Compelled by the land of sahti, sauna, and the sea, I spent a month in Finland. Finns are unique among Europeans. Universally down-to-earth, straightforward, fun, and pragmatic, even the most rooted of Finnish urbanites still carries forest-dweller DNA. Although famously taciturn, Finns are not always quiet or withdrawn but rather, deliberate and respectful. My fascination…
Category: Coffee around the World
Cape of Good Coffee
Cape Town has almost exclusively “third wave” coffee, which is the barista art as well as the art of micro-roasting. What makes Cape Town different is that all the main roasters also have coffee shops. So each place has its own character, identity, and coffee. The three big ones in Cape Town are Origin Roasters;…
Cherry to Cup: A Journey Through a Vietnamese Coffee Heartland
Robusta coffee cherries are bunched like grapes on their trees in the hills outside Dalat. Vietnam’s central mountains are country’s backbone, running hundreds of kilometres in a north-south direction. Tropical mountains just happen to make wonderful coffee-growing territory, and that’s just what the French had in mind when they first came here. In the…
Love and Barley 