Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/66983
SPOTLIGHT: PARLOUR COFFEE continued from page 65 uses beans with a roast date, Vik isn't shy about the shop's educa- tional arm. In short, he's trying to change the way people buy coffee. "There have been two varieties of beans we had to stop carrying because they went out of sea- son, and so the roasters don't use them," Vik recalls. "It's been kind of fun telling people that, well, coffee is a food and so we like to bring it in fresh. It's definitely a learning curve for some people." Parlour brews and sells a thor- oughly Canadian menu of cof- fee: 49th Parallel from Vancouver, Phil & Sebastian from Calgary and Detour from Dundas, Ontario. Each beverage is ground to order, whether it's a latte made on the shop's La Marzocco Linea or a Chemex for a party of two. It's a simple menu, inspired by Vik's minimalist bent. "There's too much visual pollution every- where," he says. "I like to come into a place with five things on the menu and nothing on the walls where you can just let your brain rest." The rapid influx of trends may not be Winnipeg's defining char- acteristic—quite the opposite, actually. But there's a hunger for relevance here, and a warm- hearted willingness to try new things. And in a Starbucks world where even a population of bar- gain-hunters has come to accept the $4 latte, Parlour has enjoyed a warm reception. Business has been about four times better than Vik projected in his busi- ness plan. "I think Winnipeg was really waiting for something like this," he says. And while he may never suc- ceed in converting the city's die- hard Tim Hortons fans, Vik seems content to quietly brew, steam and tamp the rest of them, one by one, into willing submission. 66 COFFEE ALMANAC 2012