2016 at the end – perhaps the most prolific year of good coffee in Romania

*photo – Radu Carutasu, Espressoman forum

It is true that I am sitting on a chair in an office located in the city of Bucharest and, just like someone from Cluj, for example, I have the privilege of being in the middle of the revolution. But don’t worry, wherever you are in this country, be happy that things are going very well in the field of coffee and espresso, right, «from the upper regions» 🙂

If you talk to businessmen from various industries, you will find that the crisis will return again, in a short time. But it seems that Romanians don’t care and the road to better coffee is already paved, we just have to keep our noses away from the indifference and look around. This is also because the foundations of a very solid community were laid 6 years ago, Espressoman Forumthat through its extraordinary power to dissipate information online, also loved by Google, we have demonstrated that any marketing legend in the field of coffee and espresso machines finds his flair in logical, easy to understand, experienced, unequivocal arguments. At the same time, many of the new entrepreneurs of the decade realized that a bar can no longer exist only with the sign at the entrance with Illy, Lavazza, Julius Meinl, etc. because normal people have discovered what specialty coffee, origin coffee, coffee grinder, correct espresso, alternative methods mean. Hence the multitude of specialized cafes that have filled Bucharest and Cluj, and the tendency is for freshly roasted coffee to escape from these dedicated places and go to restaurants, delicatessens, pastry shops, grocery stores, etc.

It is interesting that we cannot find figures, given that Romania does not have a profile association like in Germany, but I estimate (completely randomly) that we have reached as a country with a monthly consumption of over 40 tons of artisanal roasted coffee, the demarcation here is rather delicate, between the roasters that have become so large that they are moving towards the industrial area and those focused on smaller, high-quality productions. It seems like a lot, but it’s really little, given that, it is said, Lavazza alone sells around 10 tons of coffee as we know it every month in Romania…

On this occasion, I definitely want to congratulate the small entrepreneurs who have the courage to open specialized cafes outside the two mentioned cities, because no matter how big Timisoara, Constanta, the cities of Moldova, Tg Mures, Sibiu, Brasov and others may seem, the number of specialized cafes is very small, sometimes we talk about one – two – three locations. In a certain sense, for popular coffee education, it is more important to have many coffees than many roasters, in a given city, to promote the diversity of this infinite world of good coffee beans.

Alex Niculae also deserves compliments in 2016, the Romanian who demonstrated to the whole world that roasting coffee is an art that we are not only good at, but that we also teach to others, as evidenced by the few days in which we still see Alex around Romania, especially in Asia, with pen in hand and beans between his teeth, at his training sessions abroad. Maybe he is preparing a surprise for us in Romania too, let’s wait… 🙂

So, in addition to the fact that 2016 was probably the year with the largest number of interesting location openings in the industry, we discovered that we are large producers of coffee grinders, Reghin’s Kinu manual project growing explosively worldwide, Craiova playing hardball with its electric Honne, DIP serving the world pallet after pallet, not to mention other brands of espresso machines or components, which also start from here – Astoria, MCE, Gaggia, etc.

What will 2017 be like? I risk saying that:

• the phenomenon of freshly roasted coffee will cover the rest of the country much more than it does today
• many «tavern» managers will realize that it is more profitable to buy their own tools and buy coffee from roasters for 70-80 lei and up, without depending on the target and the chain of a large corporate brand
• there will be a tendency to create a sort of professional association of roasters, to avoid the implosion towards which the market is heading in the future
• Romanian craft beer will be indispensable in small cafes or bakeries with showrooms
• Romanians will want to drink espresso at home as in specialized bars, and so they will increasingly give up capsule machines, discovering the «magic» of the coffee grinder.
• prices for a double espresso or cappuccino, in good bars, will drop further in Bucharest and Cluj 🙂 and in small takeaway places with 5 lei per coffee freshly fried they will be dusty
• the exhibitions dedicated to coffee will double, giving more prominence to the normal person, the physical person, than to the horecar
• Espressoman forum members will lay the foundation for direct trade with growers for their home roasting needs
• Claudiu Stavrica will win something important 🙂
• one of the largest and most fashionable cafes in the country will open in Cluj
• on Espressoman we will finally inaugurate the video content section 🙂

I wish you all a better year, full of strong flavors and new experiences! I hope that the world that makes up this «artisanal» industry can see each other more face to face in the next year.

Happy birthday!