I'm the person who writes and maintains Roasterlist. I'm not a barista, a roaster, a coffee judge, or a coffee professional. I'm someone who drinks a lot of UK specialty coffee and built the directory I wanted to find.
I went looking for a complete, honest directory of UK coffee roasters and couldn't find one. The "top 10" lists were written by people who hadn't tried the coffee. The directories were thin. The brand-owned sites were funnels for their own products. So I started building Roasterlist as the resource I wished existed.
The aim is straightforward. Find every UK coffee roaster I can. Write a real description of each one. Keep the data current. Don't take payment from roasters to be listed. Be transparent about how the site is funded and how the editorial works.
Read carefully. Research thoroughly. Write plainly. Tell you what makes a roaster distinct from the next one without dressing it up.
Tell you what coffee tastes like in a professional sense. I'm not a Q grader. I haven't trained in cupping. I don't have a barista certification. The descriptions on Roasterlist aren't tasting reviews. They're about who the roaster is, where they sit in the UK scene, what they're trying to do, and what's notable about them.
If you want professional tasting notes, the roasters' own websites and dedicated coffee publications are the right place. Roasterlist is the layer above that: the map, not the tasting room.
For each roaster on the site, I read their full website, look at their public statements (interviews, press, social), and write a description that gives a reader a real sense of what they're like. The full process is on the methodology page.
I don't copy marketing copy. I don't generate descriptions from a template. I write each one as if I were describing the roaster to a friend who asked.
None on the editorial side. I don't own, work for, advise, or take payment from any UK coffee roaster. I don't have a stake in any of them. If that ever changes for a specific roaster, that connection will be declared on the relevant page and that roaster will be excluded from any "best of" feature.
The site is funded by affiliate links and (when we cross the threshold) display advertising. The full picture is on the affiliate disclosure page. Affiliate revenue funds the time spent on Roasterlist; it never decides what I write.
I run separate ventures that have nothing to do with coffee or this site. They're not linked from here on purpose. Roasterlist is its own thing, written under my own name, and I want the editorial to stand on what's on this site rather than be inherited from anywhere else.
Editorial questions, corrections, suggestions, complaints, or anything else go to [email protected]. I read everything that lands there.
If you're a UK roaster who'd like to update your listing or correct something we've written, please email from a domain we can match to your business. It speeds things up.
The principles behind the editorial: see the editorial standards page.
How the directory is built: see the methodology.
How the site is funded: see the affiliate disclosure.