Berlin roasts its own coffee. More than in any other city in this series, the places worth visiting here are roasteries first and cafés second, and the oldest of them go back twenty years, to a time when a filter coffee from a named Ethiopian farm was still an eccentric thing to order. Today the roasters are spread across Kreuzberg, Mitte, Friedrichshain, Wedding and Neukölln.
This guide is organised by roaster, and the list is not ranked.
Flying Roasters, Wedding and Kreuzberg
Flying Roasters buys its green coffee directly from the cooperatives that grow it, without intermediaries, and publishes an annual transparency report to prove it. Oliver Klitsch and Dr Nadine Heymann run the roastery in Wedding, and the website lists five values: direct trade, ecological, high quality, solidarity, transparency. The Wedding café, across the street from the roastery, opened in 2018; a second café in Kreuzberg followed in late September 2025. Both put the focus on coffee, with espresso drinks, V60, French press and rotating single origins in the grinder, plus croissants and cake. Barista and latte-art courses run at the roastery.
Bonanza Coffee Roasters, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte
Bonanza calls itself a pioneer of European specialty coffee in Berlin since 2006. The roastery in Kreuzberg is also a café, with the roaster visible behind a wood-and-glass partition. The original café is in Prenzlauer Berg, and two shops in Mitte cover the centre. Bonanza roasts in Berlin, sells to cafés across Europe and offers an essentials subscription for home.
Five Elephant, Kreuzberg, Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg
Five Elephant began in December 2010 on a quiet dead-end street in Kreuzberg, and that café is still where the company tells its story. Filter coffee was central from the start; so was cheesecake, baked in-house to the original recipe and now sold whole online. The roastery and bakery sit in a second Kreuzberg backyard, and the original café was rebuilt in 2025 with a dedicated hand-brew corner. There are four more cafés: one in Mitte, two in Prenzlauer Berg and a counter inside the Neue Nationalgalerie. Five Elephant also hosts the German AeroPress Championship.
THE BARN, Mitte and across the city
Ralf founded THE BARN in 2010 and built it into Berlin’s most awarded roaster: Best Coffee Chain Western Europe at the 2023 European Coffee Awards, Best Specialty Coffee Roaster for Europe and the Middle East in 2019, and a Roaster of the Year badge for 2025 on the homepage. The coffee is roasted lightly on a tailor-made Probat drum, lots are chosen at 86 points and above, and single origins are rarely blended. There are ten Berlin cafés, from the original in Mitte to Prenzlauer Berg, Neukölln and the Kranzler Eck in the west, and seventeen worldwide.
19grams, Alexanderplatz, Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg
19grams started in 2002 in Friedrichshain as Tres Cabezas, when founder Sascha opened the café that the company still calls its cult original. The name changed to 19grams, the dose Australian baristas use for a double espresso, and the business grew into a roaster with four cafés. Alex, by Alexanderplatz, is the roastery café: a glass-fronted roastery where roasting happens mostly on Mondays and Wednesdays, a lab running barista, roasting and sensory courses, monthly public cuppings, and a laptop-friendly room on weekdays. Boxi in Friedrichshain and Schlesi in Kreuzberg are the neighbourhood versions.
Silo Coffee and Fjord, Friedrichshain
Silo has served brunch and specialty coffee in Friedrichshain since 2013 and describes itself as a pioneer of both in Berlin. It is also the home of Fjord Coffee Roasters, the small roastery that launched out of the café and roasts on a cast-iron 12 kg Probat with a mission to find rare and unusual flavours. The menu is a seasonal breakfast and lunch, bacon and eggs beside vegan plates, with a live waitlist instead of reservations and card payments only.
Father Carpenter, Mitte
Father Carpenter describes itself as a breakfast and lunch restaurant and coffee roasting company, founded in Mitte in early 2015. It roasts in-house for its own café and wholesale partners, takes reservations for parties of up to seven while keeping half the room for walk-ins, and runs barista and home-brewing courses.
Companion Tea & Coffee, Neukölln
Companion began in 2013 as an espresso and tea bar inside a Berlin clothing store and opened its own tearoom and café in Neukölln in 2018. Tea is sourced directly from farms with full traceability, and the coffee carries Companion’s own label with roast dates on the bag.
Roasters without a café
Three Berlin roasters are worth knowing even though none of them has a café to sit in. Populus Coffee, the Finnish family roastery founded by Sari and Henrik Haavisto in Neukölln in 2016, closed its café in 2024 and now produces Nordic-style light roasts at a shared facility, with pop-ups around the city. NANO KAFFEE, founded in 2014 by Ramin Massah, roasts certified organic coffee in Kreuzberg and sells for pick-up at the roastery. Fjord, above, sells online and through Silo.
What you need to know about Berlin specialty coffee
Which Berlin roasters are worth visiting? Bonanza’s Kreuzberg roastery, 19grams Alex and Flying Roasters’ Wedding café all put the roaster in view. Five Elephant’s original café is a short walk from its roastery.
Which neighbourhoods suit a coffee walk? Kreuzberg has Bonanza, Five Elephant and 19grams Schlesi within reach of one another. Mitte has THE BARN’s original, Father Carpenter and Bonanza’s two city shops. Friedrichshain pairs Silo and 19grams Boxi.
Where can you brunch? Silo and Father Carpenter are restaurants as much as cafés. Five Elephant is the cake stop, and 19grams Alex serves brunch at weekends.
Photo credits
Photographs belong to the businesses and are reproduced from their official websites with attribution.
