Small-Batch Specialty Coffee Roasters Worth Ordering From

Jon and Andrea Allen started Onyx in 2012 in Bentonville, Arkansas — not a conventional specialty coffee city. That outsider position shaped their approach: compete on quality, not geography. Their sourcing team travels to Ethiopia, Colombia, and El Salvador to buy directly from specific lots, and their roast profiles are calibrated to the variety and processing method of each coffee. Multiple SCA Good Food Awards. Consistently in the top tier of specialty roasters for washed light roasts.

Brett Smith and Fred Houk started Counter Culture in Durham in 1995, which puts them among the first wave of US specialty roasters that actually cared about where coffee came from. They started publishing annual transparency reports — documenting prices paid to farmers — before most roasters knew what that meant. Their Hologram espresso blend has been a benchmark for specialty cafes for years. Training centers in 11 cities.

Helen Russell and Brooke McDonnell founded Equator in 1995 out of Marin County, California. Equator was one of the first US roasters to be certified as a B Corp — a designation that looks at worker treatment, environmental impact, and community involvement, not just sustainable sourcing claims. Their sourcing program focuses on long-term farm partnerships in East Africa and Latin America, with pricing above Fair Trade minimums.

Ryan O'Donovan and Colby Barr launched Verve in Santa Cruz in 2007 with a clear aesthetic preference: bright, fruited, light. Their Ethiopia and Kenya lots are particularly well-regarded — they chase the washed-process clarity that makes single-origin light roasts taste like something other than coffee. Verve has expanded to Los Angeles and Tokyo without diluting the sourcing program.

George Howell opened The Coffee Connection in Cambridge in 1974 and eventually developed the Frappuccino concept — which he sold to Starbucks in 1994. He spent years consulting, then re-entered specialty with George Howell Coffee in 2004, focused purely on extraordinary single-origin lots and precise light roasting. If Counter Culture and Intelligentsia are the direct-trade pioneers, Howell is the one they point to as the original.

Ryan Knapp opened Madcap in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2008 and the brand has stayed quietly focused since — no major expansion, just consistently excellent coffees from Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Kenya. Madcap was early to anaerobic fermentation processing and has been exploring winemaking-adjacent methods with producers in Colombia and El Salvador. One of the more technically serious roasters operating out of the Midwest.

Jared Linzmeier started Ruby in 2013 in Nelsonville, Wisconsin — a village of about 400 people. The brand punches well above its geography: consistently included in specialty media's best-of roaster lists, with direct relationships with producers in El Salvador and Ethiopia. Their focus on washed processing means origin flavors come through clearly. If you want to understand what terroir in coffee actually means, start here.

Will Pratt and Kathleen LaCourt opened Tandem in Portland, Maine in 2012. The name is literal — they're genuine partners in everything, from farm visits to roast profiling. Tandem keeps the offering deliberately small: a handful of coffees at a time, each sourced directly and rotated with the harvest calendar. Their Burundi and Ethiopian lots have a reputation for unusually high clarity — the kind of cup that rewards a proper pour-over setup.