Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022: Review

Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022 has come to an end. More than 5000 (!) people were there in two days, including your all-time favourite EstoniaCoffee team. After two days and numerous cups of coffee, we are here to give you a review. We haven’t slept normally in ages. Perks of drinking more than 15 cups of coffee in two days. We don’t recommend it to anyone. But Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022 was one amazing fest. Friday was less crowded, but Saturday was something else. We spent 15 minutes waiting in line. Amazing to see this many coffee lovers.

The crowd on the second day of Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022

Who won what at Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022?

The first day of Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022 had a real treat – the Estonian Cupping Championship 2022. And the winners are:

  • 1st place – Kristops Eglit (Rocket Bean Roastery)
  • 2nd place – Roland PõIIllu (KOKOMO Coffee Roasters)
  • 3rd place – Kristofer Jakobson (Chocolats de Pierre )

The Estonian Latte Art Throwdown 2022 competition gathered all milk lovers and latte artist in Saturday. The best latte art was made by:

  • 1st place – Edgar Silputnins (Paper Mill Coffee)
  • 2nd place – Alina Sinkevych (Kalve Coffee)
  • 3rd place – Ave-Triin Uusküla (Surfcafe)

Congrats to the winners. You can see their photos on Tallinn Coffee Fest official Facebook page.

What did we drink at Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022?

We drank ungodly amounts of coffee. No, really. We were waaaay above that 400 mg caffeine limit. And we paid our price, with anxiety, heartbeats and insomnia. Let’s try to count every cup we consumed in two days.

  • Turkish coffee, made by our friends from the Turkish embassy. We are used to drinking it, but it is an acquired taste.
  • We visited the Caffeine stand, tried their Chemex coffee, answered one tough question, and got to spin the wheel of fortune. We won one free drink in any of the Caffeine cafes. Yay.
  • The Farmi stand was crowded, which didn’t surprise us, as one amazing fellow was making latte art. We got a swan, I think.
Latte art from Farmi stand
  • The Coffee People stand was also crowded. Unfortunately, they didn’t make coffee on the spot. They had a self-service machine filled with their espresso blend. Love their coffee.
  • At the Coffeebo stand, we tried both their coffees for free, also from the standard office machine, and we got a free presentation of the roastery. And we plan to visit it, as soon as our schedule gets less messy.
  • We also tried Kohe coffee, made from Brazilian beans. It was the first instant coffee we tried that tasted amazing. Also, we smiled, cooed and made Johan Rohtla promise he would give us an interview after the Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022 is over. 
Kohe caffeine crystals as seen under microscope
  • Carajillo 43 from the Licor 43 stand. Technically, it’s a cocktail, but hey, there is coffee inside. Licor 43 is one interesting liqueur, and we will dedicate one article to it in the future.
  • Cafe Brasil is the new coffee star in the Estonian sky. The cafe was opened a few months ago, and this was its debut at the Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022. Mighty strong espresso, and great cachaca.
  • Very nice espresso at Kalve stand. Kalve is a Latvian roastery with a wide assortment of products.
  • Flavoured beans from Ristiku roastery. Amaretto coffee was tasty.

We also skipped some stands, to be honest. We wanted to survive the Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022, so we didn’t taste the coffee beans we usually drink during the month, like OA Coffee, Kokomo or Paper Mill.

What did we buy at the Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022?

Our catch from Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022
Our catch from the Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022
  • Colombian beans from the Coffee People stand. You can find more about Coffee People in our interview with Piia Vork.
  • Rising Rooster – Indonesian beans, pride and joy of The Rocket Bean roastery. One of our favourite beans. When you go to Riga, be sure to visit Rocket Bean cafe.
  • Caffebo Tõde – Mixture of beans from Brazil, Ethiopia and Guatemala. Caffebo is also an Estonian roastery, and we plan to go pay them a visit and find out more.

Some new equipment, perhaps?

The equipment prices were sky high, so we didn’t buy anything. We feasted our eyes on Jura professional machines and scoffed at the usual equipment priced higher than ever. Let’s just say the AeroPress was sold for 35-40 €, and I bought mine a few months ago in Euronics for 27 €. Same thing with Chemex, grinders and such. Inflation is nasty these days. We also saw an Aeropush, a Finnish invention that takes a whole new approach to the French press. Their webpage is still fresh, so you won’t get too much information there. However, they also promised to answer a few of our questions after the festival. So far, we have only seen the bad examples of reinventing the French press. But we trust the Finns will surprise us.

As for the sweets, we bought some hand-made chocolate from Jeff de Bruges and some baklava from the Turkish stand. We skipped lokoum this time, well, because, diet.

Amazing Jeff de Bruges stand at Tallinn Coffee Fest 2022
Amazing Jeff de Bruges stand

What did we get for free?

Hm. We did get a whole lot of free tasting, to be honest. And one panna cotta from the Farmi stand. Most of the stands were giving away discounts on the equipment and free drinks in their cafes. A lot of free stickers, postcards and a bag full of promises for interviews, cooperation and such. But this year, nobody gave free samples of beans, as Paulig did at Tallinn Coffee Festival 2021. Well, the times are tough.

Festival food

If we ruled out sweets from food, the Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022 food offer wasn’t that great. Only two food trucks this year, both at the entrance, offering burgers, fries and such. Inside, a couple of stands sold pastry, and we noticed an incredible sushi booth. With these amounts of coffee inside us, we sure didn’t want to eat sushi, no matter how tasty it looked. All in all, the food offered at Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022 was okayish.

Conclusion

Tallinn Coffee Festival 2022 was a great success, from our point of view. It still amazes us how many Estonian people love their coffee and their festivals. The only negative comment we found was from one disappointed lady – her dog wasn’t allowed to enter. Other than that, it was perfect. We would also be thrilled if there was a Lavazza or Segafredo stand, but that’s just us. This festival keeps growing and growing, and we are sure some day it will become one of the largest European coffee festivals. Good job, #TLNCF2022!