day9.coffee day9

Amsterdam · Netherlands

Bocca Coffee

Since 2001 · Menno Simons, Tewis Simons

Visit website Instagram

Overview

Bocca was founded in 2001 by brothers Menno and Tewis Simons — Menno started in his Amsterdam garage on a small Probat after stumbling onto a hillside of red coffee cherries during an organic-sesame buying trip to Ethiopia, and pledging to bring the beans home and help the farmers get organic certification. Bocca was the first specialty coffee roaster in the Netherlands to control the entire chain from sourcing to serving. In 2003, Menno founded its sister company Trabocca, a green-coffee importer that today supplies an estimated 99% of Bocca's beans and works with producer projects in Ethiopia, Cabo Verde and Indonesia. The flagship roastery and showroom on Kerkstraat opened around 2014; coffees are roasted on refurbished cast-iron Probats from 1963.

Known for

  • First specialty coffee roaster in the Netherlands — founded 2001 by Menno Simons
  • Originated in Menno's Alameda-style garage Probat after an Ethiopian sesame-trade trip
  • Sister company Trabocca (founded 2003) supplies ~99% of Bocca's green coffee — one of the most established specialty importers in Europe
  • Roasts on refurbished 1963 cast-iron Probat roasters
  • B Corp certified; European Coffee Award best artisan roaster in Europe (2014)

Why it matters

Bocca's importance is the Trabocca-Bocca dual structure: one of the few specialty operations where the importer and the roaster are sister companies under the same founder, which means producer-relationship investments at Trabocca directly feed Bocca's bag and several hundred European cafés downstream. The Cabo Verde Fogo espresso is a marker of how few roasters in the world commit to small-batch sourcing from islands at the periphery of producer geography.

Production

destoning
null
head roaster
Menno Simons
color sorting
null
roaster machine
Refurbished 1963 cast-iron Probat drum roasters
filter equipment
null
cupping frequency
daily cupping
roastery location
Berkel en Rodenrijs, Netherlands; flagship espresso bar at Kerkstraat 96, Amsterdam
espresso equipment
Custom-made 4-group La Marzocco Strada (Amsterdam flagship; side panels made from elm felled in an Amsterdam storm)
annual volume tonnes
null

Café

Kerkstraat 96-98, 1017 GP Amsterdam

Recognitions

  • European Coffee Award best artisan roaster in Europe (2014)
  • Founder Menno Simons — Amsterdamse Ondernemersprijs (2018)
  • B Corp certified
  • First specialty coffee roaster in the Netherlands

Sources

More roasters