While in Trieste I talked a bit with Anette Moldvaer, who is one of the people behind "London School of Coffee". I asked to do a short interview with her for the blog since I really liked her and the company she represents. My impression of Anette is that she is really honest and genuine person (and funny!). I watched her talk to other people and it was so obvious that she truly listened to what other people had to say, a true listener. Just having said this it should make it obvious that London School of Coffee probably is a good venture with a future.
So, what is London School of Coffee? Well, my impression after talking to her is that they do a lot of things to improve the coffee situation in England. They offer advice and help to people wanting to start a coffee business, do training of baristi, arrange meetings and courses etc. They try to teach people about the whole chain of events from bean to cup, not just what happens in the coffee bar. Each customer gets individual training and consulting to fit their needs. Later more standardized programs will be offered.
They have several customers in England but also abroad. Teachers include people like Fritz Storm, Dismas Smith etc. (and maybe our Tim now?), which they hire to come to England to train their customers, but they also have a lot of knowledge themselves to draw upon when doing training and consulting. Anette has for example worked for several years as a barista.
Anette told me about a current project named "After dinner". The goal is to educate customers about how coffee relates to food and more. A lot of restaurants struggle with a poor coffee to end their meals. I thought this was really interesting. Norwegian restaurants could certainly benefit from better coffee too. I remember talking to some people from the Oslo-based restaurant "Bagatelle" some years ago about this, and they agreed completely. I don't know if things have improved since then, but I hope so. Using french press with freshly ground coffee seems to me to be a good option that is time saving as well (they press the plunger themselves after 4 minutes). That is the solution I would recommend.
London School of Coffee also have a lot of contact with BSCA (The Brazilian Coffee Association). They exchange information and knowledge that benefit the customers.
(Photo by Bernt Natvig. From the left: Anette, my friend Audun doing the "Ceeeeerto", me)
Contact information:
London School of Coffee
Anette Moldvaer, Jon Williasen
2 Princeton Mews
167-169 London Road
Kingston upon Thames
England KT2 6PT
Hey, I have been pretty productive since I got back from Italy don't you think? It was very inspiring to talk to some of the readers of this blog. 6/30/2004 08:47:00 PM
