Having a cup of coffee in Finland

Once again, I have been doing so much other things, that I have forgotten to post to this blog. But here is a new post.  This time about coffee and its meaning to us Finns.

Did you know that first coffee roasting factory was established in Finland in 1904? It was the first industrial roastery in Nordic countries. The industrial roasting of coffee had been developed in the USA at the end of 19^thcentury. 

Did you then know, that in 1926 the sale of industrially roasted coffee finally exceeded the sale of unroasted coffee in Finland? The Finns were so used to roast their coffee at home. Or did you know, that the coffee first came to the kingdom of Sweden-Finland in the end of the 17^thcentury?

Nowadays the Finns drink more coffee than any other nation in the world. We drink about 10 kg coffee per capita per year. Other Nordic countries’ inhabitants consume 7,5 - 9 kg and f. ex. Italians only about 6 kg. Globally around 1,25 kg coffee is consumed per person.  94 % of the coffee consumed in Finland is light roasted.

When do we then drink so much coffee? At breakfast, at work, when having a break, with friends, in parties or just to sit down and relax. In most of the Finnish collective labor agreements also a right to a coffee break is determined. This means that most of the Finnish full-time workers have two coffee breaks during their work day. The length of the break varies between 10-12 minutes. In quite many work places company even offers the coffee free of charge.

Having a cup of coffee is a big part of our national identity, I would say. It has also been a way to show the success and prosperity of the house. In the 19^thcentury it came to be a habit that beside of coffee “7 different sorts” were served. This meant buns, pies, cookies, biscuits and coffee cakes. In many Finnish parties (wedding, birthday party, christening, confirmation party, graduation, funeral) at least coffee with some salty and sweets is served. In most parties also they first serve food and then coffee with cake and biscuits.

In Eastern parts of Finland, the custom has been to serve the coffee to the guest as long as the guest said yes and there was coffee in the pot. In western parts of Finland, it was custom to serve the coffee to the guest 2-3 times. A cup for something salty or sweet and a cup for the cake, plus an additional cup. It is not good for the housewife’s reputation, if the guest had to sit with an empty coffee cup.

The coffee does not grow in Finland. About 80 % of the coffee beans used in Finland come from Brasilia, Columbia and Honduras. Because it is always imported to Finland there has also been times, when the Finns have had to manage without coffee. F. ex. during WWII and shortly after it. The coffee was then replaced with different kinds of substitutes. It has to be remarked that the Continuation War ended in September 1944. And the Lapland War, which affected mostly the people in Northern parts of Finland in April 1945. The first ship bringing coffee to Finland was S/s Herakles, which arrived on 24^thof February 1946. It was assisted to the harbour of Turku by ice-breaker Sisu. It brought 2 500 tons raw coffee from Rio de Janeiro. Buying coffee for personal use from grocery stores was regulated until 1954.

If in Finland, you may want to visit a museum dedicated to coffee. 

Vilkkimäen kahvimuseo

Pictures in this post are taken by me in the coffee museum.

Interesting information of coffee in Finland you also find from Gustav Paulig

Remembering the veterans in Finland

Card by SecondStoryCards

It has been awhile from my last post. I have been too busy in other areas of life, but I try to get back to this blog and posting. I have some ideas for new posts, but of course I’m also open for your ideas too. So if you are interested in reading about a tradition in Finland, please let me know and I see what I can do about it. This time I wanted to make a post about Finnish veterans and our traditions to remember them.

Like in many countries, also in Finland, we remember the veterans of our wars. Thankfully we have had the opportunity to live in peace already for decades, but we still have some 17.000 veterans in Finland, who fought in the Winter, Continuation and Lapland Wars. Their average age is 93 years and 2.500 of them are war-invalids.

I’m happy to say that nowadays in Finland we honour and acknowledge our veterans, but it has not been like that always. Sometime after the Wars the veterans were forgotten, especially in 1970s they were not at all honoured. Since the 1990s there has been a tradition in most of the parishes to light on Independence Day a candle in the cemeteries to every grave of a soldier, who has died defending Finland. This year, as Finland is celebrating her 100 years of independency, we remember our veterans also in many other ways and treat them with all the respect as we always should have done.

My family’s traditions have been for years to donate our charity money of a year to one veteran association in Finland. Quite many years I have also bought our Christmas cards from one or two of these associations. You may read more about postcards from my earlier post.

