Inside the Roastery at Nordic Roasting Co (Copenhagen)

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Hello. I am here in Copenhagen, Denmark at Nordic Roasting Company. We are going to meet their team and they're going to take us on a tour of their cute little coffee bar and the roastery right behind. So, let's go.

[00:00:23]>> Welcome to Copenhagen.

[00:00:25]>> Tell us about Roasting Company. Yeah, we are we started in 2020 in the middle of a pandemic.

[00:00:32]We we try to kind of combine quality and uh a strong focus on on coffee on the product on the sustainability with a more like um sense of hospitality to try to connect really people through coffee.

[00:00:48]So don't don't make specialty coffee too pretentious to So our logo in the back is actually embody our our take on coffee.

[00:00:57]>> Uh >> I love the carefree merman.

[00:01:00]>> Yeah. Behind our bags we brought coffee is far too serious uh too important to be taken seriously is a quote for Oscar Wild but I think it really fits our our approach to to coffee. Mhm.

[00:01:14]>> The bar is basically we try to uh have a strong focus on coffee. We import some Ramo coffee machine from Italy. We are distributor for Denmark and uh and then we try to showcase different uh every every time I've every day at least two three different espressos. Uh we have a batch brew with two option normally a decaf decaffeinated coffee and options.

[00:01:37]>> Yes. Uh we need to talk about decaf.

[00:01:40]Yeah.

[00:01:41]um espresso and then uh yeah what we like is that this connection between the the coffee shop the shop uh and the production site. So in the back you can see we have a 25 kilo diet roster.

[00:01:59]>> Beautiful.

[00:02:00]>> Yeah. Beautiful color. Uh and uh so if if our company and our logos, our brand is yellow is because of this machine we got in Sweden. And uh yeah, we we roast uh we roast never full capacity. We are of course microlots are around 50% of the capacity. Uh what I like of this machine that is uh is you can really uh roast also smaller batches and still have an accurate reading with a probe.

[00:02:31]>> Uh >> what's the smallest batch size you do?

[00:02:33]>> Is seven.

[00:02:34]>> Oh wow.

[00:02:35]>> Yeah.

[00:02:35]>> Seven in in a 30 kilos.

[00:02:37]>> 25 kilos is actually good. And u but also I like the stability and the automation when you are full capacity.

[00:02:45]So for us full capacity is 23 24 kilo.

[00:02:48]>> Mhm.

[00:02:48]>> Yeah. So basically we have part of our coffee store here. Some of the coffee uh is at the port uh in the warehouses here in Copenhagen or in uh >> uh in the warehouses in across Europe, right?

[00:03:04]>> Um >> how many like how long will all of this coffee last if >> uh depends of course if it's a volume coffee it will last probably two weeks.

[00:03:14]If it's a microl lot, it will stay with us a bit longer. But microlots is mainly sold to uh to private whereas a volume coffee is more uh the coffee we sell to Yeah. the restaurant industry or offices.

[00:03:27]>> Yeah. And what's the size difference between a microlot that you'll buy versus a volume coffee?

[00:03:32]>> A microlot can be down to I would say five bags. Uh we try to keep this as a minimum because of course it takes time to source the coffee taste promoting let the customer know. So we we try to buy at least five bags and then of course some is consumed also by ourself and the rest is sold to the to our customer.

[00:03:57]>> And you're mostly you said B2B even now.

[00:04:00]>> Yeah. Yeah. I would say 75% of the turnover is coming from B2B sales. Yeah.

[00:04:06]>> And that's you said the where where what other businesses are you supplying?

[00:04:10]>> Well, we're supplying mainly cafes, coffee shops, bakeries, um restaurants, hotels, uh supermarkets. There is a new collaboration with like a high-end supermarkets. Uh but what really strikes me in Denmark is that uh even like office uh even public places like uh the we have the ministry of um one of the Danish ministry is is having actually specialty coffee for the employees and this is something so so interesting for us because it's kind of a it tells a lot about Danish culture and the workplace and the well-being the way they >> they they enjoy life and But coffee is really important part of Danish culture.

[00:04:57]>> Uh so that's why even have if I have Italian background I I moved to Denmark because I think it's a very vibrant scene. You'll see also visiting other college other roster in coming days.

[00:05:10]>> Basically I mean you don't need much more space to to have a coffee roaster.

[00:05:16]>> Yeah.

