Journal — February 2024

Great coffee doesn’t just happen. It is produced and looked after by dedicated people. Frukt Coffee Roasters is a small and modern coffee roastery based in the Kakola neighborhood in Turku. They focus on seasonal coffee from small producers, transparency, traceability and of course, taste.

After working as a roaster at Turku’s own Turun Kahvipaahtimo (literally “Turku Coffee Roastery”) and later as a roaster for our Danish friends at Copenhagen’s Coffee Collective, Samuli Pääkkönen founded FRUKT in his home town of Turku in the late 2018. He wanted to establish a roastery because, while Finland drinks more coffee per person than any other country, the coffee they drink tends to be lower quality blends.

Prioritizing quantity over quality allows a business to reach more customers—but to Samuli and Yonder (and of course our subscribers by extension), that's not the point. No one needs coffee to survive; it’s a pleasure to enjoy. That’s why we constantly pursue the next coffee that surprises and delights us. For Frukt, that means that instead of focusing on quantity and price, Samuli’s focus is on coffee producers receiving fair pay for their product.

This is our first time working with Frukt, and we’ve been really impressed with everything they’ve shared with us. The Burundi coffee from Ninga Hill is super delicious and reminds me of grape soda. It was sourced through the Long Miles Project and is tasting really crisp and sweet, with jammy notes of berries and grapes and plum. I can’t get enough of it and burned through the sample bag Samuli sent me. We managed to secure the very last of it and I’m so glad that they had enough for it to be the main feature. That being said, Rigoberto Sánchez and Chelbesa are also fantastic, easy drinkers.

Julián Calderón’s outstanding Gesha lot is an incredibly sweet, juicy, yet delicate cup with big citrus notes of tangerine, lemongrass, and a floral bouquet. Julián is a younger generation producer of the Calderón family from Palestina. This January 2023 harvest is his second crop of Gesha. It is very obvious that we are dealing with a producer with a bright future. We will have a few extra bags for sale in our cafe (or via DM) and will do a Frukt Filter Takeover with Ninga, Chelbesa and the Gesha in Durham soon. Nauti näistä kahvista!