A passion for coffee has always been one of the key ingredients of Arvid Nordquist H.A.B. The company started in the coffee business by importing exclusive coffee beans from the USA for its luxury food store in Stockholm, and soon had a “maple roaster” in Värtahamnen that roasted beans for sale in store. In the 1950s, Arvid Nordquist also imported vacuum-packed ground coffee from the USA under the brand Chase & Sandborn, which was then sold in the stores. Vacuum packing was a new method at the time, which gradually gained popularity in the food industry, due to its ability to keep the product fresh.

 

Arvid’s son, Bengt Nordquist, decided that the company’s coffee should be roasted in Sweden to maintain better control over its quality. In 1961, Arvid Nordquist began roasting coffee in Solna and the Classic coffee was born. And to this day Classic offers a unique quality guarantee that it is always made of 100% Arabica beans of the same origins and high quality, regardless of availability and price and regardless of where you buy our coffee. The origin and quality category are declared on the packaging and the blend is always the same, whatever the sales channel. This means that the type and quality of the beans never changes, even if the price goes up. And why? So that Classic always offers a high, consistent quality of taste.

 

The first coffee roasted in the new facility was the dark-roasted Classic Mörkrost. Production was manual, with the coffee weighed and hand-packed in tins of 250 g or 400 g.