COFFEE PIRATES BEST COFFEE IN VIENNA

Best Coffee in Town

I had the opportunity to do a little interview with Evelyn Priesch, owner of Kaffee Piraten Vienna, and discover why this coffee shop is in the top 8 of the world’s great coffee cities, in the CNN list Best Coffee Cities. But this was more than a simple interview, we got to try the coffee from Ethiopia, which is very special and we also see the roasting process that makes this coffee so special and my favorite in Vienna.

How the idea of Pirate coffee starts?

Kaffee Piraten started 2 years ago after a trip around the world, for 1 year and they travel around coffee countries where they have the opportunity to visit coffee plantations in Ecuador, Colombia and New Zeeland and they saw the rich coffee culture of this country, and the idea to start a coffee in Wien start developing.

What makes your coffee special?

We know the coffee chain really from the growers, so we know all our plantations, we really know from where our coffee comes from, we buy green beans, and we roast the coffee ourselves, we know the whole chain of the coffee and we can also influence the whole process, and that’s really an advantage because we know from where the coffee comes, and how is produced. Our espresso machine is also something really special, is the only one in Austria, is a Dutch machine, is a really high-level machine you can really high the quality of temperature. We also roast the coffee really slow, is really handmade roasted, we have a smooth roasting process, so you can taste the entire aroma in the coffee. Our coffee is really fruity and really light, you can drink it without milk or sugar because it doesn’t have this bitter taste at the end.

We have coffee from Ethiopia, which is really fruity, very orange and lime taste, the coffee from Colombia, which is more chocolate-like and makes the body of the coffee to make it stronger but is still very smooth. The coffee we have is from Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Indonesia.

Also, where we buy the coffee, it is hand-picked, it is really hard work but of course, the quality is better than the huge plantations.

When you travel around the world, where did you drink the best coffee?

That’s really difficult, New Zealand has a very nice coffee culture, they have a lot of coffee shops, and they all roasts inside the coffee shops, so they really have a high-quality coffee and they really care about the coffee, and that’s being the start of the idea of pirate coffee. We also have the opportunity in Colombia when we were in la Zona Cafetera, the coffee grows really pure, without technologies at all, and we were roasting the coffee in pawn directly in the fire, and we ground the coffee ourselves in a really basic way, and we brew the coffee on the fire, it was a really basic way of preparation, but we really like it, it was a very special experience to be directly in the plantation and also the preparation was really different and very special.

What is the secret of the roasting?

It’s a very smooth roasting profile, not too high temperature as well, we have a different roasting profile for every single coffee we have, when we get new coffee first we test it to find the perfect profile, we also roast longer than normal, normally the big roaster companies roast the coffee for 3-4 min and we roast depending on the coffee about 11-14 min, is a really long roast and it is all handmade, and we stay at the roaster and we check the temperatures, every roast is special, and we check that the profile is really perfect.

Which is your favorite coffee?

I like Ethiopia very much, it’s very sweet because it is a natural and organic production process, where the coffee cherries are dry in the sun, and the coffee has a really blueberry flavor.