TDS stands for Total Dissolved Solids. In coffee, it’s a measure of how much soluble material from the coffee has dissolved into the water. It’s a simple number. It doesn’t tell you whether a coffee is good, but it gives you another way to understand what you taste.
That little number became part of our morning ritual. It became part of our dream. And eventually, the name of this place.
always something new to pour
We keep one house blend for the everyday cup. But the real story is what rotates: a single-origin espresso, a decaf espresso and a line-up of filter coffees.
We always work with five different specialty coffee roasters. We’re constantly looking for new ones to bring into the line-up, each with their own approach, style and way of bringing out the character of a coffee. We change the coffees every few months, and when a coffee is gone, it’s gone.
Some are hard to find in Ghent. Others in Belgium. And some aren’t available anywhere else in Europe. So what we’re pouring today might not be here in a few weeks. New roasters come in, coffees change, and there’s always something new to discover.
the search for good specialty coffee
Specialty coffee is a world worth discovering.
We’re always looking for roasters that make us curious. We want to know where they source from, who they work with and how they approach roasting. But in the end, it comes down to what’s in the cup.
We want contrast. Different origins, different roasting styles, different ideas about what coffee can be. Every roaster we bring into tds. has earned its place.
We curate specialty coffee much like Manor Grunewald curates the art at Footnote Gallery. With a personal eye and a lot of curiosity.
meet hanne and kurt
We’re Hanne and Kurt. We built tds. around a love for specialty coffee that neither of us can fully explain.
A few years ago, we quit our jobs, bought a van and started travelling. With nothing we had to do, we started living differently. We slowed down. We noticed more. For us, that started with our morning coffee.
We took the time to really taste it. To notice the differences between beans, roasters, brew methods and even water, from the tap to a mountain stream. We started experimenting in the van. Trying, comparing and measuring TDS, simply because we wanted to understand why one cup tasted different from the next.
When we came home, the ritual stayed. Every morning, we still brew, taste, compare and measure. And we knew we wanted to share what we had learned.
That became tds.
Today, we bring that curiosity together in our specialty coffee bar in Ghent, and here online. You can experience our coffees at the bar, during one of our table sessions or at home.