Christian Saak

Conversations with Christian Saak of Cabana Coffee Roasters. 

For Christian, it is important to get to know the people behind the coffee: importers and farmers. 

Christian says that Kenyan coffee can be compared to wine. Watch the video to find out why and what he likes about Wertkaffee. 

Christian’s Testimonial

Chris:

Christian, thank you for hosting as at your roastery. You are a roaster, maybe you can tell as how you got into coffee and what your current role is in the coffee supply chain?

Christian:

I started a business as a café with my wife in 2008, and first we were buying from a German like roaster from Hamburg, which was like, at that time, very rare because like most of the other places were going for industrial roasted coffees or coffees from Italy. And then like in 2012, 2014, we started traveling a bit, and we met some roasters in the States and also in Scandinavia.

So we got more involved in the like behind the roasting. So where does coffee come from and what differences are there in coffee? And that there are like different like varieties and different processes. And so we started getting more interested in that, and then we bought from smaller roasters like from micro roasteries. Then one day we thought, okay, maybe that’s something we can do on our own. It took a bit longer, so like in 2017, we started our own roastery, beside the coffee business. Now we’re like more roasters than café. I think in the coffee chain, we’re like trying to buy specialty coffees. We want to know the background of the coffees, and we want to be in contact with the people behind the coffee, like the people who bring the coffee to Europe and also the farmers and the people who work on the farm.

Chris:

What roaster are you roasting on?

Christian:

So on a Probat five kilo that we bought in 2017 and we for now like to roast very small batches for consistency and also because we have like eight different coffees at that time, we buy smaller lots and try to show people the variety of the coffee world and for now it’s like really good to roast on that one.

Chris:

So how many coffees are you roasting, and what is your main objective by the different types?

Christian:

As I said before, we now have coffees from eight different countries, and we try to show our customers the variety of coffees, differences and different countries where everybody comes from. And the process is like natural coffees or dried or washed coffees. And also what you can do, we have some coffees, we just have like an omniroast or a filter roast and some we also roast as an espresso so that you can like show also what you can do was the roasting to like change the flavors of coffee.

Chris:

Talking of Kenyan coffee, what is your experience, and what do you expect?

Christian:

The experience with Kenyan coffee is very good. I really like to roast the beans. So I think you can do a lot of variations within the roasting. And I think for me, Kenyan coffees are very comparable to wine. I think they have like this full body and like this really nice fruitiness but also like a bit of the mineral flavors. So always a nice acidity to them which like some people may not like or find difficult in coffee, but I mean it’s a fruit so it should taste a bit like it.

Chris:

And how do you roast Kenyan coffees?

Christian:

We have like a filter roast and an espresso roast which like the espresso is slightly darker. So we roast a bit longer, and we put in a bit more heat at the end of the roast so that we don’t destroy like the fruitiness and the sweetness of the coffee, but get a bit more body to like to get a nice espresso out of it.

Chris:

You have been working with Wertkaffee for the second year now. Do you remember how you got in contact with Wertkaffee for the first time?

Christian:

Actually, it was a good friend of mine, Sebastian. He suggested me to look into the coffees from Wertkaffee and last year it was kind of late for us to buy the Kenyan harvest. So we’re very lucky to find you. And we just got to, I think, taste like two or three different coffees. And also the coffee that we bought, we just tried the peep berry and we were like really amazed with the taste, so that we decided, okay, we buy the AA choice. After we roasted, we were very, very happy with it. And also the story behind the coffee was very interesting for us also to the project that merhwert kaffee is doing and also the project from Crossroads in Kenya. This year we found the quality even better than last year, so we hope that it continues, and we like can build up a strong relationship with you guys and yeah, keep on going!

Chris:

Whose producer’s coffee are you roasting at the moment?

Christian:

We bought the Ol’ochoy farm from Paul and his wife. We just met him today, and we were so lucky having them at our place at our roastery in Berlin. So it’s always nice to meet the people behind. And for now I couldn’t manage to go to Kenya, but I’m really looking forward to doing that next year to see them in action.

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