German coffee and tea habits split between family tea houses and port-city roasters. TeeGschwendner curates loose-leaf tea from the family-run German retailer founded in 1976. Lloyd Caffee drum-roasts at low temperature in Bremen since 1930. Wacker's Kaffee keeps the long-roasted Peru and Bolivia coffees going in Frankfurt since 1914. The leaf leans east and the bean leans west, settling most of the decision. Small bags suit German roasts, which fade within a month of firing.
Bonanza Coffee Roasters has been operating since 2006, making it one of the earliest specialty roasters in continental Europe rather than a participant in the wave that followed once the category had already been established elsewhere.
Best for Specialty coffee from a Berlin roastery operating since 2006
Bonanza Coffee Roasters has been operating since 2006, making it one of the earliest specialty roasters in continental Europe rather than a participant in the wave that followed once the category had already been established elsewhere. Its tagline, 'Unnecessarily Good Coffee,' has stuck as a public shorthand for a roastery that predates most of the language now used to describe specialty coffee.
Bonanza roasts out of a Kreuzberg facility that supplies four Berlin locations directly as well as wholesale accounts across Europe, a distribution footprint built up over nearly two decades rather than a recent expansion. That longevity was affirmed in 2025, when Bonanza was named Best Independent Café Europe.
For a roastery whose founding predates the specialty-coffee vocabulary now standard across the industry, the combination of a 2006 start date, four Berlin cafés, European wholesale reach, and a 2025 continental award marks it as one of the category's genuine originators still operating at scale rather than a legacy name coasting on early timing.
Five Elephant opened in December 2010 on a side street in Kreuzberg, built from the start around a combined concept: specialty coffee paired with a bakery program rather than pastries as a secondary add-on to a coffee menu.
Best for Direct-trade single-origin coffee paired with the café's signature New York cheesecake
Five Elephant opened in December 2010 on a side street in Kreuzberg, built from the start around a combined concept: specialty coffee paired with a bakery program rather than pastries as a secondary add-on to a coffee menu. The café has grown to four locations across Berlin, each carrying the same dual identity.
On the coffee side, Five Elephant sources direct-trade single origins, buying in a way that connects the roastery more directly to producers than a broker-based supply chain would. On the food side, its New York cheesecake has become a signature item specific to the café rather than a generic pastry-case offering — an unusual pairing for a coffee roastery to be equally known for.
Starting on a Kreuzberg side street and expanding to four Berlin sites over more than a decade suggests steady, format-consistent growth rather than a rapid multi-city rollout. For a Berlin coffee scene with several strong single-origin roasters, Five Elephant's cheesecake gives it a second, distinct reason to be a destination beyond the cup.
No Fire No Glory is a Berlin coffee roaster and café serving single-origin beans, precise brews and cake. Packaged beans provide the genuine retail component, while the venue otherwise operates mainly as hospitality.
Best for Single-origin beans, precise brewing and excellent cake
Founded in Berlin in 2011 by Jens de Gruyter, whose godfather was a tea trader, Paper & Tea (P&T) opened its first shop in Charlottenburg in 2012, displaying single-origin teas on open tables to be smelled and studied before buying.
Best for Single-origin teas presented and tasted like art
Paper & Tea was founded in Berlin in 2011 by Jens de Gruyter, a Canadian whose godfather was a tea trader and who grew up with an early affection for the drink before traveling widely through Asia and Africa and building out the concept that became P&T. The first store opened in Charlottenburg in 2012, built around an idea closer to an art gallery than a conventional tea shop: single-origin teas set out on open tables, meant to be smelled and examined before a customer commits to buying.
That approach has since expanded to multiple stores — including locations at KaDeWe and in Mitte in Berlin, plus Amsterdam, Düsseldorf and Hamburg's Hanseviertel — each built around a "Brew Bar" where visitors can taste before they buy. The range spans black, green, white, oolong, pu-erh, herbal and fruit teas alongside matcha and cold-brew options, organized as much by mood and moment — focus, calm, energy — as by conventional tea category, plus teaware from kettles to cups.
In a city built on coffee culture, P&T is widely credited with getting Berlin to take loose-leaf tea seriously again, treating it with the same curatorial seriousness usually reserved for specialty coffee or wine.
The Barn was founded in 2010 by Ralf Rüller, who returned to Germany after roughly a decade spent near London's Borough Market, bringing a UK-honed sense of specialty coffee back to a Berlin scene still relatively early in developing its own.
Best for Three permanent single-origin lines, Brazil, Ethiopia, Guatemala
The Barn was founded in 2010 by Ralf Rüller, who returned to Germany after roughly a decade spent near London's Borough Market, bringing a UK-honed sense of specialty coffee back to a Berlin scene still relatively early in developing its own. The roastery built its identity around three permanent single-origin lines rather than a rotating or blend-led menu: Elemental, sourced from Brazil; Genesis, from Ethiopia; and Atlas, from Guatemala — three fixed reference points a customer can return to and compare over time instead of chasing a constantly changing lineup.
That consistency has been recognized externally: The Barn was named Roaster of the Year in 2025. Rüller's time near Borough Market, itself a hub for London's food and coffee retail, is a specific biographical detail behind the roastery's founding rather than a vague claim of international experience.
For a Berlin roastery built on three named, permanent origins, the 2025 recognition reads as validation of a menu built for consistency rather than novelty.
For more than 16 years, Gertrude No. 20 has stocked its Cologne shop with German and international delicacies, coffee and tea sourced individually from small and mid-sized producers rather than through large distributors.
Best for Small-producer delicacies, coffee and tea hand-picked over 16-plus years rather than sourced
Gertrude No. 20 has run from its Gertrudenstrasse address in central Cologne for more than sixteen years, built around a simple sourcing principle: everything on the shelves comes from small and mid-sized producers rather than large distributors. The shop pairs German delicatessen goods with coffee and tea chosen the same way -- by the counter, one producer at a time -- rather than through a wholesale catalog, and it markets its selection around the idea of limited-quantity, high-quality ingredients rather than volume. That approach carries through to how the shop is run day to day: staff describe taking time with each customer, offering guidance on the selection rather than treating it as self-service grocery shopping. Beyond the walk-in shop, Gertrude No. 20 handles gift orders, delivery and shipping for customers who want the same curated stock sent elsewhere, and keeps an active presence on social media to flag new arrivals from its producer network. It's a small-format specialty grocer built on relationships with individual makers rather than scale -- a coffee-and-tea counter that happens to sit inside a broader delicatessen rather than the other way around.
CentralRösterei roasts specialty coffee at its Wittichstraße warehouse in Darmstadt, selling through a shop at Platz der Deutschen Einheit. Its range spans a classic Italian-style Espresso Agostino, a fruity and funky Nordic Coffee blend, and pure single-origin lots.
