For the first time ever, we’re shipping coffee from Germany! Let us introduce you to July’s roaster, The Barn Coffee Roasters from Berlin, Germany. We are thrilled to have them onboard! We have spoken to Ralf, founder of The Barn.
It all started when Ralf moved back to his home country, Germany, to Berlin after living in London for 10 years, working in both finance and acting. Ralf was still looking to combine his work and passion. Whatever he did before he enjoyed, but not in a passionate way. When he moved to Berlin he discovered his love for hospitality. He worked in a “fresh food place”, just to try something different from what he had been working with before. Ralf really enjoyed preparing food and serving people, but also to see their instant reaction to what they tasted.
He worked there for 1,5 years until he felt he was ready to do something on his own. The year was 2010 and Ralf noticed that there were now specialty coffee roasters in Berlin as well. There were no beans of high quality, the coffee was not traceable and there was no light roast. There were blends, but no single origin coffees.
Photo: Thnattaporn
Ralf was inspired by the quality and freshness of the food at Borough market in London, close to where he used to live. The concept of The Barn was to make everything by hand with fresh and regionally sourced bread from local artisan bakeries together with homemade cakes. They also wanted to serve the best coffee they could find. At this time Square Miles and Tim Wendelboe supplied beans.
“That’s how The Barn was invented, putting everything I liked into one concept.”
Only a year later, in 2011, Ralf started thinking about roasting coffee on his own. He wanted to be involved in more levels of the value chain. Not just brewing and serving the coffees, but also sourcing and roasting them. For Ralf there were no second thoughts about not having the best quality that they could deliver.
“I’m really obsessed with quality and attention to detail.”
Photo: Marta Greber
The Barn is always looking at improving their product. Whether it might be the roast or the brew or the drink. Ralf explains that he never really looked at the market or at what people wanted.
“I think that if you really believe in something and you focus on it, and try to make it better and better there will be a lot of people that understand you, you don’t have to think about what they may want. If I had done that in 2010 then I would probably serve really dark roasted coffee because that’s what everybody wanted.”
The Barn does not blend any coffee. They want the coffee from the farms they work with to speak for themselves. That is also why all of their coffees are named after the farm they come from. The baristas are fully integrated in the roast work, they write down feedback of what they taste and what recipes they are using every day so that they can track every coffee that they roast. This gives them a lot more control of their quality. They not only roast and cup the coffees, they also see how well their coffees deliver in their cafés.
Photo: Marta Greber
Today The Barn has got two cafés in Berlin. Looking ahead they will continue making great coffees, and keep improving their product.
In July we’re shipping coffee from The Barn Coffee Roasters. Get your box of coffee - join our subscription. We can’t wait for July.
