Amokka History
In 1998 a group of ambitious individuals by the name of Tina Scheftelowitz and Lasse Thielfoldt wanted to show the Danish people how coffee could and should really taste like.
With inspiration from abroad they were one of the very early adopters of the style of roasting, that was later dubbed 3rd Wave. The term refers to the focus on roasting lighter and trying to enhance flavor in the coffee that wasn't known before as well as trading more sustainably.
Their bold vision led Amokka to become synonymous with premium coffee with flavors and aromas appearing that customers were experiencing for the first time. They introduced the café culture that is know a central part of the Copenhagen coffee scene, that has later produced world champions in Barista and coffee personalities in all corners of the industry.
The Amokka lady, created by famous textiledesign company Kurage, danced on top of all kinds of surfaces from coffee cups to oven mitts. The Amokka lady is a symbol of funky, fun and quality all in combination.
In 2005, Scanomat entered into agreement to buy Amokka from Tina and Lasse. We wanted to continue the success of the brand with more financial strength and seeing where the market was going, Amokka was a great fit for the beans business that was on the rise. Tina and Lasse stayed in the company for a handover period and later left to work on new and creative ventures but the soul of Amokka lived on.
The Amokka lady, created by famous textiledesign company Kurage, danced on top of all kinds of surfaces from coffee cups to oven mitts. The Amokka lady is a symbol of funky, fun and quality all in combination.
In 2005, Scanomat entered into agreement to buy Amokka from Tina and Lasse. We wanted to continue the success of the brand with more financial strength and seeing where the market was going, Amokka was a great fit for the beans business that was on the rise. Tina and Lasse stayed in the company for a handover period and later left to work on new and creative ventures but the soul of Amokka lived on.
Since Amokka has grown, but never forgot it’s root. The roots of coffee of such quality, that encompasses the work the farmer has put into it. Amokka is now a central and integrated part of Scanomat and TopBrewer while also operating under it’s own brand name. Every machine you see around the world, has Amokka coffee in it. It’s our dedication to the customer that sees this through, since we believe that by cultivating and roasting great coffee and ensuring the TopBrewer only ever serves coffee of that quality, we can provide that superior experience.
We still today only batch roast, meaning we carefully roast a batch and repeat the process. We have since entered into agreements with farmers directly, forming an extensive network of Direct Trade agreements to the benefit of the farmer, the community and the quality. We seek to find an cultivate the best partnerships, to continually advance the quality and ensure a sustainable trade. We have as a motivation and clear plan to only buy Organic coffee from year 2022, working with our network of farmers that are not already organic. All of them are committed to this task - which is not a small one. It’s interesting to help convert a farm as opposed to simply locate another one that’s already certified.
The Roastery
Making great coffee is a skill to be compared with making great wine or any number of agricultural products. It's an art form, a dance using not your feet but your senses, a function of peoples hard work and dedication combined with the fine tuning of machinery.
With the necessary attention to detail and care for the craft, we can possibly yield greatness.
The coffee process is long. It's so long that the process from seedling to cup makes it one of the crops in the worlds with most processing steps. Amokka takes all of these steps very seriously and try to always be focused on moving the bar, being humble to learn aspects that we might have not known and to give it the attention and care it deserves.
One of the major processing steps of great importance is the roasting - and to no surprise it requires the right equipment to achieve a quality roast each and every time. It also requires knowledge and skill.
The coffee process is long. It's so long that the process from seedling to cup makes it one of the crops in the worlds with most processing steps. Amokka takes all of these steps very seriously and try to always be focused on moving the bar, being humble to learn aspects that we might have not known and to give it the attention and care it deserves.
One of the major processing steps of great importance is the roasting - and to no surprise it requires the right equipment to achieve a quality roast each and every time. It also requires knowledge and skill.