Best for Small-batch specialty coffee roasted on a Loring machine
centralRÖSTEREI grew out of vinocentral, a Darmstadt wine and delicatessen business that owners Michael Bode-Böckenhauer and Alexander Marschall have run since 1989, turning a string of listed buildings and former industrial sites near the city's main station into hospitality and cultural venues. Coffee entered the business in 2008, when the shop started roasting its own beans on a small drum roaster right on the sales floor because freshness was the one thing bought-in roasted coffee couldn't guarantee; in 2022 the roastery outgrew that setup and moved into larger premises, where it now runs on a Loring roasting machine, a US-built model prized for lower emissions and precise, repeatable roast profiles. Green beans are bought from small plantations worldwide with an explicit emphasis on sustainable growing and fair terms for the farmers who supply them, then roasted in small, handcrafted batches with roast profiles tuned per lot rather than a single house curve applied across the board. The finished coffee — espresso and filter roasts, single origins, blends and subscriptions — is sold from the shop at Platz der Deutschen Einheit, with beans shipped across Germany and the wider EU.
Opened in 2024 in Wiesbaden, Maldaner Coffee roasts on a Loring S35 Kestrel and shares its co-roasting space with other coffee businesses. Its ReCan system lets customers refill packaging instead of buying new bags each time.
Best for Wiesbaden coffee and refillable ReCan packaging
Maldaner Coffee opened in 2024 at Wittichstraße 7a in Wiesbaden, built around a Loring S35 Kestrel roaster and a shared co-roasting space that lets other coffee businesses roast on the same equipment rather than each investing in their own machine. The company now runs multiple venues — two in Wiesbaden, including a café and espresso bar, and a brew-and-espresso bar in nearby Mainz — alongside B2B partnerships supplying restaurants and resellers.
Its product range is organized into named lines — Daily, Funky, OnPoint, Experimental, Unicorn, Seasonal and Decaffeinated — spanning filter and espresso roasts, plus a ready-to-drink coffee option and a subscription service. The standout mechanism is ReCan, a refill packaging system the company summarizes as 'coffee for now, responsibility for tomorrow': rather than buying a new bag or capsule each time, customers refill a reusable can, cutting packaging waste per purchase.
That sustainability framing extends into the company's 'MehrFairWert' ('more fair value') initiative, which the roastery ties to transparency and fair-trade sourcing practices. Between the co-roasting space, which effectively rents out specialty roasting capacity to smaller operators, and ReCan's refill model, Maldaner positions itself less as a single café brand and more as shared infrastructure for Wiesbaden's specialty coffee scene, still in its first two years of operation.
Started in 1999 with a 5kg drum roaster, this Dresden roastery won Roaster of the Year in 2011 and was named Saxony's best by Der Feinschmecker three times since. It runs barista courses, roastery tours, and a mobile coffee truck called DONKEY.
Best for Dresden drum-roastery running a mobile coffee truck
Dresdner Kaffee und Kakao Rösterei began in 1999 with a small 5-kilogram drum roaster and what the company describes as more curiosity than equipment. Growth since has scaled the machinery considerably — the roastery now runs a Giesen W45A drum roaster — while keeping the same trommelröstung method it started with. Its site on Meschwitzstraße sits near Melitta-Bentz-Strasse, a street named for the Dresden inventor of the paper coffee filter, a proximity the roastery treats as a point of local pride rather than coincidence.
The roastery was named Röster des Jahres (Roaster of the Year) in 2011, and Der Feinschmecker magazine has separately named it Saxony's best coffee roastery three times — in 2018, 2022 and 2025 — recognition spread across more than a decade rather than a single early peak. Its range covers house blends and single origins across both Arabica and Robusta, at multiple roast levels.
Beyond the roasted bag, the company runs barista courses, roastery tours, event hosting and catering, and operates a mobile coffee truck nicknamed 'DONKEY' for off-site service. That mix — a 1999 hobbyist start, a name-checked street connection to coffee-filter history, and a repeat regional award record stretching to 2025 — makes the roastery as much a fixture of Dresden's coffee identity as a single product line.
A Dresden bakery over 100 years old, Emil Reimann bakes the city's protected Christstollen recipe and holds the Schutzverband's 'Goldener Stollen-Reiter' certification each year. It also runs a confectionery and drum-roasted coffee operation across seven Saxony branches.
Best for It also runs a confectionery and drum-roasted coffee operation across seven Saxony
Emil Reimann bakes Dresden's protected Christstollen at its premises on Marie-Curie-Strasse, working from a recipe tradition that traces back to 1474, when the cake was first documented as a plain, butter-free bake under a Lenten fasting rule. The turning point came in 1491, when Kurfürst Ernst von Sachsen and his brother Albrecht successfully petitioned Pope Nicholas V for a 'Butterbrief' lifting the prohibition — the change that let Dresden Stollen become the rich, butter-heavy cake it is today. Emil Reimann, a family firm now in its second century of operation, positions itself as a direct inheritor of that six-century recipe lineage rather than a modern approximation of it.
Every batch of stollen is inspected by qualified experts before shipping, checked daily by the company's own master bakers, and tested monthly by an independent Dresden laboratory. Annually, the Schutzverband Dresdner Stollen e.V. — the trade association that protects the cake's name and recipe standards — certifies the bakery's stollen with its 'Goldener Stollen-Reiter' seal, a mark confirming the cake meets the association's own historical recipe requirements.
Beyond stollen, the company runs a confectionery, bakery and drum-roasted coffee operation, and sells through branches across Saxony, in Chemnitz, Dresden, Leipzig, Bischofswerda, Kamenz, Radeburg and Weinböhla — a regional footprint built entirely around one protected regional recipe.
Eberts roasts single-origin coffee from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and beyond using a slow drum method, from its Erfurt and Gotha shops. Der Feinschmecker ranked it among Germany's 500 best cafes and roasteries in 2025.
Best for Eberts roasts single-origin coffee from Ethiopia, Kenya
Eberts opened its Genusshandlung in Erfurt's old town in 2010, adding a dedicated Kaffeeroesterei in Gotha in 2017. The roastery uses a gentle drum-roasting method, running beans for up to twenty minutes at lower temperatures - a slower process the company says draws out fuller aroma while avoiding the harsher compounds that faster, industrial roasting can leave behind. Green coffee comes from Colombia, Ethiopia, Brazil, Uganda, Kenya, El Salvador, Guatemala and Bolivia, with the roastery highlighting a berry-toned Ethiopian Arabica, a chocolate-leaning Kenyan highland lot, and a Ugandan espresso blend as its standing single origins. Some of the range carries organic (BIO) certification. In 2025, the food magazine Der Feinschmecker included Eberts among Germany's 500 best cafes and roasteries, a national ranking that put the small two-town operation alongside far larger city roasters. Beyond the roasted coffee, the Erfurt shop's shelves carry regional Thuringian delicacies - oils, preserves, and spirits chosen from small producers - pairing the roastery's own beans with a wider selection of local specialty goods.
This Erfurt specialty roastery near the Fischmarkt sources green beans and roasts them in small batches for its own café and retail bags. Single-origin lots and espresso blends are cupped and dialled in on site.
Best for Small-batch single-origin coffee near Erfurt Fischmarkt
Weighing out loose-leaf black, green, oolong, herbal, fruit and rooibos teas from Anger 1-3 in central Erfurt since 1999, Teehaus Erfurt offers expert consultation and custom tea blending, sourced under fair-trade and sustainable-cultivation standards.
