Matthias Feldmeier and Ilan Bachl founded Stray Coffee Roasters in 2021, and the two of them, Feldi and Ilan, still run it. Their coffee shop is in Westend.

Stray starts from the view that most of the work behind a good cup is done in the growing regions, by producers who rarely get the credit. Every Stray coffee carries the name of its producer or cooperative, and the roaster discloses all the costs along the supply chain, because it believes informed customers are essential to a sustainable coffee trade. The name comes from the verb: to stray is to travel along a route that was not originally intended.

The current coffees are a small selection of rare lots from Colombia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Burundi and Brazil. Las Perlitas Fruity gathers the small lots of Huila smallholders that score 86 points or more into one export-sized lot, each cupped several times on the way, so that farms too small to export alone are paid for their quality.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Stray Coffee Roasters