- Interview - Ilse Geyskens from Café Velvet.
Interview with Ilse Geyskens from Café Velvet @ Medellin, Colombia
During our time in Colombia earlier this year, we visited Ilse Geyskens from Café Velvet. Ilse is an entrepreneur who runs a Specialty Coffee bar & roastery in Medellin, Colombia and also a roastery in Brussels, Belgium.
Ilse offers direct trade coffee from Colombia, which she selects herself from serval Colombian coffee farms, that match the quality and taste profiles she finds suitable to serve in her coffee bars in Colombia and Belgium.
I first heard about Ilse’s story a few years ago from a mutual coffee friend in Belgium. At the time I was intrigued by Ilse’s story, but it took a few years before I got to meet Ilse in person. Our first meet last year was quick, during a Hospitality Fair in Ghent, where she had a stand to promote her direct trade Colombian specialty coffee. The next time I saw Ilse and her husband, it was in her beautiful coffee bar Café Velvet in Medellin, Colombia, in the trendy neighbourhood of “El Poblado”. Impressed with her specialty coffee bar with a Belgian touch (waffles on the menu, what else?!), I had to interview Ilse to learn more…
— Starting a coffee business in Colombia
[Melanie] How did you end up in the Specialty Coffee business? I saw on your LinkedIn profile you have had a successful career as a corporate lawyer and in private equity.
[Ilse] Rather by accident. My family moved to the US and I had to quit my job. I was looking for a new challenge that would excite me, that I could be passionate about, but didn’t find that in Miami, but in Medellin, Colombia. I got the opportunity to work for 4 months on a project in Medellin, that had nothing to do with coffee, but social entrepreneurship. I arrived in Medellin in 2012, and it was totally different than I had imagined. There was an emerging middle class, a very positive vibe, a “can do” mentality, lots of creativity and also a lot of coffee professionalism. I felt like undertaking something here and it was the right moment.
I like to compare it (the Colombian specialty coffee scene) with Belgium, known as a country with a long history and tradition of beer making, where everyone knows the difference between a regular pint and an artisan craft beer. I felt in Colombia that the knowledge and understanding of specialty coffee versus commodity coffee were growing. So I saw this as a potential big market, there are 57 million people living here. In the bigger cities, we see the specialty coffee trend emerge, with the opening of a lot of specialty coffeebars, and rising demand for coffee tastings. Not only tourists but also locals are becoming more aware of Specialty coffee.
— We took a quick break to enjoy our espresso…
My findings were a balanced espresso, with mild acidity and an undernote of nuts, a long finish and a smooth body. I got the impression that this coffee is easy to prepare, and doesn’t change too heavily in flavour when your extraction time is a few seconds more or less. Working with a team of baristas, you would like to go for a standard espresso that isn’t too sensitive on the grinder and machine.
Ilse tells me about her choice of this espresso (In the Puro Velvet line, a coffee from Pereira, Risaralda with experimental yeast fermentation), a coffee she also exports to Belgium, just because it’s very suitable for a broad taste and easy to prepare in different coffeebars.
Now, 8 years later, you have seen that your decision to invest in Medellin, in a speciality coffee business was a good one and that you were right in predicting the growing popularity of specialty coffee in Colombia.
Correct.
— Coffee Education, in Colombia and Europe
During the preparation of starting your specialty coffee business, you’ve noticed that training in coffee is necessary, and the more you learn about coffee, the more you become aware of how little you know about coffee and how many factors you need to consider when dealing with the product coffee. Where did you start your coffee education, in Belgium or Colombia?
Both, but I actually started in England, because in Belgium there weren’t many options/courses. At the London School of Coffee, I followed speciality coffee courses (SCA certified) given by Mercanta, the barista course, sensory intermediate training and a roasting course.
Here in Colombia, I did a 3-day sensory course with Hernando Tapasco, one of the first Q-graders here in Colombia, and now we’re planning to go for an intensive 3-day sensory training with him next week. At the University of Zurich, I’m currently finishing my post-master in Coffee Excellence, a course that covers everything speciality coffee with interesting speakers that talk about specific, innovative coffee topics.
