What is on the shelf

Our beans

Four coffees at a time: one blend for the espresso machine and the milk drinks, two single origins on filter, and a decaf that we keep on because two regulars would stop coming if we did not.

Roasted Monday & Thursday mornings Roast date stamped on every bag Ground to order, or whole

Kaaiwind — house blend

Brazil 70% · Honduras 30% · harvest 2025

Espresso
Milk drinks
Moka pot
Roasted for sweetness

The blend the café runs on and the only coffee we roast every week without fail. The Brazilian base is a pulped natural from the Mogiana hills that gives us the body and the hazelnut; the Honduran washed lot lifts the finish so a flat white does not turn into a mouthful of biscuit. Taken black it is straightforward: cocoa, a soft red-apple acidity, no drama. That is deliberate: it must hold its own under 300 ml of milk, poured by whoever happens to be on the bar at half past eight.

We adjust the ratio twice a year when the Honduran lot turns over, and we say so on the chalkboard when we do, because the shot time shifts by a second or two and regulars notice before we do.

Bag: 250 g — € 10.50
Kilo: € 36.00
Process: Pulped natural / washed
Roast: Medium, 11:40 in the drum
Importer: Kaainoord, Antwerp

Kochere

Gedeb, Ethiopia · washed · harvest 2025

Filter
Peach skin
Black tea
Long dry finish

A washing station lot from smallholders around Gedeb, dried on raised beds for eleven days. This is the cup we pour for anyone at the counter who says coffee is not really for them; more often than not they leave with a bag under the arm. Brewed at 94 °C on a V60 it is peach skin and jasmine at the front and something close to strong black tea underneath, with a finish that dries the tongue a little and stays put for a good minute.

We roast it light enough that it will disappoint you in a moka pot — we will grind it for one if you insist, but we will say this first. There are roughly ninety kilos of it and when they are gone the board changes.

Bag: 250 g — € 13.00
Altitude: 1,950–2,100 m
Variety: Local landraces
Roast: Light, 9:20, no development past first crack
Importer: Kaainoord, Antwerp

Finca La Tolva

Marcala, Honduras · honey process · harvest 2025

Filter
Toffee
Stewed plum
Forgiving

Six hectares above Marcala, run by the second generation of the same family, who leave much of the fruit on the bean while it dries. The toffee comes from exactly that. It is the rounder of the two filters and it forgives a careless brew, so it is the one that most often goes home with somebody who brews on a Sunday morning.

It makes an excellent single-origin shot for about ten days after roasting and then flattens out fast, so it comes off the espresso grinder once a batch is getting on in weeks. When the board says the single origin is on, this is usually the one.

Bag: 250 g — € 13.00
Altitude: 1,480 m
Variety: Parainema, Catuaí
Roast: Light-medium, 10:10
Importer: Bacino Coffee, Trieste

Nachtwacht — decaf

Huila, Colombia · sugarcane EA process · harvest 2025

Espresso
Filter
Cocoa
Orange peel

Decaffeinated with ethyl acetate derived from sugarcane, in Palmira, rather than with solvents that need a warning label. It keeps more of the fruit than any decaf we have had on before — cocoa, orange peel, a bit of caramel when it goes through milk. We roast a small batch every fortnight and it is the one bag we will happily open and let you smell before you buy.

It is also what goes into the last two hours of service on a Friday, when nobody at the bar wants to be awake at midnight.

Bag: 250 g — € 12.00
Altitude: 1,700 m
Caffeine: Below 0.1%
Roast: Medium, 11:00
Importer: Bacino Coffee, Trieste

How we buy our green coffee

We buy one or two pallets a year through two importers — Kaainoord in Antwerp and Bacino in Trieste — both of whom will give us the farm-gate price without being asked three times. We write that figure on the card next to the bag. That is no kind of certificate, and we offer it as none: it is simply the figure we were given, standing next to the figure we ask of you, so the arithmetic is yours to do.

A lot stays on the shelf only as long as it still tastes the way the card says. When a harvest runs down we let it run out, rather than blending the last twenty kilos into something else and keeping the name over it. That means gaps. There have been two weeks in the last three years with only one filter on the board, and there will be more.

Every bag is stamped with the roast date and the harvest year — not a "best before" eighteen months out, which for coffee is a polite fiction. Filter coffee is at its best from about five days after roasting to about five weeks. Espresso wants a week longer at the start. After two months it is still perfectly safe and no longer interesting.

Grind settings

Tell us the brewer and we will grind to it: V60, Chemex, plunger, moka, Aeropress, or a dose for your machine at home if you know the basket size. Whole bean if you say nothing.

Standing order

Twelve bags a year, one every four weeks, € 11.70 a bag, invoiced quarterly. Arranged at the counter in about a minute, or by mail — the address is on the visit page. No app, no account, no sign-up page.

Wholesale

Two restaurants and a bookshop on Vrijdagmarkt buy the house blend by the kilo. We have room for perhaps one more. Ask for Wouter on a Tuesday.

Prices on this page are for bags bought over the counter and include VAT. We send no coffee by post: a posted bag arrives four days tired, and we like it far better when you come and fetch it yourself. Card payments accepted from € 1. Everything here is also written on the shelf labels, which are more current than this page; if the two disagree, believe the shelf. Bean page last revised 28 April 2025.