The Forest Roastery is a small roastery and food alchemist’s workshop. We produce spruce products from Finnish nature. At Metsäpaahtimo we produce handcrafted and harmonious ‘off-grid’ energy cold-dried Spruce Syrup and Spruce Powder. You can find these products in our online shop. In addition to this, you can find Kerkkä Kombucha (RAW) and Kerkkä ice cream created from our raw materials at Cafe Metsäpaahtimo.
Kerkkä or spruce sprouts, young spring tips of the spruce tree, is a magical Finnish natural product, which has been used as a healing, health-promoting herb for centuries. We manufacture our products by hand and our processes are based on innovations we have created, the core of which is that our spruce tips products are made without heating and without additives. We rightly call our products ‘raw’ or ‘cold extract’ because we do not use temperatures above 42 degrees Celsius. This production technique preserves all the good ingredients, such as enzymes and vitamins, which would be partially or completely destroyed by heating. As a result, our kerkkä products taste strongly and purely of the Finnish forest.
The Products
Dried spruce powder. Drying and grinding is also a good way to preserve spruce sprouts while maintaining its good properties. Our powder is 100% pure spruce tips and dried under controlled conditions at temperatures below 42 °C, so that the nutrients in the product are not destroyed and the taste/color remains characteristic of spruce.
Spruce sprouts powder is a highly concentrated source of spruce energy and nutrients, as it takes almost ten times as much spruce to produce 1 kg of powder. This means that one teaspoon of spruce powder contains a lot of life force and nutrients for your benefit.
How to use spruce products?
Cold-extracted syrup: The nutrients and aroma of the kerkkä have been absorbed into a liquid, which makes it easier and faster to use, and the final product has a strong kerkkä aroma. Cold-extracted syrup can be used like honey, as a topping for porridge or yoghurt, in drinks, salad dressings and cooking.
Spruce sprouts powder: Perfect for smoothies or seasoning, where it is absorbed into a liquid or used together with kerkkä syrup. At our café, we also use the powder in the preparation of spruce latte, where kerkkä powder is combined with spruce cold-extracted syrup and oat milk. The combination of kerkkä powder and syrup on top of porridge has also been a popular and beautiful addition. The spruce powder can also be mixed with honey if you want spruce-honey tea. It is also perfect for green tea lovers.
The Story
Forest Products
From the very beginning, we also wanted to create natural products also from Finland and to find tasty and healthy raw materials. We aim to manufacture our products with as little processing as possible, so that they remain as close to their natural content and taste as possible, but still easily usable in everyday life or in a professional kitchen. The production takes place as artisan work and with respect for nature. We believe that only by doing good to other creatures and nature can we achieve a good outcome. All other ways are unsustainable, and as the word implies, it will come to an end sooner or later. We strive for sustainability, so you can trust that we will also exist in the future, serving you.
Human nutrition has become industrialized at a dizzying pace, and unfortunately often at the expense of nutritional quality. As packages and advertisements have been honed towards perfection, the content itself has been left on the sidelines. Nowadays, many ingredients that are very nutritious and tasty in their natural form have been highly processed and have thus lost their original nature. Heating, additives and cheaper ”filler” ingredients have displaced the taste and nutritional properties of the original raw material to the sidelines. We need to return to simplicity and authenticity.
Food Alchemist is the professional title of the Forest Roaster. An alchemist can be like Sampo from the Kalevala epic, and Sampo offers limitless sourdough if a person is content with moderation, i.e. sustainable activities. Nature offers humans valuable treasures, the use of which is our duty, because the care and maintenance of our body is a basic human obligation in life. If we neglect the care of our body, other obligations in life begin to feel heavy and ultimately remain unfinished.
So our nature is the alchemist’s Sampo, it offers resources selflessly, without asking. The task of the alchemist, i.e. the human, remains to explore, realize and utilize what nature gives.
We started by collecting birch sap, which we wanted to be in as original a form as possible, i.e. unpasteurised and without additives. For three springs we tried and failed to understand, research and realise this birch sap product. We couldn’t figure out how to preserve the sap. With limited time and financial resources, the decision to abandon the project was justified.
But along the way, as the springs passed in the birch sap forest, we often plucked the new growth of spruce, or kerkkä, that was born towards the end of the sap season. We liked that citrusy authentic taste of the forest. From there began years of product development, the result of which is that we now offer you cold-dried spruce sprout syrup, spruce sprout powder and, in our café, spruce sprout lattes, porridge, kombucha and sometimes a little bit more.
But it all started with birch sap and coffee. A man’s action, if the intention is good and in accordance with his inclinations, always leads to something – something that is not always what he was aiming for, but the action itself is meaningful. A full life cannot be lived according to a plan but by discovery, learning and renunciation. Only renunciation can give way to the new and this is what happened in our case. When we gave up birch sap production, we found the resources to focus on other things, namely spruce sprouts and coffee.
Packaging and shelf life
Storage: in a cool place away from light, 1-2 years. Both packages are glass and reusable, and do not contain plastic. The jar with cork lid is ideal for storing spices when the content runs out. And the jar of the syrup has a metal lid and is great for storing other liquids when the syrup runs out.
Resellers