Alf Kramer tries to decipher a puzzling market, where contradictions rule and find out why the Finns drink more coffee than anyone else on earth.

For a foreign observer, the coffee culture in the mighty coffee nation of Finland is loaded with contradictions that raise a lot of questions whose answers cannot be found in textbooks. The market is strangely transparent and closed at the same time.

And the Finns manage to maintain their solid leadership as the top per capita coffee consumers in the world? Well, actually there are some logical explanations, as well as some illogical ones and some contradictions.

So let us start with the obvious. A hot beverage will do well in a cold climate. Yes, and it is cold in Finland, and the Finns are proud of it too.

Santa Claus is said to spend the remaining 364 days of the year in Rovaniemi, and planeloads of tourists are flown in form all over the world to admire him in action while they drink hot coffee. And if it is not cold enough for you during the day, you can book into one of the Ice hotels and have your hot coffee there. Staying the night on an ice bed with reindeer skins layered under and over you will certainly become an unforgettable evening and probably melt the heart of the one you love but not the ice. That is probably what the competitors at the recent Finnish barista championship had in mind when they composed their signature beverages-most of them were cold! So much for the cold climate/hot beverage theory.

While things are certainly moving on the Finnish market, the vast majority of Finns will probably stick to their traditional drip filter brew.

Nevertheless, the innovative winning signature drink in the barista championship even had the cup made of ice, so who knows? We may eventually see a change of habits.

A land of 100% speciality?

But how much coffee do Finns drink, and what do they drink? There are some 6 million of them, and the consumption has stayed at a stable 11.5 to 12.0 kg of green coffee equivalents per capita per year for the last few decades. According to ICO statistics, number two on the list is below 10 kg that means that Finns consume at least 20% more coffee than anyone else. And they drink drip filter coffee; that's it. The soluble sector is small: 2 to 3% maybe, and much of that goes to vending machines, the Finns sadly admit.

What about the speciality coffee wave? That's a good question, and it depends on how you define/understand/interpret the words "speciality coffee". The Finns themselves are bewildered. If "speciality coffee" is defined or recognized by the quality level found in coffee bars elsewhere, then Finland is a 100% speciality nation (leaving out the soluble, of course). Flavoured coffee, the Finns hear, is said to be big elsewhere, but it is almost non-existent in Finland. It has been tried, but it generally failed. But then, why ruin the good taste of coffee with anything else?

What about Fair Trade? Are you serious? Who in Finland buys coffee at prices as low as $ 1.26? (Partly a joke I must admit, but with lots of truth in it). Fair trade is not doing well at all in Finland; pleasure comes before guilt when consumers make their own choice. And organic? It never caught on in Finland even in broader terms, and coffee is no exception; the sector is microscopic. Bird friendly, rainforest and other coffees with a cause are not doing well either. Roasters have tried these types we will give them that. But these sectors are consumers driven, and for the moment anyway, the consumers are not driving.

What about the "latte flood", the "cappuccino landslide" and "espresso bushfire" which has engulfed the rest of the coffee world? According to the Italian chamber of commerce, espresso has 5% of the market in Finland. But if you ask the trade and look at the import statistics, you would do well to move the decimal point one place to the left: 0.5% close to the truth.

A State of flux

At the same time, walking the floor of the recent Horeca (catering sector) exhibition and adding up estimated market shares for imported coffee, it looked like 25% would be a good guess and that is not to mention what actually is roasted locally. Is something strange going on here? It's just a market on the move. That changing Finnish market has opportunities for single origins with personalities, which are coming along and expanding as well.

Maybe the number of coffee bars could give us some more clues; there are an estimated 200 of them in the UK/US sense of the word, most of them in the Helsinki area. The first arrived about five years ago. However, the number of traditional cafes serving decent coffee probably numbers in the thousands. The coffee bars serve quality regular coffee, blends and single origins. Now lattes and cappuccinos, and even the odd espresso are said to have been spotted in coffee bars, but not by me or by a fellow Italian barista competition judge.

There were some "look-alikes" and "wannabes", but the genuine Italian style espresso was simply not there. It looks like the high coffee consumption remained because of, or perhaps in spite of, the coffee milk wave that seems to go with espresso based drinks.

It must be the roast. . .

Could the secret be the roast? Were the Finns early innovators in those dark roasts that seem to have triggered consumption in so many places on the planet? Were they just keeping it a secret? No, it's quite the reverse, actually. No nation on planet earth roasts lighter that the Finns. Why? The finer flavours in quality coffees come out best with a light roast. There is no need to hide non existent doubtful green coffees behind a dark roast… and then try to use sugar and milk to get balance. And the Finnish water is soft too.

When it comes to green coffee importing and roasting. Finland for decades has been very transparent. The multinationals have not been present and the very limited number of roasters in the market has been present and the very limited number of roasters in the market has been dwindling even farther. A year ago, the three national roasters and one speciality small roaster shared the market. Now there are only two roasters three on a good day. Recently, market leader paulig bought roaster Viking, and the remaining national roaster Meira was acquired by segafredo: the third player is the small speciality roaster Robert's Coffee.

Paulig has a market share of over 60% of the mainstream market, and it also offers a line of specialities and espressos. Its influence in the markets, of Russia and the Baltic countries is significant. Robert's Coffee, meanwhile, run by another Paulig family member, is undoubtedly one of the finest and innovative speciality rosters around. You cannot miss the chain, as you will encounter it at the airport when you arrive and leave a role model for any airport coffee shop.

Robert's is dominant in the Finnish speciality sector. And now the Italian espresso roasters and the market too.

The strange coffee situation in Finland gave me a strange coffee experience. When I came to my first early breakfast at the very traditional Helsinki hotel where I was staying, there was a coffee expectation in my mind. Let me describe what happened with a metaphor you all can relate to. When you walk down a familiar staircase in the dark, you have a built in understanding of when the stair will end. When it ends earlier than expected and your foot hits something that should not be there, it can be a surprise. That happened to me with the coffee. The hotel's coffee was not the proud national beverage of Finland but a flat, syrup based coffee substitute from something disguised as a brewer. The rest of the breakfast was good. So much for "progress".

Finland - I will be watching you. You are the quality and quantity stronghold of the world, but I am not sure walking down those stairs again will do my body and soul any good.