Edinburgh
Twenty-five roasters, a scene that leans hard into bright and fruity, and a business that's been roasting since 1812. Here's what's actually happening in Edinburgh coffee right now.
Edinburgh's relationship with coffee goes back further than most people realise. The city's first coffeehouse opened in 1673, near the old Parliament House, and within a few decades venues like John's on the Royal Mile had become genuine engines of the Scottish Enlightenment, host to the Select Society's debates and the everyday business of the city's lawyers and merchants. Even the disastrous Darien investment scheme was signed into being at Mrs Purdie's Coffee Shop by the Old Mercat Cross in 1696. Three centuries on, the venues have changed from smoky Old Town howffs to today's speciality roasteries, but the basic idea, that good conversation and good coffee belong together, hasn't moved far at all.
That same history has a harder side: 18th-century Edinburgh's coffee and tea trade was bound up with Caribbean plantations worked by enslaved labour. If you want to read more on that part of the story, the National Trust for Scotland has a detailed piece on it.
That's more single origins (272) than blends (51). Edinburgh clearly prefers to let a coffee speak for itself rather than smooth it into a house style.
Where the beans come from
Colombia dominates Edinburgh's shelves by some distance, but the spread past that gets genuinely varied.
The coffee in Edinburgh tastes like
Every flavour note across all 323 beans, grouped into categories. Fruity and sweet dominate. This is not a city of heavy, dark-roast coffee.
Notable names
The roasters who've shaped Edinburgh's coffee scene, some for decades.
Artisan RoastRoasting since 2007Edinburgh's elder statesman. Four cafés across the city (Broughton Street, Leith Walk, Bruntsfield, Stockbridge), a dedicated training lab, and a subscription tier called The Rare Club for the more unusual lots. Direct trade relationships built over nearly two decades.
Edinburgh Tea & Coffee CoTrading since 1812The real surprise of this list. Traces back to Andrew Melrose importing tea into Edinburgh in 1812, making this one of the oldest tea and coffee businesses in the UK, full stop. Still roasting on a 50-year-old Probat drum roaster, operated by hand and by eye.
Beans coming to Bean Here soon: their range isn't in our system yet.
Gordon Street CoffeeFounded 2014Three Great Taste Award wins in two years: the Glasgow Roast (2024), and both the House Blend and Edinburgh Roast (2025), with cafés spanning Glasgow, Edinburgh, and a London outpost at Waterloo.
Cairngorm CoffeeFounded 2014Runs both a café in Edinburgh's west end and a genuinely unusual roadside outpost on the A9 near Newtonmore in the Highlands. Publishes their own print magazine, Underdog, covering Scottish coffee culture.
Obadiah CoffeeFounded 2017The biggest catalogue on this list by a distance, at 59 beans. Light-touch roasting philosophy, a dedicated cupping room, and a 21-day minimum rest recommendation that's notably longer than most roasters suggest. Recent releases have included Chinese coffee from Yunnan's Tian Cai farm.
Fortitude CoffeeFounded 2014Two café locations and over a decade of trading on a simple idea: coffee as a daily companion, not a performance product.
Roasts and serves from Edinburgh's Old Town, with a coffee bar on Spittal Street and the roastery a few streets away. The range leans toward naturally processed single origins at the higher end of the speciality scale, with a 20-bean catalogue, the third-largest in this guide.
Edinburgh's oldest coffee roaster
Edinburgh Tea & Coffee Co
Founded when Andrew Melrose began importing tea into Edinburgh in 1812, this is one of the oldest tea and coffee businesses anywhere in the UK. Still operating from purpose-built premises on Sir Harry Lauder Road, still roasting on a 50-year-old Probat drum roaster by hand and by eye.
New names to watch
Edinburgh's scene is still growing. These are the roasters worth paying attention to right now.
Soft-launched in April 2026, already running a proper café in Bonnington and a 22-bean range. One of the freshest additions to Edinburgh's scene, and already a full working operation rather than a side project.
The most distinctive story on this entire list. While every other Edinburgh roaster covers a broad spread of origins, Uplands Roast has built their entire business around Vietnamese coffee only, sourcing directly from farms they've visited repeatedly since 2017. Their café, The Meadows, doubles as an open-air roasting demonstration space.
Drum roasting both arabica and robusta using traditional methods from their Brunswick Place base.
Founded by two Edinburgh friends with 30+ years in hospitality between them, roasting to order right in their Thistle Street shopfront.
Deliberately small and intensely dedicated, born from the Lowdown Coffee project. A carefully curated, limited selection of renowned lots roasted with exceptional precision in batches of just 100 to 200 units. Each release is an evolving series: once sold out, the next begins. Roasting on a Loring S7 Nighthawk.
Beans coming to Bean Here soon: their range isn't in our system yet.
A bold, creative identity built around interesting, experimental lots, roasted to bring out distinctive, sometimes unexpected flavour profiles.
Beans coming to Bean Here soon: their range isn't in our system yet.Where to find them
22 roasters plottedEvery Edinburgh roaster with verified coordinates plotted on an interactive map. Tap any pin for café status and roaster details.
Roasters doing decaf properly
15 of Edinburgh's 25 roasters have at least one decaf on the shelf right now.
Roasters with a café to visit
13 of Edinburgh's roasters have their own physical café. Actual coffee, made by the people who roasted it.
Explore every Edinburgh roaster
All 25, filterable by origin, process and flavour.
Browse Edinburgh roasters →Bean Here, "The Edinburgh Coffee Roaster Guide," bean-here.com/guides/edinburgh, accessed [date].Every figure on this page comes directly from Bean Here's own database, not estimates. See our Methodology page for how that data is collected and verified.