Coffee Of The Dutch Style
Coffee is ingrained in the very fiber of The Netherlands. We cannot begin to talk about coffee without acknowledging the impact The Netherlands has had on the drink. Today, the Dutch cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam are home to some of the most brilliant coffee professionals in the global industry. A number of the world's finest baristas live and apply their craft in The Netherlands. The coffee scene here has been developing for centuries in a way that is markedly different from how coffee existed in the United States during that time. The Dutch have a relationship with coffee that goes beyond just a caffeine kick in the morning. Whether you’re an avid connoisseur of specialty coffee or a commercial coffee consumer, Dutch people’s relationship with coffee is based in social interaction, and deeply intertwined with art and culture. Coffee of the Dutch style is a seemingly improbable balance between tradition and innovation. Hopefully by the end of this I will have explained exactly what I mean by that. In the historical sense, because of course the proper context needs to be established before going into the rest of the material covered here, it was Dutch colonialism in the 17th and 18th centuries that created the global coffee trade. It must be acknowledged that during The Dutch East India Company’s administration of colonialism in Southeast Asian coffee producing regions, some of history’s most horrific acts occurred. It was a period of time where colonizers were stealing land and draining those stolen lands of their resources, slaughtering many of the Indigenous peoples, and exploiting the rest. During this bleak period of history, Dutch settlers developing and expanding coffee farms (albeit in the aforementioned highly problematic fashion), then subsequently bringing the product back home is what caused coffee to spread like wildfire through Europe. Even though the coffeehouse originated in Vienna, it was the Amsterdam coffeehouses that were creating the first coffee trends that spread to other international cities, something the city’s coffee scene is doing to this day. In the late 18th century, coffeehouses in Amsterdam became the place to be for artists and intellectuals. During this time the city played a pivotal role in transforming coffee from a luxury item for the elite-class into a staple drink for the common-folk. In the contemporary time, it’s not just Amsterdam setting standards, but the nearby city of Rotterdam as well. Which is a historic coffee city in its own right. Of course Rotterdam is a port city, and it was through its ports that coffee was first entering Europe. So it is no wonder that the city maintains a magnificent coffee scene. The rich coffee culture that permeates throughout all of Rotterdam, frankly, impressed me the most these couple weeks. Cities where the coffee scene is just beginning to develop would do well to study the work being done by some of these Amsterdam and Rotterdam roasters. In the following few paragraphs I will attempt to tell you about this incredibly impressive coffee scene I have had the pleasure of experiencing these two weeks in The Netherlands. Oh, and of course, I will also discuss Amsterdam coffeeshops and the interconnectedness of coffee and cannabis in Dutch culture.
Before diving in, I want to mention something that I was not expecting when it comes to the Dutch coffee experience. This is part of trying to explain what I meant earlier about coffee of the Dutch style being an improbable balance between tradition and innovation. Outside of craft and specialty coffee places, drip or filter coffee is hard to come by, with most cafes serving strictly espresso based beverages. Another thing I noticed is that every social establishment, no matter if it's a restaurant, bar, library, cafeteria, or something similar, has a top of the line espresso machine. Which I think is brilliant, however the only thing is that most of these spaces don’t always have the basic tools to go along with it (specifically I noticed a severe lack of tamps), nor are they always training their staff on how to actually make espresso. This is something I had to learn to get over as I watched shot after shot go in unweighed, untamped and pull in 10 seconds. So very clearly, the city is coffee-mad and everybody has several coffees a day, but alas, the general public is yet to fully engage with specialty and craft coffee. But let's not dwell on coffee’s place in the general sense, let’s get into it on the craft side, because it is truly remarkable in The Netherlands.
I’ll start with Rotterdam, and then get into Amsterdam because I’ll tie in ‘coffeeshops’ and why they are called that. As I mentioned, it was Rotterdam of the two major coffee cities that impressed me most as a whole. I began the day at Grounded Craft Coffee, just a short walk from the Rotterdam Central station where I took the train in from Amsterdam. I’m glad I started there because it was the most informative of all my stops. I was greeted by Guido, their head of business and product development, who was blending some roasted coffee in the back. The first thing I learned is that I wouldn’t have any luck looking for actual roasteries in Rotterdam Centrum, because due to regulations around pollution and neighborhood disturbance laws all roasting at a large-scale has to be done outside of the city Centrum. The only reason Grounded can roast within the Centrum is because their operation is small enough to avoid these rules. Guido explained to me a little bit about how Grounded got its start, which I found a heartwarming story as they began on a tiny roaster in an apartment just like myself! After a nice chat, I embarked to find the rest of the roasteries on my list. Indeed, they were not in the Centrum but rather in the outer neighborhoods of town.