The Finnish postal service, Posti, has had already a few years a campaign annually to remember the veterans. I think it is a nice new tradition we have. One just writes a postcard and sends it to an address given by Posti. Posti collects the cards and delivers them then to a veteran. The purpose of this cards is to say thank you to the veterans for keeping Finland independent. I shall participate also this year. This a really nice tradition, which unfortunately won’t last for long.

In case you want to read more about the Finnish army and veterans, please see my other post.

Finnish veteran organisations (pages in Finnish)

https://www.sotainvalidit.fi/

https://sotaveteraanit.fi/

https://veteraanit.fi/

https://tammenlehva.fi/

Bye-bye Christmas!

Yesterday we had the day of Nuutti in Finland (13th of January). You know Nuutti, the bad guy, who takes away the Christmas according to Finnish proverb. So when saying godbye to Christmas I once again went thorugh the Christmas traditions and merry Christmas time in my head. And a tradition, that means lot to my family came to my mind. So here’ s a short post about it.

I have blogged earlier about the Christmas peace and Eating on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve after noon and the declaration of Christmas peace my family sits down for rice porridge. You can find from the later post, how the porridge is made and served. There is also mention about the almond. But I did not open up the tradition behind it.

Person, who finds the almond, shall have good luck the upcoming year. But where does this kind of tradition originate from? The Finns have been finding almonds from their porridge since the mid 19th century. The tradition came from Sweden. Both rice and almonds were really expensive delicacies in Finland back then. Both needed to be imported. That’s why it is believed the almond was chosen to bring good luck. Prior to almond it had been a bean or a coin.

The habbit of putting something (a foreign object) during Christmas celebration to food to bring good luck is a very old tradition and known at least all over Europe. Already the Romans and the Greeks put coins and beans to food for good luck.

:)

Christmas tree - Joulukuusi

It is tradition in Finland to have a christmas tree. Usually the tree is a spruce. It can be logged from own forest or bought from a retailer. Some prefer an artificial christmas tree. Some decorate the tree already on first advent, but most popular tradition is to decorate the tree on 21st of December (Tuomaan päivä) and have it until 6th of January (Loppiainen) or 13th of January (Nuutin päivä).

The first christmas trees were seen in Finland in the early 1800s, but they became popular among the citizen in the early 1900s. Quite big role in this was played by the teachers of primary school. Academy that trained Finnish school teachers was founded in Jyväskylä in 1863. They started to celebrate the end of the autumn semester by bringing in a spruce to the ball room and decorating it with self made decoration. The graduated teachers spread the custom to celebrate the end of autumn semester with a christmas tree together with plays by the students and songs throughout Finland.

For decades the trees were decorated with some candles, straw decoration, candies, chains with flags and gingerbreads. Nowadays quite many trees have led-lights, colorful balls and all kinds of glitter. Many Finns also have some christmas tree decoration, that have been inherited or have some other sentimental value.

My family has an artificial christmas tree, a Canadian pine tree says its storage box, and I bought it as my first Christmas tree in the late 1990s. Along the years it has gotten decoration from United States, Hungary, Germany and of cource from Finland. Some of the decoration mean a lot to me and my family, others will be renewed in 5 or 10 years intervals.

We will set up our tree on 21st of December, so why to blog about the tree today? 

Today Finland’s most welknown christmas tree was logged and transported to its place in the front of the cathedral of Turku. This year’s tree comes from Nousiainen, which is located about 20 km north from Turku. The tree is 22 meters tall and weighs about 4 tons. It is about 65 years old and will decorate Turku until the 13th of January 2017. After this tree is usually cut to pieces and given back to the donator. One year tree was used to renew the mast of local sailing ship, Sigyn.

The tree will have 717 led lights and they will be litten on the 26th of November. This tradition dates back over 100 years. First time the christmas tree in front of the Turku Cathedral had electrical lighting was in 1900. Electrical lighting became a tradition as early as in the 1930s. Every year people can offer spruce from their property to be the christmas tree in Turku and similar donations are also happening in other cities in Finland. In Turku the tree has to be 20-25 meters tall, equally formed, have nice green color and be bushy.

From here you find pics and video of this year’s tree and its journey to Turku.

I wish you all a nice 1st advent and December.