While we mostly drink espresso-based Italian-style coffee, the latte fever is raging like never before, and iced coffees are a tremendously popular summertime treat. But let’s face it: these flavored caffeinated drinks are not necessarily good for waking us up – they are more like desserts. However, Kontakt café now provides avid coffee lovers with a new kind of cold brew, Roket.
Kontakt is a rather innovative and open café; the helpful trinkets and designer items on the shelves are all available for purchase, and they also welcome guests longing for specialty coffees. It is an urbane little shop attracting many passersby crossing the courtyard opening from Károly Boulevard: coffee is treated professionally here, and the employees love talking about the brews. It is always nice to visit a shop where employees like to talk about the origin and the roasting of the coffees on the menu – this is not snobbery, there are just some people who get a little extra out of the smell of coffee in the morning. This is the same kind of craftsmanship like the making of wines, beers, or pálinka.
When we visited the café, a lady had just ordered a cappuccino with ice – naturally, she got the traditional version of the drink, but we came for the special cold steeped coffee from the nitrogen-powered coffee tap, Roket. They took the idea from an American development to start experiments in order to make a cold, smooth steeped coffee. After finding the right ratio and coffee, Roket was born, along with the small rocket symbol on the takeaway cup, which refers to the tap’s propulsion.
The base of Roket is Casino Mocca’s coffee Santuario, which is a light-roasted Colombian coffee. It is prepared cold, so there is no need to cool it down after boiling – this way, we get a completely different taste experience. All aromas are preserved thanks to this process, but the taste also becomes smoother; and since the temperature does not change, the flavors remain as well. The acidic features do not dissolve, so the coffee served with ice cubes will not be bitter. It is not flavored, either: we tasted it, and strangely, we did not miss sugar at all. The coffee seems light, but in terms of caffeine content, 2 deciliters are equal to 1.5 espressos. In addition, it is also easier to digest because of the preparation method; we can drink our glassful on the spot or sip it on the go (550 HUF). Roket puts on a show: after tapping, its soft foam swirls elegantly in the transparent cup. At the moment, Roket is only available in Kontakt, but they plan on making a Roket mobile which will appear at bigger gastronomic events.