[00:05:16]>> Uh >> you're it looks like you're very well organized. Like you have space for the buckets here, space for bags there.

[00:05:23]>> Actually, this is something I'm really happy to talk about. I mean, we we because the the the lion part lion share our sales are to like volume coffee to customer. We we try to create some incentive, economic incentive to to pack the coffee in 10 kilo buckets that we collect uh and then uh washed and then reuse it and reuse it again.

[00:05:45]>> No. So you're not just throwing away bags after bags after bags. That's >> actually super fun. We have a cool cargo bike. I don't know if you >> I saw the bike outside.

[00:05:53]>> Yeah, we we use that to deliver coffee.

[00:05:56]Uh well, these days a bit challenging with the ice, but uh >> it's uh it's one of that's our way to deliver coffee to Yeah. most of our customer are in the Copenagen area. So >> So you bring the buckets to your customers and then they give you an empty one and you just wash it in the sanitizer.

[00:06:14]>> Yeah. So basically this is the explain uh what we do with roast filling up collecting delivery cleaning and going on.

[00:06:24]>> Yeah. I love that.

[00:06:25]>> Yeah.

[00:06:26]>> Very cool. And probably lowers your costs as well because you're not just buying bags that you throw out all the time.

[00:06:31]>> Absolutely. So it's a win-win uh situation where the customer can get a cheaper uh coffee and we have lower cost and we kind of uh avoid unnecessary waste. Yeah.

[00:06:44]>> model. How do you decide what coffees to bring in um to have on your menu?

[00:06:49]>> Yeah. So, we we try to get as closer as possible to the producer. Of course, there are some origin that are more challenging, other that is more easy to travel and establish a long-term relationship. But the core and the the goal is really to to establish a a relationship with the producer. So try to be uh regular and consistent and buy from year to year. Send them feedbacks, try to visit them, try to uh get them here in Europe doing the events. Uh so we we mainly work with uh with Algrano because Algrano is helping us to kind of establish this direct connection with the with the producer and uh so helping connecting small producer with small roster like us. Um but of course we also work with other importer that have uh yeah trustibility and transparency at the core their business model and uh >> we have um yeah so we we kind of depends of which origin but we we like to kind of give continuity to the relationship with the with the producer. M so you mostly do coffees that you're buying year after year rather than bringing something in and then >> yeah we try to avoid to follow the the trend. Of course there are some especially with some micro laws competition law we we also need to kind of uh stay.

[00:08:15]>> Yeah stay interested and try to see what's where the market is going. But we are not obsessed by that and we we we think that the most important is to move volume, move coffee to have a bigger impact with the community you are buying coffee from. Uh so I think the two things can coexist in the same business >> and um yeah I I mentioned to you before this uh u project by slow food the slow food coffee coalition and I think it's very important because allows uh to connect really not only producer with roster but also everyone involved that is the supply chain consumers uh chef baristas Because uh anyone that has to be uh we need to create awareness uh especially to connect the two hands of the supply chain and us as a roster we have a huge responsibility because we are in between. Mhm.

[00:09:11]>> We are kind of the one that are from one side they're looking at the origin and talk to the producer bring up their challenges uh the try to communicate the challenges they have >> uh and at the same time we need to market this coffee we need to create an attention and awareness with the consumer. So a project like the slow food coffee coalition is really good because it's trying to really connect the two hands of the supply chain >> and uh reduce the distance that historically has always been between the place of production and the place of consumption.

[00:09:43]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:44]>> Brewing a better world.

[00:09:45]>> Brewing a better world. Love it. Uh and you mentioned that uh small lot would be like five bags, but I don't think you said how much like a big lot is for you guys.

[00:09:55]>> Uh 160 kilo bags.

[00:09:59]uh sorry 160 60 kilog sorry.

[00:10:02]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:03]>> Uh from Brazil >> and this is actually something that uh a coffee we've been buying the past four years. And we like the project because it's a it's a it's a farm which is certified regenerative agriculture.

[00:10:18]>> You know the challenge in Brazil is sometimes you have a huge estates and of course coffee is far away from being cultivated in his n natural habitat.

[00:10:26]>> Yeah. So having uh having having someone uh that work in Brazil with certain principle of uh uh regenerative agriculture uh agroforestry or yeah agricology it uh that's why we choose them because uh uh they are an example in the in the in the region for other producing.

[00:10:48]>> Yeah that's great. So that's about your buying philosophy. What about your roasting philosophy?

