Colombia Coffee Roasters is a family-run, woman-owned business that roasts only Colombian coffee. Milly Barr grew up around a coffee farm in Colombia, came to Britain for a master’s degree in commercial law and gave up a career as a lawyer to start it. It began as a micro-roastery and café in Oxford’s Covered Market, and a second café opened in Summertown in 2019.

The Covered Market café won the Oxford Mail’s Best Café award in 2022, with the Summertown café second. The market café was renovated with a new counter to improve the barista workflow, and the café has hosted international and Colombian barista champions. The cafés serve cakes, baked goods and an all-day brunch, and Summertown takes table bookings. Masterclasses in espresso, latte art and filter brewing run in Oxford, and a mobile Coffee Trike, “as seen on BBC’s The Apprentice and EastEnders”, goes out to events.

The green coffee comes directly from Colombian producers, some of it from indigenous communities. Long-term partners include Elías Roa of Finca Tamaná in Huila and Orlando Fierro of Hacienda El Porvenir in Cundinamarca, who is Milly’s uncle. The roasting happens at a roastery in Wheatley, east of Oxford, on a Loring Falcon S15, which the company uses “to cut up to 80% of our energy emissions”; the roastery is open to visitors. The bags are aluminium-free and fully recyclable.

The current retail range is listed below with the roaster’s own tasting notes.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Colombia Coffee Roasters