Goût & Co is a micro-lot roastery founded in Chengdu in 2020 by Tong, its roaster. Tong trained in robotics engineering, took a master’s degree in France and discovered specialty coffee in Paris, where he placed third in the French Brewers Cup in 2018. He returned to Chengdu in 2019, won the city’s regional AeroPress Championship and started the roastery the following year. “Goût” is French for taste, and the “Co” stands for coffee, connection and communication.

The roastery buys more than 100 micro-lots of green coffee a year and gives each one its own roast profile on two Stronghold S7 Pro roasters and a Stronghold S8X. Every coffee is taken to the lightest roast that shows its terroir, a style Goût & Co names Ultra-light, and the coffees are described by how they taste rather than by roast colour. There are two Goût & Co coffee shops in Chengdu, in Kuanzhai and Zongbei, as well as an atelier, atelier102, and beans ship worldwide. The team also puts together Taste Chengdu, a guide to the independent shops it likes in the city.

The range is built around single lots from Ethiopia, Colombia and Panama, with coffees from Honduras, Costa Rica, Brazil, Kenya, Rwanda and Ecuador, many of them geishas and experimental processes. Four coffees are picked out for espresso and milk drinks and sold in larger bags.

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Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Goût & Co