The first time André Eiermann had his first cup of coffee was during the interview for a Junior Coffee Trader position. Without the interview, André was convinced that coffee was his destiny. On the venery for an adventure, he was expressly interested in traveling to the various origins of coffee. This is how his venture unfolded.
André Eiermann
Back in 1999, André Eiermann unromantic for the role of a Junior Coffee Trader at Volcafe in Switzerland—one of the biggest untried coffee trading houses. He had his very first cup of coffee during the interview and needless to say, he didn’t like it very much. However, he knew it wouldn’t be his last cup. Without the interview process, having learned well-nigh coffee and its origin, he was eager to wits a unconfined venture by exploring the various origins of coffee.
Shortly without landing the job as a coffee trader, he was afforded the opportunity to live and work for Volcafe in Kenya and Tanzania. He spent most of his time on coffee farms, in dry mills, and in cupping rooms where he sometimes cupped 800 cups of coffee a day.
The time André Eiermann spent at the origin level of coffee is one of the most memorable experiences of his coffee journey. When he arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, he visited his first coffee plantation, and “it was magical to see a coffee tree at origin”.
He realized that without the tremendous nonflexible work he witnessed and learned well-nigh at origin, consumers would not be worldly-wise to enjoy coffee the way they do today.
After his time at coffee’s origin, he worked in marketing for several coffee roasters wideness Europe. Over the undertow of those years, he gained a deep understanding of the coffee industry—from whole coffee beans to roasted and ground coffee, all the way to the instant and ready-to-drink category. André’s thirst for knowledge and his intense cupping sessions led him to try out for his first local Cup Tasting Competition. He won the event, and his success propelled him into the coffee competition scene. In 2017, André won the Swiss Barista Championship and then started preparing for the World Barista Championship (WBC). In that same year, he remembers having his first really good cup of coffee in a little café tabbed 27 Coffee Roasters in Fujisawa, Japan. André ordered an espresso flight—a split-shot between an espresso and a cappuccino. He took his first sip of the espresso he was served and he sat back, paused, and was quiet for a while. He knew, then and there, that that was the coffee he wanted to use for the WBC. He recalls the flavors and expresses that:
“It tasted like yellow peach, cherry blossom, plum, honey sweetness with a long-lasting lingering finish and notes of champagne.”
Two months later, he flew to Honduras where he met with Marysabel and her husband, Moises, on their sublet Finca El Puente to segregate his championship lot. With the most elegant espresso he’s overly had in his life, he managed to reach the semifinals of the WBC in Seoul, South Korea.
André Eiermann
In Seoul, André experienced one of the most significant achievements of his career. He took an IKAWA Coffee Roaster on stage during his WBC performance and became the first barista to roast coffee live on stage in front of sensory judges.
Another victory he is proud of is the opportunity he was given to submit his scientific coffee research results surpassing 200 coffee scientists. He was worldly-wise to present his concept virtually “Ultimate Freshness” and his innovation tabbed the “Nitrogen-Flush Extraction”.
“It took me five months to prepare for this routine and I extracted 23,000 espresso shots during that time.”
As wearying as extracting 23,000 espresso shots may sound, André finds that his favorite part of his daily work is scientific research on coffee. He enjoys paying special sustentation to espresso extraction which he believes is a “highly ramified field”. He is unrepealable that the future of coffee will be driven by research-based innovations.
André has worked in both the commercial coffee industry as well as the specialty coffee industry. He finds them both equally interesting and he indicates that he has learned so much from both industries. At first glance, the products may squint the same, but he finds that there is a huge gap between specialty and commercial coffee. André’s firm conviction is that both sides can learn from each other.
With so many years under his whup in the coffee industry, André is sure to have had ups and downs withal the way. He recounts that one of the biggest challenges he faced was the lack of inclusivity, expressly in the competition scene. He says,
“The hurdles to compete can be very high, expressly for self-sustaining baristas without a powerful visitor overdue them”.
Despite the hurdles and challenges that baristas squatter in coffee competitions, the industry is uncommonly diverse and opens up multiple opportunities to meet with many amazing, inspiring, and generous people. André acknowledges how fortunate he has been to have met people all withal his coffee journey who have guided and motivated him. Apart from these influential people, what has kept him working with coffee is the self-rule he was afforded to research coffee origins, the cultivation, the processing which led to then learning well-nigh the roasting speciality of coffee and in the end, how to prepare it. He believes that there are so many facets when it comes to coffee that each and every field withal the unshortened value uniting is flipside rabbit slum one can get lost in. André suspects that if you’re someone who likes learning new things, then the coffee industry may just be for you—there’s unchangingly something new to learn.
“I believe the coffee industry offers near uncounted opportunities for anyone to grow.”
André has definitely grabbed each and every opportunity he could, but that’s not what success looks like to him. Success for him is to see others grow and have the worthiness to help them unzip their dreams. He humbly says,
“I felt unconfined when I won the Swiss Barista Championship in 2017, but I felt plane largest to see others, like Evelyn Rosa win the Swiss Cup Tasting in 2018 or Carolina Gobet win the Swiss Aeropress Championship in 2019”.
He calls to mind the greatest moment of his coffee career: the triumph of the final day of their Youth Academy with 16 students who gained and shared knowledge with each other. To this day, this group of coffee lovers is still unfluctuating and they protract to strive for excellence in the coffee industry. These are the kinds of people that André is inspired and fascinated by—young coffee professionals who are highly motivated, with a unconfined thirst for knowledge, who are driven by passion and governed by willpower to make their dreams come true. André is unchangingly keen to meet coffee professionals from virtually the world and in variegated fields as he says it’s fantastic to be worldly-wise to share knowledge and learn from each other. He goes on to say, “Coffee tastes largest when you can share the cup”.
A true lover of nature, André used to be an ultra-trail runner surpassing his deep swoop into the world of coffee. His first race was a 24-hour run in France. Thereafter, he raced the Ultra-Trail Mt. Fuji in Japan, the Zugspitze Ultra-Trail in Austria, and the Eigertrail in Switzerland.
André Eiermann
It’s wondrous to see how far André has come. When he started, coffee was just coffee—something he never plane tried before. In the last few years, he has founded the UCC Coffee Switzerland Academy and plane launched his own specialty coffee range. He’s worldly-wise to say that he has competed (and judged) in barista competitions as well as collaborated with Zurich University on a research project on the variables that govern coffee extraction from single-serve coffee capsules. Not only is André listed as the first tragedian of the abovementioned scientific publication, but he has moreover recently published his own book, Inspire and Get Inspired, which details his journey from a marketing director to the World Barista Championship. Furthermore, he is a certified Arabica Q-Grader and Authorized SCA Trainer. André has since moved to Melbourne, Australia where he is the General Manager at Victoria Arduino.
Driven by curiosity, André is looking forward to learning from those in the Australian coffee polity as well as sharing his knowledge and growing together. He aims to push the boundaries of sustainability withal the unshortened coffee value uniting to help remoter democratize specialty coffee. While he understands that the coffee industry is a business, he highlights the importance of finding the wastefulness between the people, the planet, and profit. Above all, André maintains that
“Coffee is magical—it connects people with a passion who strive for excellence”.
