Man Met Bril, which means โguy in glassesโ in Dutch, is as descriptive a brand name as it is metaphorical. The Rotterdam specialty coffee roasterโs founder, Paul Sharo, does wear lenses to correct his farsightedness. The darkโno, espresso-coloredโplastic frames symbolize the clairvoyance that brought the pioneering company its repute in the Netherlandsโ second largest city.
Nowadays, their 250-kilo weekly output of meticulously, multi-sensorily scrutinized micro-roasts is sharedย among aย range of Rotterdam restaurants and bars. Yet, most newsworthy is Man Met Brilโs own coffee bar, which opened in January at the newly situated Hoofdkantoor, Dutch for โheadquarters.โ
The epithet Man Met Bril dates back nine years to when Sharo worked in a restaurant and made it a habit after dinner service to take out his Hottop, place it on the bar, and roast his own beansโthe yield of which some kitchen staff came to callย โthe-guy-in-glasses coffee.โ Sharo eventually realized, with horror, that the small electric roaster was โbaking everything,โ though he failed to find a quality local coffee to serve at Wijn of Water, the restaurant he by then had come to own.
In 2012, he decided to leave the restaurant to go rogueโto go roast.
Ever since, Man Met Bril has delivered exclusivelyย within Rotterdam. โWe couldโve been about, I think, two times as big as we are right now if we sold outside [the city]. But for us, itโs really thinking about what we want to do and who we want to be,โ says Sharo. Summed up, the ambition is to get the best roasts possible out of a 15-kilo Giesen and to share those discoveries (for the record, roasted in 12-kilo batches) with Rotterdam and its guests.
This seasonโs menu includes two Guatemala Santa Felisa Geishas and two coffees from Finca Las Mercedesย in El Salvador, all sourced by Sharo. With the aid of Artisanย software, Jelle van Rossum mans the Giesen and its 1-kilo sidekick, used mostly for samples. โHeโs roasting better than Iโve ever roasted, at this point,โ says Sharo of the 21-year-old, who found his calling 10 months ago on the very floor he now commands.
On a recent afternoon during one of Man Met Brilโs thrice-weekly cuppings, Van Rossum serenely explained how he had โmade some small adjustmentsโ to highlight the passionfruit and downplay the pecan notes in his first filter roast of a Colombian coffeeโfrom a farm he himself recently visited and arranged import from.
Another point on Man Met Brilโs agenda is โto redefine what it is that we like about the city,โ says Sharo. โWhen I started, I said: โAlright, Iโm going to start doing something that is only for Rotterdam because Rotterdam deserves more than weโre getting right now.โโ
Despite spending some of his childhood in New Jersey, where his American father lives, Sharo considers himself a Rotterdammer. His hometown, when not reduced to being Amsterdamโs rivalโin terms of sports and portsโis often singled out as the countryโs least quaint metropolis, bombed in World War II, subsequently scarred by skyscrapers and marred by socioeconomic, race-related strife.
The Hoofdkantoorโs menu regularly offers six espressos and six filter coffees. Each roast is listed on a plastic tab that points down to a row of beans, premeasured per cup, and stored in easy-to-clean pharmaceutical cylinders.
Efficiency is something Man Met Bril takes seriously. The espresso machine is a two-group Slayer. Sharo sums up its purchase as โthe best idea I had and the worst idea I ever had in one.โ The pros: โno shot timers, thereโs nothing to preset your settings, itโs just all by hand, and I really love that.โ Plus, itโs โthe most pretty machine in the world.โ The cons: โitโs a shitload of moneyโ and requires in-houseย maintenance since the Netherlands lacks technicians acquainted with the Seattle manufacturerโs products.
The system for order-taking and espresso-making is self-invented. โThe thing weโre calling โthe cockpitโ,โ says Sharo, comprises two Acaia scales integrated into the Slayer, an iPad (that receives orders from another iPad), and two iPods, all connected via Bluetooth. A third Acaia is reserved for filter.
Nearby is another New World phenomenon: a BUNN batch brewer. โThatโs because Iโm American, and I wanted to go for something a little different,โ Sharo smiles, praising its utility for automatic filter at festivals.
At present, 90 percent of revenue is business-to-business. Vendors are welcome at all times for training on the La Marzocco Linea PB Sharo reserves for that purpose.
Man Met Bril is built into an arch under an old train viaduct. The property is part of the Hofbogen urban restoration project, meant to make more room for entrepreneurs, less for youth gangs. In warm weather, the cafeโs 22-head capacity spills over from the herringbone wood counter and communal table onto the sidewalk. Developers are discussing plans to transform the land above into a High Line-inspired park, which Sharo favors. An elevated coffee bar is part of his future vision.
So what happens if one day the guy stops wearing glasses? โIโve been thinking about it a lot, about getting my eyes lasered,โ Sharo replies. The company story might be better if one day his imperfect vision were purely historical trivia, he muses. โBut I donโt know, weโll see.โ
Karina Hof is a Sprudge.com staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge.ย