In Amokka's Roastery we have built a very advanced micro-roastery which focuses it's efforts on the craft. Once the coffee arrives, clearing previous steps which involves our discussions with each individual farm, we start fine-tuning our blends and roast profiles. Each coffee will have it's own unique roast profile that pronounces the flavors and aromas of the bean, since each will have origin flavors that are unique to that bean.
Essentially roasting only ever takes away flavor and aroma encapsulated in the bean. Sad, but true. So it's up to the Roastmaster to try and make a profile that takes as little away as possible.
We pack the coffee immediately after roasting to capture as many of the volatile aromas as possible. The coffee naturally degasses by releasing Co2 and this happens inside the bag, which we fit with a one-way degassing valve to allow the gasses to be released.
Keeping a close eye on the finished product, we do continuous tastings of the coffee output to always ensure it's of a quality that we can proudly put our name to. We also keep roasting batch samples and methodically taste them over time to monitor how the coffee behaves with age, temperature fluctuations and storage.
Anyone can buy a roaster and produce freshly roasted coffee, but as with anything, making a superior product requires a wide know-how and years of experience. We are confident this will show in our coffee itself. We invite you to try for yourself and tell us.
We pack the coffee immediately after roasting to capture as many of the volatile aromas as possible. The coffee naturally degasses by releasing Co2 and this happens inside the bag, which we fit with a one-way degassing valve to allow the gasses to be released.
Keeping a close eye on the finished product, we do continuous tastings of the coffee output to always ensure it's of a quality that we can proudly put our name to. We also keep roasting batch samples and methodically taste them over time to monitor how the coffee behaves with age, temperature fluctuations and storage.
Anyone can buy a roaster and produce freshly roasted coffee, but as with anything, making a superior product requires a wide know-how and years of experience. We are confident this will show in our coffee itself. We invite you to try for yourself and tell us.
The Roasting Process
A profile is simply the sequence of heat applied to the beans. The profile can be translated into a simple diagram that forms a curve, hence the name a roasting curve. Overall the goal is to heat up the roasting drum to a desired temperature and then release the green coffee beans into the drum. The temperature will rapidly drop due to the temperature of the green beans and at one point hitting a low called Bottom Out. From here the temperature will start rising. In the beginning usually you will want the temperature to increase rapidly for then to back down the heating power to "flatten" the curve and slowly reach the endpoint. This essentially defines the roasting curve. The coffee has a roast time which is the total time from drop-in to release. The coffee is then cooled down as fast as possible to stop the coffee from roasting by it's own core heat.
Equipment
We have equipment spanning from a small 200g sample roaster, used for sampling tiny portions of beans coming from our farms to make out the quality, to a 12kg Probat for very small production, usually for micro-lots of coffees and lastly our hot-air 60kg IMF Roaster. The latter outputs roughly 52kg of roasted coffee, since the beans in a roasting process looses weight due to water evaporation but gains in size, due to what is known a cracking, which expands the core of the beans similar to what you know from popcorn. Our 60kg is still refined enough that we can control every aspect of the roast and actually, the hot-air roasters are extremely good at ensuring a unison roast for all beans, since hot air has the ability to better evenly heat. The heat is coming from a holding chamber in the belly of the machine, fueled by a gas burner, which constantly keep the air in the holding tank at 650C. A blower creates the flow and an adjustable inlet controls how much of that air flows into the roasting drum to achieve the right profile. The drum rotates to stir the beans to further even the roast by subjecting them to equal measures of heat. The 12kg uses older techniques that some roasters still swear to, heating the drum itself. Think of it like comparing a hot-air oven to a traditional bottom heated oven.
Amokka’s Manifest
At Amokka Roasters we love coffee and passionately seek out nothing but the best coffee beans from around the world. We pride ourselves in trading our coffee directly with farmers, investering in a sustainable future. Our master roaster carefully roasts every batch finding the exact sweet point where it has the best flavour and aroma With passion and innovation, we make our coffee with a recipe and approach we deem the best.
This is our manifest.
Amokka’s trips around the world