Oslo coffee guide: the city that named the third wave

Solberg & Hansen goes back to 1879 in Oslo, has roasted at Ryen since 1965 and helped start the World Barista Championship, whose first title went to an Oslo café owner. That café owner’s roastmaster at Mocca, Trish Rothgeb, coined the name “third wave” for the gentle roasting style they were working on. Tim Wendelboe won the world title in 2004 and opened his espresso bar three years later, and a Supreme Roastworks co-owner won the World Brewers Cup in 2015. Eight of the ten entries below roast their own coffee in Oslo; the two bars of Java and Mocca pour KAFFA’s, and Papegøye is a café and wine bar. Five of them are in Grünerløkka, the others in Gamlebyen and the centre, Bispevika, Grønland, St. Hanshaugen and Briskeby, and Kaffebrenneriet has coffee bars across the whole city.

Tim Wendelboe, Grünerløkka

Tim Wendelboe is a roastery, espresso bar and coffee training centre. Tim Wendelboe began as a barista in Oslo in 1998, won the World Barista Championship in 2004 and the World Cup Tasters Championship in 2005, and opened the espresso bar on a Grünerløkka side street on 30 June 2007. The room was once a hair salon, behind a stone façade from the 1890s with two heads carved at the entrance. The bar has sold only coffee from the first day: the menu changes daily, milk and sugar are the only additions, and there is a coffee tasting for guests who want one. The roastery moved a few blocks east to Tøyen in 2018, with a lab and training centre above it that opens by appointment and for a tasting and roastery tour with a cupping. Tim Wendelboe buys directly from producers in Kenya, Ethiopia, Colombia, Honduras and El Salvador and makes public what it pays, and since 2019 it has farmed its own coffee at Finca El Suelo in Huila, Colombia.

Fuglen, Gamlebyen and Sentrum

Fuglen has served coffee in Oslo since 1963, when the bar opened as Kaffefuglen. It reopened as Fuglen in 2012 with the original bar and wallpaper and a room full of mid-century furniture, the same year Fuglen opened in Tokyo. Fuglen Coffee Roasters started in Tokyo in 2014 and now also roasts in Oslo, lightly, in the Nordic style, on a German Probat from 1956. Fuglen Gamlebyen is a coffee bar, cocktail bar and roastery in one, with the roasting area open behind the counter since a renovation in August 2026, and its head roaster, Ludvik, won the 2024 Norwegian Coffee Roasting Championship. Fuglen Oslo Sentrum serves coffee in the morning and turns into a cocktail bar at night. Both bars sell pastries, focaccia and cookies from Oslo Andelsbakeri, a bakery Fuglen opened with two partners.

Solberg & Hansen, Mathallen

Solberg & Hansen was founded in 1879 by Carl Solberg and Fritjof Hansen in a grocer’s shop in what was then Christiania, and it has roasted at Ryen since 1965. It took part in the first Cup of Excellence auctions, and with the SCAE it started the World Barista Championship. The first championship, in Monte Carlo in 2000, was won by Robert W. Thoresen with Solberg & Hansen’s Half & Half espresso blend. Its concept shop in Mathallen Oslo opened on 12 October 2012 with only straight espresso and hand-brewed coffee. Hand brewing is still its specialty, now with a full espresso menu, and the baristas run coffee and tea courses and tastings there.

Supreme Roastworks, Grünerløkka

Supreme Roastworks has roasted in Oslo since 2008, and its Grünerløkka shop combines a coffee bar with a working roastery, so the espresso and pour-over are made while the roasting goes on. Co-owner Odd-Steinar won the Norwegian Brewers Cup every year from 2014 to 2017 and the World Brewers Cup in Gothenburg in 2015, with a natural Ethiopian roasted by Magnus Lindskog at Supreme. He is the only Norwegian to have won that title. The shop also sells grinders, brewers and filters.

Talormade, Bispevika

Talormade is a roastery and doughnut bakery run by Talor Browne, an Australian who worked in Melbourne’s cafés, helped open the second Coutume in Paris and came to Oslo in 2012 to work for Tim Wendelboe, where she became head roaster. In 2015, after a stage at All Day Doughnuts in Melbourne, she started doughnut pop-ups in Oslo under the name Fryd. Talormade roasts on a Loring in a former textile factory by the Akerselva, buys its green coffee through Nordic Approach and roasts for sweetness rather than to one style, so most of its coffees suit any brewer. The café in Bispevika serves the coffee with the doughnuts, made from scratch every day.

