Amsterdam Coffee: Bike to Cup

- juli 29, 2015

Moyee Coffee, a "fair chain" coffee trader in Amsterdam sent me an email about a new service they provide for people who urgently need a fresh pack of beans roasted in Africa. They arrange free delivery by bicycle anywhere in Amsterdam.

I like it how their concept of an international enterprise also has a very local focus. Moyee is working to reward local African farmers who are enabled to ship their beans roasted and ready and now their supply chain is adding a delivery service on the other extreme end, to the front door of their customers.

Moyee is a very young and hip enterprise and it shows in the closing words of their mailing: "Veel liefs" -- in English that would be something like "Sweet love".

It communicates to me that I might be way too old for them. "Sweet love" is something that 17 year old girls write to each other in whatever social media app is currently "in". It's also used by 40 year old Uggs women who dress in tight stone washed ripped jeans like 17 year olds but I do not fit into that category either.

If I would close an email to a business partner with "Sweet love" I would probably be ignored really fast and if I sent something like that to a young female acquaintance I could get in serious trouble.

Still I was interested in the idea and I downloaded the TringTring app for local food delivery by bicycle couriers:

It promises some wonderful alternatives to have precious fresh food delivered to the home or office. The good life brought to you in the most sustainable way possible, by bicycle.

I have never visited the White Label Coffee shop even though they just a few blocks from my home. I heard they know their business and two of their baristas even won championships in Aeropress. So this was a fine opportunity to have some of their beans zipped over to me.

Registering the app was easy, the PayPal option is not yet ready but the Credit Card option was quite nifty: take a picture of your card, enter the expiry date and security code, done.

I selected some Rwandan beans, Bourbon type, grown at 2100-2300m altitude which White Label have roasted themselves after buying from ThisSideUp coffee traders.

A little later I received a text message announcing the delivery. The guy handed me a bag with receipts, checked a code from my text message to make sure the right person had received the order (very clever detail) and left for his next delivery:

Thijs from TringTring waving goodbye

Below are a few pictures. The beans are roasted very light as is the fashion these days, so it's best to go along and also updose as is done by many baristas today. I also want to try to mix/blend these fruity beans with Brazil Mogliana beans that I recently roasted.

The shot below was made using a 17g dose in the 15g VST basket, extracting 33g of espresso in 29 seconds, so I could grind a little finer yet.