When it comes to wine, a lot of Joe Public likes for instance French or Italian wine, alright. How many of these people knows what grapes are in them? How many of them knows anything about flavor? The buy French wine cause they are used to it, like the taste and it goes well with a steak on a Saturday night.

The wine culture in Sweden does not lack opportunity to learn. The Systembolaget has for many years educated the public about their wines, yet still most people are probably rather ignorant about the details. And they can be, since they can buy wine basically on preference of two things; “Hey, what wine should I buy that is French, tastes good with a steak, and costs 100SEK?”

But also, the difference is; wine snobs have probably travelled to various “origins” in both France, Italy and Australia or America. They don’t have to go to Ethiopia, Guatemala or Sumatra in order to experience “origin” and shake the hand of a producer. And believe me, most baristi haven’t either, but they tend to sound as if they have shaken the hand of each farmer they serve coffee from at times. The customer cannot relate to this. But they can relate to the Italian experience, because for them, that is their coffee origin!

And people love to be particular about their coffee (and food). Most ridiculous question up to date I’ve had was if there was genuine buffalo mozzarella in those sandwiches we grill. At a price of 45SEK. Well, what do you think?

To put it simple; the Italian concept works, but it caters to a completely different public than ours.

I would love for all of us in the industry here in Sweden to put our feet down and start trying to define a new generation of Swedish cafe culture. The Italian thing has its place but if what is being sacrificed is an opportunity for brilliant Swedish roasters such as DaMatteo, J&N, Koppi, Love, Åre, etc. to be presented on a regular basis to customers then it’s time to make a definitive step AWAY from the Italian café thing.

The main problem is that there just aren’t a great deal of coffee shops that place an emphasis on manual brewing so the opportunity for baristas to blossom isn’t as commonplace. We’ve talked about trying to include a brew bar as a regular feature at future TNTs. But your idea about “brew bashes” or, perhaps, “brewdowns” is something we should look into initiating.