A small-batch roastery where global flavors meet Saimaa craftsmanship!

Where should we start?

It all started one autumn morning years ago, when our dad Olli was having a hotel breakfast in Porvoo. He was served a cup of coffee, and it changed everything. The experience was “breathtaking”. Where do you get coffee this good? What is this? How can coffee taste this good?

It turned out the coffee came from a local small roastery. Soon after getting home, our enterprising dad started researching online and learning the secrets of small-batch roasted coffee.

Väinö, Anna ja paahtaja Olli istuvat nurmikolla hirsiseinän edessä, perheen pienpaahtimo Mikkelistä

A family business

Kirjalan Paahtimo was founded in 2018 in the Kirjala wooden house area, in the garage of our family home. The place where all the great ideas have started. Worth mentioning here is our dad's earlier hobby, a genuinely successful garage pizzeria that ran in the winters.

The coffee hobby quickly got serious when Olli's daughter Anna, who's writing this, swapped her nursing job for life as a self-taught barista in a tiny, living-room-sized café in spring 2020.

One busy day my brother Väinö happened to wander into the café and ended up washing dishes. As it turned out, Väinö never went back to his own job in construction.

A so-called family business was born.

Today Kirjalan Paahtimo is run by siblings Anna and Väinö, together with our dad Olli, who mostly focuses on roasting the coffee. 

We've also come a long way from that little garage in Kirjala. These days Kirjala's coffee is roasted on the shore of Lake Saimaa in Heimari, and it's still packed by hand without big production lines.

We're a family business with strong values, and getting here took courage, new ventures and leaving earlier career choices behind.

Kädet kääntelevät kuivuvia kahvipapuja ruandalaisella kahvitilalla

Ordinary is no longer enough

After all this coffee drinking, ordinary was no longer good enough: we needed something more unique. Coffee that would be more than just coffee.

Kirjala's coffee selection has been chosen carefully and thoughtfully from the very beginning. Only the best varieties make the cut, and they come to us from all over the world, from South America to Africa. It matters to us to know where our coffee comes from and who stands behind every batch.

Be the barista of your own life

Our roastery's coffees are a springboard into the world of speciality coffee, but we are not content to be just coffee makers. We are coffee activists and good-coffee consultants. We create a culture where everyone can make the best cup of coffee of their life. What matters most to us is that coffee makes your day taste a cup better.

Berninpaimenkoira makaa Kirjalan kahvilan lattialla, koiraystävällinen kahvila Mikkelissä

Kirjala Café

Our street-level café opened its doors on Nuijamiestenkatu in spring 2020.

The neighbourhood café's modest size hides big taste experiences, a warm atmosphere, and a dose of sarcasm and controlled chaos.

Our café has become a trusted favourite for locals, and people come from further afield too, and not without reason. Conversations reach beyond your own table, and everyone in the café is an acquaintance, which has created a unique place where everyone is welcome. Even our four-legged friends.

In autumn 2026 our café was named Finland's 16th best café, an impressive achievement in a highly competitive field.

Check out the café's selection.

Our core values

  • Fairness

    For us, fairness means caring about our customers, each other, and how our coffee makes its way from the bushes to the coffee table. You cannot make good
    coffee unless it supports a good life.

    Get to know our supply chain 

  • Being oneself

    One quality stands above the rest. Unique. We achieve it
    by being ourselves and doing things that feel like us, and no one else.

  • Curious

    The world is full of flavour adventures, and only a curious mind gets the most out of it. We're on a never-ending expedition, and what we learn along the way we bring to our customers' coffee tables.

Check out the Kirjala blog

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