The One Word Banned Behind the Bar: Anton Krinchev of Flow Cacao Roasters

Behind most bars the banned words are names for mistakes - scorched milk, an over-extracted shot, yesterday's beans. Behind the bar at Flow Cacao Roasters the banned word is "I'm in a hurry". Anton Krinchev does not offer it as a line for the microphone, but as a rule that arranges everything else: what gets served, how it is made, and how long it takes to drink.

Flow Cacao Roasters will be among the participants at Good Coffee Festival in Sofia this September, and Anton will be there. What follows comes from a Slow Made City conversation ahead of the festival - ten short questions, none of them about turnover or locations.

The work is finished before the machine is switched on

The first question was which weighs more, the bean or the person at the machine. The answer never reached the bar.

"What matters is the region and the people who grow, in our case, the cacao beans. Processes like the harvest, the timing, the temperature, and then fermentation and drying. All of that is long before we get to the machine."
ANTON KRINCHEV, FLOW CACAO ROASTERS

Fermentation is where cacao acquires its flavour. The beans sit with their pulp for about a week, the temperature inside the heap climbs noticeably, and that is where the precursors form for everything we later call tasting notes. Drying takes days more and asks for the same attention - a bean dried in a hurry carries a flavour that never comes out again.

The order of responsibility follows from that. Roasting reveals what is already in the bean; it does not create it. A roaster has the power to ruin good raw material and no power to rescue bad - the person at the machine is last in the line, and merely the only one the customer sees.

Espresso hurries, cacao waits

The question was which of the two teaches patience. The dividing line fell exactly between the two drinks.

"Espresso teaches speed, cacao teaches patience, I would say from my point of view."
ANTON KRINCHEV, FLOW CACAO ROASTERS

The difference is literal rather than poetic. Espresso extracts in some 25-30 seconds and drinks best in the two minutes that follow, while the crema is still there. A cup of ceremonial cacao begins with 20-30 grams of mass, worked first into a smooth paste with a little hot liquid and only then let down with the rest. Rush the liquid and you get lumps that no amount of stirring will fix afterwards.

Then comes the drinking, which does not happen in one go - it is thick, unsweetened and takes sips. One drink punishes dawdling, the other punishes haste; Anton has arranged the bar around the second.

A habit for one, a craft for the other

Art, craft or habit - a question most people in the trade answer with "art". This answer split it in two.

"As a consumer I would say it is a habit. As a producer it is a craft. The same goes for cacao."
ANTON KRINCHEV, FLOW CACAO ROASTERS

The answer is more precise than it sounds. On the bar's side sit decisions that can be counted: roast temperature, batch size, cacao percentage, how long the mass is ground. On the table's side sits a person who came through yesterday too, and will come through tomorrow at the same hour.

The craft is what makes the habit worth having, without asking the habit to become a craft. A place that expects the customer to work as hard as it does ends up without customers.

"By the eyes"

Asked how he reads a person - by the order, or by the way they wait for it - the answer was three words and a laugh.

"By the eyes."
ANTON KRINCHEV, FLOW CACAO ROASTERS

Half a joke. Eyes really are read behind a bar, because they say what the order does not: whether the person has three minutes or thirty, whether they want to hear where the batch is from, or want to be left alone. It is judged in a second and got wrong just as fast.

The same watchfulness answered the question of what he knows about the neighbourhood that nobody else does.

"Well, how people drink their coffee and cacao in the morning, for certain, and when the dog needs to go out."
ANTON KRINCHEV, FLOW CACAO ROASTERS

That is the inventory of someone who has stood in one place long enough to watch it repeat. A neighbourhood is not learned from footfall data but from the window - who passes at what hour, which dog will not make it to the corner. Nobody pays for that knowledge and it appears in no report.

Asked whether he has ever been ashamed of a cup he served, the answer came without a pause: "Oh yes, many times." It takes a second and is worth more than any quality statement. Someone who remembers their bad cups has been counting them.

The slowest morning possible

Asked what kind of morning he would give the person across the counter, he did not hesitate.

"The slowest one possible."
ANTON KRINCHEV, FLOW CACAO ROASTERS

Which is where the banned word comes from. "I'm in a hurry" is not exiled for the sake of manners - it describes a state in which the drink cannot do its work. Ceremonial cacao wants ten minutes or so. Anyone in a hurry will cut them short and get a warm beverage instead of the experience they paid for.

His own choice for the morning runs the same way.

"A cup of 100% ceremonial cacao, or drinking chocolate as it is called, of Mexican origin."
ANTON KRINCHEV, FLOW CACAO ROASTERS

Mexico is not a passing mention - Anton travels to the cacao farms there. 100% means cacao mass and nothing else - no sugar, no milk powder, no vanilla to round off the edges. The bitterness stays, balanced only by the fat in the cocoa butter. A drink not everyone likes on first meeting, which is precisely what makes it a good test.

Chilli and cardamom

The last real question was which order tells the whole biography of the person placing it.

"100% ceremonial cacao with chilli and cardamom."
ANTON KRINCHEV, FLOW CACAO ROASTERS

The combination was not invented for a menu. Cacao with heat is the Mesoamerican version of the drink - it was taken that way for centuries before sugar reached it and turned it into dessert. Cardamom arrives from another direction and another kitchen, but does the same job: it keeps the flavour open instead of sweetening it shut.

Someone ordering that is not after something sweet for the afternoon, but the drink as it once was. Which is why the order works as a biography - not because it is exotic, but because it gives away how long the person intends to stay.

The final question was whether there is a customer he worries about when they fail to appear. The answer turned it around: "No, but we certainly have customers we worry about if they drink three or four cups of cacao." The joke is backed by chemistry - pure cacao carries theobromine and caffeine, and four cups are four times one.

At the festival in September, stand at the counter and do not say you are in a hurry. Ask for the 100%, wait for the paste to go smooth, and drink it there - it is the one part of the experience that depends entirely on you and costs nothing.