Best for Expert consultation and custom tea blending, sourced under fair-trade and sustainable-cultivation standards
Teehaus Erfurt has run from Anger 1-3, in the heart of Erfurt's city center, since 1999, built around the idea that tea works as a point of connection rather than just a drink to get through the day. The shop weighs out loose-leaf blends across black, green, oolong, herbal, fruit and rooibos categories - Masala Chai and a Fancy Sencha among the named lines - plus wellness and sleep-focused blends such as Schlummertrunk, alongside the pots, infusers and other accessories needed to brew them properly. What sets the shop apart from a straightforward retail counter is its consultation and custom-blending service: staff described as tea experts work with customers to build a mixture suited to their own taste rather than sending them out with a fixed house blend, treating tea selection as closer to a fitting than a purchase. The business sources under fair-trade and sustainable-cultivation commitments, a standing policy across its range rather than a claim tied to individual specialty lots. Between the walk-in shop, mail orders by phone or email, and the custom-blend counsel, Teehaus Erfurt runs less like a packaged-goods retailer and more like a neighborhood tea advisor that happens to also stock the shelves.
Ronnefeldt was founded in 1823 by Johann Tobias Ronnefeldt in Frankfurt, developing his knowledge of tea through travels to Rotterdam and London before starting the business at home.
Best for German loose-leaf tea trading since 1823
Ronnefeldt was founded in 1823 by Johann Tobias Ronnefeldt in Frankfurt, developing his knowledge of tea through travels to Rotterdam and London before starting the business at home. His earliest customers were the hotels around Frankfurt frequented by visiting Russian dignitaries, a connection that grew until Johann Tobias became a principal tea supplier to the Russian Tsar's court — tea trading conducted, notably, before the plantation regions of India and Sri Lanka that now dominate the world's supply had even been established.
More than two centuries later, the company still hand-picks by the traditional "two leaves and one bud" standard and runs its retail identity through the Ronnefeldt Brandshop in Frankfurt am Main, alongside a hospitality-focused Tealounge concept it has extended internationally. Its TeaAcademy trains hotel and restaurant staff directly in preparation and service, keeping education tied to the same standards the company sources by.
For a house that was already supplying imperial Russia before today's major tea-growing regions existed, the Frankfurt Brandshop is less a modern retail add-on than the current form of a two-hundred-year continuous trade.
Wacker's Kaffee has roasted coffee in Frankfurt since Luise Wacker opened the shop at Kornmarkt in 1914. Its long-roasting process yields single origins like Peru Cajamarca and Bolivia de la Frontera.
Best for Long-roasted Peru and Bolivia coffees since 1914
Wacker's Kaffee traces back to 1914, when Luise Wacker opened a delicatessen at Frankfurt's Kornmarkt at the age of 26; the business has stayed in family hands since. Its roasting is built around what the company calls a Langzeitröstverfahren, a long-time roasting process developed over generations, with beans roasted daily from early morning through late afternoon at the Kornmarkt site. The single-origin list includes Guatemala Lampocoy, Nicaragua Hochland, Peru Cajamarca, and Bolivia de la Frontera, alongside bio and Fairtrade-certified options — the company states directly that it wants coffee farmers to receive a fair price for what it calls a labor-intensive product. Beyond the beans, Wacker's makes Espressoböhnchen, chocolate-coated espresso beans sold as a specialty item. The original Kornmarkt shop has since been joined by cafes on Schweizer Straße, Berger Straße, and Grüneburgweg, spreading the roastery's presence across several Frankfurt neighborhoods. More than a century after Luise Wacker's delicatessen opened, the company still frames its identity around that founding, using the line 'Mit Liebe zur Tradition seit 1914' — with love for tradition since 1914 — as its own summary of what the business is.
Kaffee Manufaktur roeststolz roasts single-origin lots like Hamasho Adnan and Sítio São José every Monday, shipping the next day. The Freiburg roastery also stocks home brewing equipment alongside its beans.
Best for Single-origin coffee and home-brewing gear in Freiburg
Kaffee Manufaktur roeststolz keeps a fixed weekly rhythm: coffee is roasted fresh every Monday and shipped out the following Tuesday, rather than roasted continuously against standing stock. The Freiburg roastery's current single-origin list runs to specific named lots — El Puente Java, El Puente Natural, Finca Ethiopia, Hamasho Adnan, Las Lajas, and Sítio São José — alongside a seasonal decaf, with packaging for at least one lot naming the source estate directly as Finca La Labor. Prices are quoted both per bag and per kilogram, letting wholesale-scale buyers compare against retail portions directly on the product pages. The site doesn't publish a founding year, a founder's name, or awards, and its origin narratives stop at the estate names themselves rather than extending into farmer profiles or harvest stories. What's confirmed is a small operation organized tightly around a single weekly roasting-and-shipping cycle and a rotating slate of named single-origin coffees from Central America, South America, and East Africa.
Two master confectioners, Cron and Lanz, merged their workshops in 1876 to found this Viennese-style coffeehouse on Göttingen's Weender Strasse, known for house-made Baumkuchen, marzipan, pralines and tortes, with a second branch, Kleines Crönchen, in the Ostviertel.
Best for House-made Baumkuchen, marzipan, pralines and tortes, with a second branch, Kleines Crönchen
Cron & Lanz dates to 1876, when two master confectioners named Cron and Lanz merged their separate workshops into a single Viennese-style coffeehouse and pastry house on Weender Strasse, Göttingen's main pedestrian street - a partnership the business has carried in its name for close to a century and a half. The counter is built around Baumkuchen, the ringed layer cake associated with German confectionery tradition, alongside marzipan, pralines, tortes and tea biscuits, all made in house rather than bought in. A second, smaller branch, Kleines Crönchen, operates in the Ostviertel at Brüder-Grimm-Allee, extending the same kitchen's output beyond the flagship. The shop is regularly described as one of the most respected and traditional confectioneries in South Lower Saxony, a reputation built on continuity: the same combined name, the same city-center address, and the same core repertoire of hand-finished cakes and chocolates carried forward since the two founders joined forces. Beyond the café tables, Cron & Lanz runs an online shop with DHL home delivery and customer-chosen shipping dates, letting the Baumkuchen and boxed pralines travel well past Göttingen. It is, at heart, a 19th-century coffeehouse still running on its founding formula - fine confectionery made on site, served or boxed, in the same pedestrian-street storefront.
Elbgold has roasted specialty coffee in Hamburg since 2004, sourcing Rwandan and Ethiopian lots through direct trade with advance payments. Five cafes across the city, from Schanze to Eppendorf, sell blends like NEUNBAR and MISCHGOLD.
Best for Direct-traded Rwandan and Ethiopian coffee roasted since 2004 across five Hamburg cafes
Elbgold has roasted specialty coffee in Hamburg since 2004, and now runs five cafes across the city -- Schanze (Lagerstrasse 34c), Winterhude (Muhlenkamp 59), Ottensen (Ottenser Hauptstrasse 35), Eppendorf (Eppendorfer Baum 26), and a City location (Schauenburgerstrasse 50) -- each in a distinct neighbourhood rather than clustered downtown. Sourcing runs through direct trade relationships that the roastery describes as built on 'fair prices, advance payments and long-term partnerships,' with current origins including Rwanda and Ethiopia. The house lineup includes named blends -- NEUNBAR, MISCHGOLD, SECHS A -- alongside single-origin releases like BOMBE and DENBI UDDO, and limited special editions processed with anaerobic fermentation for a more pronounced flavor profile than a standard washed or natural process. The company sums up its own position as 'clear coffee. strong convictions,' a phrase it uses to tie the cup itself to a self-described 'Goldstandard' for how it treats producer relationships -- advance payment and long-term buying rather than one-off spot purchases. Two decades in, the combination of five physical Hamburg locations and a direct-trade sourcing model gives Elbgold a scale that distinguishes it from a single-shop roaster, while the named single-origin and fermentation-variant releases keep the catalogue rotating rather than static.
