Something's Brewing: Gaggenau

“They’ve got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil,” famously crooned Frank Sinatra.

But what Ol’ Blue Eyes failed to mention is that they’ve got a lot of coffee, well, everywhere. Indonesia, Colombia, Honduras, India, Ethiopia, Peru, Uganda… It may come as a surprise to some that their daily cup of brewed bean might have started out life in Vietnam, for example, the world’s second-largest coffee producer. The Asian nation is estimated to have shipped over 10 million bags of the stuff in the second half of 2016 alone, an increase of over 10% on the same period the previous year.

And this certainly fits with the global picture, which sees coffee-export levels across the board going up, and, concomitantly, stocks in coffee-consuming countries rising. In February 2017, reserves in the United States reached a colossal 6.45 million bags, the highest level since May 2003. That’s a lot of bean.

Much to the delight of commodity traders, coffee is big business. According to the London-based International Coffee Organization, over 150 million bags of coffee were consumed in 2015-16. With no signs of a slow-down in coffee production, thanks in part to the development of disease-resistant coffee trees, we’ve come a long way from Kiva Han, the world’s first coffee shop that opened its doors in 1475 and which served as the point of departure for the spread of the beverage’s popularity westwards, aided in no small part by the expanding Ottoman Empire.

But it’s not just the metrics that matter. Although, if you’re an ardent coffee-drinker, you’ll be comforted to know the supply chain is in rude health. (ICO Executive Director José Sette – a black-coffee-only man, if you’re interested – confirms that “World demand for coffee is healthy and is growing at about 2.5% every year.”) As coffee has achieved near global ubiquity in terms of its consumption (over 2.3 billion cups of the hot stuff worldwide are drunk every day), becoming a staple beverage choice across different price segments, its mass commodification has led a growing number of consumers to seek out a more authentic, more artisanal approach. To find the difference, so to speak, within the sameness.

Known as coffee’s ‘third wave’, this bottom-up market phenomenon is characterised by an almost culinary aspiration on the part of drinkers to enjoy the highest-quality coffee experience, both in terms of taste, smell and ethical credentials. Think of it as akin to wine connoisseurship. Provenance, variety, production techniques – from growing, through harvesting, to processing – all of this informs the contemporary coffee culture of consciously consuming, sustainability-seeking third-wavers. (Although, as Sette rightly points out, “Sustainability is a moving target. It’s much more of a process than a fixed end point.”)

Reflected in the birth of the do-it-yourself micro-roasting movement, whose proponents often choose to source their coffee directly from growers (thereby ensuring the latter are paid fairly), not to mention in the renaissance of the independent coffee shop, this new groundswell of passion for the ground bean is recasting the landscape of coffee consumption. Life, it seems, is too short for too many for a bad cup of java.

There are a growing number of coffee aficionados, meanwhile, who want to be able to have that top-notch coffee experience at home, too. Companies like Gaggenau, the leading luxury brand for home appliances worldwide, are acting as enablers here. Attuned to exclusive culinary culture, as part of a sophisticated lifestyle, they have developed fully automatic espresso machines for cultivated palates, which, like all of their products, marry advanced technical performance with perfect craftsmanship and a clear architectural aesthetic.

With their superior tech specs, which allow you to customise your coffee (in terms of grinding level, water temperature and, of course, strength), and sharing the same considered design language as the brand’s other integrated products, such as its ovens and combi-steam ovens, it’s fair to say that the 400 and 200 series are kitchen kit for those coffee-drinkers who don’t want to compromise. Or, indeed, those who want to discover just how good homemade coffee can taste and how enjoyable the process of making it can be. It’s about bringing the outside in, as it were, where a professional standard of coffee-preparation becomes standard at home, too.

Go on. Have another cup. What’s the worst that could happen?

© Architonic