[00:10:54]>> That's the fun part. the roasting philosophy. Uh we have um >> start >> we try to roast uh not to accommodate a certain brew method. We try to roast at the sweet spot of that coffee. You're trying to bring the sense and the character of that coffee >> and then uh and then we of course we we need to spend a lot of time to adjust and tweak the recipe. What else? For espresso for filter >> to train.

[00:11:22]>> Dude, so you do filter and espresso roasting or omni roasting?

[00:11:25]>> I'm do we we do it one uh one type of roast and then we adjust the recipe in order to accommodate >> the brew recipe to accommodate the roasting profile. Exactly. I love that.

[00:11:37]>> Yes. Uh and then there are some coffee that probably it would make little sense to to kind of a force into a brew method that don't belong to them, right? So we simply say to our customer, uh I'm not going to roast this Rwanda darker because you want to pull espresso shot because this is a coffee for filter.

[00:11:58]>> Take this other coffee really good on espresso. And of course there are some coffee like for example wash the topian that can be really really more versatile and uh and pull balance espresso shot and filter with the same roast.

[00:12:16]>> Uh but not all coffee are like that right? So yeah, we try to that we try to roast to the sweet spot and then uh try to tweak the recipe in order to for in the case of espresso for example to to have a a well structure and balanced espresso >> and about how long are your roast times and >> yeah we depends on the batch size of course but uh we are kind of uh fast around 10 uh 10 11 minutes >> um we start learning learning also to roast uh have a different approach different roast time and with different profile according to the to the cultivar. This is another thing. I think the >> Are you using Robos's book? Uhhuh.

[00:13:03]>> For example, we have a pink bourbon from Iver Vargas in in Wheeler in Colombia.

[00:13:08]>> Uh which is uh actually it shines when it's uh more on the flesh side of the roast. We try to roast different way >> and uh whenever you trying to extend the roast time, it's turn out to be with some notes, some harshness that uh it kind of kill the clarity of the co. So we have this kind of approach where of course uh not all coffee are most of them are are blends. So they are not roasting as a single cultivar.

[00:13:38]>> Uh but uh it's it's part of our research also to learn how to roast the the coffee as a mono variety.

[00:13:47]>> Oh yeah.

[00:13:47]>> And uh it's fun. It's fun because there's a huge difference.

[00:13:51]>> New Yeah. Yeah. And so you said most of your coffees are blends. Are they like they come to you as blends because they're >> No, no. I mean a blend of varieties. So even if it's a single even a single origin, single steak, it's a blend of different cultiv.

[00:14:05]>> So yeah. Born typical. But >> do you do any blending or do you do all?

[00:14:10]>> Yes, we do blending. We do blending because uh I think for different reason of course roster have different reason to blend coffee. Uh first is to have our own signature blend because uh sometimes have the feeling that we are our specialty coffee roster. We kind of tends to buy the same coffee. So sometimes uh it's nice also to have something that uh it's your signature and belongs to your to your company to your brand.

[00:14:36]>> Uh we also give a funny name to that. So this is actually how we we play. Uh so biking do it better. It's uh yeah and it's Vik is just a modern version of the Italian espresso. So same ingredients but bit more or like roasted nor nomic style bit lighter. Uh so we have some blends because uh we we sell a lot to customer that brew as espresso and we think that uh yeah this is uh it fits better the their taste and uh also the equipment the uh yeah but we do a lot of single origin also and we try to put when we say single origin try to put the name of the farmer of the cooperative >> a strong link with the with the territories with the communities >> yeah to convey as more information as possible to the consumer to the end consumer.

[00:15:31]>> Cool. And when you're doing blending, do you do pre-roast blending or do you uh blend after roasting?

[00:15:37]>> Post roasting.

[00:15:38]>> Oh, okay.

[00:15:39]>> Yeah. I every coffee has we we don't do blend with a lot of origins. We do we mix maximum three origin >> and each origin has has its own profile >> and then we we we blend afterwards.

[00:15:54]Yeah.

[00:15:54]>> Yeah. Nice. I love seeing these over here. I love seeing the masks and the ear protection.

[00:16:04]Good job.

[00:16:05]>> Yeah, I mean uh we need to be responsible not only with the with the supplier, with the producer we work with, but also with the staff and with the colleagues. I mean it's uh yeah it's part of the yeah our cultural philosophy here at that everybody feels that you are not uh and put his life or his safety danger. Mhm.

