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Roasting: The Great Return of Traditional Coffees

And one more! Recently inaugurated in the Mouffetard neighborhood, a new place dedicated to coffee has just opened its doors in Paris. Under the name Loutsa, this boutique is the first Parisian address of this Lyon-based roaster. True to its promise, Loutsa offers the opportunity to experience the roasting process and discover multiple flavors of coffee. Connoisseurs are already crowding the Parisian café.

This opening is a testimony to the growth of the coffee industry over the last ten years, which embraces specialty coffee shops, specialty shops, coffee lounges and other places where experienced baristas work, inciting the popularization of their coffee. Faced with the multinationals, a new generation of coffee shop owners is shaking up the sector by advocating an authentic and artisanal approach to coffee. According to an amateur at the counter, “The new generation of baristas is part of a real creative process. There is enormous potential in roasting.” In these new places, appreciated by a clientele that is often young and trendy, the best grains are tasted like fine wines, following an expert preparation that brings old practices up to date.

Several steps are indeed necessary to prepare a quality coffee.

The first step begins thousands of miles from your cup, on plantations in countries such as Ethiopia, Brazil, Colombia or Vietnam, to name but a few, in order to select the best producers and ensure the origin of the harvest. Once harvested, the coffee, which is not drinkable in its current state, must then go through a transformation process (pulping and drying), which consists of treating the coffee beans while they are still green. These are then ready to be roasted, the final step that will allow the aromas to be sublimated, thanks to a cooking process that requires real expertise. By varying the origin of the coffee beans, as well as the temperature and the cooking time, the roaster will be able to reveal the aromas – there are nearly 800 of them – to exalt its multiple flavors (fruity, chocolatey, woody or vegetable). The coffee can then be ground, a final step that is also important: “Coffee is a product that deserves to be freshly ground,” says a barista at Terres de Café. Drinking a coffee prepared this way becomes a real tasting experience.

Acumen met some of the representatives of this new generation of roasters and gives you a selection of addresses where coffee preparation is an art in its own right.

Loutsa

Loutsa

Decorated with a blue front, Loutsa’s new boutique, in the heart of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, offers an impressive selection of coffees. Inaugurated at the beginning of September, it is the first Parisian café of this Lyon-based company. Its particularity? A color system classifies the different coffee aromas so that customers can find their way around and better choose the coffee corresponding to their tastes and desires. With the motto “Let’s share all the colors of coffee!”, this roasting specialist wants to make coffee and its multiple aromas a sensational experience.

1, rue de Bazeilles, Paris 5e

Tuesday to Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Sunday: 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

 

Alain Ducasse

According to Alain Ducasse, roasting is “a highly technical art in which you also need a lot of sensitivity and a bit of magic”. Although La Manufacture de Café has only been making coffee since last year, the company’s roaster has already achieved third place at the World Roasting Championships. At Alain Ducasse, we like “raw and real” products. To achieve this, the company sources coffee beans from the best producers around the world and attaches great importance to their purity.

12, rue Saint-Sabin, Paris 11e

Tuesday to Sunday: 10:15 a.m. – 6:45 p.m.

www.lecafe-alainducasse.com/fr

Terres de café

Terres de café

Founded by the “best roaster in France” – Christophe Servell, named so in 2005 by the French Coffee Committee – the brand offers coffee beans from all over the world and a rich and varied selection. For example, at the entrance to one of the Parisian stores on rue des Blancs-Manteaux, a customer describes his coffee as “very fine aromas and lots of character”. Anything is possible for Christophe Servell, who has been travelling for years in producing countries to source the best coffees and then offer a vision of a “French-style” coffee to his clients. Last year, Terres de Café was recognized as France’s leading specialty coffee roaster and now has five Parisian cafés.

Terres de Café: 5 Parisian addresses

Schedules on the site: www.terresdecafe.com/fr

 

Fringe

Photographer and coffee lover, Jeff Hargrove from Denmark has reconciled his two passions by opening Fringe: Coffee and food photography, an extension of his book, Paris Coffee Revolution (see box). With an interior that exudes Danish design and, more broadly, Scandinavian design, Jeff offers specialty coffee that has everything to make local roasters proud. Fringe also serves freshly squeezed fruit juices (carrot, apple, orange and beet), cakes and cookies, as well as open sandwiches, true to Scandinavian cuisine.

106, rue de Turenne, Paris 3rd

www.fringecoffeeparis.com/

Belleville Brulerie

Belleville Brûlerie

Founded in 2003 by three lovers of good coffee who wanted to return the letters of nobility to French coffee, Belleville Brûlerie mixes artisanal knowledge and convivial living spaces. Here, the coffees are meticulously sourced from producers around the world, such as in Guatemala, Honduras or Rwanda, before being roasted and assembled on site. The menu evolves with the harvest throughout the year to offer only the freshest coffees. Belleville Brûlerie offers visits and roasting workshops at its three Parisian addresses.

Three addresses:

14 b, rue Lally-Tollendal, Paris 20e

31-33, rue Juliette-Dodu, Paris 10e 

50, rue de Belleville, Paris 20e

https://cafesbelleville.com

 

Caron

For forty-six years, this family business has been an expert in roasting. This passion for coffee, which has been nurtured for half a century, now rests on the shoulders of Anne Caron, who is just as much in love with coffee as her father and forefathers were. Crowned best roaster in France in 2017 and now author of the book Cafégraphie, Anne Caron offers her customers a unique coffee experience. Among the blends that have made her reputation is Blend Caron, a formula developed in 1974 by Sylvain Caron that represents the blend of four great coffee grains.

32, rue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, Paris 3e

Tuesday to Saturday: 9:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.

www.cafecaron.com

 

Gramme

Opened a year ago in the Haut-Marais, Gramme is a café, a canteen and a small grocery store with a vintage feel that offers gourmet breaks that vary according to the rhythm of the seasons. It’s the perfect café with a neat and luminous interior décor. The house offers several specialties, ranging from Colombian grains to exceptional coffees made from a blend of Ethiopian coffees, whose fruity notes awaken the sense of smell and taste buds. The roasting is not done on site but in Marseille by Deep, a specialist in micro-roasting.

86, rue des Archives, Paris 3rd

Lomi

To become as pro as the pros

Café Lomi

Hidden between the Marcadet-Poissonniers and Marx-Dormoy stations, this little nugget of roasting is not only a place where you can enjoy delicious coffee, but also offers the opportunity to learn the art of coffee making at a school located only a few steps away. Supervised by Mikaël Portannier, the intensive, five-day training courses that alternate practical and theoretical learning will allow you to become a coffee expert, with an official diploma at the end of the course! It is also possible to opt for simple initiations, since the school offers shorter modules over one to three days. For the apprentice coffee roasters in a hurry, the Lomi school even has discovery workshops lasting two or three hours.

3 bis, rue Marcadet, Paris 18e

Tuesday to Saturday: 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

lomi.coffee/pages/ecole-lomi