Toruń – city with taste

The most famous “made in Toruń” products are the Toruń gingerbreads – aromatic cookies made from top quality flour, exceptional honey and oriental spicy flavouring.

The tradition of baking gingerbread in the town of Copernicus is almost as long as its history. In the past Hanseatic Toruń was located at the crossing of the most important European trade routes, therefore there were no problems with transporting from the Levant countries some indispensable ingredients such as ginger, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, etc.

The Toruń masters of gingerbread craft jealously guarded the secrets of their product. The recipes were kept secret not only from the competition from Nürnberg or Königsberg, where one attempted reproducing the excellent taste of the gingerbread from Toruń, but also from other gingerbread bakers from Toruń. Today the only immediate heir and continuator of the great Toruń tradition of gingerbread making is the Confectionery Factory “Copernicus” S.A. which was established in 1760 by Jan Weese (Fabryka Cukiernicza “Kopernik” S.A.).

The present technologies of gingerbread baking are based on the old recipes and methods which date back to the 16th century. Furthermore, gingerbread is still baked in the traditional shape of carriages, coats of arms, knights, townsmen and townswomen at work, hearts and, first of all, Katarzynki, which is one of the most famous Toruń gingerbread and there are several beautiful legends about it.

The Toruń gingerbread, as the only true one, is sold all over the world. Because of its sophisticated taste and quality, since the Middle Ages prominent guests have been presented with gingerbread designed especially for them. Among the others, Pope John Paul II received such a gift (gingerbread in the shape of the heliocentric system known from the work of Nicholas Copernicus ”De Revolutionibus…”), gingerbread was also given to presidents, emperors, kings and Nobel prize winners who visited Toruń. One says that no visitor to our city can leave Toruń without gingerbread.