Populus

Populus Coffee is a family-run specialty coffee roastery founded in 2016 by Finnish husband-and-wife team Sari and Henrik Haavisto in Berlin’s Neukölln district. They focus on a light Nordic roast and on relationships with farmers they know personally. In ten years, what started as a small café by the canal has grown into a roastery that now operates in both Berlin and Shanghai.

The story of Populus Coffee didn’t begin in Berlin, but in Helsinki. Sari and Henrik grew up in Finland, where filter coffee is a natural part of daily life, and as they say themselves, it’s in their DNA. The turning point came in 2014. At the time, Henrik was still working as a journalist and traveled to Guatemala to write an essay for a book about coffee. The journey, which continued on to Honduras, showed him that specialty coffee is built primarily on people who work together as a team. He brought back his first long-term partnerships as well as the name: the Latin word “populus” means “people.” He then spent several months roasting at the Kaffa roastery in Osla, and he and Sari began planning their own business. However, they ran into trouble in Helsinki because people in the city center were afraid the aroma of roasting would bother them. So they chose Berlin and its open, international coffee scene.

Populus Coffee opened on the Maybachufer embankment along the Landwehrkanal, a short walk from the famous Turkish market. Their own roastery wasn’t ready yet, so the business started out as a multi-roaster. They served Haavisto coffee from other European roasters, and in the end, they saw this as more of an advantage, as it quickly opened doors for them in the industry. Within a year, they were roasting in the back room behind glass doors. Today, the café serves as a showcase. All the coffees are rotated at the bar using various brewing methods; the baristas take notes on how each coffee behaves and pass on their findings to wholesale customers. The coffee is served with pastries from their in-house bakers. Meanwhile, roasting has moved to Communal Coffee, the largest shared roasting space in Germany, which Haavisto founded together with Philipp Reichel and Janusch Munkwitz. In the Neukölln hall on Naumburger Straße, about a dozen roasters operate; green coffee importers and machine manufacturers meet here, and public cuppings, training sessions, and seminars are held.

Populus Coffee’s philosophy is simple: great coffee begins on the farm, and the roaster’s job is to find the best beans and bring out their natural flavor through roasting. That’s why the Haavists source their coffee as directly as possible, or through trusted partners who share their values. They source coffee from more than ten countries of origin and visit the farms at least twice a year. The result is light, sweet, bright, and clean flavor profiles—exactly what you’d expect from the Nordic school. For example, their selection includes coffees from Ethiopian farmer Khalid Shifa in the Jimma region; the roastery sells both his washed and natural versions side by side in a tasting box so you can taste the difference in the cup caused by the processing method. Also featured are the rare SL9 and Geisha varieties from small-scale growers in Incahuasi, Peru, and Capim Branco from the Andrade family in Brazil.