Each of the best coffee roasters in London use their own coffee roasting methods and approach when it comes to coffee roasting procedures and Technics.
Coffee roasting is the process of heating the coffee cherry seeds to change or bring out the aroma and flavor and, ultimately, increase solubility.
Solubility is the essential element of coffee brewing
The rate of solubility of compounds in a specific roast is the key to achieving the right extraction through temperature, time and grind size.
In order to get to solubility, coffee is roasted, typically in a commercial roaster. However, coffee can also be roasted in a popcorn popper or a cast iron pan.
What happens when coffee is roasted?
All coffee beans will go through five stages of roast.
These stages of roast profile occur along a temperature spectrum that will be unique to each of the beans by varietal, region, and altitude. The following are the usual stages of roast:
- Drying or Yellowing: a crucial phase, this will determine the overall batch time. It is driven by the initial moisture content of the beans and sets the foundation for all of the other stages, indicative of how hard or soft, fast or slow your roast is driven into the rest of the stages.
- Maillard Reaction: is the first “browning” of the coffee. This reaction is the catalyst for the formation of many of the 1,000 volatile chemical compounds that are created during the coffee roasting process. These compounds are easily evaporated in the air, and therefore contribute to the aroma of coffee. This process is most closely associated with the aroma of baking bread, as well.
- First Crack: while the early roasting phase is all about heat acting upon the coffee bean from the outside in, “first crack” is the initial part where pressure from moisture evaporation and heat has built up inside the bean and begins to break the bean down from the inside out. It is an audible sound, like popcorn popping. However, it usually produces no cracks or explosions.
- Second Crack: darker roasted coffee will sometimes be roasted through a second crack, which is nearing the full breakdown of the coffee.
- Carbonization: full breakdown. Fire hazard.
Now that you know a little about the coffee roasting process, here are some of the best coffee roasters in London area to get a taste of…
Best coffee roasters in London in 2022
Elsewhere Coffee Roaster
Elsewhere Coffee, located in Deptford, is an artisan, small-batch roastery.
They produce a range of high-quality single origin coffees, as well as their popular house blend.
Elsewhere Coffee roasters accomplishes this by working directly with farmers and importers.
This ensures that they get a fair price for their fantastic coffee. It also gives Elsewhere complete transparency of the whole supply chain, from the planting of coffee trees to roasting, grinding and posting it fresh to the customers.
Workshop Coffee Roasters
‘Clean, sweet and fresh’ is the guiding principle behind every batch of every coffee produced by Workshop Coffee.
This means sourcing coffee from growers who pay close attention to all stages of harvest and processing.
But they also note that they hold a responsibility to ensure that coffee roasting is always consistent.
Careful – they strive to keep their roasting transparent, as merely a process by which we unlock the coffee’s potential.
Consistent – through a combination of roasting intelligence software, strict quality control and a healthy dose of honesty, Workshop works to ensure every bag of coffee is up to standard.
Considered – even when coffee passes all in-roasting quality checks, there is still an evaluation of every single batch by taste, on three separate occasions. Just to make sure.
Watch House Coffee Roasters
With an aspiration to be the local hero of choice, Watch House Coffee roasters takes a holistic approach to recognizing what makes a local cafe so special;
excellent coffee, considered spaces, quality food and most importantly the people involved every step of the way. With attention to detail, creativity, and a focus on provenance, they strive to bring the very best in coffee and more both in their Houses and online.
When buying green coffee, they consider exceptional standards of quality and flavour, whilst being mindful that selections ensure a positive impact on the socioeconomic and environmental circumstances of farmers and producers.
Working with importers who share the same global trading ideology, and while considering a wide range of coffees that meet our expectations of taste, their decisions are ultimately guided by the wider-reaching impact.
Kiss the Hippo Coffee
Kiss the Hippo aims to showcase the provenance of each lot and the skills of its producers.
Each coffee roast is individually profiled to enhance the unique qualities that result from its origin, cultivar, terroir, and processing. They use the Loring Smart Roaster, which provides up to 80% fuel-savings and reduction of greenhouse gases in every roast compared to conventional roasters. Every batch of roasted coffee goes through our rigorous QC protocol to ensure it meets their high standards. Not to mention that they are continuously looking at ways in which we can improve and learn.