My next destination was Man Met Bril Koffie. My visit was short, but worthwhile nevertheless. The neighborhood immediately surrounding this spot features some beautiful artworks and a comforting architectural design. What struck me most about Man Met Bril is their emphasis on education. As craft coffee roasters, it is our job to make sure we are being educational in our endeavors, and we need to remember that we are doing more than just roasting coffee. Man Met Bril understands this to a tee. They provide introductory level education for coffee professionals and they also offer a latte art course. For 60 euro you can take part in any of these courses which provide thorough training.
However, the most impressive coffee education program I found was at my next destination: Giraffe Coffee Bar & Academy. Giraffe Coffee Roasters have possibly the most robust coffee program I came into contact with, not just in The Netherlands, but in my entire coffee career. They offer official SCA certification courses, which is a great option to have at a local coffee bar, however everyone knows how exorbitantly priced those are and that you don’t actually need one of these certifications to be a highly skilled and well regarded barista. Their workshop series is truly remarkable. It includes a home barista workshop, aeropress, filter brewing, and espresso extraction workshops, as well as a latte art workshop. They host frequent public cuppings in addition to the workshops. They also offer catering training for those looking to gain basic coffee service/latte art knowledge. Truly blown away by the education program on offer from Giraffe Coffee Roasters.
The next coffee roaster I had the pleasure of visiting was Manhattan Coffee Roasters (MCR). The company was started by Ben Morrow and Esther Maasdam, coffee professionals with over three decades of coffee experience between them. They work closely with farmers, buying only small lots, and are committed to creating strictly competition-grade coffees. Being a history nerd, I was very excited when I learned the story of their name. The name comes from an old nickname given to Rotterdam. The city of Rotterdam is famous for having a skyline, something cities of this region don’t really have. So, sometimes Rotterdam is referred to as “Manhattan aan de Maas”, or Manhattan on the Maas. The Maas river being the river Rotterdam lies on, which flows into the harbor, through which coffee first made its way into The Netherlands. I would highly recommend checking out MCR’s website where they go in depth into their story and have wonderfully written profiles on both Ben and Esther and their journeys to founding MCR.
The final coffee roaster I want to highlight here is very special to me, however I didn’t actually have the pleasure of trying while in Rotterdam. It’s a roasterie by the name A Matter Of Concrete (AMOC). I have had the opportunity to drink some of their coffee back home in Chicago, so I am quite upset that I missed the chance to try it in Rotterdam. I was able to get close to their roasting space, but I didn’t actually get a tour of it, just was able to peek inside. My trip to their roasterie was the day after a public bank holiday in The Netherlands so they were very busy roasting a backlog of orders and couldn’t accommodate my visit. The roasting space is tucked away in an industrial part of town on the outskirts of Rotterdam. It’s in the Van Nelle Fabriek, a building constructed in the 1920s which was once the largest coffee roasterie in Europe, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. They share the space with a couple other roasters, Viltar Coffee, and Elan Coffee. I was first able to try AMOC when I got a sample from Standart that came with an issue from a few months ago. My impression of the coffee was extremely positive, and it was in a way the moment that sparked my intention to take a trip to Rotterdam and Amsterdam and see the coffee scene for myself. So you could say despite not actually experiencing AMOC while in Rotterdam, I owe it to them that I even made the trip in the first place.
