As a coffee enthusiast, exploring coffee beans has become one of my quiet obsessions. Wherever I go, especially when I go to a city or a whole new country, visiting cafés and tasting the local coffee scene has become a compulsory part of my itinerary, (in addition of bookstore hopping and wandering into journaling or stationery shops, of course.)
My most recent coffee adventure took place during my last trip to Stockholm. A few weeks before the trip, I did my homework and made a list of cafés I wanted to check out. With only four days in the city (and a need to manage my caffeine intake so it wouldn’t completely derail my body), I had to be wise with my café selection.
It’s worth noting that I’m a relatively recent convert to the coffee cult. My journey only really began about a year and a half ago. So, pardon my amateur way of how I enjoy this coffee adventure.
First, I have to say that Stockholm’s coffee atmosphere more challenging compared to Helsinki. Or perhaps it’s simply a matter of personal preference. Either way, I had to search a little harder for cups that truly suit me.
For my ‘literature’ research, I relied on the European Coffee Trip website and filtered specifically for Stockholm. Interestingly, only two cafés in Stockholm were among Sweden’s top ten specialty cafés in the 2024 European Coffee Trip awards: Drop Coffee Roasters and Pascal Kaffebar.
Luckily, Nordic Brew Lab, that also got the award and originally from Malmö, also has its headquarters in Stockholm, making it accessible for curious coffee lovers like me.
Those three became my top priorities.
Drop Coffee Roasters
Coincidentally, around the same time as my trip, my favorite café in Helsinki, Andante, started selling Drop’s coffee beans. So, Drop was relatively a familiar brand for me. However, I didn’t buy and taste any of Drop’s beans back then. I wanted my first proper experience of the coffee beans to be brewed by Drop’s own baristas.
Located near Mariatorget, the café felt spacious and warmly lit. I ordered a cappuccino and an Americano, two familiar choices I usually make and enjoy at home. It felt like the fairest way to compare.
The flavor notes leaned mostly toward chocolatey, with only a subtle hint of fruitiness. This stood out to me, especially because many cafés in Helsinki tend to favor beans with brighter, more fruit-forward profiles. It was outside my usual comfort zone.
Pascal Kaffebar
After checking Google Reviews and noticing their generous pastry selection, I decided to make Pascal Kaffebar one of my breakfast stops.
I came in early morning, ordered a flat white and a cappuccino, and paired them with a cinnamon bun and a pistachio bun. A proper start to the day.
Once again, I noticed a familiar pattern in the coffee: lightly fruity, but with chocolatey notes taking the lead. The buns were genuinely good with soft texture, flavorful, and filling enough to fuel a full day of walking around the city.
They also sell their own beans, displayed on a shelf filled with options you can take home and brew yourself.
Nordic Brew Lab
And now, the highlight! (Drum roll sound effects)
Wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.
So.
Nordic Brew Lab is unlike most cafes I visited. Because, technically, it isn’t a café at all. It’s a coffee bar experience, built around curated selections and thoughtful brewing.
When I arrived, I was handed a menu. Wanting the full experience (and to truly satisfy my coffee craving) I ordered a package named the Flight. It included a V60 brew, followed by an espresso, and ended with a milk-based coffee served as a dessert.
Each brew method used a different bean, thoughtfully picked:
- For the espresso: DAK’s Ethiopia Anaerobic Natural Heirloom
- For the milk-based coffee: DAK’s Colombia Yeast Inoculated Natural Chiroso
- For the V60, there were multiple beans offered and I chose Sipstruck’s Panama Natural Caturra.
Both the V60 and the espresso were exactly to my taste: bright, fruity, and expressive.
But the real experience came with the milk-based coffee. The barista called it a dessert (that’s why it was served at the end of the order), and I didn’t expect that he meant it literally. I was impressed from the very first sip. And I don’t say this lightly because it was the best milk-based coffee I’ve ever had in my life. No exaggeration, really. It tasted like recently-melted-ice cream, with soft cherry notes woven, as the notes of the bean, through it. The concentrated milk had a high protein content, rich but not overpowering. The coffee didn’t dominate the milk, and the milk didn’t dull the coffee. Everything was in perfectly balance.
If I lived in Stockholm, I swear I would occasionally few times a week ordered this after my gym session due to the protein content and, of course, the satisfying taste.
Before leaving, I bought a bag of beans to take home: Sipstruck’s Panama Natural Caturra. My coffee stock was running low, and I needed a reminder of that experience, brewed slowly in my V60, long after the trip ended.
Besides all those specialty cafés, I also visited a few other spots where I enjoyed coffee. They may not be known for specialty beans or experimental brews, but they offered a good cup of coffee and tasty pastry.
Vete-Katten
While doing my literature research aka reading reviews in Google Maps and watching travel vlog about places to visit in Stockholm, I kept coming across Vete-Katten. The descriptions of the one branch located in Kungsgatan reminded me of Ekberg, an iconic café in Helsinki that often appears on tourist lists.
Vete-Katten has several locations across the city, nine branches, the last time I checked, but I chose the Kungsgatan location to lean into the tourist perspective, much like tourists to Helsinki who stop by Ekberg. The moment I stepped inside, the interior carried a beautiful early-1900s coffee house atmosphere: elegant, warm, and classic.
I ordered a cappuccino and a latte, and of course, my favorite Swedish pastry: Prinsesstårta.
When my order was ready to take, I was surprised by the size of the latte. It was enormous, like a bowl of soup. It was good tho, and so did the cappuccino.
The Prinsesstårta was big with generous amount of jam on the bottom of the layer. At around seven euros, it felt absolutely worth it, both in flavor and experience. If you’re craving a classic café moment with good coffee and a proper slice of cake, Vete-Katten should be part of your itinerary.
Stora Bageriet
Specializing in baked goods, Stora Bageriet was one of my breakfast spots during the trip. I ordered a saltad vaniljbulle, a pastry I had been looking forward to ever since planning my Stockholm visit and scrolling through reviews online.
Obviously, I paired it with a cup of coffee, well, because pastries deserve company.
All of them were excellent. The coffee was comforting to enjoy after a trip under heavy snow, and the saltad vaniljbulle was so good that I ended up ordering a second one after finishing the first. That alone should more than to describe how delicious it was.
If you are not a fan of pastry, they also offer sandwiches, yogurt, and other breakfast or all-day meal options.
Looking back, my coffee exploration was more about expanding my coffee experiences. From specialty coffee bars to classic cafés and bakeries, each place offered their own characters that, to be fair, hard to fairly compare.
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