Upside Coffee Roasters is a small Dublin roastery that has been roasting since 2016. It started in a 30-square-metre lockup on the Northside with a roaster that took 2 kilos a batch, a couple of sacks of green coffee and an ambition to keep learning. The name is a nod to the Northside it calls home, and to the good it believes coffee can do in someone’s life. The roastery is in Fairview, with a small team of roasters, tasters and dispatchers.

Coffee comes from importers and growers Upside trusts, from farms of less than ten acres to smallholder cooperatives. The offering changes with each country’s harvest, so green coffee is bought at its peak, and Upside aims for long-term, traceable relationships and open supply chains. Each new coffee is roasted differently, with the roast logged and the result tasted before it is packed.

The range splits into espresso and filter. The espresso roasts include the Classic Espresso, a natural Brazil in a more traditional roast style; the Brazil Medium Espresso; the Upside Espresso, built on seasonal Central and South American coffees; and the Technicolour Light Espresso, roasted between light and medium for drinking black. There is a decaf and a half-caf blend. The filter roasts are light and meant to be drunk black. They come from Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Peru, Colombia, Guatemala and Myanmar, its first Asian coffee, and include geishas from Colombia and Guatemala.

Wholesale partners get barista training, free consultancy on workflow and counter layout, and equipment from brands including La Marzocco, Mahlkönig and Puqpress.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Upside Coffee Roasters