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Among the dozen local enterprises filling Rotterdam\u2019s <\/span>Fenix Food Factory<\/span><\/a>, the most nominally fitting these days is <\/span>Stielman<\/span><\/a>. Though the consumer-focused specialty coffee roaster has been around since May 2014, last year marked the beginning of its phoenix-like rise. Things had begun kindling when entrepreneur Marco Pfaff took over ownership, but it was Aukje van Rossum, who’s been with the company from incipiency and is currently its communication and marketing manager, who brought in the fire-starter when she recruited her brother, Jelle van Rossum.<\/span><\/p>\n Sprudge readers may recall Jelle van Rossum as the roasting wunderkind at Rotterdam\u2019s <\/span>Man met Bril<\/span><\/a>, featured in <\/span>an article<\/span><\/a> from 2015<\/span>. Nowadays, the\u2014still hardly hoary\u201424 year old is something of a Dutch coffee industry sage, largely self-taught and unflaggingly, albeit gently, communicative. At Stielman, where he has been since March 2017 and is now manager and head roaster, the plan, he says, is \u201cto just once again get people excited about flavor in coffee and about diversity in flavor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Aukje and Jelle van Rossum<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It is working. Several commercial venues around Rotterdam are serving Stielman, but, more remarkably, the bulk of clients are individual subscribers (this author included).<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s mainly word of mouth. And with all the talks I\u2019m having nowadays with different companies, we\u2019re growing,\u201d says Jelle van Rossum. \u201c<\/span>We don’t need to grow any faster.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Like its immediate Fenix neighbors\u2014purveyors of, respectively, <\/span>Moroccan tapas<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>farm-made cheese<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>jacked<\/span><\/a> stroopwafels<\/span><\/a>\u2014Stielman appears to be a gigantic market stand. Approaching it head-on, visitors encounter a <\/span>Kalita Wave<\/span><\/a>-kitted<\/span> filter bar; the espresso bar lies perpendicular, supporting a two-group\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>La Marzocco Linea PB<\/span><\/a>, twin <\/span>Mazzer Kony<\/span><\/a> grinders, and a <\/span>Mahlk\u00f6nig Guatemala<\/span><\/a> grinder. Yet, behind all that is, essentially, a factory within a factory. Weekly, a <\/span>Giesen W6A<\/span><\/a> roasts 200 kilos of coffee, much of it then packaged and sent to homes nationwide. A high table and stools provide a spot for sitting and sipping, but the surface seems truly intended for cupping.<\/span><\/p>\n The Stielman subscription\u2019s appeal is as practical\u2014customizable delivery frequencies and quantities; eco-friendly shipping via intra-city e-bike network <\/span>Fietskoeriers<\/span><\/a>; packaging that fits average Dutch mail slots\u2014as it is sensorial. Comprehensive and consistent, the collection comprises six roasts for espresso and six for filter. Named after colors, the coffees are bagged and tagged with hue-corresponding labels. A few adjectives and the occasional noun position each on the flavor spectrum, but they omit all provenance details.<\/span><\/p>\n Aukje van Rossum explains: \u201cWe always had the origins listed on the packaging, but recently Jelle convinced us to start leaving that information off because it biases people. A lot of customers would think, for example, \u2018Oh this is an Ethiopian, so we should buy it.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd we really want people to get engaged with specialty coffee through flavor,\u201d Jelle van Rossum emphasizes.<\/span><\/p>\n Origin information is given on the Stielman website and, Aukje van Rossum assures, \u201cour baristas know everything about the coffee.\u201d At the time of writing, six part-timers rotate bar shifts and due to soon join the team is an assistant roaster\u2014the first and only candidate Jelle van Rossum interviewed because \u201cshe just had the right mindset.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A new Stielman product is the <\/span>Shokunin tasting box<\/span><\/a>. Conceptualized by Jelle van Rossum, the series debuted with an heirloom coffee from Ethiopia\u2019s <\/span>Kochere district; to highlight the multiple flavors the single coffee could yield depending on how it was processed at the <\/span>Reko Koba<\/span> mill<\/span>, three packages are included showcasing\u00a0<\/span>natural, washed, and honey-processed beans. The second Shokunin release demonstrates the effects of different fermentation times and drying surfaces on a Caturra-Castillo combo from <\/span>Argote<\/span> farm in Colombia\u2019s Nari\u00f1o region. Each box comes with an 18-page booklet containing background stories, photos, and roast profiles.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s something that people are usually very secretive about,\u201d Jelle van Rossum acknowledges of the roast profiles. Yet, he believes that for this project, publicizing them creates a feedback loop benefitting consumers, producers, and partners, such as Stielman\u2019s two green bean importers, <\/span>The Coffee Quest<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>This Side Up<\/span><\/a>. The Van Rossums themselves stay in direct contact with the coffee farmers via Skype, Facebook, and occasional visits to or from them. \u201cMaking it a two-way street,\u201d as the roaster puts it, stabilizes both supply and demand\u2014and helps flesh out his fantasies about future experiments. Today, he also has his<\/span> own premium coffee label and service (called <\/span>Shokunin<\/span><\/a>, too).<\/span><\/p>\n Although nowadays she does more front-of-the-house work, Aukje van Rossum, older by two years, was the first of the pair to discover specialty coffee. Her foray was nearly a decade ago, when alongside attending design school in Rotterdam, she worked at a<\/span> nearby branch of <\/span>Coffeecompany<\/span><\/a>. A particular Yirgacheffe impressed her so much that she wanted her brother to try cupping and beckoned him from Leeuwarden, where he was contemplating food and wine as part of hotel management studies.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe was blown away,\u201d Aukje van Rossum remembers of his early experience. \u201cHe was like, \u2018Oh, this is so much fun,\u2019 and then he got into the coffee.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In fact, back then, <\/span>when gathered on weekends at their family home in Vorden, the siblings not only got their parents drinking specialty coffee, but also so profoundly diffused their enthusiasm that mom and pop eventually quit decades-long office jobs and opened a specialty cafe. Lo and behold: <\/span>Van Rossum\u2019s Koffie<\/span><\/a>, established in 2014 in the small city of Zutphen, and run by Frans and Dagmar van Rossum, with support from their big-city children. That, surely, is another story, though one sharing thematic similarities to the regeneration happening at Stielman.<\/span><\/p>\n Later this year, the brand expects to launch a second coffee bar and a roastery in Zoeterwoude, the South Holland municipality famously hosting a Heineken brewery. Additionally on the to-do list are a third tasting box, a line of coffee capsules, and a tea collection. So continues Stielman\u2019s spectacular rise, at Fenix Food Factory and beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more\u00a0Karina Hof on Sprudge<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n The post The Rise Of Consumer-Focused Coffee At Stielman In Rotterdam<\/a> appeared first on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source: Coffee News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Among the dozen local enterprises filling Rotterdam\u2019s Fenix Food Factory, the most nominally fitting these days is Stielman. Though the consumer-focused specialty coffee roaster has been around since May 2014,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,41],"tags":[63,45,65,47,61,49,59,67,55,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"stielman](\"http:\/\/sprudge.com\/file\/2018\/04\/Stielman_bar_back_KarinaHof-1170x780.jpg\")
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<\/span><\/p>\nStielman is located at Veerlaan 19, Rotterdam<\/a>. Visit their official website<\/span><\/a> and follow them on <\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a>.<\/div>\n