[00:16:30]>> Um I think roasting is not uh it's yeah you might have some fire sometimes but generally is a it's a if you follow some rules uh I think there is not big risk uh but you have some bad habits that if the repetition especially those that work with us for many years including myself >> you can have a uh yeah some risk at the end some build up.

[00:16:57]Yeah. Yeah. How often do you clean the roster? What's the process like?

[00:17:02]>> Um I've been roasting with different machines and uh I ended up also using Dri and being fall in love with this machine because I think it's a very clean roast. The design of the machine is making amazing easy to maintain.

[00:17:15]>> Uh there is a very small buildup of coffee oil of debris in the in the chimneys. Uh we we crease the machine of course in the pairing uh like once a month depends on the volumes. uh we we do general like uh weekly and then and then daily cleaning of the surfaces and then uh uh I would say depends on the part of the year but uh we need to inspect every six months uh uh all the exhaust piping and especially the fan that you see in the top of the cyclone.

[00:17:58]>> Um >> yeah, we need to demount that motor.

[00:18:01]It's pretty heavy. That's heavy. No, >> it's heavy. And uh we need to be two of us.

[00:18:06]>> Yeah.

[00:18:07]>> Uh and it's high up, too.

[00:18:09]>> Yeah. We need to we need Yeah, we need to just make sure that actually the space in between the the fan and the and the plate of the motorto is free of uh any >> particulate.

[00:18:21]>> Yeah. Any particle because it it may happen that if you build up eventually the the fan will get stuck. Uh we recently installed this this after burner >> uh that of course is slow down a bit the uh the workflow because we need to have we have some other critical point we need to inspect. This is a pre filter.

[00:18:44]>> So we need to make sure there is not enough that there is not a buildup of chaff in this gate >> before the the smokes get incinerated by by this catalyzer.

[00:18:56]>> Yeah. And was that did like the city of Copenhagen say you needed to do that because it was making >> Well, there is two reason there is two reason why we are doing this. First of all, because we receive uh uh one complaint from one >> uh coffee roasted coffee smells good. No complaints.

[00:19:14]>> Uh yeah, the wind can be quite strong in in Denmark. So actually it was blowing in the wrong direction. And uh uh but the main reason is because it's nicer to have a to reduce the mission and have a much cleaner exhaust and emission.

[00:19:30]>> Yeah.

[00:19:31]>> It's just it's just new. So we are still fine tuning and uh yeah this is a coffee from the slow coffee perition.

[00:19:39]>> This one Vargas.

[00:19:41]>> Okay.

[00:19:41]>> Uh Fernando and Juan Vargas. Fernando in Majestic Coffee.

[00:19:48]>> He was in Houston last year.

[00:19:50]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:51]>> Yeah. Yeah. I she uh Yeah. She's like a absolute powerhouse.

[00:19:57]>> We love also when we do cupping and we invite puppy open cupping to our customer or whoever want to join to show also how a coffee same variety from same place Colombia can taste really different >> uh according to some specific like micro climate conditions but also the way coffee is processed.

[00:20:20]uh either she she she doesn't master the same uh and she doesn't have the same of course lab equipment that Wilton have.

[00:20:31]>> So the same coffee can taste quite different >> uh even if it's the same variety in same region.

[00:20:38]>> Yeah.

[00:20:38]>> It was also interesting to see um the farm of uh Gabe and how Wilton works. It's like >> completely different ways to go, but they both create very very interesting coffees.

[00:20:54]>> Yeah.

[00:20:55]>> Yeah.

[00:20:56]>> It's like two roasters. Two roasters can have different approaches and still make a >> Yeah.

[00:21:01]>> So, how often are you cupping?

[00:21:06]>> I would say we try to cup at least two three times a week.

[00:21:11]uh sometimes depend on the schedule but we do capping for both where we receive samples or we want to source or choose a new coffee >> but we do a lot of uh internal voice control um >> for example now we have to go through redesigning most of our profiles because of the new after burnout affecting the airflow >> uh so we have constantly doing and then coffee are changing we got um yeah new new crop and uh so we we try to do it uh as often as possible uh also to keep our pallet trained.

[00:21:49]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:50]>> Every time we try anything new on a profile also we we need to cop it to see if it actually worked or make it worse.

[00:21:58]>> Yeah. Yeah. It's either stay the same or maybe get better. But >> and it's actually a collective. What I like is in our company it's that everyone is involved.

