About Us

TORONTO'S FIRST ONSITE ROASTERY CAFE

Founded in 1988, Coffee Tree Roastery is Toronto’s first on-site roastery and roasts ethically-sourced, quality coffee on an artisanal scale. The backbone of our business started with a 3-cylinder Jabez Burns batch roaster which produced a batch of coffee every 15 minutes. We now roast in a larger artisan roaster which you’ll see in the front of our shop. The place smells great! You can watch us roast most days when you stop by for your beans, cold brew or Americano.

Coffee Tree Roastery has long been committed to practicing economic, environmental and social sustainability.
The owner, Susan, explains it this way: Buying responsible coffee
(i) improves the livelihood of farmers, their communities and the land they rely on for the next generation to earn their living
(ii) offers the highest quality coffee because we roast our beans onsite and continue to educate our customers about coffee, its origins and the importance of freshness.

Without a doubt we remain at the forefront of the slow coffee & food movement with our artisan approach to roasting, offering highly sought after luxury brands like Jamaican Blue Mountain, Hawaiian Kona and Small Lot Series coffees like our ‘Women in Coffee’ Burundi Izere and our newest arrival with Katia Duke’s Honduras Copan Ruinas.

Our passion is to meet you, earn your trust and respect and set you up with the right coffees to prepare at home or enjoy in the shop.

We believe small is beautiful. It is this dedication to small and responsible artisan roasting that still sets us apart from the crowd. We roast almost everyday and you can taste it in every cup.

ETHICAL SOURCING

1. It goes without saying that the coffee must be of the highest quality. Independent 3rd party audit allows for the transparency we require to be assured that our coffee is socially, environmentally and economically responsible. The labels that you associate with fairness include Fairtrade, UTZ Certified, Organic, Rainforest Alliance and Grower Direct Cooperatives.

2. Many of our loose leaf teas fall under the Ethical Tea Partnership and many are also organic.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY

1. We reduce, reuse and recycle on an ongoing basis through the city’s organic waste collection, blue box, cardboard and yellow bag programs. If you want spent coffee grounds for your garden or coffee sacks to wrap your roses in the fall, let us know.

2. We also embrace energy conservation where we can and have replaced all our fridges over time with energy star appliances. Even our light bulbs and toilets are environmentally correct! We turn our lights off every night and keep the doors closed when the A/C is on.

3. We support using biodegradable paper products including bio-cups and give you 15c off for bringing your own cup.

GIVING BACK

The success we enjoy as a neighbourhood small business is because you believed in us from the get go. When no one else was roasting coffee, you stopped by to ask us all about our fresh-roasted beans. You ordered specialty coffees and breakfast bagels and you also took our delicious beans home. You helped us become who we are today.

Every year we show our gratitude by saying Thank You. We make a financial donation to organizations who support what they believe in. By supporting us, you automatically support the following charities:

The Assaulted Women's Helpline Annual tip drive takes place the first weekend in December
Sleeping Children Around The World 100% of the money reaches the children
Red Wood Shelter works with women on an ongoing basis regarding the safety and wellbeing of women and their children
Bruce Trail Conservancy It’s here in our backyard and just being in the woods promotes mental health and happiness.
Local U14 girls summer and winter soccer programs
Monthly "brewed coffee" drive On the 25th of each month we donate .25c from every cup of coffee sold to
www.groundsforhealth.org for the prevention of cervical cancer in rural areas