Elbgold's Schanze shop at Lagerstrasse 34c sells freshly roasted beans and brewing gear from the Hamburg roaster's direct-trade lineup, including Rwandan and Ethiopian lots. Elbgold has roasted specialty coffee in the city since 2004.
Best for Freshly roasted beans and brewing gear from the Hamburg roaster's direct-trade lineup
The Elbgold Rosterei Shop occupies the brand's Schanze location at Lagerstrasse 34c, one of five Hamburg cafes run by the roaster since it began roasting specialty coffee in the city in 2004. As the roastery's original neighbourhood shop, it sells freshly roasted beans and brewing equipment alongside the cafe side of the business, functioning as a retail counter attached to a working roasting operation rather than a cafe-only storefront. The beans on offer draw on Elbgold's direct-trade sourcing model -- described by the company as built on 'fair prices, advance payments and long-term partnerships' -- with current origins including Rwanda and Ethiopia, sold as both house blends (NEUNBAR, MISCHGOLD, SECHS A) and single-origin releases (BOMBE, DENBI UDDO). Limited-edition lots processed with anaerobic fermentation also move through the shop when available, giving regulars something beyond the standing lineup to try. Sitting in the Schanze -- one of Hamburg's denser, more mixed commercial districts -- the shop benefits from the same 'Goldstandard' sourcing commitment that anchors the rest of the Elbgold network, but its identity here is retail-forward: a place to walk out with beans and gear rather than only sit down for a cup.
Speicher & Consorten has made spice blends, chocolate, coffee and tea in Hamburg's Speicherstadt since 2009, drawing on the district's historic trading role. Products such as the Käpt'n Pfeffer blend ship in reusable sacks like the Hamburger Seesack and Kapitänskiste.
Best for Speicherstadt-made spice, tea, coffee and chocolate gift sets
Speicher & Consorten set up shop in Hamburg's Speicherstadt in 2009, drawing on the district's own trading history — a UNESCO World Heritage warehouse quarter built from 1881 to store and refine coffee, tea, cocoa and spices arriving by ship from around the world. The company keeps that same brief today, producing hand-roasted coffee in small batches on traditional drum roasters, selecting and blending teas, hand-scooping chocolate, and mixing spice blends such as Käpt'n Pfeffer, all sourced from what it describes as the world's best growing regions and made in small Hamburg manufactories rather than outsourced at scale. Its gift-set format leans into the Speicherstadt's own maritime past: sacks and wooden crates such as the Hamburger Seesack, Kapitänskiste and Grillsack package a curated run of products — coffee, tea, chocolate, spice, salt — the way a ship's stores might once have been packed for a long voyage. Products are sold through the company's online shop and a handful of physical retail points around Hamburg, with corporate gifting and customizable box options extending the same format to business orders. The company's identity stays tied to one neighborhood's trading heritage rather than a generic gourmet-gift catalogue.
Speicherstadt Kaffeerosterei has roasted coffee daily in Hamburg's historic warehouse district for roughly 30 years, with raw beans arriving directly via the city's port. Its projects include an orangutan-habitat initiative in Aceh, Sumatra.
Best for Daily drum-roasted coffee at a 30-year Speicherstadt roastery whose raw beans arrive
Speicherstadt Kaffeerosterei roasts in Hamburg's Speicherstadt warehouse district, marking around 30 years in business as of its current anniversary messaging, which places its founding near 1996. The roastery describes daily gentle drum roasting, and its raw green coffee arrives directly through Hamburg's port -- a genuine logistical detail given the roastery's own location surrounded by the district's brick warehouses and canals. The flagship cafe sits at Kehrwieder 5, backed by a factory outlet (Fabrikladen), an online shop, and a wholesale side of the business. Sourcing leans on single-origin coffees and blends built around direct producer relationships, paired with named sustainability commitments rather than a generic sustainability claim: an orangutan-habitat conservation project in Aceh, Sumatra; a Demeter-certified project in Honduras called '18 Conejo'; and a 'Rebuild Women's Hope' initiative in Congo. On the product side, a collaboration with Hamburg brewer wildwuchs Brauwerk produced 'Kaffee Ale,' a coffee-and-beer hybrid that ties the roastery to the local brewing scene rather than staying confined to coffee alone. Between the port-direct sourcing, the three named origin-country projects, and the 30-year run in the same historic district, the roastery presents a clearer paper trail than a simple craft-coffee-shop description would suggest -- named partners, named projects, and a specific address anchoring all of it.
This Schanze coffee shop sources direct-trade parcel coffees from named estates such as Fazendas Dutra in Brazil and El Salvador's Finca La Buena Esperanza. Every batch is then drum-roasted in small runs at the company's own manufaktur-rösterei in Mannheim.
Best for Direct-trade parcel coffees from named single estates
The Coffee Store's shelves in the Schanze carry beans that come with more paperwork than most: farm name, estate, and field parcel. The shop buys direct-trade from a short list of estates — Fazendas Dutra in Brazil, Palthope and Badra Estates in India, and Finca La Buena Esperanza in El Salvador — sourcing by the parcel, meaning cherries picked and processed separately by individual field rather than blended across an entire harvest. The idea is that a single hillside or planting behaves differently from its neighbor, and that difference is worth preserving rather than smoothing out in a big batch. Roasting stays just as deliberate: every bag is drum-roasted in small runs at the company's own manufaktur-rösterei in Mannheim rather than farmed out to a contract roaster. What reaches the counter includes espresso, café crème, and filter coffee, plus sampler packages built for tasting estate differences side by side. Beyond the bags, the shop runs its own barista and espresso seminars, keeps two subscription tiers running for regulars, and stocks a smaller line of tea, spices, and gift accessories. It reads less like a neighborhood café menu and more like a working list of named farms — the kind of shop where asking which parcel is in the bag gets a specific answer, not a shrug.
Torrefaktum has roasted coffee in Hamburg since 2009 and was named the city's 'Kaffeerosterei des Jahres' by Der Feinschmecker in 2022. Its espresso blends -- Wake Up, Hey Dude, Black Birdy -- are sold across three Hamburg cafes.
