Getting to know Kasper Frandsen - Head of Coffee for Original Coffee.
How did the journey of Original Coffee start?
Two great childhood friends who had been selling coffee from bicycles for a couple of years got an opportunity to open a coffee shop in Copenhagen’s most exclusive shopping mall - Illum. It didn’t take long before they had the chance to open their second coffeeshop and with that they called up the big brother of one of the friends, asking him if he would like to join the adventurous journey of running coffeeshops, and that was when it all began. This year (2022) Nikolaj, Philip and Jonas celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Original Coffee and the 16 coffeeshops and bakery they now run.
Can you share more about your local coffee scene in Copenhagen and what Original Coffee's approach to coffee sourcing and serving the local community of your coffee shops?
The coffee scene in Copenhagen is constantly evolving. We have some great roasters, baristas and very diverse looks and atmospheres with the coffee bars here.
Our goal is to serve great coffee and give high end service experiences to all our guests. We experienced that the locals in the neighbourhoods we have coffeeshops in quite quickly become our regular customers.
What was the inspiration for Original Coffee to decide to put coffees into the convenient capsule format?
We started to look into that market when we experienced that a lot of our regulars were asking us about capsule coffee. We saw an opportunity and decided quite fast to use the same high quality of coffee in our coffee bars and put them into capsules. A lot of our customers have a capsule machine at home and therefore we also see it as a service for them, to be able to have our coffees at home.
Coffee is fuel to get us moving throughout the day, especially in the morning. What is your daily morning ritual like?
Personally I have a lot of different equipment at home so naturally I brew on a lot of different methods. But my go-to is an espresso or a filter coffee; in the weekends I do prefer a pour over.
What are you most excited about right now and for the future of Original Coffee as a company?
The last couple of years have been tough for everyone and especially the service industry. But we see that all our shops are performing very well even though there have been many lockdowns throughout the last two years. Thus, what makes me excited is that we have loyal regulars, high quality coffee and some great capsules and by that room to grow as a company.
