Tim Wendelboe

I’m back in Leipzig from my short trip to Oslo. Very glad that I - for some reason - decided to take a direct flight from BER to OSL and back, which turned out to be the best decision considering that all other flights from Oslo to Germany were cancelled that day due to strikes.

During the trip, I was really lucky to find a little spare time and rush to Tim Wendelboe coffee shop & cupping room. For those who don’t know: Tim Wendelboe is a legend in speciality coffee. I wanted to visit his coffee shot for ages. I did indeed completely escalate regarding my caffeine consume and was also able to nerd out a bit with the barista. I now know that they brew filter coffee using the aeropress with a ratio of 14g of coffee to 200ml of water on a grind size of 9 at the ek43 for the kenyan Karogoto I’ve had. Delicious!

In terms of brewing with the Aeropress they use a very simple recipe:

• Grind 14g of fresh ground coffee directly from ek43 into the aeropress
• Fill with 200ml of water
• Stir 3 times
• Place plunger on top to create a vacuum, wait one minute
• Remove plunger and stir again for 3 times
• Press down until no liquid comes out, ignoring the ‘hissing’ noise
• Drink coffee

Of course I got some coffee there and brought it home. I was able to reproduce the original coffee taste pretty well at home, the only variables seem to be water temperature and water quality, but I got some pretty good results at 97 degrees, just short of boiling point. I got some amazingly clean results in my cup, wonderful balances between sweet, acidic and floral flavours. Love it.

As I usually use my modded Kalita Wave 155 in favour of the Aeropress, I still have to optimise my workflow in the morning. I’m also working on a comprehensive recipe for Tim Wendelboe’s coffee brewed on the Wave 155 to get a similar clarity to the Aeropress so I can get more coffee out of each brew.