Maude

Ask the Roaster

About

Maude Coffee are a speciality micro roaster operating from our base under the railway lines of Leeds. Our mission is to introduce the world’s best quality coffee to the UK market in a considered, disciplined way. To this end, we source only coffees that score 86 or above on Cup Of Excellence (COE) scores. 

We aim to use only coffee that is highly traceable back to the grower, be it an estate, farm or microlot. This way we ensure an at all points ethical supply chain and know that those working to produce such good coffee are paid what they deserve and are rewarded with recognition for their efforts.

We’re a small team of passionate individuals who all care deeply about showing the breadth and depth of coffee’s potential, both as a diverse, tasty product for your enjoyment first thing in the morning and as a sustainable livelihood for the farmer.

With over 8 years combined experience in almost all the aspects of the industry short of farming ourselves, from being a barista to engineering, from sourcing green to roasting, we aim to bring all this to bear on everything we do. The first roast we ever did was conducted with the same care and consideration as our last of the week.

In our trading partners we look for people dedicated to a sustainable supply chain, whose ethics mirror our own in wanting to avoid putting the financial burden for coffee on any one link in the chain, be it the farmer, ourselves or the end consumer.   Where we can, we communicate and work as directly as we are capable with the coffee grower themselves. We aim for as direct a trade as possible for a small fledgling roastery, with our importer acting as our intermediary when our own resources fall short.

Roasting on a Probat Probatone 12, we roast in small batches to ensure every bean is treated with the utmost respect. We consider a multitude of variables before the coffee enters the roaster: density, moisture content, processing, varietal and batch size. Once we have an idea on how to begin, we test over and over until we experience exactly what we want on the cupping table. Even after we have released a coffee we still test every roast to see if we can improve upon what has been set. Everything we do is logged so that we may refer back to and repeat what we have achieved previously.

Our preferred roasting style is the “omniroast”, meaning the roasted coffee is suitable for any and all coffee methods of choice. In roasting, we simply aim to bring out all the natural flavour and sweetness inherent in the bean to its utmost extent.  The “ideal” brew method for an omniroasted coffee is left entirely up to you (not that we won’t have a particular favourite ourselves).

Dog and Hat

There's nothing we love more than being able to link up with amazing Yorkshire businesses, so when we had the chance to visit Maude Coffee Roasters at their roastery under the railway arches in Leeds we were thrilled.