Americans love to drink coffee. And coffee as being one of the most widely consumed beverages in the United States, people are addicted to getting a cup from their favorite shops and cafes, or a bag of beans from their well-liked roasteries.
Today, in no particular order, we’re going to list and review some of the best specialty coffee roasters in the state of Colorado. While Colorado’s coffee scene started its growth slowly, it is now one of the major places that has the best coffee cities you haven’t heard of.
From Colorado Springs to Denver, there are many great cafes and high-altitude roasters where you can find excellent coffees. Some of those coffee roasters grew to be known for their unique offerings as well.
1. White Tale Coffee
White Tale Coffee is a well-known specialty coffee roaster in Denver, Colorado that offers premium coffee and personalized subscription. White Tale was founded by Nico Anzellini and Tomás Gutiérrez in 2016, with a goal to help people improve their coffee by sourcing and roasting premium single-origins from around the world.
What makes White Tale Coffee distinctive is that they are devoted to search for the most ethically sourced coffee that are worth paying for. They always take the immense responsibly to source beans from around the world and roast them fresh for their customers.
The secret behind the perfect cup lies within unique combination of landscape, climate, and soil properties. Each green coffee variety they source are grown from a healthy ecosystem in different regions. And when it comes to roasting, they roast their coffee in small batches at to ensure freshness and perfect timing for each shipment. Not to mention their skilled head roaster that carefully roasting the beans to bring out the best qualities from it.
Coffee to Try
White Tale offers premium single-origin coffee with individual bags delivered at your doorstep. You can buy one through their e-commerce subscription platform website.
While most coffee in grocery stores have been sitting on shelves for months after being roasted, White Tale makes sure that their coffee is roasted and sent directly to you within 2-14 days. This is the best time frame to maximize the full potential of coffee.
If you want your coffee experience to be totally satisfying, then you should try their best-selling CHIUTA COFFEE. This coffee is carefully hand-picked to ensure it is capable of creating the perfect cup. It has flavor notes of chocolate, black tea, and brown sugar.
2. Switchback Coffee Roasters
Switchback Coffee Roasters is a Colorado-based specialty coffee roaster that offers excellent coffee for everyone. The company started in a garage in 2010, by a couple of friends with a passion to share exceptional specialty coffee with the city of Colorado Springs. They started roasting with a small-capacity Sivetz roaster and now operating both a coffee roastery and a cafe located in the city.
What makes Switchback special is that they always make their coffees accessible to everyone. That’s why they value relationships with everyone that they work with. Also, they always bring in new and exciting coffees for their costumers to try.
Switchback focus on quality, sustainability and transparency to make sure they’re offering deliciously sweet, vibrant and complex coffees for everyone to enjoy. When it comes to sourcing, they work with the best coffee producers and importers in the world to source the best quality green coffee. And when it comes to roasting, they roast the beans with care and attention to highlight the flavors that are naturally inherent in the coffees they get.
Coffee to Try
I noticed that they offer single origins and a couple of excellent blends. According to them, these coffees might present an incredible expression of terroir, and have unusual or exciting flavors.
I want to recommend their Rwanda Cyimbili Coffee, sourced from the Cyimbili Coffee Plantation in Rwanda. This coffee was processed via anaerobic fermentation, giving a rich fruity profile and delicious acidity of a tangerine and hazelnut. You can also taste the notes of chocolate with a velvety body. For more info about this coffee, just go over to their website!
3. High Rise Coffee Roasters
High Rise Coffee Roasters is a family owned and operated specialty micro-roaster that offers a vast selection of high quality and freshly roasted beans. They are located in the historic ‘Old Colorado’ shopping district of Colorado Springs and been roasting beans since 1995.
High Rise Coffee is considered as a small batch roaster. But what makes them different from other brands is that they deliver a more diverse variety of specialty coffees. They have over 30 different varietals on hand at all times.
Their coffees are sourced from importers that preserve a close and direct-relationship with farmers. So, it seems you’re getting quality from them, as I agree that a great flavor begins at the farm level. When it comes to roasting, they are more focused on small batch drum-roasting. This approach seems the best way to roast coffee as this allows them to carefully monitor and pay attention to the entire roasting process.
Coffee to Try
High Rise Coffee Roasters is surely the best place to buy locally roasted coffee beans in Colorado. They have a great selection and are very careful and conscientious
Their huge variety of coffee are always fresh and sold at fair prices. From their website, you can buy high quality coffees that are roasted to perfection and have them instantly delivered to you.
If you’re into dark roasts, I recommend to taste their French Roast. This is an excelent blend of Organic Ugandan Bugisu beans and Brazil’s Cerrado coffee beans that make up their darkest roast. This coffee has hints of nuts and chocolate that complement the rich, deep and bold flavors of this blend.
