Evidence Over Intuition: What Gabriel Brix's Multi-Role Approach Teaches About Building Coffee Expertise

Head barista. Junior roaster. Editor. Strategic project developer. At most roasteries, these would be four separate job postings. At Kaffeefabrik in Vienna, they describe one person: Gabriel Brix.

The combination sounds scattered until you understand the logic underneath. Each role feeds the others. Roasting informs how Gabriel explains coffee to customers. Writing forces precision about decisions made behind the roaster. Customer feedback at the market stand shapes what gets roasted next.

A Methodology Sofia's Roasters Can Study

Sofia's specialty coffee scene has grown rapidly in cafe culture, but roaster-level transparency about why decisions are made, roast profiles, sourcing choices, processing methods, is still developing. Many roasters rely on intuition and inherited methods rather than documented, repeatable processes.

Gabriel's approach offers a different model. After becoming frustrated with how specialty coffee professionals base decisions on anecdotal evidence, they pursued a postgraduate certificate in coffee science from ZHAW (Zurich University of Applied Sciences), studying genetics, botany, ecology, physics, and chemistry of coffee. They attended conferences like the CSES and Canephorum. This education directly informed roast profile development for robusta, conilon, arabicas, excelsa, and liberica, all within their first six months of roasting.

The Non-Linear Path That Made Sense in Retrospect

Gabriel started as a politics student, moved to weekend market stand work at Kaffeefabrik, then barista, then head barista, then competition, then roaster. The throughline: saying yes to the next challenge and paying close attention.

Gabriel Brix

Sticking to what feels right and making the most of it is what got me here.

The market stand taught them to listen to what customers want. The barista shifts taught that willingly taking on responsibilities can make everyone's work easier. The Austrian Brewers Cup, where they won silver, came from a conversation with a respected coworker who believed in them.

Technical Knowledge as Connection, Not Badge

Gabriel Brix

Coffee itself is so vast, and even specialty 'nerds' only take a very narrow view into perspective. I believe you should try to understand as many other people in coffee as possible since we work with a product that has such a socially and politically complex history, economics and culture.

Technical skills and knowledge are more of a link to other people and their work than a badge to show off. There will always be motivation to catch up with other experts in their own field.

In Sofia, roasters like Aroma Coffee, led by owner Georgi Gagov, who holds an SCA Roastery Diploma, are similarly grounding their practice in formal coffee education and transparent sourcing. The underlying principle is shared: roasting decisions should be documented, repeatable, and communicable to customers.

Writing as Professional Accountability

Gabriel Brix

I was a bit annoyed by how much you had to ask friendly industry people for their takes at some opening party while their expertise, thoughts and opinions were not made public in a structured and honest way that promotes further discussion.

The blog forces precision and honesty. It is a form of accountability that benefits both writer and reader.

The Cortado Shift and Customer Trust

At Kaffeefabrik, which roasts around 15 different coffees at any time, all sourced through the Roasters United co-op model, Gabriel has observed cortados becoming a major menu item as coffee quality has become more important to Viennese customers.

Gabriel Brix

Several customers who had ordered the same style of coffee for 20 or 30 years switched to cortados once we encouraged them to try a drink that shows more unique coffee flavours compared to their regular cappuccinos or lattes.

The shift happened because the team could explain why the cortado would work for that customer. Evidence-based craft creates the confidence to make those recommendations.

Gabriel's multiple roles serve the same mission: deepening understanding of coffee and sharing it transparently. For Sofia's roasters, the lesson is not to copy the exact path, but to adopt the underlying principle, curiosity across disciplines, grounding decisions in evidence, and communicating honestly with customers and peers.