The Conversation

Ray: This week we’re discussing The Barn, in Berlin, Germany. We discovered this coffee because it was shipped along with the issue of Standart.

Kandace: Yeah, it sounds like this is the first time they’ve shipped coffee with their subscription, so that was a good way to learn about this coffee.

Ray: In fact, we’re trying one right now.

Kandace: Yes.

Ray: Ah, this is the Mbirizi.

Kandace: Mmhm

(Cut to music)

Ray: The Barn started in 2010. Serving coffee from...

Kandace: Square Mile.

Ray: Yes, in London.

Kandace: Yeah.

Ray: Not being satisfied with that they, decided that they really wanted to…

Kandace: Well, I think they liked the coffee but they had a burning desire to like roast their own right...

Ray: Yeah. In 2012, they started roasting, and sourcing and just doing a great job. I talked to Ralf, the owner and head roaster.

Ralf: My name is Ralf Rüller, the owner and the founder of The Barn. I decided to roast two years after opening my first coffee shop. I got infected by the coffee virus. I started roasting, which was a great, great, thing for me. And what we push very hard is to be the best and to present the highest quality ah which is a niche, but it’s growing very fast.

I think the greatest thing for me, when we look at where is the product coming from a farmer—he or she—working incredibly hard to push out a high quality product.

You know, we don’t start this to make the world better. We do this because we are really greedy and we want this like fantastic product, but ah, and at the same time we can only like achieve that if we give the farmer more money, and more knowledge, and empower them.

Ray: The head barista there, serves whatever they’re roasting right then and takes notes and at the end of the day shares those notes with the roasters. Like feedback. Seems fantastic. It Seems like everyone should do that.

Kandace: So I find their roastery in particular to be interesting.

Ray: Mmhm

Kandace: No music.

Ray: No music, yeah.

Kandace: No buggies. But the idea is that you would come in and you would relax, slow down, talk to your barista…

Ralf: It was very important to us to to showcase this, The Barn Roastery here, by breaking habits very drastically and to give us like a very distinct identity which was very controversial. We really wanted to make sure when someone enters the room they go like, “Oh what is this?”

There’s no armchairs, there’s no menu, there’s no music. People are talking to each other and not talking to a laptop and so just look at each other and be in the space not in cyber space and create this like, coffee house atmosphere that you had in the 50’s where someone would read a paper and then flirt with the person across the room and some to really and or to talk to the server and the barista and that is what we wanted to create and we did it so drastically so that people really like, talked about like there’s something completely different in there to get used to it.

Ray: So what do you think of the logo Kandace?

Kandace: Well I enjoy the simplicity of it. I think about the roastery that he describes which was sort of like a calm place like listen, think about coffee. And I really like how it’s super clean and clear and there’s one identifying mark and it’s something that when you see on these bigger pieces it’s just it’s like, instantly recognizable, but then it also looks good on this.

Ray: Yeah it is very recognizable, and it’s almost a folk art-esque kind of a design.

Kandace: Yeah. And I love that this the mark is like the only part of it that is kind of...but it does feel very handcrafted and...this feels like someone drew it right? Not on a computer, but like someone probably drew it and scanned it or something like that. And I think about how they talk about roasting their coffee and it’s all hand roasted.

Ray: Everything. They do everything by hand….

Kandace: ...everything by hand and so it also plays really well. I think their identity matches the way they talk about themselves, really nicely.

Ray: The Barn Coffee Roasters, Berlin. Awesome.

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