About Single Estate Coffee Roasters
Single Estate is a modern specialty coffee roaster, with a focus on the best possible coffee.
We buy coffee directly from the farmer and work with the best baristas to create a unique and honest product. In 2007 we take our first steps on a plantation in Brazil, where we become obsessed with the endless possibilities that coffee offers and are touched by the enormous effort and love that coffee farmers around the world put into this product. Not long after that, we decided to translate their story to the coffee bar in the Netherlands. Varieties, processing methods and fire profiles determine the character of the coffees we serve.
Can you please introduce your roastery in a few short sentences?
We are a specialty coffee roaster, focussing on direct trade and sustainable specialty coffee. We started off 10 years ago together with a Brazilian coffee producer to cut out the middlemen and share our Brazilian adventures with barista’s in The Netherlands. Now, we roast our coffees in a modern Lloring and Giesen equipped roasting facility in The Netherlands, serve our coffees in our bar in The Hague and help over 150 wholesale customers to serve the best possible coffee.
What is the story behind your name and logo?
Well, obviously we like singles ????. Nothing wrong with a decent blend, but for us singles are much more interesting and suit our company’s philosophy better. Singles can’t hide, they have to be flawless.
What is the hardest part about being a roastery?
The hardest part is making sure that what you want a coffee to bring, is also in the final cup. It’s not just sourcing and roasting a great coffee, it’s more than that.
What is the one thing people still don’t get about coffee?
Coffee is a fruit. It’s not an industrialized product that’s always the same. That’s the fun part!
Which one thing do you wish you’d done differently since starting a roasting business?
We should have opened a café earlier. It’s so much fun and brings so much feedback. Really helps us a lot telling our story and finding likeminded people.
Is there a person in the industry people should know about?
The producer. Still operates in the shadow off the industry.
What’s been your biggest failure?
A $ 90 / lbp geisha that we completely f*cked up a couple of years ago, because it rested too long in our warehouse. Shame shame shame.
What are you most proud of?
Our long term relationships in Brazil and Central America, our great coffee minded team of roasters and barista’s rocking the show every day, and of course all our clients who dial in our coffee beans on a daily basis.
How will the specialty coffee market look like in 2025?
Mature I hope. SC is still a misunderstood young Rockstar, we need the market to really acknowledge the difference between specialty coffee and all that cheap, dark roasted, well-marketed coffee. We are sure that’s the only way to improve sustainability in producing countries and give coffee producers a better future.
Tell us a little bit about “The Cup” - the best cup of coffee you’ve ever tasted?
Straight up thick espresso from Brazil or Central America does it for me. I like short and creamy, supersweet espresso’s. At this moment our Anaerobic Brazil Samambaia (who would have thought; high scoring specialty coffees from Brazil right?).
