Coffee as a craft,
not a commodity

“We had one question: what does truly great coffee taste like when you trace it back to its source?”

Brewleaf started in 2018 with a rented kitchen, a second-hand drum roaster, and forty bags of green coffee from a single importer. Marcus and Layla had been working in specialty coffee for years: one on the roasting side, one on sourcing. They kept arriving at the same frustration: the gap between what coffee could taste like and what most people were being served.

Two years in, they flew to Ethiopia without appointments. A farmer named Tadesse walked them through his processing station at 2,100 meters and handed them a cup that tasted like jasmine and bergamot. That trip changed the business. Direct relationships with farms weren't a marketing angle; they were the only way to guarantee what ended up in the bag.

Today Brewleaf roasts small-batch twice a week, sources from three origins they've visited personally, and serves everything from a 12-seat cafe on Bedford Ave. Nothing ships that hasn't been cupped by Marcus first.