Munich: The one-man coffee company in the Werksviertel – Munich

Maybe just follow your nose? Volker Meyer-Lücke has his office in a multi-complex in the Werksviertel. Since the 56-year-old’s company is a coffee brand that has so far only resided in one room, which is equipped with its own roasting machine, one could simply follow the smell. But: It smells like it everywhere in this office building, on every floor and in every corridor, because even in Munich in the year 2023, the vast majority of people drink coffee. And it is precisely in this more than saturated market that the man wants to establish a new, additional brand?

At least he probably knows what he’s getting himself into, because the man has been working with the brown beans for 35 years, most of the time for the Dallmayr company, as head buyer, i.e. as the person who buys the not yet brown beans in such a consistent quality and quantity had to deliver that the Prodomo customer tasted no difference in November to the coffee in May. And that’s where it gets interesting, the beans don’t come from Brazil or Vietnam all year round.

As widespread as the drink may be, as many people have found out about the plant, its cultivation and further processing in the city’s cafés and in the exhibition at the Deutsches Museum: coffee remains mysterious, as does the question of why it actually tastes the way it does tastes. That’s why Meyer-Lücke pours a glass of course. He pours and lectures: “Floral, balanced, round, you don’t need sugar or milk with it.” And there’s no other way to put it: He’s right.

Coffee is about taste, fanfare and craftsmanship. Many of the bearded part of the Munich population have long since replaced their multi-stroke engines with dual-circuit ones, portafilters with seven grams per 25 milliliters instead of cylinders with six liters per 100 kilometers. The coffee machine has arrived in the mainstream, which, according to Meyer-Lücke, the bean should quickly leave. And if he “can’t hear the term “sustainability” for a long time, then it’s clear at the latest that you’re dealing with an extremely experienced self-promoter and self-seller. To stay in the language of the bean and its connoisseurs, one could say of the slender man with the espresso creamy voice: sophisticated, balanced and surprising, with a clear note of self-confidence and a very slight hint of arrogance.

When Meyer-Lücke talks about his new Alrighty brand, which represents the essence of sustainability and is supposed to do more good than any other bean, he starts by naming numbers. As a buyer, he tasted 200 cups of coffee a day, was in Ethiopia 30 times and left Dallmayr to do something for the coffee sector and coffee farmers with the new brand. And: According to the German Coffee Association, every German drinks 170 liters a year, more than beer. “Even during Corona, coffee sales did not go down, but up,” says Meyer-Lücke. 80 percent of coffee consumption is used at home and 20 percent in a café. “The thirst for knowledge increases over coffee,” he says.

Anything can go wrong when preparing

The switch to filter coffee and espresso is quick, with the filter (which you should pre-rinse with hot water, please, to release the taste), the extraction is slower and longer, with the espresso it is short and under high pressure. That’s why filter coffee is stronger, “simply because the contact time between coffee grounds and water is longer.” Coffee is extremely complex, also because, unlike wine, there is also roasting. “I still have to get all the treasures out of the chest.” As with a good piece of meat, you can still do everything wrong when preparing it. At this point, the sustainability officer has to praise the coffee capsule, “the main advantage of which is: aroma-preserving, the right grind and dosage, you can’t go wrong with the preparation”. Because otherwise aging is a very big issue with coffee. Oxygen is the main flavor killer of the bean, whether raw or roasted. “Even stored green coffee may only remain for a few months.”

“Coffee is increasingly being perceived not just as a drink, but as a whole,” says Meyer-Lücke. People are now also wondering where the beans come from. And because Meyer-Lücke is a master of self-marketing (“I was on the Prodomo pack”), he also says that he “saw too many things that I would rather not have seen” and that’s why with the Caretrade company Coffee wanted to give something back. What would he rather not have seen? “The poverty in Africa, of course, the living conditions, the way industry deals with land.” He claims to know what really helps people from the coffee guild.

22 countries in Africa produce barely ten percent

And what is so sustainable about this coffee? Meyer-Lücke counts to three with his fingers, which look as if they have already heaved one or two sacks of green coffee. The average age of coffee farmers is well over 50. Second, 60 percent of global coffee production now comes from Brazil and Vietnam, so of the 50 or so coffee-producing countries, for example, the 22 from Africa are lagging behind. “They don’t produce ten percent anymore.” So Meyer-Lücke’s beans come from these countries. And since he estimates that 60 percent of the coffee work is done by women, he mainly buys from women coffee farmers. And, thirdly, by young farmers. “Preferably from a 25-year-old from the Congo.” Each of the four products meets at least one of the criteria. And then there are the project coffees, which would be single-cask bottling for whiskey drinkers and single-barrel bottling for wine important people.

Meyer-Lücke, who grew up between Bremen and Hamburg, did an apprenticeship with a coffee dealer and was then sent out into the world. In Brazil, he tested up to a thousand coffees a day, “with a spoon and you spit it out again.” But the noise it makes is one that is rarely associated with enjoying coffee: the loudest slurping, “so that a constant amount of liquid runs over the tongue”. Meyer-Lücke demonstrates it, it sounds like a broken razor. “Frrrrrt”. Body, acidity, aroma – Meyer-Lücke tested these hundreds of times a day.

“Body is the mouthfeel, a sip of milk feels different than water.” Acid is more difficult, there are 80 different gradations, and then there is the aroma, currant or tobacco, the association. At Dallmayr he always had to make sure that the coffee tasted the same. Today he can choose special varieties and harvests and advertise them as special. “In Ethiopia alone there are 6,000 different Arabica sub-varieties,” says Meyer-Lücke. Which are genetically and therefore also sensorially different. Meyer-Lücke now makes specialty coffee instead of premium coffee, as advertised for decades. “After the Second World War there were about 6,000 roasting plants in Germany, now there are 800.” You get the feeling that coffee has become much more visible. In cafes?

North and West Germans have an affinity for filter coffee, he says

Coffee and Munich, Meyer-Lücke can also say something about that, because he likes to say something about everything. Pretty liquid, one must state. “Northern and western Germany are still more fond of filter coffee,” says Meyer-Lücke, “in southern Germany the espresso fraction is significantly larger.” It is not surprising then that the coffee man can explain the price of nine euros for 250 grams of his special coffee in a very experienced manner. “By far the most coffee is sold in food retail.” Coffee is one of the most common things that attracts customers to the stores. And that’s why this product is so cheap. “A price level that, in my opinion, is far too cheap.” So is 30 euros per kilo a lot? “No one is extrapolating for seven-gram capsules, which would come to 60 euros per kilo.” His coffee costs less than 30 cents a cup. “But we can easily buy a cappuccino for more than three euros.”

Conversation over, self-promotion faded out, the coffee has long been cold. So you can’t drink it anymore? “Yes, when tasting there is no hot coffee, but lukewarm at 50 degrees.” The taste would be the same even the next morning. Until then, Meyer-Lücke could continue talking about coffee without any problems, and he would also stay awake.

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