Something I have struggled to adapt to since we moved to Germany is the local preference for strong, darkly-roasted coffee beans. Outside of Berlin it is difficult to find locally-roasted fruitier, spicier and lighter-style beans that I prefer to use. This also means that the coffee in cafes and restaurants is almost always also super-dark and not really to my taste.

So, what to do when one is a devoted lover of coffee? When the day that starts with a lovely cup of coffee is a day that starts right? Well, one improvises.

At home, we order beans online from various roasteries around the country with some success. Our favourites at the moment are deliveries from The Barn and Five Elephant in Berlin and Vits in Munich. Hilariously, Vits have beans all the way from Australia and these are actually my favourites (although the most expensive that aren’t ‘novelty’ *ahem*catpoocoffee *ahem* beans). Coffee at home is made using the espresso machine or a Hario syphon, depending on the beans (espresso or filter).

An additional difficulty is that I often work four days of the week in a different city, living in a hotel room and far removed from the beloved Rocket and Hario. So, what to do now? One puts together a CoffeeKit to throw into one’s suitcase every week. After months of refining, my CoffeeKit has been streamlined and improved and currently looks like this: Continue reading Undercaffeinated →