In Western countries, where the major consumers of coffee are located, access to barista training is easy to find. Do you agree with this as a proposition or not?
I agree, I think it’s easy to find specialty coffee training in the West, there are more and more training possibilities available. I believe there is also a Belgian hospitality trade association that offers subsidised coffee training, but only for professionals already working in the hospitality business.
We see a price difference in coffee training in Western countries because in some countries the training is subsidised by the government (e.g. NL), in other countries it is not (e.g. Belgium). Is the barista profession officially recognised in Colombia, and is it coffee training program subsidised by the government?
Yes, in Colombia we have the Sena school, which is run by the Colombian government and co-subsidised by the private sector. All our Colombian baristas have enjoyed their coffee education there. When I started the Velvet coffee bar in Medellin, the Sena school just had started their barista course. The teachers in charge of the SENA barista course are coffee professionals themselves and were really happy with my coffee project in Medellin because I give Colombian speciality coffee a spotlight and provide the school with a potential opportunity to hire their graduates. We have developed a close relationship with the school throughout the years, and they refer their students to Velvet.
Does the Colombian SENA barista training course have an affiliation with the SCA, the Speciality Coffee Association? Or is there a separate coffee trade group in Colombia?
No, they (SENA) operate separately from the SCA as far as I know. They do work with the national Colombian coffee federation called Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia or FNCC, which are responsible for export licenses, guarantees a minimum coffee export price (in relation to the C-market price), … Juan Valdez (ref. the FNCC logo with the farmer and the donkey) coffee brand also falls under this government body and acts as a quality label for Colombian coffee.
Back in the day, during the ’50s and ’60s, Colombian coffee was renowned in the world for its excellent quality, and therefore also more expensive, which was globally accepted because of the high quality. Later on, in the late 1970’s, surrounding countries like Brazil, got problems with coffee plagues like “la roya” (= coffee leaf rust, a fungal disease that affects the coffee plants, and eventually kills the coffee plant) or coffee borer beetle (=a beetle that nestles in coffee cherries and causes flavour defects, unripe cherries to fall off the plant,…) So the FNCC wanted to anticipate on these coffee diseases and plagues, by creating hybrid coffee plants by combining Arabica with Robusta plants. Robusta has a higher yield (than Arabica plants), and is more resistant to coffee diseases,… So the Colombia variety was created, and later the Castillo variety and other hybrids with more desirable coffee disease-resistant traits. The FNCC distributed these more disease-resistant varieties to Colombian coffee farmers to anticipate what was to come and protect their future coffee yields. There are critics of the FNCC because they impose a monopoly, you can’t operate in the Colombian coffee scene without their licences, but on the other hand, the FNCC does look out for the national coffee interests and they provide stability in Colombian coffee production.
What profile do your baristas in Colombia have? Do they come from coffee families (producers, traders, hospitality,...) or do they come from all walks of life? I ask this question because in Belgium coffee training is open to everyone, you don't have to come from a "coffee family".
The Sena education is open to everybody, you don’t have to be from a “coffee” family.
— Coffee Education and news, what does Ilse recommend?
For people who are further interested in coffee knowledge, what websites, podcasts, books, magazines,.. do you recommend?
Podcast by Lucia Solis, she is an American winemaker turned coffee process specialist & consultant. Her podcasts offer detailed insights into coffee processing, innovations in this field and the future of coffee farming in general considering environmental issues. Also, I like to recommend a podcast in Spanish by Hernando Tapasco, De la Semilla a la taza – el café.
🖤 Ilse, I would like to thank you for your time and our interesting conversation and I’m curious when you travel around the world if you bring your own method of coffeemaking with you in your suitcase, or not? If yes, what method do you prefer to use during travelling?
The AeroPress Go Travel 😃
You can find Ilse’s Café Velvet coffee in Belgium & Colombia or online at: www.cafevelvet.co
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