On the primary weekend of April, Amsterdam hosted the tenth version of its espresso pageant. At this time, we’re sharing just a few attention-grabbing issues we noticed on the occasion.

BY TANYA NANETTI
SENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT

Photographs by Tanya Nanetti

On an unexpectedly heat and sunny weekend in early April, Amsterdam hosted the tenth annual Amsterdam Espresso Competition. One of many metropolis’s hottest espresso occasions, the three-day pageant welcomed its friends with a packed schedule of occasions, a vibrant roasting village, and a bevy of exhibitors showcasing their new instruments and creations.

That’s how, between (positively too many) sips of scrumptious espresso, I had the prospect to find many attention-grabbing issues: Right here’s a brief record of actually attention-grabbing discoveries I made throughout my wanderings across the crowded pageant.

Cascara Cupboard: A Newly Launched Macerated Cascara that Will Blow Your Thoughts

Colourful and playful, Cascara Cupboard’s sales space caught my consideration as quickly as I began exploring the pageant. Behind the counter, founder Vincent Rikken and two associates have been able to pour a sip of evenly glowing macerated cascara to anybody .

As I sampled this scrumptious and strange drink, available on the market for simply 48 hours, I had an opportunity to get a fast assertion from Vincent, as playful and endearing because the Cascara Cupboard itself.

“Ever since Ben and Jen sadly separated and their residence, with extra loos than bedrooms, went available on the market, I’ve dreamed of bringing that type of consolation into my life,” Vincent says, toasting with a beneficiant portion of caffeine-free cascara. “I don’t imagine that at this age I’m meant to reside an uncomfortable life. I don’t have the desire. To finance my villa goals, I wanted a uncared for and misunderstood commodity. Right here is cascara: the cherry discarded from espresso, reborn as a glowing, prebiotic soda. Cascara Cupboard proves that it’s attainable to show one thing undervalued into one thing deliciously extravagant.”

And certainly it’s each scrumptious and indulgent, out there in a standard caffeinated model and a extra enjoyable caffeine-free one. Keep tuned to get one of many colourful cans, set to hit the market within the coming months. 

Graycano: An Ingenious Dripper Created from Aluminum

As is the case at each espresso occasion around the globe, the most recent version of the Amsterdam Espresso Competition noticed a good quantity of traditional and progressive drippers and brewers. Among the many many we noticed in motion, the Graycano Dripper positively deserves particular point out, because of its distinctive options that embrace a forged aluminum core particularly designed to keep up a secure brewing temperature and progressive lava ribbing to advertise a gradual stream of water for brighter, sweeter notes in each sip. 

We met Felix Bruegmann, CEO of Graycano, on the Graycano sales space, and he made us a scrumptious, super-smooth, candy, and balanced Colombian espresso that intrigued us to experiment extra with this fascinating dripper.

Chunky Cherry Espresso: A New Roaster Dealing (Principally) with Canephora

Among the many many attention-grabbing roasters that produce nearly solely arabica, this 12 months’s espresso pageant launched Chunky Cherry Espresso, a neighborhood roaster doing just about the other, launched earlier this 12 months by Mikolaj Pociecha.

Mikolaj, a well-known title to anybody enthusiastic about canephora because of his attention-grabbing ebook titled exactly “Canephora,“ selects and roasts scrumptious beans from each producing nations often related to canephora (similar to Indonesia and Vietnam) and nations well-known for his or her scrumptious arabica beans.

How may we not point out the Panama Kiva Property that we had the chance to strive as a pourover? It’s a slow-drying anaerobic canephora that includes excellent boozy notes of whiskey, combined with a touch of candy chocolate and buttery cookies. One thing price attempting when you get the prospect!

Il Manovale, Sprout, and Different Roasters from Far and Large

Lastly, as is commonly the case, the espresso pageant was a chance for many people espresso lovers to find, typically for the primary time, new roasteries from throughout Europe.

Alongside a lot of Amsterdam’s coolest roasters, this 12 months’s pageant featured attention-grabbing entries similar to Sprout Espresso (a roastery primarily based in Eindhoven with roots in Australia) and Il Manovale (from southern Italy, residence of the 2025 Italian Roasting Champion), alongside acquainted faces like Berlin’s 5 Elephant and Romanian Mabo Espresso. A lot of good coffees to attempt to attention-grabbing folks to satisfy!

One of the attention-grabbing issues we obtained to find because of this 12 months’s Amsterdam Espresso Competition was the pageant’s new location and surrounding neighborhood.

Known as merely NDSM (brief for Nederlandsche Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij, or “Netherlands Dock and Shipbuilding Firm”), the realm, positioned in northern Amsterdam on the banks of the IJ River, is a former shipyard now redeveloped into one of many metropolis’s most vibrant areas.

Dwelling to attention-grabbing museums, incredible road artwork, and good food and drinks, NSDM is off the overwhelmed path: sufficient to not be too crowded, but effectively sufficient related to town middle to be simply reached by a brief (free) ferry trip. 

It’s positively a spot to place in your record for the following time you might be in Amsterdam.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tanya Nanetti (she/her) is a specialty-coffee barista, a traveler, and a dreamer. When she’s not behind the espresso machine (or visiting some hidden nook of the world), she’s busy writing for Espresso Rebellion, a web site about specialty espresso that she’s creating alongside along with her boyfriend.

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