Alright, made it through Rotterdam! Let’s switch over to discussing the coffee that fuels the wonderfully creative and beautiful city of Amsterdam. There’s no better place to begin than the ultimate highlight of my coffee exploration: Friedhats and their FUKU Cafe. I’ve made it no secret that for a long time now Friedhats has been a key part of my inspiration for coffee. Their approach to single origin roasting at a micro-scale is something I’ve learned from directly. To me, they are the quintessential example of “small batch, craft coffee” that I refer to whenever I talk about my own coffee. So, after following their work for a long time, my visit felt to me like a full-circle moment. Friedhats was started by Lex Wenneker and Dylan Sedjwick. If you’re familiar with Barista competition, you definitely know about Lex. His track record speaks for itself. Three-time Dutch Barista Champion, and World Barista Championship finalist in 2016 and 2nd place finisher in 2018. Friedhats is not his first coffee company. An entrepreneurial mind, he first dabbled in coffee business starting a coffee cart back in 2011. Eventually he began roasting and started Headfirst Coffee Roasters in Amsterdam, a roasterie that set the specialty coffee ball rolling in Amsterdam. It was a wonderful coffee space that showed a historic coffee city exactly what’s so special about third wave coffee. This is where Lex and Dylan met. Unfortunately Headfirst had to close. But this didn’t mean that the idea had to die. With a desire to keep growing craft coffee in the city, the two began their most ambitious project yet and in 2016 Friedhats was born. Friedhats is Headfirst, the name being an anagram of the original company. The name didn’t need to be any more complicated than that, they just wanted to focus on roasting. This to me is a microcosm of their approach to coffee. It’s solely about the craft.
Next up, Dak Coffee Roasters. Founded by Europe-trotters Louis-Philippe Boucher and Veronique Lagarde, who spent the better part of a decade living in a multitude of European cities after moving from Montreal (another great coffee city of the world, check out my Coffee Talk on Coffee In Montreal). After much exploration, they settled in Amsterdam and began their passion project, eventually turning it into one of the most sought after roasteries in the region. Innovation is at the center of their roasting model. They are constantly experimenting with new origins and new profiles, and don’t shy away from the more unusual coffees. Head roaster Yako Konstantinidis has done a magical job creating an operation that allows the consumer to have options ranging from the most basic classic coffee profiles to some truly off the wall experimental profiles. I think the most interesting part about Dak is their showroom. With Dak being strictly a roasterie, without a cafe space, they felt they were missing the personal aspect of coffee. So they decided to open up a showroom next door to their roasting space. Here, a few times a month, they invite folks in for public cuppings. Occasionally they host workshops as well. Overall, I’d sum up Dak Coffee Roasters as a fascinating approach to wholesale roasting that ingeniously incorporates the experimental and personal aspects of craft coffee into their operation.
It wasn’t until the end of my second week in The Netherlands that I finally found cold brew! As I was strolling through Amsterdam on my way to the library, I noticed a cafe advertising that they were selling cold brew. I couldn’t believe it. My entire time in Amsterdam it felt like the city had taken a hard stance against cold brewing coffee, as if a protest against the brewing method invented in Japan and popularized in the United States. But alas, there it was. Cold brew made in house at LOT61. Initially I imagined that this may be a larger chain coffee company. But no, with their roastery located inside the city, LOT61 is a local micro-roaster specializing in cold coffee. Inside the cafe I found a well organized coffee wall of a multitude of options with helpful descriptions. In the lobby area there were books about coffee and copies of Standart magazine. Impressed by the cafe’s atmosphere and the cold brew as well, I had to learn more. LOT61 started in Sydney, Australia before heading to Brooklyn and finally ending up in Amsterdam, where they fully operate now. It was in Brooklyn that one can imagine they developed their cold brew techniques and theories. They of course fulfill the mission of craft coffee by setting a heavy focus on sustainability as well as providing education resources. They go above and beyond the basics by also putting out a journal where they share stories and reviews, similar to my Coffee Talks. I’m very glad I decided to go to the library on this day because LOT61 presented me with a wholesome coffee moment I really love: accidentally stumbling upon a lovely coffee company doing all the right things.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Cafe de Jaren and its cultural significance. Cafe de Jaren is the oldest coffeehouse in Amsterdam, dating back to 1792, and it still exists today although it has obviously undergone some changes during its 200+ year history. The building the coffeehouse is in and the street it's on is one of the most historic in Amsterdam and was around long before the coffeehouse was opened there. It is believed that Rembrandt used to paint here, which alone adds to the significance of this space. It’s worth checking out, the building is marvelous and its significance as the original Amsterdam coffeehouse is an important experience for any coffee lover.
