Finland & Sápmi
Kaffeost, or juustokahvi, is hot coffee poured over cubes of leipäjuusto, a squeaky Finnish baked cheese that softens without melting. How to try it.
Kaffeost — juustokahvi in Finnish — is hot coffee poured over cubes of leipäjuusto, a fresh baked cheese from northern Finland and Sápmi.
Leipäjuusto, sometimes called bread cheese or squeaky cheese, is made from cow’s or reindeer milk, set and then baked or grilled so the surface caramelizes in patches. It is mild, slightly salty, and it squeaks against your teeth.
Crucially, it does not melt. It softens and holds its shape.
Cubes go in the bottom of the cup and hot coffee is poured over. They soften and absorb coffee as you drink, and you eat them with a spoon at the end.
The cheese takes the edge off the coffee’s bitterness and the coffee gives the cheese a roasted sweetness. It works far better than the description suggests.
Northern Finland, Swedish Lapland and Sápmi, where dairy and coffee were both central to a subsistence economy and combining them made practical sense on a long winter day.
In the US, leipäjuusto is made by Wisconsin cheesemakers and sold as juustoleipä or bread cheese, in many supermarkets in the Midwest and online. Halloumi is sometimes suggested as a substitute and is considerably saltier — it works, badly.
Ordinary hot filter coffee, medium roast. This is not the place for a delicate light-roast Ethiopian.
Cut the cheese into cubes of about 2 cm (3/4 in) and put a small handful in the bottom of a cup, traditionally a kuksa, the carved birch cup used in Lapland. Pour hot coffee over, about 200 ml (7 oz), and drink it slowly, giving the cheese a few minutes to soften. Some people warm the cheese in a dry pan first to bring out its browned, toasty notes. Sugar is optional and common.
The fat and salt in the cheese do what milk and a pinch of salt do for coffee: they round off bitterness and make the cup taste sweeter. Bread cheese is also bland enough to take on the coffee’s flavor, so the last spoonfuls taste like coffee-soaked custard. It is a winter drink, made for cold days outdoors, and it still turns up at Finnish cafés in the north.
The equipment this actually requires — not a shopping list, the shortest route to doing it properly.
1.25 L · 92–96 °C (198 to 205 °F) brew · copper element · SCA certified
Hits proper brew temperature in about four minutes and holds it, which is the entire job and which almost no cheap drip machine does. Hand-built in the Netherlands, repairable indefinitely, and priced accordingly.
Best for: A household that drinks filter coffee by the pot, every day, for years.