Best for Wake Up and Hey Dude espresso blends from Hamburg
Torrefaktum has roasted coffee in Hamburg since 2009, describing itself as a Manufaktur -- an artisanal producer working from 'Handwerk, Leidenschaft und ehrlichen Bohnen' (craftsmanship, passion, and honest beans). In 2022, the German food magazine Der Feinschmecker named Torrefaktum Hamburg's 'Kaffeerosterei des Jahres' (coffee roastery of the year) and ranked it among Germany's best roasteries -- outside recognition rather than a self-assigned claim. The roaster runs three Hamburg cafes -- in Ottensen, inside the ZEIT Cafe, and at Phoenixhof -- alongside its roastery operation. House espresso blends carry distinct names: Wake Up, Hey Dude, and Black Birdy, sold alongside filter blends, a decaf option, and tasting packages, available as whole bean or ground. As of the current site, the online shop is offline for maintenance, with existing orders still being processed through the end of that week -- a temporary operational note rather than a sign the roastery has closed. Between the 2022 Feinschmecker award and the spread across three distinct cafe formats (a standalone shop, a magazine-branded cafe, and a location inside Phoenixhof), Torrefaktum presents itself as an established, externally recognized Hamburg roaster rather than a newer or unproven operation, even with the 13-year gap between its 2009 founding and the award.
A small roastery in the Hannover countryside near Burgdorf that drum-roasts specialty coffee in small batches, selling single origins, blends and subscriptions. It also runs barista courses and latte-art workshops for home and trade customers.
Good Karma Coffee has roasted fresh daily in Karlsruhe since 2013, sorting its beans into Bright, Medium, and Dark profiles. Its Solum Cascara lemonade, made from dried coffee-cherry skin, turns a usual waste product into a drink.
Best for Daily-roasted coffee and cascara lemonade
Good Karma Coffee has roasted fresh daily out of Karlsruhe since 2013, organizing its catalogue around three roast categories — Bright, Medium, and Dark — that map directly onto flavor profiles the company describes as fruity, fruity-chocolate, and chocolate-spicy, a simpler system than the usual filter-versus-espresso split. The roastery itself, on Elsa-Brändströmstraße, opens to the public only on Fridays from 10am to 6pm and Saturdays from 10am to 1pm, when customers can drink a coffee on-site or pick up an online order paid for in advance. Beyond the core roasts, the company has built out a 'Candyshop' line of unusually sweet, intense single-origin lots treated as their own category rather than folded into the regular range. It has also pushed into byproducts: a Solum Cascara lemonade, made from the dried skin of the coffee cherry — the part of the plant most roasters discard — turns a waste stream into a separate soft drink. A partnership with kAnola, a Karlsruhe granola maker, adds a chocolate-coffee granola built with cocoa and raw cane sugar from Colombia. The shop also stocks brewing hardware, including Comandante hand grinders, positioning Good Karma as much an equipment retailer for home brewers as a roaster in its own right.
Impuls Kaffeemanufaktur has won a Deutsche Röstergilde gold medal ten years running, 2016 through 2025, roasting single-origin lots on-site in Kiel's old town. Its Küterstraße address doubles as café and coffee school.
Best for Ten consecutive years (2016-2025) of Deutsche Röstergilde gold medals
Impuls Kaffeemanufaktur has won a gold medal from the Deutsche Röstergilde, Germany's national roasters guild, in ten consecutive years, spanning 2016 through 2025 — a run judged annually rather than a one-off accolade, which makes it a harder credential to claim by accident. The roasting happens on-site at the company's café and roastery on Küterstraße in Kiel's old town, where beans from Ethiopia, Colombia, Brazil, Honduras, Peru, and Guatemala are roasted individually rather than blended into a single house profile, each with its own roast curve. The attached café runs alongside the roasting operation, serving homemade cake, made-to-order sandwiches, and snacks prepared fresh daily rather than bought in from an outside kitchen. Beyond the counter, impuls runs a formal Kaffeeschule — a coffee school offering workshops and cupping seminars for customers who want to learn the trade side of what they're drinking rather than just buy the finished bag. Open seven days a week, with Saturday and Sunday hours slightly shorter than the weekday schedule, the Küterstraße address functions as roastery, café, and classroom under one roof — a combination the decade of guild medals suggests the company has kept dialed in rather than let drift as the operation grew.
Elstermühle roasts coffee in small batches at its Käthe-Kollwitz-Straße site in Leipzig. The house blends Karl der Große Espresso and all-Arabica Otto der Reiche sell from its Stadthafen shop alongside a monthly single-origin release.
Best for Karl der Große Espresso and monthly single origins
Elstermühle roasts in small batches at a site on Käthe-Kollwitz-Straße and sells the results from a shop at Leipzig's Stadthafen, the city's old river harbor. Two named blends anchor the lineup: Karl der Große Espresso, a 65-percent-Arabica, 35-percent-Robusta mix built for crema and pull consistency, and Otto der Reiche, a straight 100-percent-Arabica cup for filter drinkers who want less bitterness. Both take their names from medieval rulers, a nod the roastery ties back to Leipzig's own coffeehouse history — the shop's other standing blend, Leipziger Käffchen, is named directly for that centuries-old local tradition.
Beyond the two house blends, Elstermühle runs a genuine rotation: a "Kaffee des Monats" swaps in a new single-origin lot every month, and the roastery documents its own trips to origin — a visit to coffee farms in Colombia among them — rather than buying exclusively through importers. The stated standard is quality starting at the green-bean stage, before the roast ever touches it.
For regulars, a subscription knocks 5 percent off standing orders, and the roastery also supplies cafés and corporate accounts under a separate B2B arrangement — a small operation that still runs a wholesale side alongside its own harbor-side retail counter.
Gemi Roasters splits its Karl-Liebknecht-Straße shopfront lineup into separate filter and espresso lots, from steady origins to competition-grade microlots. A B2B wholesale arm and bean subscription run alongside the retail counter.
Best for Single-origin and competition-lot coffee, roasted separately for filter and espresso
On Karl-Liebknecht-Straße in Leipzig, Gemi Roasters splits its coffee into two separate tracks: one built for filter, one for espresso, so each lot is roasted toward its own end rather than a single house style stretched across both. The rotating lineup runs from steady origins — a Brazil Dark Velvet, an Ethiopian lot — to sharper-edged microlots pulled from competition circuits, including an El-Placer Project Competition Lot, the kind of coffee more often reserved for barista contests than a retail shelf.
Beyond the shopfront, Gemi roasts for other businesses too, running a B2B wholesale arm alongside its own retail bags and a subscription service that ships bags out on a schedule. Shipping runs across Europe and beyond, with free-shipping thresholds set separately for German and wider-European orders — a detail that signals a roastery built as much for a mail-order following as for walk-in trade on its home street.
It's a small operation with an outsized rotation: rather than settling on a fixed set of blends, Gemi treats its offering as a running log of whatever origin or competition lot is worth roasting that season, filter and espresso kept deliberately apart.
Brothers Julian and Patrick Alm opened their roastery in 2024, continuing a family trading history that traces back to 1881, and roast green beans sourced through transparent trade relationships in small batches on an energy-efficient Loring roaster. Their coffee is served at two affiliated Konvent cafés in the old town, one in the Aegidienviertel and one near the cathedral, where filter and espresso blends are brewed to order.
Best for Small-batch beans roasted by brothers Julian and Patrick Alm on an energy-efficient
Munich's grand café since 1888 runs a proper confiserie shop — house pralines, Baumkuchen and the Luitpold blends — from the salon where the city has taken its coffee for over a century.
