessema Edima. For this year, Tessema introduced a 72h fermentation, putting the depulped cherries in a tank under full immersion with renewed water every 24hrs. This process make sure the complete mucilage is removed during fermentation. With precision and quality control, this resulted in an incredibly clean & aromatic coffee with notes of peach, lavender and black tea.
San Antonio de Esquipulas
Origin: Guatemala, San Antonio de Esquipulas
Process: Honey
Altitude: 2000+ MASL
Varieties: 70% bourbon 30% caturra
Tasting notes: chocolate, chestnut, golden raisin.
Due to the migration of workers, producer Jorge had to rely on 1/4 of his usual workforce this harvest. Supported by Anacafe, he explored different possibilities to find out if he could produce a honey processed coffee using mechanical drying. The coffee was spread across static dryers and over 2 days a combination of airflow, heat, movement & rest were repeated. This coffee includes both bourbon and caturra varieties and has notes of chocolate, chestnut and golden raisin.
And exclusive to our Tasting box subscribers 👏
Mr Basha Bekele
Origin: Ethiopia, Sidama
Process: Natural
Altitude: 1950-2000 MASL
Varieties: 74160
Tasting notes: Pomegranate, black tea, lime
With new export laws in Ethiopia, small producers are now able to market their coffee themselves. MOK’s importer Falcon has begun a funding and education initiative that pre-finances export and teaches families like Basha’s how to improve their farming and processing techniques. Basha and his wife own three hectares where they grow the 74160 variety, known to have very pronounced citrus and floral notes. This coffee has flavours of pomegranate, black tea and lime.
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