We had a chat with Peter Ševič, the head barista at Stow. Ševič also oversees Stow's coffee consulting and training, is program manager for the Stow Coffee Festival Ljubljana, and is the supervisor for Stow's green-coffee initiative.

Stow Specialty Coffee Shop. That’s a bit of mouthful. Please tell us all about it.
Stow Specialty Coffee Shop is a café, which is part of the much larger Stow Coffee Concept - a roasting mill, a cafe and an academy. The Stow café offers freshly roasted specialty coffee. We want our guest to taste coffee in ways that they never have before. In addition to our seasonal coffee and cascara, we offer various sweet and savory pies, smoothies, beers and wines from Slovenian micro-breweries and wineries. We also sell freshly roasted coffee to take home, tea and barista equipment. Stow Coffee is a small team, but has an immense amount of knowledge about specialty coffee.

A cup of coffee’s just a cup of coffee, no?
As long as coffee is treated like it only has one taste, the general population will continue to know little about it. Coffee is actually richer than wine in regards to flavour. In our cafe, we take our preparation of coffee seriously and make it well. When a guest orders a coffee in our coffee shop, they are acquainted with the key information about the coffee - where it comes from, the name of the farm, the process used to make it, the altitude of the farm and the taste of the coffee. We hope that by doing this, our customers experience their coffee in different ways.

There are so many different options to choose from when ordering a cup of coffee these days. What exactly should we be looking for when we order one?
When you enter Stow, you have a couple of different options on how you want your coffee made; espresso, filter preparation or as a cold brew. If you want to experiment, you can always ask our baristas for their advice. In addition to our outstanding coffee, we are also proud that we have knowledgeable baristas - guaranteeing that you’ll always a quality cup of coffee.

Can you tell us more about your Academy. 
With more than 20 years of experience in the world of coffee, we founded two academies, one in Kamnik and the other in Maribor. By doing so, we have become the leading educational organisation in this field. The Academy carries out professional SCA courses from various modules under the instruction of an authorised trainer licensed by AST SCAE. We also offer various courses for coffee lovers.

When you’re not working, what’s your favourite way of relaxing?
When I’m not working, I’m reading books about the coffee industry. In the summer, I sometimes head down to the sea.

Are there any other specialty coffee shops that you'd recommend in Ljubljana?
The Slovenian specialty coffee scene is still developing and there aren’t many places to go for high-quality coffee. Coffee shouldn’t just be prepared by people who don’t have much knowledge or experience. Other than Stow, I’d recommend Črno Zrno and Čokl.

Is there anything else you'd like to say about your business or Ljubljana in general?
We want Stow coffee and our larger concept to become competitive with the best of Europe. Ljubljana is a city that undoubtedly has the potential to produce a thriving specialty coffee industry.