All about specialty coffee

I am definitely a fan of good coffee. Years ago I roasted my own coffee, as good specialty coffee was hard to find. Nowadays there are so many great roasters that do a much better job than I could ever do on my little roaster. In this blogpost I will be writing on my coffee setup, my favourite roasters and how to find good coffee when travelling. It’s all personal choices, no one is sponsoring or paying me (or even giving me a free cup of coffee) My main coffee machine is the Profitec Jump. A machine I really like. Personally I think most espresso machines on the market today do a good job. We used to have a dual boiler ECM, which is the better machine (but takes a lot of space) And the coffee that comes out of the Profotec Jump is on a similar level. My advise is to invest in a good grinder. The quality of the grinder is more important than the quality of the espresso machine. It’s a pity to see people having a great coffee machine but a low quality grinder. I am a real fan of the Niche Zero. It’s a single dose grinder. Very easy to adjust, so also a great choice when you also want to make filter coffee or use an Aeropress. A single dose grinder is so much easier to dial in than a regular grinder. As you measure the coffee beans separately, you are only dialing in how coarse the coffee is. And with a regular grinder it’s always difficult to find the right balance between quanity of the coffee and how coarse it is. For measuring the weight of the beans I use a Subminimal, which is a measuring cup with a built in scale. Every now and them I like a filter cofee, therefor I use the Hario V60 Switch. I love it how you can stop the process and increase the time the coffee is in contact with the water. Basically it’s a V60 with some of the characteristics of an Aeropress or French press. Nowadays there are many good roasters. These are the ones I order most coffee from: Caffenation. It’s a Belgium company and one of the original and oldest roasters in the region. They have great coffees for both filter and espresso. What is special about Caffenation is they are very transparant in their pricing. They publish a yearly report with an overview of their costs. And even for their coffee shops they made a video explaining the cost structure of their cappuccino. Manhattan Roasters is another favourite. This roaster from Rotterdam is the company of Esther Maasdam, an expert barista and former Latte Art champion of the Netherlands and finalist in the global championship. They have roasts for regular use, but also very high-end (and expensive) roasts aimed at barista competitions. Renzo is a fairly young coffee roaster based in Tilburg. We came across Renzo (or actually the roaster called Sven) at the Rotterdam coffee festival in 2025. At that time he had just given up his day job to make roasting a full time job. With regular new roasts this is definitely a roaster to keep an eye on. There are many more to love, like Keen Coffee, Man met Bril, Giraffe & Dak. When you are travelling there is a great app to find good specialty coffee across Europe. It’s called the European Coffee Trip and it has a large database of coffee shops all across Europe. Especially in the larger cities it’s a great app to find the nearest specialty coffee shop. And now Starbucks outlets are not listed in this app. So at home and on the road, there is always a way to enjoy a good cup of coffee.