Estonia’s best baristas competed on Viru Food Hall

Three cups of coffee will fly a man from Pärnu to Australia

At the end of last week there was the Estonian AeroPress Championship 2023 competition that offered a thrilling spectacle to all participants and viewers. The event took place in Viru Food Hall and testified to the ever-greater passion for specialty coffee among Estonians. It brought together the most talented baristas and coffee fans in Estonia.

At the end of the highly popular competition Karl-Ott Juhanson was announced the Estonian AeroPress Champion and this December he will go to Melbourne Australia to take part in the World AeroPress Championship as the Estonian representative. Paving the way to the title of the Estonian AeroPress Champion started for Karl-Ott already in 2017. When he opened the cafe Oivaline he fell in love with specialty coffee and dove into the world of coffee-making methods. By the way, AeroPress was the first tool he used when he started to make coffee. That is the same AeroPress that he used to win the title of the Estonian Champion 2023!

World AeroPress Championship is a global competition championed by coffee fans with contestants from more than 50 countries taking each other’s measure in making the best cup of coffee in the world while they need to use the AeroPress brewing method.

Aeropress is a handheld coffee brewing device with a simple design that uses a fast and precise way of forcing water through coffee grounds by utilising air pressure. It combines the best features of a filter and a French Press, and has become very popular thanks to its compact size, convenience and speed.

The aim of the event championed by The Brick Coffee Roastery and PaperMill cafe and roastery is to promote and expand the Estonian coffee community, to bring people together, introduce and promote specialty coffee and get more people to get involved with coffee. “I am so happy that Estonians can ever better appreciate and value sustainable specialty coffee, and enjoy the excitement of using various coffee-making methods. AeroPress is something of a niche product, but nevertheless the event drew quite a big audience. Such supportive communities are extremely necessary,” confirmed one of the event promoters Jan Kulbin.

The manager of the PaperMill cafe and specialty coffee roastery Margus Varvas adds that “Due to the general nature of AeroPress it allows baristas to show their skills and prepare a wide variety of coffee drinks, and that makes it very exciting to follow its use in competitions”.

Specialty coffee means coffee at its highest peak. The mission of specialty coffee makers is to turn coffee supply chains more transparent and sustainable than they are. Specialty coffee means high quality coffee made of carefully selected beans with extra attention paid to the growing conditions and processing to preserve its unique tastes and characteristics. It often means sourcing beans from specific areas or farms and roasting them with extra care to bring out their special features.

Photos: Johanna Adojaan