Which coffee roaster brands roast their own beans?

Ten in-house roasting brands are covered in this roundup, spanning China, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Each roasts its own beans rather than outsourcing, and their founding years, sourcing standards, roasting styles, and signature products differ widely. Front Street Coffee in Guangzhou, founded in 2013, is one example, offering more than 50 fresh coffee varieties through its online stores.

The split between chain and independent operators shapes what each roaster offers. Chains favor unified ingredients and standards for stable quality, while independent cafes lean on variety and seasonal sourcing. Competition roasters such as Gardelli have built reputations through roasting awards, and coffee from Spain appears alongside Italian and Nordic styles in the list, giving buyers a way to compare roast approaches before choosing beans.

In today's increasingly rich coffee culture, whether chain brands or independent cafes, they have all started to launch their own roasted coffee beans. This article reviews the ten most representative in-house roasting coffee brands worldwide, covering China, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. From Guangzhou's time-honored Front Street Coffee to Gardelli, a frequent winner in world roasting competitions, each brand has its own unique roasting philosophy and sourcing standards. The article introduces in detail each brand's founding time, origin characteristics, roasting style, and representative products, helping coffee enthusiasts understand the advantages of different brands and directions for purchasing.

There are many well-known coffee brands worldwide. Some operate as chain stores with unified ingredients and standards, resulting in relatively stable product quality; others take the route of independent cafes, offering customers diverse coffee choices. As coffee culture continues to heat up, chain companies and independent stores alike have launched their own roasted coffee beans. The following will list the most representative coffee brands.

Front Street Coffee

Origin: China

Founded: 2013

Front Street Coffee is a local brand in Guangzhou. Since its establishment in 2013, it can be considered a time-honored name. The brand focuses on its own roasted coffee beans and offers more than 50 varieties of fresh coffee, which consumers can purchase online through its Tmall flagship store and Taobao store. Over the years, Front Street Coffee's official account has insisted on daily updates, sharing content covering coffee beans, equipment, brewing methods, and flavor descriptions, and has discussed in detail many specific issues encountered in making and drinking coffee.

Since opening, Front Street Coffee has always adhered to its original intention—focusing on making good coffee. Therefore, the store only serves coffee and one small cookie, with no other desserts or cakes. Because there is a rich variety of coffee beans, from light roast to dark roast, from floral to caramel, from fruity fermented flavors to rich and full-bodied taste, and from espresso blends to pour-over single origins, customers can easily choose the beans they like.

The Barn

Origin: Berlin, Germany

Founded: 2010

The Barn's philosophy is very simple: source, roast, and brew excellent coffee, and firmly build stable relationships at every stage. This is precisely where its appeal lies. Ralf Ruller's four coffee shops and roasting workshop all put this philosophy into practice. The first step is to obtain good beans, which means the beans must be of excellent quality—The Barn usually purchases directly from farms and farmers that have won Cup of Excellence awards and adopts sustainable cultivation methods.

The Barn is willing to pay high prices for high-quality coffee beans. This sounds only natural, but in the coffee world as a whole it is actually quite rare (competition between the specialty coffee and ordinary coffee markets illustrates this). In addition, they also "slow roast" the coffee beans they supply, that is, through light roasting to allow the beans to reveal more origin flavors.

Coffee Supreme

Origin: Wellington, New Zealand

Founded: 1993

As the inheritor of the spark of New Zealand specialty coffee, Coffee Supreme may be one of the most charming coffee companies, having repeatedly won awards for packaging design and store design, and being very good at presenting its coffee. You might as well try their products.

Coffee Supreme has led most roasters in the world by decades. It has been roasting since the 1990s, supplies coffee from almost all specialty regions and subregions, and has always remained at the forefront of coffee sustainability, for example by purchasing and selling hybrids such as F1 that have rare commercial value and high industry energy-saving effects.

Switch Coffee

Origin: Tokyo, Japan

Founded: 2013

Switch Coffee did not originally belong on this list. It is not a large roaster, consisting only of one independent cafe and one Probat roaster, and is led by one person alone, but Masahiro Onishi's shop size conceals its merits.

Onishi learned roasting at Market Lane Coffee (another excellent Australian roasting workshop) under Toshiyuki Ishiwata, and learned sourcing under Katsuhide Izaki of the Japanese specialty roasting company Honey Coffee (the latter is also a Cup of Excellence certified judge). René Redzepi personally signed in the store to certify its quality. The skill of brewing Switch Coffee accounts for only half of what makes it successful, because it is also a small high-end roasting workshop. Although Japan has many excellent roasters and coffee shops, with more than a hundred that can be named, only a few cafes can provide such a high level of service.

