Fuglen is the coffee roaster that, like a migratory bird, stops in port cities around the world, absorbing the good energy of the land and then travel to the next land, keep learning, keep growing
The tale of Fuglen Coffee Roaster is a story of freedom and exploration, a tale that began with a tiny coffee bar that opened in Oslo in the ‘60s, and slowly evolved into a specialty coffee roaster with coffee shops as far away as Tokyo. But let’s start at the beginning.
“Fuglen” means bird in Norwegian, and the bird depicted in the coffee roaster’s logo is the migratory tern: the tern, the world’s longest-flying bird, resides in the harbour of Oslo, from where it departs to visit distant ports. Like the tern and all others migratory birds, Fuglen stops in port cities around the world, soaking up the good energy of the land, all that it has to offer to learn and grow, and then travels on to the next land, keep learning, keep growing.
So there is no mystery behind Fuglen’s tale, a story that began in 1963 in Oslo, with a tiny café called Kaffee Fuglen, which soon evolved by adding Scandinavian vintage designs and offering a full-fledged cocktail bar. Then, the rise of the third wave of coffee, so strong in Norway at the beginning of the new millennia, gave Fuglen a new purpose, a new focus on specialty coffee.
It was in 2012, that the migratory bird took off again, landing in the land of the raising sun: it was finally time for Fuglen to open its first overseas store in Shibuya, one of Tokyo’s coolest areas, followed in September 2018 by a second store in Asakusa, one of the still most traditional neighbourhood of modern-era Tokyo.
Watch The Right Roast visits Fuglen Tokyo in 2017
Here, where traditional Japanese culture is still alive, where buildings from the 1950s and 1960s still remain intact, perfectly blended with modern architecture, Fuglen’s café is perfectly nested, right next to Senso-ji Temple, one of Tokyo’s most popular tourist attractions. And it was in the same year that Fuglen finally founded its own coffee roastery based on direct-trade principles, with locations in Oslo and Tokyo and distribution worldwide, a roastery that – thanks to a Nordic roasting style – produces light roasted coffees that still possessed their original characteristics, such as fruity flavour, floral scent, and transparent sweet aftertaste.