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Taf coffee is another business success story from Athens. Established as a family business in the 1990’s, Taf soon evolved from importers and roasters of traditional Greek coffee to a multi-level business specialising in high quality international roasts. For the last ten years, founder Yiannis Taloumis has been dedicated to sourcing sustainable gourmet grade coffee beans. He opened Taf coffee shop in 2009 to showcase his specialty brand of coffee, pioneering a new wave in the coffee scene in Athens.
With great care for all stages of production, each bag of Taf coffee can be traced back to an exact coffee field and year of production, just like a good bottle of wine. Yiannis travels extensively each year in search of the best lots and has built a network of preferred producers. The process begins at the farms following extensive research for high quality green coffee, where the beans must live up to certain taste profiles. Once the orders are placed and arrive in Greece, they are checked at Taf’s headquarters in Attica and tested to determine the best roasting profile to enhance the qualities of the coffee beans.
Yiannis Taloumis personally sources his coffee beans for roasting. Photograph: Taf Coffee Athens
It then comes down to preparing the perfect cup of coffee and Yiannis has employed some of the best baristas in Greece, including Taf’s head barista Stefanos Domatiotis who was crowned World Brewers Cup Champion in 2014. Other barista staff such as Kostas Iatridis and Irini Daskalopoulou have been Taf trained and were recently awarded first and second place respectively in the 2017 Hellenic Barista Championships along with the Hellenic Brewers Cup champion Stathis Koremtas.
Award winners Konstantinos Iatrides, Irini Daskalopoulou & Stathis Koremtas of Taf. Photograph: Taf Coffee Athens
Yiannis himself has also enjoyed his own recognition. With an MBA from Kingston University in the United Kingdom, he has been accredited by the Coffee Quality Institute as a Licensed Q Grader, and has collaborated with CQI to create the first Q Lab in Europe. After various distinctions throughout the years, in June 2014 he was honoured in the Lifetime Achievement category of the annual Speciality Coffee Association of Europe Awards, during SCAE’s World of Coffee event held in Rimini, Italy.
It’s no surprise that Taf also export internationally at selected espresso bars in Germany, England, France and Hungary, with plans to expand further into Europe, America and Australia. They offer educational programs to their wholesale partners which not only guarantee a consistent quality in their specialty coffee but help elevate the standard of coffee all around the world.
Taste the Taf difference for yourself and stop by their coffee shop in central Athens.
Taf Coffee: 7 Emmanouil Mpenaki, Athens. W. cafetaf.gr
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This video forms part of a series developed by LoveGreece.com that is inspired by the dynamism and creativity of the Greek entrepreneurial spirit. Founded in 2013, the initiative aims to boost and promote Greece’s image abroad by profiling talented and successful entrepreneurs and professionals. With their ethos and vision, these pioneering Greeks are an important part of Greece worth sharing with the world. Powered by Gina Mamidaki, founder of the G & A Mamidakis Foundation.
Credits: Direction & Post Production: Alexis Skoulidis, Camera & Director of Photography: Fotis Zigouris, Production Sound Mixer: Sokratis Tzovanis, Grooming: Roula Lymperopoulou, Music: Panayotis Kalantzopoulos, Interview & sub-titles: Paris Kormaris, Project Manager: Agapi Tsakpinoglou
