For Idar Ellingsen, starting his own coffee roastery was the natural next step after working as a barista, coffee roaster and coffee consultant for many years. Idar has won several awards for his work, both within Norway and internationally – in fact, he has achieved two Norwegian championship titles. Pala Kaffebrenneri was established in the fall of 2017 in Nardo, Trondheim. “We wanted to go backwards in the value chain and influence the product earlier and to a greater extent than at the very last stage. We know how much work goes into good coffee,” Idar says. “Refining such a fantastic raw material, where the foundation is laid by hard-working and knowledgeable people in other parts of the world, makes us feel happy and humbled. We want to contribute to better living conditions for coffee farmers by giving them fair pay for the work they do – and we want to share with other people how varied coffee can be.”
The Pala team sources their coffee beans from all across the globe. “We receive beans from different parts of the world, but our favourite origins are South/Central America and Africa. We work with importers who are transparent and who are focused on quality and traceability,” Idar says. “Whether it’s coffee from a farm we have worked with before or a coffee that is brand new to us, the first step is to taste samples of the coffee. When the coffee comes to our roastery, it’s roasted based on our prior experience with similar types of coffee. After the first test roast, the coffee is tasted and evaluated according to various criteria such as sweetness, acid and mouthfeel. Based on the assessments, we decide what to do next with the coffee and how we can adjust the way we roast it to further emphasise the quality and flavours. It’s important for us to bring out the natural properties of the raw material without the roasting process affecting the taste too much.”
The quality of their coffee and exciting flavour profiles are key to the work Idar and his team do. “Coffee is a very varied drink, and the many different types of coffee are experienced differently on the taste palette,” Idar says. “For example, coffee can be light, sweet, fresh, elegant, round, fruity, bitter, full-bodied, intense, complex and more, with flavours reminiscent of different fruits, spices, flowers, berries, nuts, chocolate, etc.”
The name of the business comes from Latin – the word “pala” means “shovel”. The name “refers to the important work, the actual cultivation of the coffee plant, which is done by the farmer on the coffee farm and which starts with the farmer sticking the shovel in the ground,” Idar explains. “Pala is also the origin of the word palette. We’ve placed the different taste experiences in a colour palette, which are the different labels. Each colour represents a taste experience.”
“The people behind Pala have worked with specialty coffee and been part of the coffee community in Trondheim for two decades – we know the city and the coffee drinkers here well,” Idar says. “We’ve built up a great network of people who are interested in quality food and drinks. Pala works with several local companies and delivers to everything from private homes and offices to highly renowned and award-winning restaurants and hotels. What all these places have in common is that they have a conscious relationship with the coffee they drink and serve. We use our experience and expertise every day to help our customers with training or adjustments to improve quality. We offer not just coffee beans, but also our knowledge and experience.”
