Archipelago Foods
Archipelago—a nod to the multi-island nation of Indonesia, from where the company sources its beans—directly imports green coffee beans to roast in small batches in Vancouver. Its Java Preanger Arabica beans ($18.99 per 500-gram bag), for example, come from the forests of Mount Puntang in West Java, where coffee has been planted for 300 years, and sell at Gastown’s Indonesian Trade Promotion Centre and online.
Kicking Horse Coffee
Kicking Horse Coffee has been roasting beans in Invermere, B.C., for more than 25 years—and its catalogue just keeps getting bigger. Its famous blend, Three Sisters—a nod to a trio of Rocky Mountain peaks close to where the operation is set up—now comes in bags of whole beans and coffee grounds, as well as Keurig pods, which you can find in most major grocers.
Alai Coffee
This Vancouver-based micro-roaster sources specifically Indian coffee beans, boasting a farm-to-cup ethos. You can find bags of their coffee, like the Drift medium-dark roast ($22), online.
Agro Coffee Roasters
Organic sourcing and efficient roasting is the name of the game for Vancouver-based Agro Coffee Roasters. You can pick up from their Powell Street roastery or subscribe online for regular drops of their 340-gram, two-pound or five-pound bags of roasted coffee—like the darkly roasted Nocturnal espresso ($17).
Bows Coffee Roasters
This Victoria-based coffee roaster offers espresso subscriptions from $19 and individual roasts starting at $15 per 300-gram bag. Producing single-origin roasts named after the farmers they source from, Bows sells from its Garbally Road roastery, its Torch Song cafe on Government Street and online.
Artigiano
Twenty-five years ago, anyone who knew anything about coffee and café culture in Vancouver flocked to get a seat at Caffè Artigiano on Hornby Street. Now the B.C.-born brand has a chain of shops across Western Canada, roasting their beans at their Burnaby roastery. Bags of whole beans (340 grams each) range from $19 to $22 in their online shop and in their cafés.
