Klaus Thomsen — Ensuring coffee's future

All CoLab: Paris 'coffeetalks' - by speakers such as Klaus Thomsen, Katie Carguilo and Morten Münchow - were produced by our content partner Tamper Tantrum. We'll be releasing the videos of these talks over the next months so we keep fuelling discussion and building an inventory of knowledge. Don't hesitate to share your comments, thoughts or any additional reading links.

We're so excited we're able to share the first CoLab: Paris talk with you, right before the year comes to a close. We still have many more videos from Barista Camp to come, and don't worry - you'll be getting them all, but we'll be alternating our biweekly schedule with CoLab talks to stir things up.

We don't think Klaus Thomsen really needs an introduction — He's the 2006 World Champion, who co-founded and co-owns The Coffee Collective in Denmark, which has been pushing quality coffee forward through direct relationships with farmers, a constantly improved roasting operation and a highly trained team of baristas making customers happy from their 3 shops in Copenhagen — in short: he's the kind of person that 'does' instead of 'talks'. Klaus generally takes in the vast amount of knowledge and opinions out there, filters it to form his own ideas, contemplates how he can use them to make a change, and implements them. Without much ado, without much spotlight. Now, let that precisely be the people we absolutely love to hear, give a platform and share some of their insights, accumulated through years of experience.

Were we excited to finally bring Klaus to our stage in Paris, for what's proven to be a talk absolutely worth the wait. Given the choice of any topic, Klaus talks about 'what we as roasters and baristas can do to make sure we get coffee in the future'. Accepting the risk of being viewed as a negative 'downer' — Klaus isn't afraid to make us uncomfortable and asks us the question: why would the farmer's kids take over their parents' farm? He presents the challenges farmers face, and by consequence we all face in our effort to sustain the coffee production and the industry we all love. Watch this talk to find out what Klaus proposes what we — as baristas, coffee shop owners and roasters — can do to help overcome these issues. Something to reflect on and bear in mind when making your resolutions for the next year.