La Caféothèque has been a coffee salon, roastery and school on the Seine, facing the Île Saint-Louis, since 2005. Its founder, Gloria Montenegro, presented caféologie at the SIRHA trade fair in Lyon in January 2001 and defined it as the visual, olfactory and gustatory tasting of fine coffees from selected terroirs. An association of oenologists, perfumers, olive-oil experts and chefs then met monthly at Le Procope to taste coffees received from plantations and roasted on the spot, until the house opened. The idea is to give coffee back its dignity as a product of origin, as with wine. Its tasting grid scores coffees out of 100: 80 to 90 is a premier cru de spécialité, 90 and above a grand cru de spécialité. The landlord is the Cité Internationale des Arts, whose resident artists make up part of the clientele.
Roasting has been in house since the opening, on a capacity deliberately limited to 5 kg, for a selection of 25 to 30 coffees bought in direct trade and often exclusively, including Cup of Excellence gold medals from Guatemala. Its Guatemalan coffees travel in 11.3 kg arroba sacks. The head roaster, Eyayu Kassa, is an agronomist from Addis Ababa University. The salon serves three coffees on espresso and twenty-five on slow methods each day, across three tasting rooms and a terrace with 80 seats. The school has trained more than 1,000 professionals and welcomed more than 10,000 people at its introductory workshops; the workshops cover caféologie with slow methods or espresso, and professional courses run from a 35-hour first level to roasting.
In 2022 the house opened a second site at Reid Hall in Montparnasse, the home of Columbia Global Centers Paris, with a roasting room, a coffee shop and a cultural programme; it is open to outsiders with a Coffee Club card. In September 2026 La Caféothèque announced the launch of IWCA France, the French chapter of the International Women’s Coffee Alliance.
Coffee on the shelf
Photograph: La Caféothèque