Lille Oslo Kaffebrenneri, Grünerløkka

Lille Oslo Kaffebrenneri is a small independent roastery with its café in Grünerløkka, and the roasting happens in the shop. The roasters cup the current batches on Mondays and roast on Tuesdays, in small batches with each step done by hand. Its members choose the coffees they like and how much they drink, and the roastery works out the boxes and roasts and ships every week, at one set price whatever the origin.

Kaffebrenneriet, across the city

Kaffebrenneriet opened its first coffee bar on 30 November 1994, in a former perfumery at Bislett, when Thomas Pulpan, who had moved to Oslo from San Francisco, and his partner Steinar Paulsrud could find nobody willing to rent a shop for “just coffee”. It now has coffee bars all over Oslo, from Grünerløkka, Grønland and Bjørvika to Frogner, Bislett and Sagene, with more in Akershus, Trondheim, Fredrikstad and Drammen. It roasts every day in Oslo and runs its own bakery, Kaffebakeriet, which began in 1999 in the back room of one of its coffee bars. Kaffebrenneriet has supported Cup of Excellence since 2002, with its own staff on the juries, and its shelves carry Cup of Excellence lots and coffees from its Direkte Handel programme with farmers in Colombia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Hibi Kaffe at The Little Pickle, Grünerløkka

Hibi Kaffe is the roastery Aya launched in November 2024, after moving to Norway from Japan in 2013, starting as a barista in Oslo in 2014 and working as a head roaster from 2019 to 2023. “Hibi” means “daily” in Japanese. She roasts under the same roof as The Little Pickle, a Grünerløkka restaurant, bakery and café whose bakery opened in January 2025 and serves Hibi coffee with its sourdough bread and pastries. In 2026 Hibi Kaffe was named Falstaff’s Best New Opening in Norway and came second in the Norwegian Coffee Roasting Championship.

Papegøye, Grønland

Papegøye is a café, wine bar and meeting place run by Anton Söderman and Adil Khan, with coffee at its core and a menu that is entirely plant-based. Anton has won a number of coffee competitions and coached several Norwegian champions, and in 2022 three of the five baristas on the Norwegian national coffee team came from Papegøye. The menu runs to smoothies, baked goods, salads and sandwiches, and as a wine bar it pours natural wine, cocktails, beer and sake; a recent expansion added a stage for events.

Java and Mocca, St. Hanshaugen and Briskeby

Java and Mocca are two neighbourhood coffee bars that pour KAFFA’s coffee. Robert William Thoresen opened Java in St. Hanshaugen in 1997, after working in San Francisco, and in 2000, the year he won the first World Barista Championship, he opened Mocca in Briskeby with a small roastery of its own. By its own account, Java was the first in Norway to serve cold coffee drinks, cortado, latte art and pour-over. When the roastery outgrew its corner at Mocca it became KAFFA, founded in 2005, which roasts at Ryen and won the Norwegian Coffee Roasting Championship in 2026 with its roaster Trude.

What you need to know about Oslo specialty coffee

Which Oslo coffee shops roast their own coffee? Supreme Roastworks and Lille Oslo Kaffebrenneri roast in their Grünerløkka shops, and Fuglen roasts behind the counter at Fuglen Gamlebyen. Tim Wendelboe roasts in Tøyen, Solberg & Hansen at Ryen, Talormade by the Akerselva, Kaffebrenneriet in Oslo for all its bars, and Hibi Kaffe inside The Little Pickle.

Who roasts for Java and Mocca? KAFFA, the roastery that grew out of Mocca in 2005.

Can you visit a roastery? Tim Wendelboe’s roastery and training centre in Tøyen opens by appointment and for its coffee tasting and roastery tour, which includes a cupping. Lille Oslo Kaffebrenneri roasts in the café on Tuesdays and cups on Mondays.

Where can you learn about coffee? Solberg & Hansen runs coffee and tea courses and tastings at its Mathallen shop, and Tim Wendelboe offers a coffee tasting at the espresso bar.

Where is the food? Talormade makes doughnuts, Kaffebrenneriet bakes for its bars at Kaffebakeriet, The Little Pickle serves sourdough bread and pastries with Hibi coffee, Papegøye’s menu is fully plant-based, and both Fuglen bars sell pastries, focaccia and cookies from Oslo Andelsbakeri.

Where can you drink coffee in the evening? Papegøye is also a wine bar with events on its own stage, Fuglen Oslo Sentrum turns into a cocktail bar at night, and Fuglen Gamlebyen becomes a cocktail bar late in the week, with live music, DJ sets, quizzes or food pop-ups.