Illustration by Fig & Ginger, drawn from the review. The venue's own photo is on its way.
Specialty coffee roaster and coffee shop in Nørrebro, Copenhagen
Coffee Collective
Pay the Farmer, Then Pour
Coffee Collective has been owned and run by the same three men since 2007: Peter Dupont, Casper Engel Rasmussen and Klaus Thomsen, a former World Barista Champion. After seventeen years they hired a chief executive, Rebecca Vang, and that is about as dramatic as the corporate history gets. The drama is in the buying. They trade directly with farmers, pay well above the market price, and publish a transparency report so you can check. I spent years in boardrooms where consultants dressed margins up as values. This is the other way round.
The first shop was on Jægersborggade in Nørrebro, a short street of workshops and specialist shops, and it has since moved into a bigger room on the same street. The shelving and materials were chosen to tell the story of how they started, and the front opens onto the pavement so the street feels like part of the café. Order a filter from whichever farm is on the board. The bags carry names like Bekele, Mulugeta and Gichathaini, which is to say people and places, not marketing. Since 2021 their own Collective Bakery has supplied every shop, so take a cardamom braid or one of the tangy Lemon Waves with it.
Jægersborggade opens at seven on weekdays and eight at weekends and stays open into the evening. There are other branches, from Torvehallerne to Carlsberg Byen, and they pour the same coffee. The first street is still the one worth crossing town for.
- Order this
- A filter of whichever single farm is on the board, An espresso, A cardamom braid from Collective Bakery, A Lemon Wave
- The damage
- $$
- Go
- A weekday mid-morning, after the commuter rush
- Find it
- Jægersborggade 57, 2200 København N, Denmark
- Website
- coffeecollective.dk