Single O, Surry Hills, Sydney

Single O’s founders bought a 15 kg roaster in 2003, named it Big Boris and began roasting in Surry Hills, at a time when roasting was a dark art and sourcing green beans was a mission. The first single origins it tasted, a chocolatey Mexico Chiapas and an Ethiopia Sidamo strikingly like oranges, set its interest in terroir, variety and process. Wholesale is Single O’s main game. The company is a certified B Corp with a programme, No Death To Coffee, aiming to halve its carbon emissions by 2026 and reach net zero by 2030. Its roastery is now in Botany, where the daily roasting happens.

The Surry Hills café is where it all started. It serves the Reservoir blend and four single origins at any given time, with a dozen dishes on a seasonal breakfast and lunch menu. Next door is Sideshow, its brew bar and the birthplace of the Juggler café milk tap system, serving takeaway coffee, pour-overs, cold brew and an espresso of the week. Surry Hills was also the first café anywhere to launch Freepour Batch, hot and cold filter coffee on tap. Since 2016 the company has had a Saturday stall at Carriageworks Farmers Market, where coffee comes in a returnable Huskee BorrowCup, and in 2026 it launched Giving A Puck, a coffee-grounds upcycling programme run with Melbourne’s Reground.

Beyond Sydney there is a café in Newstead, Brisbane, and five sites in Tokyo, including a roastworks in Ryogoku, run by long-time team members Yu and Mamiko Yamamoto. The retail range holds four blends, a Swiss Water decaf, a seasonal low-caff blend, a rotating set of single origins and Parachutes, its single-serve drip bags. The current retail range is listed below with the roaster’s own tasting notes.