We first met Ilan Bachl and Matthias Feldmeier, affectionately known as 'Feldi' to friends, at the 2022 Frankfurt Coffee Festival. I was immediately drawn to their attractive packaging - clean white with labels featuring shades of sherbet and funky unfocused blobs reminiscent of a lava lamp. The packages actually *looked* tasty. The visual appeal was as juicy as the brews they served. At their stand, offering batch brews and pour overs, we chatted with the guys for a bit. We discovered Ilan's connection to Argentina (to Santiago’s delight), and I was charmed to find them to both be incredibly approachable, non-pretentious coffee nerds that know heaps about their craft. They have such a genuine passion for roasting and an admirable commitment to transparency and fairness in the coffee industry - even joining the transparency.coffee initiative and following their code when purchasing green coffee. This means that all their coffees meet these criteria to ensure fair and honest conditions for everyone involved in coffee production.
They told us that at that time, they were sharing roasting space and supplying beans to cafés, as well as hosting pop-ups, but they hadn't yet ventured into a standalone coffee shop. We tried all of their coffee, bought bags of beans and, although we had actually not officially started our company yet, I knew immediately that I wanted our first Kaffeekiss box to be from Munich and I wanted these guys to be in it!
Months later, we reached out to Stray to discuss our idea, and to our excitement, they had just opened their own cafe! They opened their doors in Munich's Westend neighborhood in April 2023, transforming an existing space to make it their own. It is open and minimal with beautiful big windows and outdoor bench seating brimming with hipsters and neighborhood regulars and the devoted “Strayas”. With two grinders on the go, they regularly rotate the espresso menu to showcase the roasts in their lineup. A particularly favourite aspect of mine is sipping from the gorgeous handmade cups crafted by ceramic artist Maria Cepissakova, in collaboration with Stray. Coffee just tastes better in something beautiful. They have plans to further improve the space and invest in more machines and have started a “Genussrechte” campaign (Profit participation rights). This initiative invites customers, suppliers, and employees to contribute to Stray’s company, fostering a collective sense of success within the community instead of relying on traditional bank financing.
We chatted with the Stray guys to find out about their commitment to transparency in the coffee industry, their values as roasters, and the tasty beans we're featuring in our Munich Kaffekiss box.
Nicole: How did you both get started in Coffee? When did you start roasting?
Stray: Well I (Ilan) started in Coffee to pay for my university in 2015. I then started quickly to develop an interest in Roasting, but it took me until 2019 to actually start roasting.Feldi started directly at a small roastery in the bavarian forest, in 2017 I think, and was working there as roaster and barista until we started our own Roastery.
N: Tell us about the name of your roastery. What made you choose the name Stray?
I:I liked the idea of a stray dog, just wandering around, going his own way. And also the meaning of the word stray, which stands for looking for our own interpretation of coffee. It then happened just naturally. I was sitting with my then girlfriend at breakfast, and we were going, stray dog coffee...? No, that sounds weird. “What about stray coffee?” she asked. And that was it.
N: Something we particularly admire about you guys - and find very unique is that you put an emphasis on full transparency of the costs along the supply chain. Why do you think it is so important to share this information with your customers?
I: Well, I think it is important to tell people, what they pay for and where their money actually goes. If you look at it, we charge around 65€ per kg, going up even further sometimes, and if you spend that kind of money, you would like to know what happens to it. We communicate all costs, that are part of the supply chain, to share that all people working on the coffee can actually make a decent living off it and don’t have to get their kids to work with them, instead of going to school.
N: Stray’s slogan is Coffee with Value. What do you value most when selecting your green beans? What values are you prioritizing for your customers?
When selecting our green beans, we first select from importers where we know that they do a good job at origin. Meaning, they pay the farmers well. They usually do projects there, like building schools or washing stations, and they source coffee which is good tasting. Then, we choose what we are looking for: natural, washed, honey, anaerobic, taste descriptors. And then we look for the price, hoping that it would not cost too much ;)
The values we are prioritizing for our customers are multiple. It’s the beans themselves and the way they are roasted. Then of course it is the farmer/producer of the beans. We choose to always give his/her name to our coffee, because it is them who in the end, make the coffee taste the way it does. And thirdly, I would say it is again the money. That we decide to pay for a coffee in general around 15€ per kg green, and that this money helps everyone, down to the harvester, to live off of it properly.
N: Something I love about coming into your cafe is drinking your coffee out of the lovely hand-crafted cups from Maria. As an artist myself, I really appreciate that you guys opted to support a local artist. It really elevates the coffee drinking experience. Why did you choose Maria and what was it like working with her to develop the unique cups?
I:It just came very naturally to work with Maria. Feldi had taken part in a workshop at her studio and got to know her that way, and then I met her as well and it directly felt like a good fit. For me it was also beautiful to work with her as an artist, because I’m an artist myself, and I know what it is like to develop these kinds of projects. We then just started, with the filter cups first, and she directly found a shape that we really liked. And since then we are slowly developing new shapes of cups, until we have all our cups from her.
N: This month’s Munich Kaffeekiss box features your M.Takač & J. Lim omni roast from Vietnam. What can you tell me about this finca / producer that you are working with? Have you roasted beans from them before?
I: Well yes, we have first roasted coffee from them last year. It was the same coffee that we are offering this year, an 100% arabica natural coffee. They are a couple where he comes from Slovakia and she’s from Vietnam. They decided to set up a specialty coffee farm and came up with some really special beans.
N: What is your favorite brew method or brewing tips for this particular roast (M.Takač & J. Lim)? Feldi, we know you are a talented Aeropress competitor - can you share your Aeropress recipe for this coffee?
Inverted Aeropress
15 g coffee 24 clicks
200g water 88*C
Poor in all the water and stir 10 times back and forth
Place the cap with two rinsed on the Aeropress and press out the air
Turn the Aeropress at 1:40 and press from 1:45 - 2:30
N: What did you particularly like about this coffee and how would you describe it?
I: So what we already liked about this coffee last year, and what is really present this year as well, is that it is a very clean natural coffee and that it has this great green oolong tea aroma. It is then paired with notes from melon and pear, and we also had some customers giving it notes from red currant and cocoa.
Thank you Ilan & Feldi! We’re so happy to be sharing Stray’s beans with our fellow coffee lovers!
For more information about Strays Profit participation rights Campaign, visit https://genussrechte.org/stray-coffee/
Photos by Dominik Bedat