4. Sweet Bloom Coffee
Sweet Bloom Coffee is a renowned Colorado specialty coffee roastery that offers exceptional, freshly roasted coffee. This company was founded by Andy Sprenger in 2013 Lakewood, Colorado with the ambition to start a new chapter in his coffee career.
With years of experience in the specialty coffee industry, Andy started Sweet Bloom as a small roastery and cafe, and grown into a well-known company in the country. What makes them more exceptional is their dedication and responsibility for their craft, producers, and costumers. Indeed, they’re a team of good people who are passionate about what they do.
Sweet Bloom Coffee care deeply about two things (which they call “blooms”); from the producers to precision roasting. They source their coffee directly from producers to obtain great coffee and good relationship. And when it comes to roasting, they have a roasting facility where they roast their coffee with care and precision to highlight the best out of it.
Coffee to Try
Sweet Bloom Coffee offers a few but premium variety of coffee. They are more focused to providing quality-forward single-origin coffees to some prominent cafés throughout the United States.
But if you are looking for a coffee to try, I recommend this coffee sourced from the western province of Rwanda, Nyamasheke Gitwe. It seems coffees from nearby Rwanda and Burundi are being more acknowledged these days due to their unique offerings. Anyways, this coffee provides a pronounced assam tea note that plays nicely with hints of mission fig, honeycrisp, and dark honey.
5. Pangea Coffee Roasters
Pangea Coffee Roasters is a locally owned, small batch coffee roaster in Golden, Colorado that brings and roast coffees from all over the world.
Pangea Coffee was founded by couple Matt Kurgan and Amanda Krenn in 2013, with the goal to make your coffee experience as positive as possible while providing you the highest quality product. Behind the rapid growth of this venture is their strong passion for fresh-roasted coffee and desire to grow it to a retail establishment.
Having a combined 15 years of experience in the coffee industry, they embraced the perfect opportunity to start a small coffee roaster in 2013 in Golden, CO. The two leased a small warehouse to roast on a Diedrich IR-3, and eventually evolved in the specialty coffee industry.
Coffee to Try
Pangea sells several varieties of freshly-roasted beans and other retail items on their e-commerce platform. They also offer bags of coffee beans for purchase at their cafe. These free-trade coffees are sourced from small-scale farmers.
While they have a variety of delicious single origins, I recommend to try their Classic French Roast. This coffee is blend of a couple Latin American coffees, and dark roasted to create a bold flavor for coffee lovers out there. It has tasting notes of dark chocolate and raspberry.
6. Corvus Coffee Roasters
Corvus Coffee Roasters is a small batch specialty coffee roaster that offers excellent, unique and high-end coffees in Denver, Colorado. This company was founded by Phil Goodlaxson in 2010, with a goal to make its coffee sources highly visible and spread the joys of specialty coffee consumption to everyone.
Some people find their coffee a bit expensive, but they’re really excellent coffees in the first place. The beans are picked by hand, carefully processed, and precisely sorted to improve the quality.
According to them, there are some reasons for the increase in price of their coffee. They are trying to pay farmers a premium price so that they can earn more for their coffee. Also, consider the number of processes involved in removing defects, underripe and damaged beans that require extensive labor and effort.
Corvus Coffee work directly with small-lot coffee farmers to bridge coffee enthusiasts who are searching for exciting and interesting coffees. And while they roast some of the most expensive and irresistible coffees on the planet, they do it to highlight the natural flavors of the bean while emphasizing sweetness and balanced acidity.
Coffee to Try
Corvus Coffee still offer excellent coffees. They bring on new origins, reserve launches, and cater great subscription service for exclusive coffees.
If you want a delicate yet complex single origin coffee, I recommend the Gelena Geisha from Ethiopia. It was sourced from a farm that produces an exotic and rare variety of coffee. While it is rare for a farmer to produce high volumes of superb Geisha, Israel’s creative processes have made this possible. This coffee has tasting notes of sweet summer-peach & and hint of tart raspberry.
7. Huckleberry Roasters
Huckleberry Roasters is one of the best specialty coffee roasters in Colorado where you can shop good coffees. This company was founded by Koan Goedman and Mark Mann in 2011 in Denver, CO with a goal to bring a special coffee experience and cultivate a tight knit community.
From their humble beginnings, Huckleberry has now grown into a remarkable coffee company reaching nationally & internationally. Currently, Huckleberry Roasters is now owned by friends & proud coffee people, Koan Goedman & Jason Farrar, who share a core belief that investing in employees, locals and people is important in building a collective business culture and community.
Huckleberry Roasters is focused on sourcing, roasting and brewing tasty coffee. They source coffee that is responsibly and sustainably grown, harvested and imported. Then they roast these beans to their fullest potential.
Coffee to Try
Huckleberry Roasters has a wide variety of coffees to offer. They are more focused in partnering with a diverse list of wholesale partners across Colorado. However, they roast, bag and ship coffee purchased through web store.
