Roasting coffee beans is easy. You just need a metal pan and fire.
Roasting coffee beans well is slightly harder. You need to pay close attention.
Roasting coffee beans excellently and consistently is both art, talent and science. It requires great skills and experience.
When you roast the coffee beans, the Maillard reaction creates a multitude of chemical compounds from around 145 C and caramelizes sugars present in the bean.
Roasting specialty coffee beans is on another level because they are of higher quality and you are trying to highlight, enhance or bring out certain flavors and tones that make that particular (micro)lot or harvest shine. Do it once and that’s luck. Do it twice and you are good! Do it more than twice and you are a true artist.
In light of celebrating those true coffee artisans and artists out there, here is my highly subjective list of the best coffee bean roasters in the Netherlands:
In alphabetical order:
- Black and Bloom, Groningen
- Blommers, Nijmegen
- Capriole, Den Haag
- Dagger Coffee, Utrecht
- Dak Coffee Roasters, Amsterdam
- Giraffe Coffee Roasters, Rotterdam
- Keen, Utrecht
- Lot61, Amsterdam
- Man met bril, Rotterdam
- Manhattan Coffee Roasters, Rotterdam
- Single Estate, Den Haag
- The Village, Utrecht
- Ripsnorter, Rotterdam
- Un.common AMS, Amsterdam
Why are they the best? Because they procure excellent beans. They roast to order so you get fresh beans every time. They are also able to create a roast profile that brings out the best of the particular bean.
They make great every day blends that are always outstanding, but also produce time-limited special editions of simply brilliant and out-of-this-world (micro)lots from somewhere special that just blow your mind.
Drinking those is more like enjoying a fabulous bottle of wine than drinking coffee…
Update April 2025: added Blommers, Dak, The Village, Keen
No Pressure Coffee 