Kumquat Coffee has served Los Angeles since 2018, when The Original Kumquat opened in Highland Park. Kumquat DTLA followed in the Financial District, with a one-of-one La Marzocco Strada AV built by the maker’s design studio to match the room, and in 2025 came Quat in Glassell Park, a café, retail store and events space billed as the engine of Kumquat and Loquat. Loquat is the family’s own roastery and the beans Kumquat sells wholesale.

The shelf and the grinders are given to roasters Kumquat has built relationships with: Fritz and Momos from Korea, Leaves, Lilo and MAME from Japan, April from Copenhagen, The Barn from Berlin, Tanat from France, Passenger from Pennsylvania and Jamison Savage’s Savage Coffees from Panama. Kumquat and April have been partners since 2020 and have twice hosted the April Brewers Cup at Kumquat DTLA, and the April Brewer, in a cashmere edition made with Patrik Rolf, is the only brewer used in store. The KQ Coffee Club subscription sends one or two bags a month from a featured roaster, chosen by a tasting committee of in-house Q-graders and regular customers; Sprudge called it the “Best International Coffee Subscription”. Kumquat also runs a green-bean market of microlots from Hacienda La Esmeralda, the Janson estates, Mt. Totumas, Herbazú and Las Margaritas 26 for home roasters and competitors, and in July 2025 it was, by its own account, the only host in Los Angeles of the Best of Panama cupping.

The cafés serve a monthly limited drink, a breakfast burrito by chef Gary Nguyen for in-store pick-up, and Saison, Kumquat’s own label of ceremonial matcha and loose-leaf teas. Events at Quat include Atelier Q, an a la carte service brewing any coffee from the curation.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Kumquat Coffee