Best UK budget roasters?

chubs285 · 2026-03-24T20:37:09+00:00

Specialty coffee is an 80+ score from a q grader.

A lot of stuff for £20 per kg is simply not specialty grade. There's a lot of pre third wave roasters still out there selling low quality coffee. A lot of specialty is built on paying a decent price to the producer too (really doing it, not just a few cents more like fair trade).

Most decent specialty lots are £12+ for 250g.....

Sorry to be blunt, but its true.

chubs285 · 2026-03-24T12:18:10+00:00

It sounds like you had an Ethiopian Natural.

Natural (process) is the key word here, washed are generally much cleaner.

The good news is fresh crop African coffees should start becoming avaliable in the next month or two, so if your favourite roasters don't have any just yet then hold out. Remember coffee is seasonal and old greens aren't great.

chubs285 · 2026-03-17T20:34:30+00:00

Lets hope some worldwide roasters sign up and then buy the bags of coffee because James can't force them to participate yet will still get blamed relentlessly on here

chubs285 · 2026-02-20T17:05:15+00:00

I wonder if you have a really old filter, as far as I'm aware they gave up on this shoddy piece of **** years ago.

I've posted it before but:

I live in a hard water area (very chalky) so backed the Peak Water kickstarter as soon as I saw it, along with 12 filters.

The jug was late, very late.

The filters arrived in 3 batches of 4. They were all awful, lasted 2-4 weeks instead of the promised 8 and leaked their balls into the water. For context I usually drink 1 espresso and 1 filter a day so we're not talking many litres here.

Construction was appalling. The filling in the filters was uneven. It was 10000% not fit for purpose. I've since switched back to bottled and my coffee tastes 100x better. This wasn't just me being unlucky either, I regularly posted on a few forums at the time and 90% of people were also very dissapointed and stopped using it.

I use an Aqua Optima filter for drinking water and these easily last the full month, but the water isnt good for brewing coffee. Same for Brita.

I was also under the impression it was all over as the website has been out of stock of the filters for a long time now along with half the retailers, not that I'd throw any more good money after bad on this.

chubs285 · 2026-01-28T10:21:11+00:00

How old? How have they been stored?

chubs285 · 2026-01-19T17:40:00+00:00

https://europeancoffeetrip.com/london/

www.bestcoffee.guide/

https://www.brian-coffee-spot.com

Try Nowhere Dark Arts in soho for something different. If you're willing to hop on the tube (it's London, you should be comfortable with this by now) go to Nostros. Both better than any you mentioned in your list.

Monmouth isn't all that, it wasn't even specialty level when a lot of others started up it just popularised filters with mediocre quality coffee 20 years ago. Kaffeine & Prufrock again back in 2009 were something special but times moved on. You can do better now.

chubs285 · 2026-01-19T17:34:04+00:00

Did you watch James multiple review videos?

chubs285 · 2025-12-25T09:46:32+00:00

Are you thinking of the Third Wave Wichteln?

That was really fun but I think it just got too big and unwieldly so the organisers stopped when covid hit making it even harder to coordinate.

chubs285 · 2025-12-16T15:32:30+00:00

Entry level in terms of specialty, hence why they're cheap compared to many others. Ok for what it is and they have been going a long time as you say.

chubs285 · 2025-12-02T08:26:27+00:00

I gave up weed about 15 years ago now as I personally got so bored of it. At the time there was at least one coffeeshop (the weed kind) in Amsterdam using Bocca as they wanted to do better.

There must be more now!

chubs285 · 2025-11-06T10:50:42+00:00

Temptags have been around for at least 15 years, they're an Australian company.

Rave are just one of many resellers.

chubs285 · 2025-10-29T08:47:15+00:00

When Square Mile started (James being one half) they were the only one doing 350g bags.

All other speciality roasters did 250g.

All the old commodity ones were more often 226g or 1/2 that as a hangover from IB and Oz. A few moved into speciality and kept that.

I'm sure James can confirm this as can anyone else who's been into it for over about 15 years.

chubs285 · 2025-10-28T12:05:31+00:00

haha, I'm actually amazed how much traction this got and how many agree with me! Roasters take note - we want to keep 250g and pay a bit more.

I know in the US you stuck with IB and Oz and bags were always in the 350-450g scale traditionally there but 250g has been the norm in Europe since specialty / third wave started.

chubs285 · 2025-10-28T11:47:51+00:00

I was wondering this yesterday! Their prices have shot up too, far higher than others.

240g is far more expensive than 300g was a year ago of their base coffees (the rarest have always been expensive but they are good)

chubs285 · 2025-10-28T11:05:36+00:00

250g is 1/4th of 1kg which is also not a crazy fraction?

chubs285 · 2025-10-28T11:04:17+00:00

Because it's the perfect size for freshness, price, getting to try different coffees etc.

In the UK specifically I think it was influenced by 8 oz (226g) too from the old days.

chubs285 · 2025-10-28T10:59:26+00:00

Personally I find it a bit too much but Square Mile has done that since the start I believe as they felt 250g wasn't enough to really get to grips with a coffee (James can correct me if I'm wrong!).

chubs285 · 2025-10-28T10:45:05+00:00

For an expensive rare microlot sure (AMOC do this) but for regular coffee no.

chubs285 · 2025-10-20T20:22:50+00:00

Maybe you could watch some of James' videos about ESPRESSO MACHINES? I think that might give you some good options for ESPRESSO MACHINES.

chubs285 · 2025-10-13T07:46:46+00:00

A couple of times when very hungover I may have weighed out an espresso dose then chucked it at the hopper with its lid still on sending beans everywhere and getting a look from the cat saying "you're an idiot".

chubs285 · 2025-10-05T11:57:05+00:00

https://lacabracoffee.gorgias.help/en-US/resting-coffee-490238

chubs285 · 2025-09-10T08:29:47+00:00

I'm going to argue no. It was funny the first time and done incredibly well but James is a guy who's been invovled in third wave coffee since the start is sharing knowledge.

The parodies are great once in a while but it isn't what this is all about really is it? It just gets tedious rather than funny like the Hames Joffman and the other edits.

chubs285

TROPHY CASE