Photos by Thomas Kakareko
By the Spree canal in Berlin-Mitte neighbourhood, where the tourists from all over the globe come across to explore the historical heritage and history, the coffee wonderland called Refinery High End Coffee is allocated. Lovely and vivid side street with lots of restaurants and shops gets completely crowded during the rush hours when everybody is on hunt for a perfect cup of coffee for the break. When you get inside Refinery, you may be greeted by Tansel and Bora Özbek. The couple was always passionate about coffee culture, however, the truly inspirational journey started in the heart of Berlin in 2015.
Extremely high focus on the details, conscious ambitions to establish a hub for coffee professionals and those who search for novelties in coffee and gastronomy culture, brought the duo an idea to start their own coffee business a few years ago. “The story of Refinery High End Coffee Shop in Berlin includes kind of a fairy-tale of the 21st century. It is based on the idea to bring out our concept as the art of making coffee, a hip speciality café in heart of Berlin and purely caffeine-filled everyday routine”, smiles Tansel.
The couple did not study about coffee in any special schools from the early days, rather took a chance to get university degrees in Economics to have a background in management and team work. “Nowadays people feel quite insecure about being team players, so the knowledge helps us to bring the individuals for something great together,” notes Tansel. “Of course, the life itself is never ending school. For example, we endlessly train ourselves in various ways: specialty coffee tradeshows, workshops, interactive sessions, everyday readings not only about coffee but also about the innovations in retail and customer service design”.
Refinery High End Coffee is known for uncompromised attitude about coffee quality to serve. It takes into account the accurate selection of the highest quality beans from micro-farms, their ultimately strong focus on the standards, only fresh in season and roasted to the perfection coffee beans by the best roasters out in Europe. Unique quality approach is accompanied by the coffee preparation and serving. The water supply and power is the core. As a result, professional and friendly Refinery baristas use “Spirit” coffee machine. It allows to extract espresso shots perfectly by offering accurate temperature control and pressure profiling per group head. The selected grinders are by Mahlkönig (EK43) and Mazzer (Robur).
“When it comes to the coffee selection, our team is in search of the harmony between the best coffee and the best people to work with. It is crucial to have warm and personal relationships with the roasters and combine quality with experience. Transparency, sustainability, support the farmers so they can develop financially and mentally are the key values.” Refinery High End Coffee presents Norway’s infamous Tim Wendelboe freshly roasted coffee: extremely fruity and aromatic, hand-picked by the farmers and their families. Furthermore, Caravan Coffee Roasters and April Coffee Roasters cooperate with Refinery exclusively in Berlin. The selection is frequently accompanied by the guest coffee roasters that bring new smell and taste palette.