Best for Pralines, Baumkuchen and classic Munich café confectionery
Café Luitpold opened on Brienner Strasse on 1 January 1888, part of a redevelopment of seven buildings between Brienner Strasse and Salvatorplatz undertaken between 1886 and 1888. Architect Otto Lasne built it around a large domed hall and a mirrored salon connected by a colonnaded passage, finished in bronze and black marble with ornamental wall paintings — a scale that let it rival Vienna's Café Central and Budapest's Café New York. It quickly became one of Munich's central gathering points for nobility, merchants, artists and ordinary citizens; Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee are reported to have founded the Blue Rider artist group there in 1911, and comedian Loriot was a regular in the 1960s, later writing an essay about the café's pralines. The building was 80 percent destroyed in 1944 and reopened in simplified form as a Palmengarten in 1948. Today's café and confiserie, renovated in 2010, sells house-made cakes, pastries, biscuits and pralines, and still runs the Luitpold coffee blends the address has served for over a century. A small first-floor museum displays photographs and documents from the building's history.
A historic Munich delicatessen, coffee roaster and fine-food merchant. A former Royal Bavarian Purveyor to the Court with its flagship on Dienerstrasse. Established 1700.
Best for Historic Munich delicatessen, coffee roaster and fine-food merchant
Dallmayr's roots reach back to 1700, when the merchant Christian Reitter ran a forerunner grocery business in Munich; the name it carries today comes from Alois Dallmayr, who acquired the shop around 1870. In 1895 Dallmayr sold the business to Therese and Anton Randlkofer, and it was under Therese's management that the delicatessen built its reputation among European nobility, eventually holding fifteen separate royal purveyor titles. The Stammhaus — the original store on Dienerstraße in Munich's old town, still the company's flagship and headquarters — now draws an estimated 2.8 million visitors a year. Coffee entered the business in 1933, when Bremen coffee merchant Konrad Werner Wille established a specialist coffee department inside the delicatessen; that division grew large enough to be spun off as its own independent subsidiary in 1985 and is today Dallmayr's largest single business unit. The company remains family-owned, employing roughly 3,500 people worldwide across four divisions — delicatessen and gastronomy, party and catering services, coffee and tea, and vending and office-coffee supply — with group revenue of approximately 900 million euros. The Munich flagship still functions as both a working delicatessen hall and the symbolic home of the brand's three-century history.
This Marienplatz café sits inside a branch of Hugendubel, the German bookstore chain that has traded since 1893 and remains family-run five generations later. Alongside books, it offers coffee, reading areas, and tolino e-readers.
Best for Coffee, books and reading nooks at Marienplatz
This Marienplatz café operates inside a branch of Hugendubel, the German bookstore chain founded in 1893 and still, more than 130 years later, run by the same family — currently siblings Nina and Maximilian Hugendubel in its fifth generation. The company operates more than 100 branches across Germany with roughly 1,600 employees, selling books, eBooks, audiobooks, toys, calendars, stationery, and film alongside its tolino e-readers. That last detail is a real distinguishing fact rather than a footnote: Hugendubel co-founded the tolino alliance, a shared German digital-reading platform the company describes as internationally unique, giving customers access to more than three million eBook titles through a device sold at its own counters. The Marienplatz café slots into that broader identity as the pause button on a bookstore visit — a coffee and a reading area inside a business built, at its core, on getting people to sit down with a book rather than browse and leave. It's not a standalone specialty roaster chasing single-origin lots; it's a café attached to one of Germany's oldest and largest family booksellers, where the draw is the shelves as much as the cup, and where the till behind the counter is backed by a company old enough to have outlasted most of its original competitors twice over.
Nero drum-roasts single-origin coffee — including a fair-trade Tunki SHB lot grown by indigenous farmers in Peru's Andes — at its Koblenz facility. Beans ship within 24 hours of roasting from its old-town shop on Kornpfortstraße.
Best for Drum-roasted single-origin coffee, including fair-trade Tunki SHB from indigenous-grown Peruvian Andes lots
Nero roasts its coffee on a drum rather than the faster air-roasting machines common at high-volume operations, a method the company describes as "considerably more labor-intensive" but one that lets a bean's character develop fully rather than being flattened for speed. The roastery runs from Schönbornslusterstraße in Koblenz and sells daily from a second shop on Kornpfortstraße in the old town, between the Rhine and Mosel, with both an online storefront and direct wholesale accounts rather than a distributor in between. Its sourcing includes a Tunki SHB lot grown in the Peruvian Andes by indigenous farming communities, bought through a fair and direct-trade partnership project rather than a blind commodity purchase — one thread in a wider stated commitment to sustainability and environmental sourcing criteria across its beans, which are drawn from more than fifteen countries. Every batch ships within 24 hours of roasting, with free shipping above €60, and the range spans single-origin, espresso, filter, and decaffeinated coffee alongside equipment and brewing guides. For a shop with two physical counters, the emphasis stays on the roasting process itself — drum-roasted, fresh-shipped, traceable to specific growing partnerships — rather than café seating or a wider retail footprint.
Sudseite roasts light on a Stronghold S9X to preserve each coffee's character, sourcing lots direct from named farmers across Colombia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Each bag lists farmer, varietal and processing, from washed to anaerobic and carbonic maceration.
Best for Each bag lists farmer, varietal and processing
Sudseite roasts from a space overlooking the Neckar River in Heidelberg, working on a Stronghold S9X roaster set deliberately light rather than dark -- a choice the roastery explains as a way to let each coffee's own character come through instead of masking it under roast development. That philosophy extends into its sourcing: rather than buying blind through importers, Sudseite builds direct relationships with individual farmers and publishes what it learns from them -- farmer name, varietal, processing method and altitude -- on every bag it sells.
The range spans washed, natural, anaerobic and carbonic maceration lots from Colombia, Ethiopia, Brazil, Peru, Kenya, Rwanda, Costa Rica and Guatemala, plus decaf options, giving customers a way to compare processing style as directly as origin. A subscription box, branded 'Flow of Sudseite,' rotates through the catalog for regular customers, and the roastery ships worldwide from its Heidelberg base while also welcoming visitors to the roastery itself.
The site also references an on-site sourdough bakery, though it does not detail specific bread products -- the clearer, better-documented story here is the coffee: transparent, farmer-level sourcing paired with a light-roast approach across an unusually wide processing range for a single roastery.
24grad roasts single-origin coffee sourced directly from farms across Africa, South America and Southeast Asia, including an Ethiopian Refisa with notes of lime and blueberry. The Hannover roastery runs a numbered espresso blend series and hosts origin trips abroad.
Best for 24grad roasts single-origin coffee sourced directly from farms across Africa
24grad Kaffeerosterei roasts out of a cafe-fronted space on the Engelbosteler Damm in Hannover's Nordstadt district, built around a stated commitment to sourcing 'fair and direct from the producer.' The lineup runs on two tracks: a numbered house espresso series (N1 through N3, plus seasonal editions) for everyday drinking, and single-origin lots that rotate with the harvest calendar -- recent arrivals have included an Ethiopian Refisa marked out for notes of lime, blueberry and chocolate, and a returning Colombia Quebradon.
The roastery backs its direct-sourcing claim with origin trips, sending staff to producing regions including Kenya, Brazil, Guatemala and Vietnam to document the farms behind the beans rather than buying purely through importers. That material feeds back into the shop's own educational programming: brewing guides, seminars on coffee knowledge and barista skills, and resources covering cultivation and roasting technique for customers who buy beans to take home.
