Thursday 1 June 2017

Crooked Nose & Coffee Stories



The journey today is very short one - it takes around 6 km from my house to get to the Crooked Nose & Coffee Stories coffee place in Vilnius. But all the other "ingredients" of this perfect day travel much longer.

First of all, there is my friend, who travels all the way from Jerusalem to spend this (and a couple of others) day with us in Vilnius. And second is of course the coffee, five different types of beans travelling from all the parts of the world as far away from Lithuania as possible.





Crooked Nose & Other Stories was founded by Emanuelis Ryklys, and it is also him making the coffee for us this time. During this so-called "gourmet coffee tasting" we get to taste five different coffees made in five different ways and complemented with different snacks: cheese+rye bread, dates, brownie and finally port wine (my kind of snack!).

The idea is that in this place you can get your coffee prepared in different ways: chemex, syphon, nel drip, aeropress, but NOT espresso. According to Emanuelis, there is enough espresso in Vilnius town. He wanted to give the people some new outlook on coffee, to prepare it in a way which would not burn it, but actually enhance the taste.



During our coffee tasting Emanuelis also spoke about the idea of combining modernity and tradition, in particular Lithuanian tradition, which from the first glance is as far removed from coffee as possible (try comparing coffee and cepelinai!). This was also motivation for the selection of snacks: actually, sakotis and rye bread with cheese go really well together with some types of coffee!




And out of this combination of foreign and local, old and new, the new way of brewing coffee was born: they have created Bro, a special coffee maker created here in Crooked Nose. It is made of wood and linen, and the coffee you get from this brewer is light but retains all the taste and texture. Really worth trying local exotic!



So, the interior was perfect, starting from the entrance to the bar and all the way to the toilet in the back of the room. The coffee was perfect. The atmosphere was close to perfect. But what I actually liked most were the cups. They were thought of by the owner and then made by a local ceramist.  They look quite perfect as well: unpolished unfinished brown clay on the outside (I was told it's covered in bee wax) and white glaze inside. It fits in your hand so comfortably.

In this post I have used the word "perfect" 5 times. I think I'll just stop here.

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