2020 Roaster of the Year Finalist / Micro Roasters

We're honored to be one of the 3 finalists for Roast magazine's, 2020 Micro Roaster of the Year. The Roaster of the Year awards were created to "recognize companies that roast coffees of superior quality, exemplify a dedication to sustainability, promote employee and community education, and demonstrate a strong commitment to the coffee industry, among other criteria."

We started roasting in October of 2013 as a natural outgrowth of our cafe business, which began in 2000. Spyhouse employs five people full-time in the roasting department (with a total of just under 50 employees within retail, management, and support roles). In the past year, we roasted 94,000 pounds of coffee for each of our cafes, online retail, and for our wholesale accounts. 

Left: Las Lajas, Costa Rica | Right: Tony Querio, Director of Coffee

Within our coffee program, we purchase Fair Trade and Organic certified coffees where the opportunity is available and fitting. Our list of offerings always includes at least one Fair Trade and Organic option for our customers. When visiting our producer relationships, we encourage them to increase their sustainability efforts based on the successes we have seen on other farms.

To help fund quality coffee production while improving the livelihoods of producer families, we contribute a portion of all green coffee purchased to World Coffee Research. In this same spirit, we created Mujeres Unidas, a new year-round offering sourced exclusively from women coffee farmers. These producer groups have been selected from a list of associations by Café Imports. It is a valuable program they have created to help pay members a gender-equity premium on top of the quality-based initial price for their coffees. 

Picking coffee cherries

Our coffee is packaged in BioTrē 2.0 bags, which are made from one-hundred percent renewable content and is 60% compostable. We are working with BioTrē in prototyping their newest iteration, which will be 100% compostable. Our goal is to use the most sustainable packaging material available to properly protect the coffee. 

Spyhouse's mission is to cultivate relationships with those that share our passion and vision, so that we are able to source, roast, and serve exceptional coffees—passionate people make great coffee.

Thank you to Roast magazine and congrats to the other amazing finalists, Greater Goods Coffee Roasters and Mostra Coffee!