THERE’S A CAFFEINE REVOLUTION BREWING IN THE FINNISH CAPITAL, A FAMOUSLY AVID COFFEE-DRINKING CITY, WHERE A VIBRANT SOCIAL CULTURE IS NOW GROWING AROUND ARTISANAL BREWS.
HELSINKI’S NEW
BEAN SCENE TEXT BY SILJA KUDEL
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t’s a chilly January afternoon on the Helsinki waterfront as a group of coffee cognoscenti gather at Johan & Nyström, a café and concept store dedicated to specialty brews. The group begin swirling, sniffing and slurping the dark stuff as if they were sampling high-end wines, comparing bean nuances from Sumatra, Brazil and Ethiopia. Although Finland is known as one of the world’s most fervid coffee-drink-
46 BLUE WINGS
MARCH 2014
PHOTOS BY JONATAN INGVARSSON, SILJA KUDEL, ISTOCK AND LEHTIKUVA
ing countries per capita, it has been less famous for the sophistication of its brews. The prevailing preference has traditionally been for light roast drip coffees garnished with a splash of cold milk, several times a day. Distinctively no-nonsense, like the local culture. However, a recent boom in micro-roasteries and gourmet coffee is breeding a new generation of coffee geeks in Helsinki. Forget dark versus light roast, a true connoisseur only cares whether it’s a sweet,
syrupy Blue Batak from Indonesia or a lush, floral-toned Geisha varietal grown on the high slopes of Panama. THE NEW WINE “Origin is everything. With single-origin varieties, you can taste yearly variation in the microclimate and soil, just as you can with any fine vintage wine. People are still raving about the 2011 crop year of honey-prep coffee from Panama,” says Lari Salomaa, country manager of Johan