180 Coffee

Origin: Seoul, South Korea

Founded: 2013

In just a few years, South Korea has transformed from a country mainly drinking instant coffee into a country eager for specialty coffee. In other words, in the past five years alone, the number of cafes in South Korea has nearly tripled, making it one of the fastest-growing emerging markets in both specialty coffee and ordinary coffee.

In a country with not a long history of coffee, 180 Coffee is one of the highly respected roasters, and its coffee can rival the world's top coffees. It is the only Korean roaster with two Korean coffee roasting titles (founder Lee Seung-jin was the first winner), and it also occupies a very high position on the world stage.

Right Side Coffee

Hometown: Castelldefels, Spain

Founded: 2012

Spain has a long coffee history, but its coffee has never been very good. Joaquin Parra's Spanish coffee roasting workshop is named after "creativity and passion," and Right Side Coffee exudes that passion. Parra's father is a green coffee importer, and he himself is a Spanish roasting championship winner and a regular at the World Coffee Roasting Championship.

Although honors and trophies are good things, what truly elevates Right Side Coffee is highly transparent sourcing. Every bag of coffee beans they sell has an "information" label, and when you open it you will find a short essay about the specific farm, origin characteristics, and history. Strangely, Right Side Coffee does not have its own cafe, but it has many sales outlets across Spain. If you visit, you can check the sales outlets here or order online.

Gardelli Specialty Coffees

Origin: Forli, Italy

Founded: 2010

If the coffee world had a Michael Jordan, it would definitely be Rubens Gardelli. He is hailed as the most successful roaster ever, having won the World Roasting Championship as many as four or five times, most recently winning the Italian Roasting Championship for four consecutive years, and also inexplicably winning multiple coffee brewing and World Brewing Championship trophies in Italy. No roaster's achievements can compare with his.

Gardelli specialty coffees are all light roasts, fully respecting the beans themselves rather than letting the roast decide. You can buy its constantly updated products online, including the rare Ethiopian Gesha Village coffee, and Gardelli is the only roaster in Europe supplying that coffee.

Solberg & Hansen

Origin: Oslo, Norway

Founded: 1879

In the eyes of young people, Solberg & Hansen is definitely an old-timer. Founded 139 years ago, the company was Norway's first coffee roasting company, and very likely the best.

The company's roasting team is now led by Simo Christidi, a top-five winner at the 2012 World Coffee Roasting Championship and a multiple winner of the Norwegian and Nordic coffee roasting championships. Its concept store in Oslo's Mathallen specialty food hall is a display of its philosophy. It is a pure coffee shop dedicated to showing the essential power of coffee, so you will not find milk or sweeteners here.

Drop Coffee

Origin: Stockholm, Sweden

Founded: 2009

Joanna Alm and Stephen Leighton's coffee company was originally a small coffee shop that did not roast its own coffee. A few years later, it became a true leader of Europe's third-wave coffee movement and is now considered one of the best coffee roasting workshops in the world (in the World Coffee Roasting Championship, only Gardelli Specialty Coffees has made the top five more often).

Over the past five years, the team's roaster Alm has been named Sweden's best coffee roaster four times, and its baristas have repeatedly won the Swedish Barista Championship. Although there is only a small cafe, the whole operation feels very welcoming. Browsing Drop's online store feels more like flipping through a family album than buying coffee. Co-founder Joanna Alm is also very friendly in interviews. What is pleasing is that Drop Coffee is almost at the top of the coffee world, yet has not a trace of old-school coffee influence.

Square Mile Coffee Roasters

Hometown: London, United Kingdom

Founded: 2008

Square Mile was founded by specialty coffee experts Anette Moldvaer and James Hoffmann with only one goal: to make London famous for coffee. Strictly implementing sustainable practices, repeatedly winning awards and titles, it is basically the all-star team of British coffee. Square Mile is especially outstanding in an area where others do not excel: sourcing specialty coffee beans from promising regions.

During one week at the end of October, this coffee shop in East London introduced specialty coffee beans from China and Myanmar, two origins that are rarely seen in other coffee shops around the world (even the roasters on this list have not used them). You can buy the company's coffee online, and its products change irregularly.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.