Coffee is an extremely popular beverage among Americans. So, it’s not a surprise to learn that each big cities and states have their own culture and coffee scenes.
Specialty coffee roasters in North Carolina are certainly offering a wide variety of specialty, organic and fair-trade coffees. And with the growth of local coffee shops around the state keep locals and visitors highly caffeinated.
In this article, we’ll share some of the best specialty coffee roasters in North Carolina where you can get delicious and great tasting coffees.
Have a glimpse of the coffee scene and discover the best fresh local coffee roasters in North Carolina.
1. Black and White Coffee Roasters
Black & White Coffee Roasters was founded by U.S. Barista Champions Kyle Ramage and Lem Butler in 2017. While they believe that coffee should be kept simple, Black & White Coffee still focuses on service, community and excellence.
Over a decade of hard work and dedication to understanding the importance of every actor in the coffee value chain, this company has transformed to a sustainable community across the entire coffee value chain.
When it comes to their products, they offer a wide variety of single-origin roasts that showcase each coffee’s unique quality and honor the extremely difficult work of cultivation.
Also, their improved coffee quality comes from over a decade of studying coffee processing first hand from coffee producers all over the world.
In the end, what makes Black and White Coffee Roasters different from others is that they value quality relationships. They have built this company to create opportunities for coffee professionals to expand their careers and make specialty coffee more approachable to the masses.
Location: Raleigh, NC
Whole or Ground: Whole Bean Coffee
Price Range: $14 – $55
Website: BlackwhiteRoasters.com
2. Blackbeard Coffee Roasters
Blackbeard Coffee Roasters is a small batch coffee roaster, equipment sales, and specialty coffee shop and cafe in Eastern North Carolina. It started as a small-batch roastery and has now specialize in single-origin roasts.
Blackbeard Coffee sources the best green coffee beans from around the world and hand roast them to perfection. They strive to balance both the art and science behind the perfect roast and produce the freshest coffee in town.
They seem to be a great place to buy coffee because they’re doing an excellent job at roasting the beans. Owner and head roaster, Matt Sterling, stays late at night to perfect each roast of their different origins and blends. They also roast each batch of your beloved coffee to maximize freshness.
To this day, Blackbeard also remains the go to coffee shop in Greenville that provides excellent service and great selection of quality coffees.
Location: Greenville, NC
Whole or Ground: Both
Price Range: $14 – $24
Website: BlackbeardRoasters.com
3. Counter Culture Coffee
Counter Culture Coffee makes the best specialty roaster in North Carolina. It was founded in Durham, NC by Brett Smith and Fred Houk in 1995.
The company started small, roasting custom coffee blends for some restaurants. In the same year, they sold their first coffee to Pop’s Restaurant in Durham. And it was their first step that transformed Counter Culture Coffee to a well-known coffee company today.
What makes Counter Culture different is they take a unique approach to buying coffee. This means they don’t only just offer products and services, but they also share information alongside with their values of quality, sustainability and education.
With that being said, we can now see Counter Culture Coffee as a sustainable and environmental enterprise. They promote and value transparency, from building relationships to sharing their discoveries with customers, supply chain partners, etc.
Location: Durham, NC
Whole or Ground: Both
Price Range: $15 – $95
Website: CounterCultureCoffee.com
4. Cumberland Coffee Roasters
Cumberland Coffee is one of the best coffee roasters and coffee shops in Cumberland County. And since 2011, they’re always aiming to bring high quality fresh roasted coffees to Cumberland County, NC and surrounding areas.
Cumberland Coffee Roasters is also a coffee shop that roasts their own beans. This provides a way to truly enjoy the richness in flavor and aroma that all great cups of coffee have.
Cumberland Coffee believe that the complex flavors that coffee has to offer don’t settle for just any coffee. That is why they provide quality roasts at reasonable price points. They know the importance of brewing freshly roasted coffee, so their coffees are guaranteed to be fresh roasted within one week from the date you place the order.
You can purchase freshly roasted coffee beans including their own Cumberland’s Blend. You can also buy their popular daily roasted coffee beans. They offer some of Fayetteville’s best blends. They also have specialty lattes, frappes, specialty smoothies and hot chocolate.
Today, Cumberland Coffee aim to bring coffee shop quality in the entire country. And it seems becoming a reality as they proudly serve fantastic coffee with a friendly service and great atmosphere.
Location: Cumberland County, NC
Whole or Ground: Whole Bean Coffee
Price Range: $– — —
Website: CumberlandCoffeeRoasters.com
5. Caballo Rojo Coffee
Caballo Rojo Coffee is a Latina owned and a growing specialty coffee roasting company in Durham, NC. This company focuses on creating quality coffee while having a positive impact on community.
Gabriela Kavanaugh started Caballo Rojo when she was still in college as a means of telling the story of individual farmers who are part of the coffee production. From selling off at Bulldega, an urban market in downtown, now this company is growing and have been welcomed into the Durham community with open arms.
Caballo Rojo is deeply rooted in Gabi’s Latin American heritage. So, they started outsourcing green coffee beans from importing companies like, Caravela and Ally Coffee, who work directly with farmers. They roast the beans out of the Oak House on W. Main St, Durham, NC.
What makes Caballo Rojo different is that they believe that each decision they make as a company should be founded in the idea that every life has infinite value.
Having that said, Caballo Rojo Coffee is dedicated to making a difference. They’re planning to continue and build direct trade relationships, become an integral part of their community, and give an ever-increasing percentage of their income to charities.
