The golden coffee list
I do not know how about you, but when I travel, there is one thing I search for as the first and most important one in every metropolis, city, and village: a speciality coffee shop. Even if I have to walk for 40 minutes, I will, as there is no greater joy than sipping a nice cup of coffee roasted to perfection by people who are in love or even obsessed with what they do. And, usually, the end result of these visits, if luggage permits, is a bag or two of their coffee to take home to prolong that taste after returning home. It is a shame I started collecting these memories only recently, yet here are some of my favourites found in Lyon, the Rhine region, Bordeaux, Annecy, La Rochelle, and elsewhere.
Windara
Roasted using ancestral know-how and cutting-edge tools on Île de Ré, Windara coffee is a product that is roasted after careful selection of beans and roasted to perfection to allow the beans to express the region and its notes. Something so crucial to Benoît — a barista, roaster, and technician all in one, or a person who fell in love with speciality coffee in 2011 and realised that there is no way back as to do this and started the business in 2014, roasting coffee in Loix on Île de Ré and distributing the coffee across France.
L’Alchimiste
They have been (and still are) one of the most famous and iconic coffee places in Bordeaux for many years, offering not only perfectly made coffee to anyone on-premises but also roasted beans to take home. Their selection is quite wide for everyone to find their favourite taste, from acid and citrus to berry and caramel and vanilla notes.
“At l’Alchimiste, we not only know where our coffee comes from, but also the know-how, commitment, and working conditions of the people who grow the coffee. To get this information, we most often travel to the countries of origin to meet the producers.”
Le Panier à Café
Accidentally found in Annecy in my favourite Boulangerie La Source, this coffee is roasted by Fabien, who just six years ago was nowhere near roasting, as he was working in a luxury watch-making company. But after intense training in coffee roasting and latte art, today he is offering sustainably sourced and perfectly roasted coffee in Annecy and the region, and in 2019 earned the title of the second best roaster in France (just a few years after the big change). You can find his coffee in local shops and markets in a truck that he has renovated from an old salad truck that roamed the streets of Annecy to a charming coffee cart of Le Panier à Café in Annecy, with whom he still drives around the markets of Annecy, to serve perfectly prepared artisanal coffee.
Torréfaction Papillons
From time to time, since I discovered Vagabond coffee, I like to sneak out of home on a Sunday morning to go to the Market of Quai Augagneur in Lyon and order my cappuccino and sip it slowly, sitting on the stairs, looking at Lyon and Fourvière Cathedral. This is where I discovered coffee from the roastery Torréfaction Papillons, which, located in Vaise, Lyon, roasts solely coffee that has been grown and produced in farms where women work. But it is not just the idea that makes this coffee unique; the taste is the most important thing, and that is sublime.
