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.

Dark Woods Coffee

Where: West Yorkshire, UK

Who: Founders Damian Blackburn, Paul Meikle-Janney and Ian Agnew are all passionate & experienced coffee professionals who came together to launch Dark Woods Coffee where they roast, train and make coffee with their team.

Since When: 2013

Why: We love their sense of adventure and serious dedication to sourcing & roasting the most amazing coffees. They are committed to always learning more and collectively have experience from all across the industry.

What’s the story: Dark Woods Coffee roast all their coffee by hand on an old 1950s Probat drum roaster in a refurbished textile mill. After collectively amassing an impressive number of years’ experience all across the coffee industry; the 3 founders joined forces. On a mission to share their knowledge and love of a decent cup of coffee; they focus on making the finest coffee accessible to everyone by creating a range of roasts and styles that reflect what people truly want to drink; both in 3rd
wave and more traditional markets.

Sustainability Credentials

Our general principle is what we call “relationship” coffees, working long term with individual farms, drawing on their expertise year on year, developing an understanding of each other’s businesses. This approach offers long term business stability for all and has initiated many shared projects, like “farmer radio” in Panama and water conservation projects in Peru, and ultimately developed many new friendships. 

Our favourite coffees:

Panama La Huella - This natural is exclusive to Dark Woods who work in partnership with Café de Panama. This award winning coffee’s tasting notes are: Rich berries, milk chocolate, clean, cranberry finish.

Colombia El Jordan - Dark Wood’s House Columbian coffee is one we return to time after time as the quintessential all-day, everyday brew. With tasting notes of Citrus, almond and caramel; this fully washed coffee makes a perfect filter.

Under Milk Wood – This medium roast is the first blend every created by Dark Woods and is a firm favourite due to its perfectly balanced, crowd-pleasing properties. Tasting notes of caramel in milk and a coffee that works just as well straight black, as espresso or with milk.

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