Double B coffee&tea, Moscow

chemex and slow bar — Chemex at the slow bar at Double B coffee&tea in Moscow.

Olga (left) and Anna from Moscow's Double B coffee&tea tell Barista Magazine about their new venture in Russia! — Olga (left) and Anna from Moscow’s Double B coffee&tea tell Barista Magazine about their new venture in Russia!

Barista Magazine is all about independent cafe owners! We exist to help your company succeed and to celebrate your hard work! So please, folks, write to us and send us snapshots of your cafe! Tell me in an email what your company’s all about, what your goals are, what you’re known for, what makes you different than anyone else! We very well may feature it here on this blog for the whole world to see! Write to sarah@baristamagazine.com!

Chemex at the slow bar at Double B coffee&tea in Moscow.

Today’s post is about some dear friends of mine in Moscow, Russia: Olga Melik-Karakozova and Anna Tsfasman, who have recently opened two outlets for their new company, Double B coffee&tea. Both are known the world over for excellence in the Russian Barista Championship (Olga, who has been her country’s champion a ridiculous number of times), and for their work at the popular coffee company Koffein, where both Anna and Olga worked for a long time. While they were at the fore at Koffein, the company was buying some of the top lots in the world, and training baristas with Russian gymnast like precision.

Double B coffee&tea is exploring specialty coffee in all sorts of ways: with top shelf liquors, on the slow bar with Chemex, V60 and AeroPress ”this is all a remarkable step forward for coffee service in the city of Moscow.

But Anna and Olga were itching to branch off on their own and start something unique. I saw them in Moscow last fall, and they told me the plan: for coffee and tea shops in Moscow to be called Babushka Batman. Now that they’re open, they’ve shortened it and modified it to Double B coffee&tea. The first outlet was opened in the city’s TV tower and was just a brew bar ”and in Moscow brew bars are extremely rare, so this is a pretty remarkable step! The second Doube B coffee&tea just opened not far from Red Square.

Anna wrote to me recently to share news of this exciting venture.

“There is a space in Moscow called Mandarin that has a great bar and a cafe. Inside we have opened an espresso bar and a slow bar. In the espresso bar you can choose different espressos and drinks based on espresso,” Anna writes, noting that Double B coffee&tea roasts its coffee in Moscow, as well. “In the slow bar you can choose your coffee (12 coffees sourced from Nordic Approach and roasted by Olga) and a brewing method. We serve signature drinks as well. Now I know exactly what the term ‘functionality’ means and how to rate it.”

One of Double B coffee&tea's signature drinks. — One of Double B coffee&tea’s signature drinks.

Thanks for sharing your story, Anna and Olga! And readers, please write in to share the story of your cafe, with photos, to sarah@baristamagazine.com!