I am back to roasting here at Cut HQ after a really great trip to Finland. I received a fun question about my travels: what was the best coffee in Finland?
The question conflicts slightly with my rant last week about combating those ‘best’ labels to move away from generalizing coffee as industry but I can talk about my personal favorite: Good Life Coffee!
Good Life is a roaster and coffee shop based in Helsinki. Rather than fumble with a description, allow me to quote them: “We build our roasting profiles according to each bean to get the most out of the quality we’ve selected. Analytical, diligent and passionate, down to the nitty gritty. The way we see it, life’s too short for weak coffee.” Agreed.
While Good Life was certainly my stand out, I was quite impressed with coffee across Finland. Given they continue to consume the most coffee per capita in the world, it is unsurprising that it plays a major role in their culture. There is a prevalence of filter or drip and most meals come with a free coffee. I had a delicious cup while meeting distance relatives along “Knuuttila Road”, sipped a mug in the long glow of the midnight sun, and warmed my hands with a fresh brew on the shores of the Baltic Sea.
tl;dr: Good Life is delicious but my favorite coffee was probably all of them.
Lee Knuttila 