Angelo: roasting coffee in a pot on Schönhauser Allee

Roasted East-African style in a pot, ground fresh, taken home. Tastings on Saturdays — and a room with panoramic windows that other hosts can rent.

East Africa is where coffee comes from. Angelo’s classes at Coffee & Bananas in Prenzlauer Berg start exactly there: with the raw green bean, which smells of nothing at all. What it becomes is decided over the next twenty minutes above the flame — by ear, colour and smell, not by a timer.

From raw green beans to cooling them on the pavement — the whole route takes one class.

What happens in the class

Two hours, two different beans. You roast each one yourself, grind it fresh and drink it — and only side by side does it become obvious how far apart two roasts can land, with the same person at the same pot.

Grind size, water temperature, brewing method: those are the three dials that decide the taste, and over these two hours you turn all three yourself.

Whatever is left goes home with you. That is the part nobody expects — you leave with a bag of coffee you roasted, not with a memory of having done it.

The class runs in German and English, for six to fourteen people, and costs €59.

Angelo guiding a participant at the pot, with the group roasting at their own pots behind

Why East Africa

This is not a hobbyist importing beans. Angelo and his girlfriend, who runs Coffee & Bananas with him, have coffee trees of their own in Kenya. That is why there is so much talking in this class: how it is grown, what happens to the cherry long before there is a bean, who earns along that chain and who does not.

You can take a roasting class and never learn any of it. Here it is half the class.

Coffee tasting, Saturdays

Alongside the roasting, a tasting runs on Saturdays from 11:00 to 12:20. Nothing is roasted there — things are compared: East African coffees side by side, brewed several ways, where one bean turns into two different drinks depending on the grind and the water.

Tea tastings run separately.

To book a tasting, go straight to Angelo: +49 176 765 064 56 (DM works too) or cafe@coffeeandbananas.com.

Room for hire

After years without a fixed place, Angelo and his girlfriend now have one: right on Schönhauser Allee, with panoramic windows onto the street. And the room is not only theirs to use.

If you teach workshops yourself and need a room in Prenzlauer Berg, you can rent it. For other hosts, for team events, for your own sessions — daylight and a view of the street rather than a meeting room. Enquiries go through the same channels as the tasting bookings.

When it runs

Four roasting classes a week plus Sundays, and the tastings on Saturday. For companies and larger groups Angelo also comes to you — those groups run considerably bigger than the open class.

Book a session

Angelo’s upcoming dates are on the Twiggli calendar. For a private group or a room enquiry, the request button on any of his sessions goes straight to him.