Paper Mill Coffee combines speciality coffee with a bakery operation in Tallinn; the café and roastery was named among Europe’s 50 best coffee shops. Photo courtesy of Paper Mill Coffee.

Two Tallinn coffee shops named among Europe’s 50 best

by · Estonian World

Paper Mill Coffee and The Brick Coffee Roastery have placed 29th and 43rd in a new European ranking, putting Estonia’s still-young speciality coffee scene firmly on the map.

Two Estonian cafés have been named among the 50 best coffee shops in Europe in the latest ranking by The World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops. Paper Mill Coffee, a speciality roastery and bakery with three cafés in Tallinn, was placed 29th, while The Brick Coffee Roastery, based in the Telliskivi creative quarter, came 43rd.

The ranking considers the whole café experience, from coffee quality and barista skill to atmosphere, service and the way a place feels once you are sitting down with a cup in hand. According to the organisers, more than 5,000 cafés were assessed, with the final list shaped by expert evaluation and public voting.

A young coffee culture comes of age

Paper Mill Coffee opened in 2020, after its founders brought home a decade of London speciality coffee experience. Its flagship café and roastery is housed in a former fire station building at a historic pulp and paper factory dating from 1912, a setting that gave the business its name.

The company sources seasonal coffees through transparent supply chains and brings as many as 27 releases a year to its brew bars. Filter coffee is served using Origami brewers and batch brew, alongside two rotating espresso selections. Pastries are made daily at its bakery, Bakermill.

A barista prepares filter coffee at Paper Mill Coffee, one of two Tallinn cafés named among Europe’s 50 best coffee shops. Photo courtesy of Paper Mill Coffee.

The Brick Coffee Roastery has taken a different but equally Tallinn route. Tucked into Telliskivi, the city’s best-known creative district, it is part roastery, part brew bar and part neighbourhood living room. There is a central bar, a brunch menu, vinyl records and the kind of courtyard atmosphere that makes lingering feel less like procrastination and more like civic participation.

Jan Kulbin, a board member at The Brick Coffee Roastery, told the Estonian business newspaper Äripäev that the success of two Estonian cafés in the European ranking was significant for the country’s wider coffee culture.

“Estonia’s coffee community is still quite young,” Kulbin said. “In many countries in central and southern Europe, going to a café has been part of everyday life for decades. In Estonia, that habit is still developing. That makes it especially pleasing that two cafés from such a small country have reached Europe’s top 100.”

The Brick Coffee Roastery in Tallinn’s Telliskivi district, where the company has grown from a small roastery into one of Europe’s recognised speciality coffee names. Photo courtesy of The Brick Coffee Roastery.

The Brick began almost a decade ago as a coffee roastery. Its first years were spent in the back room of Trühvel restaurant before the company moved to a small space in Telliskivi, where the roastery, warehouse and tiny café operated side by side. In the beginning, the café was less a destination than a showroom, a place to introduce customers to the coffee being sourced and roasted. Earlier this year, The Brick opened a new café in Telliskivi.

The café as a civic living room

Kulbin said the team did not set out to follow trends or imitate anyone else’s idea of what a successful café should look like.

“We did not have a manual or fixed points to follow,” he said. “We simply wanted to create a place where we ourselves would want to spend time every day. If we enjoy being there, hopefully others will feel good there too. Everything else has come quite organically.”

For Kulbin, the recognition is not really about furniture, branding or even excellent beans. A café becomes a community only when the people working there give it life.

“If this recognition belongs to anyone, it belongs first and foremost to the team,” he said. “They create the atmosphere that makes people come back. For us, it is confirmation that we are moving in the right direction and motivation to continue in the same way.”

The Brick Coffee Roastery in Tallinn’s Telliskivi district, where the café’s courtyard setting has helped turn it into a neighbourhood meeting place. Photo courtesy of The Brick Coffee Roastery.

The rise of hybrid working has also helped Estonia’s café culture mature. Where office coffee once dominated the working day, more people are now looking for reasons to leave home, meet others and make a café part of their daily rhythm.

“Many people who used to drink our coffee in their office now come to us to drink it,” Kulbin said. “A café has become a place where people work, meet friends or simply take time out. That culture is gaining momentum in Estonia.”

The appeal of the ranking, Kulbin added, is that it does not treat coffee as an exclusive luxury. Unlike the upper reaches of the restaurant world, where awards can often be associated with formality and high prices, the cafés on the list range from small community spots to highly technical speciality coffee bars.

“A recognised café does not have to be elitist,” he said. “Coffee is, by nature, a community drink and should be accessible to everyone. That makes this recognition especially exciting.”

This year’s European ranking includes cafés from more than 30 countries. First place went to Norway’s Tim Wendelboe, followed by Austria’s Gota Coffee Experts and Spain’s Nomad Frutas Selectas.