If you’re into single origins, I recommend the Ethiopia Dooddisi Natural. This coffee is juicy, fruity and delicious. It has tasty notes of blackberry and chocolate cream, with a hibiscus-like floral that only peaks through the fruit in the best of naturals.
8. 1859 Coffee Company
The 1859 Coffee Company is a legendary coffee roaster that specializes in high-altitude roasting, located in a rustic barn above the historic mining town of Central City, CO. 1859 Coffee was discovered in 2005 when David and his brother made an attempt to roast coffee at 9600 feet high in the Rocky Mountains.
They focus more on high-Altitude Coffee Roasting because this roasting process brings out the coffee’s freshest and natural flavors. Also, the difference that high-altitude coffee roasting made them to recreate the legendary roasting process that became the inspiration for 1859 Coffee. From this experience, their coffee seems tasted much better than other coffees and didn’t have a harsh or burnt aftertaste.
While 1859 Coffee has coffee roasters that are true coffee craftsmen, they still try to live up to the standard quality that their ancestors took so much pride in when roasting coffee beans high in snow-covered mountains. They prefer high-altitude roasting as the most natural and freshest method of roasting coffee today. But they roast their coffee beans in small batches at peak elevation every day to ensure maximum freshness and flavor.
Coffee to Try
1859 Coffee offer premium high-altitude roasted coffees and coffee products that are as natural and historic as Colorado. Currently you can only purchase them on their website and soon at selected specialty stores throughout the state of Colorado.
If you want coffee that is fantastic, with no bitterness and just the right strength, then you should try their French Roast Coffee. It is a deliciously smooth, full-bodied coffee with a dark rich flavor as bold as Colorado, without any burnt or harsh aftertaste.
9. Boyer’s Coffee
Boyer’s Coffee is one of the older, larger and leading coffee companies in Denver that offers high-quality, house-brand coffee. It was founded by Bill Boyer in Denver, Colorado in 1965 with a goal to begin a community and deliver a delicious cup of coffee from all of their brands.
Bill started his small dream of roasting quality coffee at altitude in his garage. That dream finally grew large enough to take over the historic Washington Street School, built in 1927. And from this point, the business has continued to grow and evolve over the past 55 years.
Currently, Boyer’s Coffee is now owned by brothers Douglass and Jason. They took over the business in 2015, and maintained it alive and well.
Boyer’s is committed to sourcing great coffee from sustainable and ethical farming in every coffee growing region in the world. With that being said, they use 100% Arabica coffee beans for each roast. The beans are slow roasted weekly in smaller batches to ensure quality in every batch of coffee. Their roasting team then makes sure the coffee cools slowly and evenly, achieving the signature and consistency that meets our taste standards.
Coffee to Try
Boyer’s offers a wide variety of beautiful, high-quality goods that are designed especially for you. They launched a new coffee cottage selling bagged coffee, as well as a mobile cafe with a menu including brewed coffees.
If you want a coffee that is sweet, dark and robust, you should try their legendary Rocky Mountain Thunder Coffee. This coffee cracks with a distinct smoky flavor and brews a dark cup that you’re sure to remember. It may introduce tasting notes of hazelnut or French vanilla.
10. Good Trip Coffee
Good Trip Coffee is Colorado based coffee start-up that packages and ships cold-brew coffee throughout the country. The husband-wife team, Andrew and Angela, launched Good Trip in October 2016 to offer products that better serve the body, the planet, and the people who produce coffee.
It all started in a good trip that made this venture possible. Travelling to Africa, Europe, and the Pacific coast of Nicaragua allowed them start buying green coffee from local markets and roast it in their own. And today, their journey continues with a focus on serving their growing community online.
Good trip values coffee producers as the most important link in the chain from seed to cup. Along with it is their hope to provide great experience that surrounds their coffees through their artisanal cold brews, made with love.
Coffee to Try
Good Trip has excellent product lines of cold brews and cold brew coffee infusions. And recently, their cold brews became available in Anthropologie locations across the country.
Organic and Fair-trade Nicaraguan coffee, the LA FLORACIÓN Cold Brew is one of the best cold brews to try. It is a Medium-Dark roast that conveys a well-balanced and chocolaty brew that’s perfect for every day. It also presents a mellow acidity and a smooth finish.
Wrapping it Up!
In the end, Colorado is attracting attention for specialty coffee market. Independent roasters and shops are quickly becoming everywhere. Cities like Denver is drawing out a unique position in the industry that deserves recognition.
There are still many best specialty coffee roasters in Colorado. Some of these roasters have their own coffee shops and some do not. I haven’t listed all the coffee roasters out there, and maybe I missed some of your favorites. But I will add more as I learn more about them.
Like this Article? You Might Want to Read: The Best Specialty Coffee Roasters in California