If you've had a cup of the Ethiopian coffee on our pour over menu this month, you know: Morgon Coffee Roasters is doing something special. Much like their packaging, the beans inside are beautifully balanced and unique. We first came across Morgon via Instagram and instantly knew we wanted to bring their coffee to Charleston. After a slew of enthusiastic emails (and a few tries with a conversion calculator), their bags arrived on Line Street all the way from Gothenburg, Sweden! This is our first time working with an international roaster and it definitely hasn't disappointed.
We've loved working with their team and sharing their delicious coffee with the Sightsee community. It's our belief that behind every cup is a story. Here's a bit of theirs:
Who makes up the team behind Morgon Coffee Roasters?
Team Morgon is me, that’s Markus Vestergaard, Gabriella Runesson and Christian Gullbrandsson. We’ve been friends for the better part of a decade now and after working together for years we started Morgon in 2018.
Origin story: How/when/why did Morgon get started?
After working together for years we found ourselves in different places, both figuratively and literally, as Gabriella was travelling through Asia when we made the decision. Before Morgon we had the opportunity to source, roast, brew coffee and work with so many amazing producers, customers, guests and baristas. Every now and then during that time, we came back to the question “What if”. What if we had our own company, what if we got to create our own brand and dreaming about how we would tackle those challenges. After a while that “What if” question turned into the desire to try something new. So we did!
What do you find most rewarding about running a specialty coffee roastery? The most challenging?
Morgon is a real passion project for us and the best part about it has been the massive amount of positive feedback, love and good vibes we’ve received along the way. Every coffee we work with, every roast profile we create and every design that goes along with them are highly personal and special to us and the fact that other people also enjoy and appreciate the things we’ve worked so hard on truly means the world to us. The most challenging thing during this wild ride has probably been balancing work with our personal lives. With the amount of passion and love for what we do it’s sometimes tough to step back and reflect, relax and do something that isn’t Morgon for a minute. We keep reminding each other to take some time off when we can and we’re getting better at actually doing it ourselves too! Over new years we actually took two weeks off. It almost felt like we were doing something illegal!
In addition to delicious coffee, you guys have some of the coolest packaging we've ever laid eyes on. What inspires your designs and how do you decide on imagery for new coffees?
We’re the biggest fans of the design ourselves! We’re lucky enough to be able to work with Elinor Vestergaard and Simon Söder and each time they present their latest work to us it’s such a treat. Elinor also happens to be my wife and she’s spent years listening to us talk about how coffee is a product of so much care, dedication and hard work and how we want to honour that while also offering a fun and accessible product that reflects the coffee’s value. That’s where they got the idea of creating original artwork for all of our coffees. When we purchase a new lot, we brief Elinor and Simon on our taste notes, as well as the story behind the coffee, about the origin, the process and the producer. As for the inspiration behind the designs and how they decide on what to use in the imagery, I’ll pass that question to Simon:
"The inspiration comes from the mission of making coffee inclusive and for all. We wanted to add layers to the coffee experience that bypasses traditional ways of talking about coffee. The images could be seen as an open research in developing this visual language with inspiration from stuff like hieroglyphs, Jungian symbolism, art history and Instagram algorithms. The different themes are created in conversation with Morgon. It is a mixture of stories, flavor profiles and general stupid ideas."
What are your go-to coffee shops in Gothenburg?
Easy! Viktors Kaffe and Café Oizo. Viktors Kaffe is a multi-roaster shop and a great place to discover new roasters as well as enjoy deliciously brewed coffee by friendly baristas and a scrumptious bite. Café Oizo are second to none when it comes to attention to detail. From their coffee, to the natural wine selection and the flour they mill themselves for their amazing bread and pastries, whatever you order will be super tasty and thoughtfully sourced.
Sightsee is all about travel and adventure -- any travel plans for 2020? Where/why?
Absolutely! Our sourcing is all about relationships. Most coffees we release throughout the year comes from producers we’ve been working with since the start of Morgon, some even longer than that. We feel that traveling to meet with the producers we work with is an important way of showing them how much we care and appreciate their work. It’s also a way to add value to our customers when we’re able to relay the producers story and the origin of their coffee. Christian has been going to Colombia for two years in a row now and last December Gabriella visited Ethiopia. This year we’ve scheduled trips to Brazil and Kenya and we’re hoping to include Costa Rica and El Salvador to the itinerary.
