Established in New Zealand in 1986, the Allpress Roastery & Cafe is one of the ultimate authorities on third wave coffee (that is, the contemporary repositioning of coffee as an artisan product or a specialist foodstuff). It set up an outpost on east London’s Redchurch Street in 2010, and is now moving up the road to Dalston, with a new cafe-cum-factory hub in a beautifully renovated 1920s joiners’ factory split over two floors.
While the cafe itself is as minimalist and aesthetically light as one would expect from an Antipodean coffee chain, the centre-piece of the roastery itself is a custom-built bean-roaster, the MK III, designed by Michael Allpress and engineer Mike Scobie. The airy complex also features a visible ’cupping lab’ where flavour and aroma is evaluated, a training area for coffee classes and an outdoor area.
The founding principles of the coffee house will be preserved in its new home. The company scours the globe for only the finest Arabica beans from small, sustainable farms, estates and co-ops, fostering direct relationships with growers. This provides the cafe with ongoing knowledge about the coffee-making process, giving it the opportunity to taste the annual crops for flavour, body and aroma. Then, they control the roasting process on site, so that there’s no delay in delivering those heady flavours to the palates of their customers.
