Five from Finland
Coffee and tea
Whether you prefer coffee or tea, Finland offers a unique Nordic twist on the world’s most popular beverages.
Finns consume a whopping 10 kilos of coffee per capita yearly. To cater to this national affinity, small speciality coffee roasteries and artisan coffee houses are emerging across the country.
Despite the fact that coffee drinking overshadows tea consumption in Finland, tea has been enjoying a growth in popularity among quality-conscious Finns due to its health benefits and an increasing number of intriguing blends available on the market.
And so, coffee lovers and tea fans, these Finnish products and services are meant for you.
With the idea of changing people’s perceptions of coffee, reputed Finnish barista Lauri Pipinen opened the Good Life Coffee café in Helsinki’s Kallio in 2012. Two years later, he joined forces with coffee enthusiast Samuli Ronkanen, and the power duo started their roasting business.
Although a lot has changed since then and the café closed its doors in late November 2019, the roastery is operating in full swing, supplying aromatic coffee to coffee shops in Finland and other countries and selling it to consumers via the online shop. High-quality ingredients and carefully selected roasting methods are at the top of the agenda for Good Life Coffee Roasters.
“Our underlying idea is that good coffee isn’t that difficult,” Ronkanentold us in 2018. “You buy better ingredients and use clean equipment and good water. Of course, we use all sorts of technical equipment at the roastery […] but we take care of all that geeky stuff so that customers have it easier.”
Founded in 2014 out of a passion for coffee and with a vision to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable consumption, this coffee subscription service enables consumers to effortlessly order fresh artisan coffee from over a dozen Finnish roasteries straight to their mailboxes.
Welcomed by coffee roasters and coffee drinkers alike, Slurp guarantees a highly personalised experience: customers can order coffee as beans or ground, and choose the flavour profile, amount and shipping interval according to their preferences.
“The green coffee beans arrive from overseas, of course, but the roasteries have a huge impact on the end flavour,” pointed out co-founder Manuel Linnankoski. “Coffee hand-roasted in Finland is an interesting product that is a joy to be able to provide.”
Moreover, the service now offers an assortment of teas from the most skilled tea houses in Northern Europe. Time to try something new?
Did you know that you can drink mushrooms? This seemingly wild idea has crossed many borders and caught on globally since it was originally brewed by a group of Finnish friends in 2012. Whether you’re a coffee, cocoa or tea person, Four Sigmatic has a drink for you.
The special ingredients used are a variety of superfood mushrooms, such as cordyceps, reishi, chaga and lion’s mane, that are believed to have health benefits ranging from supporting the immune system to boosting brainpower.
The powders come in individual serving sachets and need to be mixed with boiling water before you can start enjoying your drink. No need to worry about the taste of mushrooms as there’s none: the mushroom coffee tastes like coffee, the mushroom matcha tastes like matcha and so on.
“Our dream is to normalise mushroom drinking,” explained co-founder Tero Isokauppila. “We want to help people to be and live healthier by incorporating these super well researched and powerful – and little bit overlooked – foods in their diet.”
The art of serving tea and coffee is as important as the quality of the drink itself. This Turku-based design company is famous particularly for its award-winning WARM tea and coffee series, which enables you to serve your favourite hot beverage in a stylish manner.
Always on the lookout for new trends, Tonfisk stands out by merging porcelain and wood in its tableware and interior decoration items. The inventive and appealing design comes hand in hand with functionality.
“The wooden part of our products is not just for decorative purposes; there is always a reason why it’s used,” said co-founder Brian Keaney. “For example, the wooden portion acts as insulation, keeping the drink warm without letting your hands burn.”
What does coffee have to do with sneakers? Well, this Finnish sneaker brand founded by two entrepreneurs of Vietnamese origin, who recently made it to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, is turning used coffee ground and recycled plastic into fashionable sneakers.
The brand strongly believes that sneaker enthusiasts around the globe deserve eco-friendly fashion without compromises on features and style. That’s why Rens sneakers are not only made of recycled materials, but are also waterproof, odour-resistant and lightweight. And they look cool.
“We don’t want to push people by saying they need to save the world,” noted co-founder Jesse Khanh Tran. “We just make the product so good they want it anyway.”
Originally published in November 2019