Coffee Roaster Introduction: Mió x Assembly

Best Coffee's roastery guide is a compilation of the very best, tried & tested coffee roasters from around the world. We’ve hand-selected a small collection of amazing coffees for you to sample. Not all coffees are created equal, and not all coffees make it into our shop. So we’re starting a series of articles shining a light on our chosen roasteries to explain why we picked them for your drinking delight.

Where: Brixton, London

Who: The Assembly team are a dedicated bunch of coffee-enthusiasts, headed up by Nick Mabey and Michael Cleland.

Mió is a coffee farm in Brazil which has taken the decision to import their coffee & sell direct to UK roasteries in order to ensure full traceability from tree to cup. Read more from Mió’s Ana Luiza Pellicer here.

Since when: Assembly have been roasting since 2015. The Pellicer family have been farming on the Mió farm for 4 generations, since 1911.

Why: We’re excited to have both Mió and Assembly on board for our May coffees. The coffee is sourced directly from the Mio farm and roasted by Assembly. Both Mio and Assembly have great sustainability initiatives too.

What’s the story: Assembly is a small batch, specialty roaster based in London. Assembly put their customers at the very centre of everything they do, and spent 6 months prior to launching interviewing and building relationships with cafés and restaurants to help define how they could launch a coffee roastery with a difference. They have teamed up with Brazilian coffee producer and importer Mió to roast some of their specialty lots this year.

Sustainability credentials:

Direct Sourcing of coffee from Brazil, additionally Assembly have long-standing buying arrangements with estates & specialty exporters and pay above Fairtrade price.

On the farm Mio invest in healthcare and wellbeing programmes for their workers, as well as offering free transport to work and pay by the hour, not by weight of cherries picked.

Assembly is a carbon-neutral company, using fully compostable coffee pods. Mio have a strict reforestation policy, meaning they plant equal area of native forest land for every hectare of coffee they grow.

Our favourite coffees:

Lot 1911

This single-origin micro-lot is named after the year Fioravante Peillicer bought his first patch of land to grow on. Now, the family boasts its 4th generation of farmers. 1911, roasted by Assembly is complex in the cup, with comforting notes of milk chocolate, dried fruit and light acidity.

Lot 1930

This red honey-processed lot is named after the inaugural year of Monte Santo carnival (close to the Mió farm), which has since become a strong tradition in the area. This full-bodied coffee has crisp acidity with notes of cherry and maple-syrup sweetness.