Ken Braz

Ken Braz, the founder of August 63 in Berlin, sat down with us to talk about coffee: his beginnings and his favorite Wertkaffee coffee. 

Ken’s Testimonial

Chris:

How did you start your roastery, and how did it start that you started roasting?

Ken:

Basically, I’ve been working in coffee for quite some time. I think, I first started being very passionate about coffee, about drinking coffee, about seeing that there is like a very special community in coffee that there’s so many people sharing the same interests.

In the beginning, I always thought of an easy product such as coffee. But the more I learned about it, the more complex it got and the more interesting it and the more fascinating it got. That was a bit my motivation to actually start working in coffee. So when I did that, I first, of course, started to work as a barista behind the coffee bar. And I really got into that, like working with people, serving people and all this hospitality thing was something which really fascinated me because I love to talk, I love to host people, I love to especially talk about coffee because for me it’s super fascinating and the more I learned about that, the more I also wanted to learn about, okay, how does coffee actually react like or you get a green bean and how does that act because I was quite comfortable with, you know, doing coffee, installing a grinder and everything, like dialing in coffee. But I didn’t know much about roasting it. And it was basically when the pandemic started, when I actually really wanted to dig more into the roasting process. And I bought myself like a one kilo roaster. So I basically started roasting in my living room. I basically started to try out on yeah, how does this coffee react to and it was more like a hobby. It was not really planned that I’m actually gonna start like a little micro roastery project, whatever it was basically just to to learn and to start roasting with friends who are more into roasting. And so it’s still a process. I’m still learning so much every day of roasting different coffees. But that was basically it. And after I started roasting more and more, I let people try my coffees and the feedback was quite positive and people were really like: „Hey, you should definitely start selling them. You should definitely kind of like create a brand around it“. And that’s basically how everything started from the scratch.

Chris:

And what roaster are you roasting on?

Ken:

Now I’m roasting on a five kilo Probat. So still a very small roaster compared to other bigger roasteries. But it’s already a big step as I had the one I was roasting with before.

Chris:

How many coffees do you have?

Ken:

At the moment I have six different coffees because I really tried to showcase different origins, different processes of coffees, because as I already said, like coffee is quite complex and diverse

and the coffee from Kenya, for example, tastes way different than a coffee from Colombia or from Brazil. So that’s something I want to show my customers my community.

Chris:

What’s your expectation of Kenyan coffee?

Ken:

Kenyan coffee should be very vibrant when it comes to like yeah acidity and sweetness. It always has this nice florality to it, but coffee from Kenya, the ones who excite me the most are the ones who don’t typically taste like a Kenyan coffee, let’s say. Because when you have Kenyan coffees, the acidity and the fruitiness to it, always reminds a bit of like cherry tomato or like tomatoish things. Some Kenyan coffees which excite me the most, are the ones, who don’t necessarily taste like that, that they go a bit more maybe like a black tea direction, that they are pretty floral.

Chris:

Talking of Kenyan coffee, how did you get to know Wertkaffee in the process?

Ken:

Basically it was, I can’t remember, I think it was when I still had my coffee blog on Instagram, and I was kind of like digging in to the whole, okay, how they do the German coffee scene or the specialty coffee scene. And I think I was through Instagram and having some friends sharing coffees or sharing your story and the story behind Mehrwert Kaffee and that kind of excited me and fascinated in me that because there’s also something for me which is pretty important that coffee is not only a product but in coffee there’s so many people behind who basically, yeah, there is community behind. And that there’s actually an import company, per se, which doesn’t only import coffee and exchange, but create also an impact in the region.

Chris:

Talking of the coffees you have been buying from Wertkaffee, what was your experience?

Ken:

Quite positively, I’d say, because since I’m pretty new to also like roasting my own coffees and like not sourcing but basically searching for coffees that excite. Like last year I that was basically more like, let’s say, like not an S.O.S. situation. But when I started up my company, I got this spot at the Frankfurt Coffee Festival and then good boy Francis, from „WeRoastCoffeeCollective“, he was friendly to lend me some of his coffee because we had to act pretty quickly and that was the first time I had the Kiptebes. That was already a really, really nice coffee, and he also had another coffee. He also likes Kiriga and I really loved that coffee. And then this season or like last harvest actually is the first time I’m buying for myself from you guys the coffees and is actually going to be three different Kenyan coffees because they are all pretty different in taste and pretty exciting. Like there’s a Kenya AB and a Kenya AA and there’s also going to be a natural. So I’m really excited to get my hands on that and to showcase people how different those three coffees can taste from each other. I’m probably starting on creating this like little box of like this discovery set, or I don’t know yet, but that’s something which immediately came into my mind to like showcase how exciting Kenyan coffees can actually taste.