[00:22:09]>> Yeah. Yeah. How do you like structure the cups? Do you do them at the beginning of the week or at the end of the roast day or >> No, we do it in uh like uh in the try to do in the morning or late morning.

[00:22:21]>> Yeah. Not too close to lunch time or afternoon. Yeah. Uh we do in the middle of the week in the day which is not uh for sure not dedicated to production. So we have two days a week where we we roast and the other three days are more for this packing deliveries and do quality control. Uh yeah, but we try to do it uh as early as possible, but sometimes Yeah.

[00:22:44]>> Yeah. The realities of of a roastery.

[00:22:47]>> Yeah. If you're roasting two days a week, how many batches do you usually do on a roast day?

[00:22:53]>> We have 20 full food full production day. We can go up to 20 batches.

[00:22:59]>> Yeah. And actually it's much better to do two full roasting day instead of stretching where it's much quicker but it require also a lot of focus. That's why these days we are I'm suffering a lot because this slowing down a lot.

[00:23:14]>> Uh so but we yeah we try to concentrate the roast in two or three days.

[00:23:21]>> And do you roast based on projections or based on orders? How do you decide how much to roast? Well, ideally we we would like to have aation of yeah a stock of uh a buffer of two weeks in order something break down we have a time to repair >> uh but the reality is sometimes you have customer forgot to order you have a breakdown uh and the machinery so you need always to sometimes to roll stuff on demand >> uh but the the the efficiency is also that we are learning is also how to be better at uh at stocking coffee. But of course, we can't stock uh coffee for 3 months because it has to be professionally roasted.

[00:24:08]>> Yeah.

[00:24:08]>> And uh but I must admit that by roasting on the lighter side, light medium roast, I can say it allows for everyone. Coffee has to rest, especially for espresso, especially when it's light roasted. So stop going after the fresher beds possible. If you're pulling espresso shots, right? Yeah, we all agree.

[00:24:30]>> Yes.

[00:24:30]>> Exactly. Yes. Rest your coffee. Do you have an ideal amount of time for degassing for resting between like for for your machine?

[00:24:39]>> Yeah. Here we the thing we use the brood container. So we give few days to to breast and then we uh either pack in the in the buckets that are sealed or in the in the bags. I would say depends on the depends really on the depends really on the on the roster uh on the roast profile, >> but the >> Oh, so you you roast and then leave it in these root bags for a little while.

[00:25:05]Oh, okay. Cool.

[00:25:05]>> And then uh of course there are some that stay for only 24 hours and some other they rest in >> uh but then we we put in this container or in the in the box. These are sealed container. So this stay pretty fresh. Uh on average our coffees are consumed within uh one month.

[00:25:25]>> Mhm.

[00:25:26]>> Cool.

[00:25:26]>> So uh that's why we have the the problem that we are sending our coffee sometimes to fresh and that's why it's important that we build up a bit of a a bit. We we really feel like a group of colleague passionate and we try to be a team and last year it was uh we attended the the Nordic coffee fest Nordic best roster competition. We arrived third.

[00:25:53]>> Nice. Congrats.

[00:25:55]>> Thank you. And what I why why I mentioned is not because I want to show off but because of the process that led to the selection of the coffee and that aa can tell you as involved every one of us and it was not a top down procedure from from the bosses right >> it's amazing that we all involved in in every process >> um and we listening each other and Yeah.

[00:26:26]And we would Yeah, >> we are team. Yeah.

[00:26:29]>> So the the >> the what we won uh the third best roers um in Scandinavia and being like it's not only one person, it's the whole team >> which is uh great.

[00:26:42]>> Yeah.

[00:26:43]>> I think one of the things I can attest to know more about Nordic is like especially since I've been on both sides now. It's like even I so far I've been more as a like friend customer and than a part of the company bit of a coach sometimes but it's that uh not not only listens to let's say the the top hats they do listen to the whole team and they even when they uh see that you have good knowledge that you they they can actually trust you. They they do listen to even like a friend or someone that it's outside of their own company.

[00:27:30]>> You make some decisions regarding coffee here.

[00:27:34]>> Cool. Love it. Nice. Thank you guys.

[00:27:39]>> Thanks to the team at Nordic Roasting for this wonderful tour. Thank you for watching. Like, subscribe, and follow for more coffee and coffee roasting content. We'll see you next time.

[00:27:48]Bye-bye. Bye.