OUR STORY

DAK Coffee Roasters is based in Amsterdam, founded by two Canadians from Montreal in 2019 who arrived in specialty coffee from outside the category. Our initial love for coffee started when we both lived in Italy in 2014 with the espresso bar culture. That distance shaped how we see it: not as a fixed set of rules to follow, but as a field to explore.

Coffee, for us, is a way to expand taste. Beyond the guarantee of high quality, we think coffee should hold your attention long enough to let you experience something. That is what turns a daily cup into something more active: a small but exciting moment of discovery.

ROASTERY

Our roastery sits in Amsterdam Noord, overlooking the IJ. It’s home to two IMF roasters, our QC lab, warehouse, and the team behind packing and dispatch. This is where our coffees arrive green, get roasted, dialled in, and quality-checked before making their way to more than forty countries around the world. The roastery is closed to the public, but you can taste our coffees at our showroom in Amsterdam West. We’d love to have you there.

DAK was built on that combination: analytical rigor and creative freedom, precision and surprise. The founders came into coffee by learning it step by step, and that way of learning still defines how the brand works today. We don’t assume a fixed way of doing things, but we do hold a clear standard for what stays.

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OUR APPROACH

Coffee is at the centre of what we do, and we’re interested in how far we can take it without losing what makes a cup enjoyable.

Some coffees are clean and familiar. Others are more unusual, sometimes deliberately so. We like having both on the table. The rule is pretty simple: it has to taste good, make sense, and be something we’d want to drink again. That applies whether the coffee is classic, experimental, or somewhere in between.

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SOURCING

This approach extends to sourcing. We work
with traceable coffees and return to the same partners year after year, often visiting origin to choose lots before they reach the broader market. With some, we develop profiles across seasons instead of buying them once. Paying above market for green is the condition that makes that possible: stability at the source is what lets us experiment on top of it.

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ROASTING

The roasting happens in Amsterdam Noord on two IMF machines, working from profiles refined over years of cupping data. Each lot starts from a base that fits its style (washed filter, natural espresso, fermented), then gets adjusted from there. The goal is not a house style but a house standard. Whatever the coffee is, the roast has to bring out what’s actually there.

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QUALITY CONTROL

We have a dedicated team taking care of quality control full-time. We cup every day and log the details of every batch: Agtron, moisture, weight loss, sensory notes, and colour sorting percentages. Coffee is an organic product, so it’s not always straightforward to work with. It changes over time, from harvest to harvest, and sometimes even from bag to bag. Our job is to understand those changes, keep an eye on the details, and make sure the coffee is where we want it to be.

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NAMING

Every coffee gets a name before it goes on the shelf. Someone on the team keeps a small notebook tucked in her back pocket, writing down words and combinations as they come up. Sometimes the name is obvious straight away. Sometimes we go back and forth for days.

We’ve always liked giving coffees names that make you curious about what’s inside the bag. Milky Cake, Strawberry Kiss, Peachy Daze. They give you a little hint of what to expect, but there’s always more to the story. The producer, origin and all the coffee details are right there too.

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PACKAGING

Packaging is another part of how we have fun with coffee. The format depends on the coffee: our rarer, more expensive lots come in 125g bags, while our regular coffees come in 200g or 250g, with 1kg bags for those who go through a little more.

Then there are the limited editions. This is where we get to play a bit more with colour, illustration and ideas that don’t need to follow the usual rules.

Whatever the format, we want the bag to feel like DAK and make you want to pick it up.

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Our Team

DAK means rooftop in Dutch. A shared horizon above thirty-plus people from sixteen countries and counting, who arrived via specialty coffee, hospitality, or somewhere else entirely. They are what makes DAK what it is.

VERONIQUE LAGARDE

Co-Founder

LOUIS-PHILIPPE BOUCHER

Co-Founder

KYRIAKOS KONSTANTINIDIS

Amsterdam Showroom Manager

CRISTINA TORRAS FIBLA

Sales Department Manager

MARIA VLAD

Head of Business Operations

STEFANO CIAMARRA

Head Roaster

LAURA BERSIER

Events & Business Dev. Manager

DANIELE ZITO

Senior Production Roaster

TETSUYA YAMADA

Senior Production Roaster

PATRICK RAVEAUX

Brand & Marketing Coordinator

SIMONE BIANCHI

Amsterdam Showroom Head Barista

YI-JEN SUN

Customer Support Specialist

LANA GORMLEY

Coffee Education Manager

MANUEL DEL VALLE

Dispatch Manager

ENEAS SERRANO

Production Lead

MARIKO KINOSHITA

Amsterdam Showroom Barista

AMY THERON

Office & People Assistant

CECILE THIERY

Sales & Account Manager

MY NGO

Financial Controller

MADDIE STUART

QC Lab Coordinator & Green Support

ANNA HOUDKOVÁ

Junior Production Roaster

JUSTIN KREBS

Amsterdam Showroom Barista

RAQUEL SIMLER

Account Administrator

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Events
& Workshops