It is Sunday about noon. A gorgeous sunny day, 7 degree Celsius, light southerly wind. Just like everyone else we walk along the 3.5 km promenade of our spa town, Groemitz, right along the beach with stores of all kinds, restaurant, bars and bistros and cafes facing the beach. You know exactly when a place is totally cool - when chairs & tables are occupied by hip & chic people wearing their sun glasses sitting outside.
Even though we are not as cool as they are, our single track mind urged us on right towards the one place we had decided was the coolest: “Torks Coffee”. His sign reads: “Humor us! We might be here today or perhaps tomorrow, it might be 7 am or 11 am, it might also be at 2 pm! Just come by and see if we are open!” I thought that this owner might be worth visiting one day just because he made me smile.
 His place is “in” - people sit in the sun, watch people go by, enjoying their coffee from “Torks Coffee & Roaster” (http://www.torkscoffee.de/). Entering the café you see a display of all kinds of American cookies, brownies, even a carrot cake. Owner Thorsten Muecke, dressed in a pastry chef’s jacket, squeezes by his employees. I ask how he learned to make American cookies, hoping to volunteer my American-born husband, baker of the world’s best chocolate chip cookies.
No need to volunteer Bob as Thorsten is a pastry chef by profession. He lived 10 years ago for a year in Florida and another year in California. This allowed him to collect various impressions, recipes and create his own, for example, his Monster-Brownie that reminds me much of a cheese cake.
 Not only did he learn and appreciate cakes & cookies of other cultures but also lived the “Coffee Culture”. Each one of us connects the smell of a freshly ground coffee with a specific memory. It is no different for him. Thus he worked his dream into his professional life.
Thanks to his apprenticeship at one of the oldest coffee roaster in Hamburg (150 years old) he had found his ideal combination of work life. In 1997 he began to re-define the pleasure of the nose concerning his Kaffee and Espresso. He began to roast his own high quality beans from very selected coffee plantations in a 5kg drum roaster that couldn’t be more perfect.
The secret to his coffee? In his opinion the “Coffee should taste of the soil of its original growing land”. He definitely does not purchase coffee blends but 100% pure Arabica-coffee beans. His Espresso is the soul and heart of his coffee house. The coffee he serves and sells is never more than seven days old. Smelling freshly ground coffee in combination with his own home made pasties of American & French culture is his passion which you see and feel!
When I told him that we love our Starbucks coffee, he knew where it originated. In his opinion the Starbucks coffee is too strong and consists of blends. He thinks it is a pity that people don’t enjoy the coffee by itself but add milk, caramel, and cinnamon to it.
Now that we are in his store he recommended the Sumatra coffee, Mandheling, Grade 1 as it is the strongest coffee he makes. We paid for 250 gr. Euro 4.50 and were invited to taste a cup of his Sumatra coffee and the “best carrot cake” as Americans exclaimed to him in the past.  So here we sat outside, in the sun, surrounded by chic-elegantly dressed day tourists with their cool sunglasses, enjoying the combination of a wonderful aromatic and hot coffee with one of the best carrot cakes and the greatest view of all for free – the Baltic Sea with its white sandy beaches.
Admit – it is a great life!
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