Black and White Coffee Roasters

“I used to think that I had dedicated 17 years of my life to Specialty Coffee. I’ve come to realize, through the origin of Black & White Coffee Roasters, I’ve been dedicating my life to quality relationships. From coffee cultivation, coffee processing, coffee roasting and coffee preparation, it is the synergy of collaborative relationships and modernized innovation that builds a sustainable community across the entire coffee value chain.”  -Lem Butler

Black & White Coffee Roasters started as an idea that developed over a decade of hard work and dedication to understanding the coffee value chain in two parts:

• To create opportunities for coffee professionals to expand their careers
• To make Specialty Coffee more approachable to the masses

This idea turned reality in 2017 when U.S. Barista Champions Kyle Ramage and Lem Butler formed Black & White Coffee Roasters. Envisioned to be more than just a quality coffee roaster, we aim to change the competitive landscape, not by being “better” than our competitors, but by pushing the craft forward through collaboration. Our coffee sourcing and roasting experience comes from over a decade of studying coffee processing first hand from coffee producers all over the world; understanding coffee consumers through years of experience working in cafes; working for a large coffee roasting company as a wholesale account manager; experience as a coffee equipment manufacturer sales and tech rep; and volunteering, competing in coffee competitions all over the world. 

It is our journey, and the community we’ve built along the way that makes Black & White Coffee possible. Understanding that none of this would be possible without fostering great relationships, and continuing to pay that generosity forward is what shaped B&W’s core values: service, community and excellence. This is how we approach our mission of “Exceptional Coffee Kept Simple”.

We roast in a way to showcase each coffee’s unique quality, and to honor the extremely difficult work of cultivation, making that work so special to our customers that coffee quality becomes important to their success. B&W coffee sourcing and roasting becomes our wholesale partners’ real valued choice.

We aren’t trying to change the way you think about coffee, rather we hope to change how you see yourself within the coffee value chain. Producer, Roaster, Barista or Consumer— we are all in this together. Coffee is steeped in a rich tradition of relationships, relationships are the fabric of community and community is key to an evolving industry.