Okay, so the Amsterdam “coffeeshop” or “koffieshop” in the native language. Why are we talking about cannabis dispensaries here, and what does coffee have anything to do with these shops? Allow me to explain. Cannabis and coffee have always been inextricably linked. Both contain psychoactive components, caffeine and THC respectively, and are the two most widely consumed psychoactive substances in the world. The government in the Netherlands have always had a practical approach to drug enforcement, in the 1960s shifting away from the global trend of criminalizing cannabis, and began treating drug addiction as the public health issue that it is rather than a crime. At the time, it was global policy to rope cannabis in with hard drugs because it made it easier to criminalize people using cannabis. However, from this moment forward, The Netherlands understood that cannabis is no more of a harder or addicting drug than caffeine. This meant that authorities had a laissez-faire approach to cannabis and looked away when cannabis was being consumed in public. The story of “coffeeshops” begins in 1972 with the founding of Mellow Yellow, the original “coffeeshop” in Amsterdam. It was founded by individuals who saw cannabis as the medicine that it is, and it laid the framework for how this was going to work. The rules were that only cannabis was allowed to be dealt, and it must be sold in an indirect manner. On the front-facing side this was a regular cafe serving coffee and tea, but once inside you would notice an individual who appeared to be a customer, but was subtly the dealer, and from them one could purchase their cannabis. In the subsequent decade a number of this style of cannabis dispensaries began opening up throughout the city. The authorities allowed these spaces to pop up because it encouraged those seeking cannabis to shop in a space that strictly sells cannabis, avoiding seeking the herb from dealers that could give people access to harder drugs. Coffee acted as a front from cannabis, and thus the relationship between coffee and cannabis was solidified. For about twenty years the cannabis industry existed in this gray area of the law, until the early 1990s when the Dutch government enacted regulations on the now very well-known “coffeeshops”. There were now rules around the amount of cannabis that was allowed to be sold, the age of legal customers, and the need for at least low-profile signage on the building indicating that cannabis was being dealt there. After over 50 years of this approach to drug policy, the positive results are clear: The Netherlands has some of the lowest numbers of people addicted to hard drugs compared to the rest of the world. This positive impact is in part owed to coffee spaces being somewhere where safe and practical dealing of cannabis can take place. The link between coffee and cannabis is undeniable. Today professionals from both industries frequently collaborate with one another, and the bond is becoming more and more culturally significant. Some of the greatest creators appreciate both the drink and the herb.
There you have it! My summary of a truly remarkable and unforgettable coffee experience in The Netherlands. The two cities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam continue to be a driving force of innovation in craft coffee, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The roasters here seem to be full of ideas on how to adapt to the rapidly changing global coffee industry, which is getting harder and harder to operate in. They are at the forefront of finding solutions to the new challenges the industry is facing. There is something special happening in the coffee scenes of these two cities.
References
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Baristamagazine. “Drink Coffee in the Netherlands at These Unique Rotterdam Cafés.” Barista Magazine Online, 14 Mar. 2022, www.baristamagazine.com/drink-coffee-in-the-netherlands-at-these-unique-rotterdam-cafes/.
Brown, Renee. “Dutch Coffee and the History of Coffee in the Netherlands.” Weaverscoffee.Com, weaverscoffee.com, 4 May 2023, weaverscoffee.com/blogs/blog/dutch-coffee-and-the-history-of-coffee-in-the-netherlands#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20famous,the%20issues%20of%20the%20day.
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Scully, Ross. “The History of Dutch Cannabis Coffeeshops.” Leafly, 26 Sept. 2022, www.leafly.com/news/lifestyle/history-of-dutch-cannabis-coffeeshops.
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Stein, Nane. “Café de Jaren.” Discover Benelux, 6 July 2016, www.discoverbenelux.com/cafe-de-jaren/.
“What Is a Coffeeshop in Amsterdam?” Coffeeshop De Kade, www.coffeeshopdekade.nl/en/blog/coffeeshop-in-amsterdam-why-are-they-called-that-way-and-not-weed-shop/#:~:text=In%201970s%20Amsterdam%2C%20cannabis%20was,And%20the%20name%20just%20sticked. Accessed 29 May 2024.