Five Elephant

Overview

Five Elephant was founded in summer 2010 in Kreuzberg, Berlin by Kris Schackman, an American ex-film-industry coffee enthusiast first inspired by Scott Rao's Amherst, Massachusetts roastery in 1995, and Sophie Weigensamer (now Schackman), an Austrian-born baker who was already supplying cheesecakes to Berlin cafes when the two met in fall 2008. They built the original Reichenberger Straße shop themselves with a saw and an electric screwdriver; Kris's only formal coffee training was three days one-on-one in Idaho with roaster manufacturer Stephan Diedrich before the IR-5 was shipped to Berlin.

Known for

• Approximately 100 tonnes of coffee roasted per year as of 2021
• First client of Norwegian green-importer Nordic Approach
• Signature Philadelphia cheesecake, baked by co-founder Sophie Schackman, that became as identified with the brand as the coffee
• Diedrich IR-5 roaster, with founder Kris Schackman trained directly by Stephan Diedrich in Idaho
• HQ Roastery on Glogauer Straße sits roughly 100 metres from the original Reichenberger cafe
• Four Berlin locations as of 2021, including a Mitte branch on Alte Schönhauser Straße (December 2016)

Why it matters

Five Elephant is one of the German-language third-wave specialty roasters — alongside The Barn and Bonanza in Berlin — that established Berlin as a serious European specialty coffee city in the early 2010s. The combination of a couple-led, hands-built cafe with an in-house bakery setting the bar for the cake, and a roasting program rigorous enough to land them as Nordic Approach's first customer, gave the brand a distinctive identity that bridged the cafe and the roastery in a way few European specialty operations have matched.

Production

destoning

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head roaster

Kris Schackman

color sorting

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roaster machine

Diedrich IR-5

filter equipment

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cupping frequency

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roastery location

Glogauer Straße 5, Kreuzberg, Berlin

espresso equipment

3-group La Marzocco Strada with custom wooden accents; Mazzer Robur-E grinders

annual volume tonnes

100

Café

Reichenberger Straße 101, 10999 Berlin (Kreuzberg flagship); Alte Schönhauser Straße (Mitte, since December 2016); plus two additional Berlin locations

Sources

• https://www.fiveelephant.com/pages/frontpage
• https://typica.coffee/en/narratives/roasters/five-elephant/
• https://www.sumup.com/en-gb/business-guide/five-elephant-sumup/
• https://sprudge.com/five-elephant-42966.html
• https://coolhunting.com/food-drink/five-elephant-coffee-berlin/
• https://www.slowtravelberlin.com/five-elephant/
• https://ceecee.cc/en/bester-kaffee-kostliche-kuchen-bei-five-elephant-mitte/
• https://www.localspecialtycoffee.com/specialty-coffee-place/five-elephant-kreuzberg