Location: Durham, NC
Whole or Ground: Whole Bean Coffee
Price Range: $13 – $17
Website: CaballoRojoCoffee.com
6. Dilworth Coffee
Dilworth Coffee is one of the best specialty coffee roasters in North Carolina. They have spent years of visiting countless corners of the globe to find the best and fine coffee beans out there.
This company supports fair trade, and they share a mission with others to give back to areas in need, in particular, countries and communities where they get their beans.
They source their beans from all the places where good beans are grown. So, whether you’re looking for a big-bodied Sumatra coffee, the flavor diversity in beans from Africa, or a milder Latin American bean, they’ve got you covered.
They take great pride in roasting small batches – just enough for a day or two – to ensure the proper roast by bean and guaranteed freshness.
Their coffees seem expensive but taste great. While some roasters use less expensive beans and cover them with flavor to mask the lower quality, their flavored coffees are a specialty. They use high quality beans and add flavoring extracts after roasting to create delicious, interesting, and memorable flavors time and again.
All coffee shipped from their Raleigh, NC roasting facility is Kosher-certified by AKC. And to ensure quality, they do not process any other food products in their Raleigh, NC roasting facilities.
Location: Raleigh, NC
Whole or Ground: Both
Price Range: $13.95
Website: DilworthCoffee.com
7. Dynamite Roasting
Dynamite roasting started as a small-batch roastery in the fall of 2008. Josh Gibbs and Andy Gibbon found a small batch roaster on ebay, and filled the Asheville area’s lack of a specialty coffee scene.
Josh and Andy worked together and made this business possible. With Andy’s experience in roasting his own coffee, together with Josh’s background in marketing, it seems easy for them to makes this company a success.
While Dynamite Roasting aim to track down the best coffee in the world, they have been 100% certified organic and fair trade since day one. And to drive social change in the communities where their coffee is grown, they still strive to go beyond that.
Having that said, they value relationships. They are committed to their customers, growers, environment and to each other.
In the end, what makes Dynamite Roasting different is that they focus on serving their immediate community, as well as other dedicated customers. This allows them to roast in small batches, ensuring Dynamite Coffee is always fresh, from farm to cup.
Location: Asheville, NC
Whole or Ground: Both
Price Range: $12.95 – $14.95
Website: DynamiteRoasting.com
8. Little Waves Coffee
Little Waves Coffee Roasters is a small and independently owned and operated specialty roaster in Durham, North Carolina. It is a Latina co-owned and women forward business.
They make it their mission to source the highest quality coffees that make the deepest impact. With that said, they source their quality beans from coffee producers around the world with whom they have built sustained relationships.
They roast the beans on a Loring S15 Falcon at their location in the Lakewood neighborhood in Durham, NC.
What makes them interesting is that they name their roasts and drinks after places that inspire wonder, have cultural significance, and after people and places that they love.
Their roastery & cafes specialize in quality products and heart-driven service. Little Waves Coffee Roasters is an impact-driven group of thinkers from different cultures, genders, languages, faiths, and beliefs. Dreamers, and doers who delight in the enduring power of coffee as a shared experience.
Location: Durham, NC
Whole or Ground: Both
Price Range: $17 – $30+
Website: LittleWaves.Coffee
9. Muddy Dog Coffee
Muddy Dog Coffee is a small-batch, artisan coffee roaster located in Morrisville, North Carolina. Jim Pellegrini, the owner of this company, purchased a building in Morrisville and started exploring coffees to source in the late 2006.
They work hard to source the best green coffee available, directly from the growers themselves. They get their coffee from about 20 different countries, across a handful of continents. Some of them are sourced from Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya and some parts of Asia.
They have an extreme focus on quality, freshness and customer service. Whether you want to enjoy the nuances of an exquisite single-origin estate coffee, or you prefer the unique character of a special blend, they have a coffee that’s guaranteed to satisfy your cravings.
Their coffee is available for purchase at their roastery, website, and at the Western Wake Farmers Market. In the end, they pride themselves on freshness, therefore, have chosen not to sell their coffee in grocery stores, where it is likely to sit too long on the shelves and lose quality.
Location: Morrisville, NC
Whole or Ground: Both
Price Range: $9 – $16.20
Website: MuddydogCoffee.com
10. Sospeso Coffee Roasters
Sospeso Coffee Roasters is one of the most popular specialty roasters located in historic downtown Waxhaw, NC. Kyle and Janet Baker, owners of this company, spent time creating and developing a roasting company from a simple hoppy.
Sospeso Coffee started in 1997 with a very early Sivetz sample roaster. Today, they have developed a passion for crafting specialty coffees that has deepened and expanded since that first experience.
While they specialize in roasting specialty single origin coffee, they are also passionate about coffee and community. Sospeso Coffee came from the idea of combining a dedication for great specialty coffee with a passion for community.
They pride themselves in sourcing outstanding, single origin and estate grown specialty coffees from all over the world. Their coffees are chosen on the basis of their unique flavor and character — which are a direct reflection of the coffee’s varietal, growing environment, and care in cultivation and processing.
They then carefully develop roasting profiles that fully express the unique flavors, aromas and body found naturally in coffee, while avoiding flavor associated with the roast.
Location: Waxhaw, NC
Whole or Ground: Both
Price Range: $13 – $24
Website: SospesoCoffee.com
Wrapping it Up!
While coffee culture in North Carolina isn’t as big as in San Francisco or New York, this state still seems to host many local and independent coffee roasters that you haven’t heard before.
I’m pretty sure I missed some good and worth mentioning specialty roasters in this area. There’s a wide range of coffee roasters in North Carolina, and I’m sure you will get to find a great coffee that matches your taste.
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