7 Shots Coffee: Simona knows how coffee works
Five questions for Simona
Your Leipzig and good food?
"I love the food at Pekar in Lindenau, the vegan bistro Deli in Connewitz and the fine dining Kuultivo in Schleußig."
Your Leipzig and cycling?
"I live in Connewitz, so I like to cycle through the Auwald forest and to the Cossi. I even ride almost every day before work, I love it."
Your Leipzig and culture?
"Leipzig is super diverse for me. It's easy in Connewitz - I can go anywhere: Conne Island or UT Connewitz. Sometimes there are punk concerts there. I also love cheerful to cloudy in Plagwitz. I like electronic music, so if there's a small party somewhere outside, I'm right there with them."
Your Leipzig and architecture?
"I love the street art in Connewitz. It's cool that the buildings here speak their own language. That's what I like best in Leipzig - the language of the street."
And of course you can't miss asking the coffee specialist about her favorite coffee drink:
"I like the filters and chilled filters the most - that's not a cold brew. Just a filtered fresh coffee that cools down quickly, which keeps the unique flavor. It's super refreshing in summer. Especially when no oxygen gets in, the taste and color are preserved."
Specialty coffee - ever heard of it?
Simona started with coffee 10 years ago. While studying in Holland for a year, she discovered specialty coffee there. "Specialty coffee is coffee beans that are controlled practically from the beginning of cultivation to the end of processing. The coffee can be divided into Arabica and Robusta - specialty mostly concerns Arabica and is definitely to be regarded as more valuable. It has a more complex, lighter and fruitier taste. Arabica is like wine or whisky - it has many tones. Robusta, on the other hand, is stronger and earthier. It's a heavy type of coffee that contains more caffeine," says Simona, drinking her popular chilled filter.
Specialty coffee has a clear taste: some varieties taste of mango or strawberries, others of chocolate. And is it possible to learn to differentiate between these tastes? "You have to practise it. There are different certificates, we also have the Specialty Coffee Association, which guarantees and offers very good courses, but almost all the good roasters I know do it simply by eating interesting things. You have to be open to new flavors. When you're eating a nut or a mandarin, it's good to think about what's being eaten and what it tastes like - that's the best way to train."
Leipzig - where is your specialty?
Enough theory - Simona can do that with ease. But her new beginnings in Leipzig were quite different: she was surprised, even shocked, at how little specialty coffee is known in Leipzig: "In Brno, which has 300 thousand inhabitants, there are so many cafés that you can't decide which one to go to today. The best Czech baristas are there. Let alone Prague. Liberec - a wonderful roastery. Ostrava, Poland - man! One good café next to another - the people only work with specialty."
And then she came to Germany, to Leipzig with 600 thousand inhabitants. "I said to myself - I'll just pick something." But it wasn't that easy. For a while, Simona made an effort to persuade the coffee house owners to start specialty coffee, but they only argued that the people here weren't ready for it and they wouldn't like it. "It's not that easy - if you want to make specialty, you have to have recipes, scales - grams and seconds play a big role here. As well as freshness, filtration, water and coffee grinders."
After an unsuccessful search in the Leipzig coffee scene, one day Simona simply had enough and bought herself a very good espresso machine as a consolation. In the beginning, she made the coffee at home in Connewitz for her neighbors, until her kitchen eventually became too small for the 19 people. She decided to look for her own place. She found a shop window in Philipp-Rosenthal-Str. purely by chance and suddenly it was clear to her. "Everyone laughed about it at first because the location is just crazy" (there's a board in front of the café that Simona created for all the patients of the nearby dermatology clinic who walk past her café on their way to the doctor - she wrote HAUTLIKLINIK 300 m on it in big letters because that was the only thing anyone ever looked for here).
In the meantime, coffee lovers find their own way to 7 Shots. But such a place was intentional - after all, Simona needs time for her coffee. "I only serve coffee if it's well made. I don't serve bad coffee - that's our concept. If it doesn't go according to the recipe, we apologize, ask the guest to wait another three minutes and make a new one."
A mélange of Denmark and the Czech Republic
7 Shots Coffee works with a Danish roastery. Simona's nice colleague Peter also comes from Denmark. He just walked in one day and after a short chat it was clear that he could start working straight away. All it took was three key words (Peter knew the roastery and the espresso machine) and he was able to conjure up his own shot at the bar. Simona immediately recognized from his skilful barista moves that he was a professional and Peter got the job the very same day.
Since then, the two have been pulling in the same direction and guests have been banging down their doors (and windows).
All roads lead to Leipzig
If you had to choose between a car and an espresso machine, which would you pick? For Simona Keilová, owner of the Leipzig-based café 7 Shots Coffee, this decision was not an agonizing choice a few years ago. One day, she spent the money she had saved for years on an espresso machine, which now reigns supreme together with Simona in the small restaurant at Philipp-Rosenthal-Str. 7. But first things first - a sip of coffee and one thing at a time.
Simona landed in Leipzig 5 years ago - she followed her husband, who works as a scientist. Before that, they lived in the USA and as soon as it became clear that his research would continue in Leipzig, the idea wasn't too difficult for Simona either: "I also found Leipzig interesting because I didn't know what the coffee quality would be like here, but I do speak German. I went to a German grammar school in Prague and then studied German for a while. So Germany seemed like a good compromise to me."
Nearby