The Gentlemen Baristas Coffee Roasters
Gentlemen Baristas take coffee roasting coffee very seriously.
Along with using a high-grade roaster, the roaster’s Head of Production is tremendously knowledgeable and hugely experienced. Roosa Jalonen is a qualified Q Grader and organises weekly cuppings to make sure every batch is up to our usual high standards.
They roast-to-order and in small batches so you always know your beans are roasted fresh and delivered direct from the roastery via first class Royal Mail as standard.
Caravan Coffee Roasters
After years of growing the business, Caravan Coffee can now boast that they can now accommodate their customers in their tasting room or on their website.
One thing that hasn’t changed for their customers? They still want a great cup of coffee.
Together, their Green Coffee Buyer (Paul Allen) and Lead Roaster (Austin Friedrich) collectively hold 20+ years’ experience in coffee buying and coffee roasting with certifications from the Coffee Quality Institute, Roasters Guild and Specialty Coffee Association.
Kaffeine Coffee Roasters
Founded in August 2009, and now with two stores in Fitzrovia, Kaffeine is recognised as one of the leading cafes in the UK for its high standards in service, food, coffee and decor.
Inspired by the cafe life so prevalent in Australia and New Zealand, it is a cafe that prides itself on excellent, professionally made espresso coffee and loose-leaf teas, their seasonal, fresh food and baked items, and service standards that are based on genuine hospitality. Visit them at either 66 Great Titchfield Street, or 15 Eastcastle Street to discover it for yourself.
Square Mile Coffee Roasters
A multi-award-winning coffee roasting company, Square Mile Coffee Roasters was founded in 2008 by speciality coffee pioneers, Anette Moldvaer and James Hoffmann.
Synonymous with London coffee culture, they’ve grown to be a dynamic team of 27 talented coffee professionals, all sharing a wealth of experience and passion for what they do.
Focused on wholesale, they choose to work with, train and support like-minded businesses wishing to serve their mindfully sourced and skillfully roasted coffee to the best of their ability.
They’re on a mission to continually evolve, measuring their impact and looking for better solutions to everyday tasks. By working together and supporting their partners across the supply chain, they strengthen relationships, build expertise and contribute towards placing London speciality coffee & culture on the map. Their pride is the exceptional quality coffee that they source, buy, import, roast, and deliver internationally.
Assembly Coffee Roasters
In the summer of 2014, we began by calling together cafes and restaurants in the UK to help define what we could do as coffee roasters to genuinely be different.
Six months of listening and meticulous planning later we emerged with our vision to source and roast the highest quality specialty coffees in the world while also being a coffee roastery that would, first and foremost, maintain a customer perspective and be dynamic, innovative and responsive in the way it works with its wholesale partners.
We would go on together to create our packaging, coffee illustrations, our coffee catalogue, insight reports and much more through collaborative working and with the shared aim of creating innovative solutions to industry challenges.Here we roast some of the world’s highest quality coffees using precise coffee roasting methods and offer them via our shop or via our wholesale partners in some of the best cafes and restaurants here in the UK and around the world.Now Assembly can boast that they are an award-winning coffee roastery founded in 2015 and based in Brixton London.
Scarlett Coffee Roasters
Scarlett Coffee is a boutique coffee roastery nestled away in the boundary between Angel and Islington.
Their name comes from the brilliant red colour of fully ripened coffee cherries, and the famous, elusive Ibis Scarlet.
All our coffees are single origin and sourced from some of the finest growers across the globe. We roast to highlight and emphasise the full and unique character that every coffee bean has to offer, showcasing the farmers’ hard work in all its delicious glory.
Despite the popular opinion among our regulars, it is not a flamingo. The Scarlet Ibis is a species of Ibis in the bird family Threskiornithidae. It inhabits tropical South America and part of the Caribbean. In form, it resembles most of the other twenty-seven extant species of Ibis, but its remarkably brilliant scarlet colouration makes it unmistakable.
Best coffee roasters in London: My Conclusion
This is a list of one of the best specialty coffee roasters in London, i hope you will find time to visits these place and let me know what you think about them.
Do not forget to check my new coffee subsciption which is the first in its kind.
I am an Italian coffee lover that pushed for the love of this “amazing drug” decided to come to London to study about coffee and its different extraction procedures and tastes.
