About 3fe

What does 3fe stand for?
3FE stands for “Third Floor Espresso”. In preperation for his first World Championship bid, Colin built a competition-spec training room in his third floor apartment. When he opened his first shop in 2009 he wanted to recreate the same quality in a retail environment and so the acronym 3FE was born.

What machines do you use?
We use Nuova Simonelli Espresso Machines and Marco water delivery systems.

What are your opening hours?

We open 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday

10 am to 5pm Saturdays

10 am to 6 PM Sundays

Who designed your furniture?

The guys at Designgoat

Who designed your website?
Peter McDonagh, who has also been a barista at 3fe since it opened in the lobby of the Twisted Pepper.

Who designed your logo?
The good folks at “Conor and David”

Where can I get those lightbulbs?
The plumen bulbs are available from Designist on Dublin’s South Great Georges Street

Are you hiring?
At the moment we aren’t recruiting staff, but we’re always on the look-out for baristas for our wholesale customers. If you’re looking for a job in coffee, we might be able to find you a home.

Who bakes your treats?
We do! And believe us when we say that our brownies are a labour of love...

Our Coffee

Do you do blends?
Only on special occasions--usually, we tend to keep coffees from a single farm on bar to showcase some of the best coffees the world has to offer. 

Why don’t you do a dark roast?
We feel that coffees are at their best with a lighter roast which brings more sweetness, clarity and flavour.

I want a strong bold coffee, what do you recommend?
A lot of the time we can make any coffee stronger by using different ratios in the preperation. If you like it that way, just mention it to the barista when you order and we'll make sure it's just right.

Why should I try my coffee black?
We spend a lot of time and energy sourcing the sweetest and most flavoursome coffees. Many of these nuanced flavours can be overpowered by sugar. Lots of our best customers take sugar with their coffee and we’re happy to provide it but many find that trying it first without often surprises them. Try both and make your own mind up!

Why are your cup sizes so small?
As we use quite a light roast, it's important that the flavours aren’t diluted by too much water or milk. We’re quite careful that the right ratios are used to ensure your cup tastes of coffee and all the great characteristics of that particular offering are evident in each cup.

Who roasts your coffee?
One of our owners Steve Leighton owns Hasbean who roast all of our coffee for us. We also distribute Hasbean coffee in Ireland.

Why isn’t my coffee piping hot?
Temperature has a huge role to play in flavour perception and all of our drinks are served at drinking temperature. If you’d like it hotter or colder we're happy to make it the way you like it.

Can I buy your coffee?
You can buy a wide range of coffees in store as wholebean or we can grind it for you. We’ll usually have the coffees we’re using on bar for sale as well as one or two others. They change every week so if you don’t see something you know we'd be happy to recommend something similar for you.

Why do you change your coffees so often?
We change the coffees depending on what’s in season and also just to give people some variety. We see coffee as not just a caffeine hit but as a taste experience and being able to showcase the best coffees around is great fun for us and helps our customers understand how wide and varied coffees can be. If you liked a coffee that we no longer sell we can definitely recommend something similar from another farm or country.

I want to serve your coffee in my cafe.
We supply many of Dublin’s best cafes and help train their staff too. If you’d be interested in working with us drop us a mail hello@3fe.com and we’ll talk you through what we do and how we do it. Also have a look through the wholesale section on this site for more info.

Can I arrange a tasting for my office?
Yes, we do tastings for a wide range of groups so we’d be more than happy to talk you through how we do things. Drop us an email hello@3fe.com and let us know how many people you’d like to bring and we’ll do you up a quote.

Is filter better than americano?
Not at all, it's just down to your personal preference. We definitely drink a lot of filter coffee at 3FE and really enjoy changing peoples perceptions. Give it a try, you may be surprised.

Do you serve tea?
Our Tea partners Waterloo Tea source some of the best teas on the planet and we're equally obsessive with our teas. We have specific temperatures for different types and use strictly controlled brewing ratios. We have quite a broad selection to sell by the cup, as retail or as wholesale so make sure you ask at the bar!

I bought a bag of beans a few months ago, when will you be getting them in again?
There’s a good chance that we won’t get them in again until next year and there’s even a chance that we’ll never get them in ever again. Our coffee offering changes all the time and it's always with quality in mind. This to us is a good thing though and means you’ll always be able to experience something new when buying coffee at 3FE.

Doesn’t it take ages to brew each cup by hand?
It definitely takes longer but it's very much worth the effort. Depending on the brew method it should take anywhere from 2-4 mins. 

Brewing

When is the next brew class?
You can find a full list of brew classes here.

What’s the best way to make coffee at home?
We love the Aeropress for making coffee at home and sell them in store at 3FE. They’re great value, very durable and make excellent coffee.

Should I use boiling water?
Stopping fresh water before it reaches boiling point at about 95c is best we find.

Why do you weigh everything?
We always use a brewing ratio of 60g/litre with our filter coffee. If it's too strong or too weak we adjust our technique to extract more or less coffee. We also weigh our espresso doses and yields to ensure consistency. It's quite complicated to explain but easy to do and the classes we run explain why.

What should I look for when buying a grinder?
The only grinders we use and sell are those with a burr sett. These are two disks that sit on top of each other and guarantee a consistency in your grind. 

What is a barista?
A barista is somebody who makes coffee professionally and strives to ensure every cup they serve is worth drinking.

What do you do at a barista competition?
Essentially you have 15 minutes to prepare an espresso, cappuccino and signature drink for each of four sensory judges whilst two technical judges watch your every move. You are scored on everything from taste to presentation skills and everything in between.

Where can I watch the World Barista Championships online?
All the videos are at www.worldbaristachampionship.com
Or check our some of the videos on our awards page.

Wholesale

How can I become a wholesale customer?
As a wholesaler, 3FE delivers a service that is quite unlike any other; this means that we often decline potential wholesale customers in an effort to make sure that we can continue to deliver the highest level of service possible. If you’re interested in pursuing a potential wholesale relationship with us, please email us at hello@3fe.com. 

Do you deliver outside Dublin?
At this time, we are only able to deliver within Dublin, although we can (and do) go as far south as Bray, Co. Wicklow.

Shop

I'm having a problem purchasing something in your shop...
We're sorry to hear that you've run into a problem! This is our first-ever webshop, and we're kind of new to the whole thing. If you have any problems at all, just pop us an email to hello@3fe.com and we'll sort it out as soon as possible. It would be extra helpful to know exactly when and where something went wrong, so if you can provide that kind of detail (or even send us a screen shot), it'd be great!

So, how do you calculate shipping? 
Shipping is on us, so you don't need to worry about a thing. Just make sure you give us your full, complete, and correct address and we'll do the rest! ;)