Beyond the coffee itself, 24grad sells the brewing equipment to go with it -- drippers, kettles, machine-specific blends for automatic brewers -- treating the retail side as an extension of the same direct-sourcing story rather than a separate accessories business.
Bonner Kaffeebrennerei hand-roasts coffee as a side project of Bonn's own coffee school, open to the public only for monthly Saturday factory sales since 2018. Its Heroes #1 blend has drawn outside praise for a hazelnut-cream espresso profile.
Best for Bonner Kaffeebrennerei hand-roasts coffee as a side project of Bonn's own coffee
Bonner Kaffeebrennerei roasts by hand out of Bonn as a side project of the Bonner Kaffeeschule, the city's coffee school — and it wears that small-scale identity openly, describing itself as a "kleine aber feine handwerkliche Rösterei," a small but fine artisanal roastery. Founded in 2018, the operation keeps deliberately limited hours, opening to the public only for monthly factory sales on Saturdays from 11am to 2pm, a rhythm that treats scarcity as part of the appeal rather than a limitation to apologize for.
The roastery's stated philosophy puts relationship ahead of product: "coffee — it's not about a product, it's about a relationship," and that isn't just a slogan — the team makes regular trips to coffee-growing regions to see cultivation conditions firsthand, shaping decisions around quality, sustainability and fair pricing from the source rather than a spec sheet. Heroes #1, the roastery's most visible bean, has picked up outside recognition from Crema Magazine for its "nicely textured hazelnut crema" and complex composition.
Every coffee is sold as whole beans only, a choice aimed at preserving freshness for a customer base that has to plan around the roastery's narrow open hours rather than dropping in whenever convenient.
Cafe Marcel has roasted its own coffee since 2018 under owner Philip Weller, named German Master Roaster 2024. The Freiburg cafe pours its house Günter blend at the base of the Schlossbergbahn funicular.
Best for Günter house espresso roasted weekly
Cafe Marcel opened in 2014 at the foot of the Schlossbergbahn funicular in Freiburg's Stadtgarten, and in 2018 added its own in-house roastery, Günter Coffee Roasters, roasting weekly by hand rather than buying in beans. Owner Philip Weller holds the title Deutscher Röstmeister 2024 — German Master Roaster 2024 — a specific, named credential rather than a general claim of expertise. The house blend, an espresso roast built from Arabica beans sourced across multiple countries, is named Günter after the roastery itself and anchors both the coffee and mixed coffee drinks on the menu. Everything roasted at Cafe Marcel is held to what the company calls Specialty Coffee quality level, the industry's top classification, with an emphasis on developing each bean's individual flavor rather than roasting to a uniform house profile. The cafe itself keeps a garden-facing terrace with loungers and tables during the warmer months, open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Between the funicular-adjacent address, the 2018 roastery launch, and Weller's 2024 title, Cafe Marcel reads as a roaster built around one person's craft rather than a scaled specialty-coffee brand.
Baking in Stuttgart since 1902 to what it calls Opa's recipes, Café Nast turns out Swabian lye pretzels among 250 items daily from its Esslinger Straße kitchen. Six branches sell the goods alongside coffee and custom wedding cakes.
Best for Six branches sell the goods alongside coffee and custom wedding cakes
Café Nast has baked in Stuttgart since 1902, giving it more than 120 years at the same trade — long enough that its own materials describe the recipes as following "Opas Rezepten," grandpa's recipes, rather than anything reinvented for the current era. The main bakery and kitchen sit behind the shop at Esslinger Straße 40, from where all baking for six café locations across the city is produced and distributed daily. Among the roughly 250 different items turned out each day, the Laugenbrezel — the hand-formed lye pretzel that is a Swabian regional staple — anchors the savory side, while the pastry and cake case runs from everyday confections up to custom wedding cakes. The shop describes its approach as handwerkliche Produktion, or handcrafted production, using regional ingredient suppliers rather than large-scale distributors, a claim consistent with running the entire operation from one production kitchen rather than a central factory feeding multiple unrelated locations. Six branches and 120-plus years without changing the underlying recipes makes Café Nast one of the longer-running names in Stuttgart's specialty-bakery trade.
Elephant Beans roasts direct-trade lots like Peru's Rutas del Inca and a fermented Monsooned Malabar Pepper at its Freiburg cafe. A second site in March-Buchheim runs a coffee school with barista and latte-art workshops.
Best for Elephant Beans roasts direct-trade lots like Peru's Rutas del Inca
Elephant Beans runs a roastery-cafe on Basler Strasse in Freiburg and a second roasting site in March-Buchheim that doubles as a coffee school, offering barista training and latte-art workshops alongside its retail roasting. The company describes sourcing coffee 'directly from the coffee farmers with whom we've been connected in friendship for years,' though it doesn't name specific farms on its homepage. Its current single-origin list includes a CO2-decaffeinated Cosurca from Colombia, an organic-certified Rutas del Inca from Peru, an Ethiopian Wildkaffee, and a fermented specialty it calls Monsooned Malabar Pepper, described on the site as a rarity. The Basler Strasse cafe seats up to ten guests indoors, expanding to a garden with room for twelve more between March and October. A newer webshop subscription model takes a permanent 7% off recurring orders. Between the direct-trade sourcing language, named single-origin lots spanning three continents, and a dedicated coffee school running its own workshop calendar, Elephant Beans positions itself as much around education as around the coffee it sells at the counter.
Christiane Hattingen, a certified coffee sommelière, has hand-roasted beans in Bonn since 2011, taking extra time so the 800-plus aromas in green coffee fully develop. Kaffeekontor Bonn sells its fair-trade-minded roasts through its shop and online.
Best for Hand-roasted coffee from Christiane Hattingen, Bonn's own coffee sommelière, roasting since 2011
Kaffeekontor Bonn has hand-roasted coffee in Bonn since 2011, run by Christiane Hattingen, who holds the title of Kaffee-Sommelière — a formal coffee sommelier qualification rather than a self-applied label. Her approach to roasting is explicitly patient: the company describes taking considerable time over each hand roast so that the more than 800 aromas locked inside green coffee beans have room to develop fully, rather than rushing a batch through for volume.
That patience extends to sourcing as well. The roastery frames good coffee as inseparable from fairness and sustainability "from plant to cup," a fair-trade commitment stated as a value rather than a certification badge. Over more than fourteen years in business, the roastery has built a base of repeat customers it credits to consistently high quality standards and close customer attention — the kind of loyalty that is hard to manufacture and easier to earn slowly, batch by hand-roasted batch.
Coffee is sold both through the physical Bonn shop and online, giving Hattingen's small operation a reach beyond the city while keeping the actual roasting — and the sommelier judgment behind it — in her own hands.
Lloyd Caffee has roasted coffee in Bremen since 1930 using a traditional low-temperature drum method at its glass roastery. Der Feinschmecker has named it among Germany's best coffee roasteries.
