Danish Review Issue 2 Summer 2013 Danish Coffee Culture Meatless Meals in Copenhagen MIxing Languages: Nephew A Trip to Christiania Reviews of Contemporary Danish Books Feature articles The Coffee Collective 3 Harry Evans The Search for Meatless Meat 8 The Team Nancy Liu This magazine was created at UCL, London, by Teaching Fellow Jesper Hansen, together with PhD student Nephew: 12 Pei-Sze Chow. We were helped by a Danish or English dedicated team of MA and PhD students Sara Cass without whose help we could not have made the magazine: Sara Cass, Harry Evans and Tom Hoctor. I want to send them my most sincere thanks! A Trip to Christiania 16 Tom Hoctor I also want to thank Dr Elettra Carbone of Norvik Press for her help with the design. If you have any comments, feedback Reviews or ideas, please do sent it to us at the following email address: [email protected] Fabriksnoter 20 by Glenn Christian Reviewed by Jon Arnfred Jesper Hansen Responsible Editor Hjertestarter 22 Teaching Fellow in by Nephew Danish Reviewed by Sara Cass UCL London Pei-Sze Chow Editor PhD in Film Studies UCL London 3 Feature Danish Review aims to: Act as a point of reference for students of Danish around the The Coffee Collective world; Tie more closely together and Editorial form an early career network of people studying Danish and people working with Danish around the world; Welcome to Danish Review 2013, whose focus is markedly different from Allow students of Danish the Harry Evans interviews winner of the World Barista Championship last year’s. This year’s focus is very opportunity to publish their 2006 and co-owner of The Coffee Collective Klaus Thomsen. much on Copenhagen: Food, Music work before they have a PhD; and Drugs. Where is contemporary Danish coffee culture heading? Allow people who are interested I was a little concerned when I first in an area to come forth and heard about the various topics for this write about their knowledge. year’s Danish Review: would they be Danish culture has recently taken a better about quality coffee, but Klaus interesting? Would they be relevant? turn towards that of ‘hipsters’, with contemplates, ‘having a Starbucks or Would they be nuanced or just your cycling and grød - literally porridge: Coffee Republic on every corner started average clichés? a recent trend to create speciality getting people interested in coffee’. porridge, with unique and bizarre This, in turn, laid the groundwork for With the magazine being finished I am combinations taking hold, especially a really successful speciality coffee no longer the least bit worried. I have in the nation’s capital. In fact, Danish business environment. In Copenhagen, never before thought about vegan- – and, more broadly, Scandinavian – however, ‘people don’t go out as much Copenhagen, and though I knew about culture has recently been infallible for lunch. There’s not this culture of hip cafés I never realised just how much in its trend-setting possibilities. One popping out of the office at lunchtime thought and expertise were required to only has to look at Sarah Lund’s to get a coffee and some food’. This is get me my daily cup of coffee. jumpers and Nordic furniture to see changing, Klaus mentions, and more this phenomenon at work. The take-up and more people are taking time at And that is what I hope Danish Review for speciality coffee – with its devotion lunch to sample coffee in Copenhagen. can continue to do: show sides of to sourcing the best beans, roasting Denmark from different points of them with superb attention to detail view, not just from that of the curious and brewing in weird and wonderful traveller for whom everything is instruments – has been comparatively shrouded in mystery, but from people slow in Denmark. who are knowledgeable about the Cover image: ‘Copenhagen seen from the culture but see it from the outside. City Hall clocktower at night‘, 2008 ‘London has been very lucky’, Klaus Photographer: Bill Ebbesen Thomsen tells me in his impeccable English. ‘There are so many cafe I hope you will enjoy the magazine, chains’. In fact, Klaus started his coffee days in a Starbucks in London: Jesper Hansen © The Coffee Collective an ironic, if unsurprising start to a 18 July 2013 prestigious career. ‘This was in 2001 and I didn’t know better back then!’ In fact, London as a whole didn’t know 4 5 Feature Feature compare it to fine wine, or even craft wrong to take this nonchalance for beer, speciality coffee is sold at too low © The Coffee Collective apathy as The Coffee Collective make a price for the amount of attention and attempts to engage with anyone labour that goes into it’. At The Coffee interested in learning more about the Collective coffee roasting starts with art of good coffee. In London and ethics: ‘We direct trade with all our Copenhagen, ‘there are strong coffee growers, and if we do use an exporter traditions. The Copenhagen coffee or other services we always make sure tradition is much more one of filter it is on a separate contract. That way coffee, and we’ve found that people we know exactly how much money is are willing to experiment more with going to the farmers’. This also ensures new filter coffee than in London’. a good relationship between the © The Coffee Collective Filter coffee is a purist method of Klaus has the experience to farmer and the roaster, which means drinking coffee and attempts to get speak knowledgeably about these that Klaus and The Coffee Collective right at the heart of the coffee, ‘and developments, as he became co-owner know they are getting the best beans. this is something people can do at of his first coffee shop in Copenhagen The selection of the beans is a highly home, and we want to be able to show five years ago together with three labour-intensive task, though, and this people that’. Brewing filter coffee uses colleagues. Since then The Coffee is reflected in the premium rate that relatively cheap equipment to bring out the bar as a literal barrier to that. ‘What Collective has grown to three shops The Coffee Collective pay at least 25% the hidden flavours of coffee. This is we wanted to avoid was the stress of across Copenhagen and has gone above the Fairtrade price, and often achieved by using lightly roasted beans being rushed into choosing something. from strength-to-strength as a roaster, much more than that. ‘But it’s about of a high quality and the consumption In a busy environment people often now being served in coffee shops in creating awareness of coffee as a of finely-balanced filter coffee is get to the till and feel like they have London, next to some of the best beans luxury product and we need to tell the often proclaimed as a quasi-religious to make a quick decision’. As a result, available. Despite this expansion, Klaus story of the beans so people know why experience! However, in London and customers don’t have the time to ask insists that it was never their intention it is that they’re paying what they pay’. the UK, filter coffee has been treated about different choices and explore to become too big. ‘We don’t want to with relative suspicion by a coffee- new decisions. At the Jægersborggade be huge; for us it’s all about creating Telling this story begins in The Coffee drinking population that have grown shop, removing the bar is supposed to new and exciting coffee experiences. In Collective shops, where a focus is to love their morning latte. According lower the tension and thereby increase Copenhagen, there’s a real danger for put on weaving this narrative into the to Klaus, this aversion to filter coffee the attention that can be afforded to us of flooding the market’. Copenhagen queue of customers. Klaus provides does not exist in Copenhagen where the coffee. is a moderate-sized market, but the training for all baristas, so that they the tradition has not grown out ‘It was a new idea, and we didn’t know mechanisms in place for the coffee can truly play out their role as priests of Starbucks but, instead, ‘it has how it would play out in Copenhagen’. industry are gargantuan and so if of the temple, answering questions come from the traditional brewing The focus on coffee as well as breaking The Coffee Collective worked to full and imparting enthusiasm to the techniques in the home’. down the boundaries between barista capacity, it would have to accept lower customers. ‘I understand that not and customer was not uncontroversial. standards of beans, and potentially not everybody wants that. Some people The focus in The Coffee Collective’s ‘But we found that the shop did well. be able to treat farmers with shops is on high quality coffee however However, it didn’t take long for people due consideration. ‘So we’re it is made. In attempts to further to comment “it’s lucky it’s quiet. It very selective in who we We don’t want to be huge; for us it’s this, each of the shops has its own would be too difficult to achieve [this provide beans to, and there unifying concept that is subordinate level of focus on coffee] in a busier all about creating new and exciting are only a few coffee shops to the primacy of coffee. In this way, shop”. But we wanted to prove that it with the same attention to coffee experiences.