Best for Low-temperature drum-roasted coffee from Bremen since 1930
Lloyd Caffee has roasted coffee in Bremen since 1930, and the company describes itself as the city's oldest still traditionally roasting coffee roastery, working from a glass roastery on the Holzhafen/Fabrikenufer waterfront that's open to public tours. Master roasters run the beans through what Lloyd calls its traditional drum roasting method, roasting at low temperatures over longer stretches of time to bring out mildness and reduce acidity rather than pushing for a fast, dark roast. Raw beans are hand-picked highland Arabica, supplemented with Robusta, and the range includes certified-organic lots and coffees tied to specific fair-trade projects. The house blends carry Bremen-rooted names - Bremer Mischung and Hanseaten Melange - alongside a standing Cafe Creme and espresso options, with decaf also part of the lineup. Beyond selling roasted beans, the company runs the roastery itself as something close to a visitor attraction: public tours, coffee seminars, an on-site cafe, and a factory outlet shop all operate from the same Bremen site. The food magazine Der Feinschmecker has counted Lloyd among Germany's best coffee roasteries, a recognition that sits alongside nearly a century of continuous roasting in the same trading city.
Founded by Arameh and Argin Keshishian on an Elbe houseboat at Entenwerder, Public Coffee Roasters now roasts on three Probat drum roasters in Rahlstedt. The original houseboat continues as the Kaffeeakademie Hamburg, teaching barista and brewing courses.
Best for Founded by Arameh and Argin Keshishian on an Elbe houseboat at Entenwerder
Public Coffee Roasters began on the water: co-founders Arameh and Argin Keshishian started roasting on a houseboat moored at Entenwerder on the Elbe, working out of a converted customs house. The operation outgrew that original 800-square-metre site -- its roasting capacity had reached about four tons a month -- and by 2020 the company was moving five tons of coffee monthly, prompting a shift of primary production to a new roastery in Rahlstedt equipped with three Probat drum roasters, at 12, 25 and 75 kilograms.
Rather than close the houseboat, Public Coffee Roasters converted it into the Kaffeeakademie Hamburg, an education space running barista courses and brewing seminars on the site where the company started. Every batch still moves through the same process the founders set up early: farms are selected and vetted directly, sample-roasted and cupped at around 90 degrees C, then roasted to a custom profile built around time and temperature.
Today the beans -- sold as espresso blends including Black Pearl, Starlight and Moonlight, plus filter coffee and compostable capsules -- reach two Hamburg cafes and a wider wholesale and corporate client base, but the roastery's own account of its growth still runs through that first houseboat on the Elbe.
roestbar has roasted in Münster for 22 years on a Probat machine, run by founders Mario and Sandra across six branded locations. It also runs an SCA-certified coffee school and wholesale arm.
Best for It also runs an SCA-certified coffee school and wholesale arm
roestbar has operated in Münster for twenty-two years, a milestone its founders Mario and Sandra marked directly on the roastery's own blog. The business has grown from a single roastery into several branches — Campus, Nordstraße, Ring, Rothenburg, Domgasse and Supernormal — each pouring coffee roasted on the company's Probat machine at its Rudolf-Diesel-Strasse base. Alongside the coffeehouses sits a dedicated pastry and bakery operation, a wholesale division serving other businesses, and a coffee school offering SCA-certified courses and certifications — training baristas and roasters rather than only selling to them. The single-origin list draws from Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and El Salvador, alongside a Half Caff blend sourced from Brazil. No founding year beyond the twenty-two-years-and-counting figure is published, and no awards are listed on the site. What stands out is the breadth of the operation for a single-city roastery: six branded locations, a working coffee school with formal certification, and a wholesale arm, all tracing back to the same Probat-roasted single-origin lineup sold at the counter.
A small Marburg coffee roastery run by four founders, roasting, sorting and packing single-origin beans by hand at Alte Kasseler Str. 27. It sells its roasts and a barista course through its online shop and pours coffee at its RoestRaum and Kaffeekaestchen locations.
Best for Hand-roasted single-origin beans and a barista course from four founders in Marburg
Founded in Heidelberg in 2017, this specialty roastery supplies its own cafés and runs barista training courses. Beans are roasted locally and served across three cafés in Heidelberg and Dossenheim.
Best for House-roasted specialty coffee and barista training across three Heidelberg-area cafés since 2017
Special Coffee Roaster Konstanz drum-roasts direct-trade beans to order from its Neuwerk workshop, rather than holding pre-roasted stock. The shop also runs custom roasting commissions and training sessions, with walk-in hours limited to Monday afternoons.
Best for Direct-trade coffee roasted to order in Konstanz
Special Coffee Roaster Konstanz roasts on a drum machine at its Neuwerk workshop on Oberlohnstrasse, using what the company calls "schonende" — gentle — roasting at medium levels rather than fast, high-heat cycles, aiming to preserve rather than mask a lot's flavor profile. Coffee is bought through direct trade, with the roastery stating its sourcing model pays pickers and farms fairly and transparently rather than through a blind wholesale chain, and every batch is roasted to order rather than held as pre-roasted stock — the company states plainly that it prioritizes freshness by roasting "Auftragsbezogen" (per order) instead of in bulk. Beyond selling whole and ground beans by weight, the shop runs training sessions and takes custom roasting commissions, positioning itself as a working roastery rather than a retail-only counter. It also asks customers to bring their own containers for loose-bean purchases, a stated waste-reduction and cost-saving practice rather than a marketing gesture. Physical hours are narrow — Mondays only, 3 to 5pm — with the rest of the business run through email, WhatsApp, and Signal orders, a small-scale, appointment-driven model that matches its emphasis on made-to-order roasting over walk-in retail volume.
TeeGschwendner started in 1976, when 22-year-old Albert Gschwendner, his wife Gwendalina and his brother Karl opened a tea shop in response to what they saw as a lack of good tea retail in Germany.
Best for Curated loose-leaf tea from the family-run German retailer founded in 1976
TeeGschwendner started in 1976, when 22-year-old Albert Gschwendner, his wife Gwendalina and his brother Karl opened a tea shop in response to what they saw as a lack of good tea retail in Germany. A year later they expanded to Bonn under the idea of treating tea as an experience rather than a commodity purchase, and in 1982 the brothers began franchising the concept — an early move for the format in Germany at the time, which let the business expand nationally without the family funding every new shop itself.
The company took its current name in 1999, the same year it launched an online shop. Albert Gschwendner ran the business until his death in 2010; his son Jonathan became general manager in 2019, continuing family involvement into a third generation of leadership. TeeGschwendner describes its buying standard as selecting from a mere 0.5 percent of the world's annual tea harvest.
Now headquartered in Meckenheim with shops across Germany and beyond, TeeGschwendner's franchise model is the part of its history that let a single 1976 shop become a genuinely national tea retailer rather than staying a single Trier storefront.
Inside the historic Wasserschloss at the tip of the Speicherstadt, this tea merchant lines ceiling-high shelves with more than 250 teas plus house blends such as Elbufer and Sturmfest. Staff advise on selections, and gifts and gourmet items round out the range.
Best for More than 250 teas plus house blends such as Elbufer and Sturmfest
Toepferei Wirth, run by Eva Kleiner, is a pottery making everyday ceramics including coffee and tea services, tableware, storage jars and children's sets. Its online shop sells the range across categories and the workshop also appears at pottery and Christmas markets.
Best for Eva Kleiner's coffee and tea services, tableware, storage jars, and children's sets
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