Our story.

We read labels. For oats. For olive oil. For everything we put in our body.

It seemed strange that the drink we reached for first each morning had the thinnest labelling of all. No mycotoxin testing. No traceability to one farm. Claims on the front of the bag that the back never substantiated.

So we stopped buying coffee. And then we started making it.

The name is older than the roastery. Blaq began in 2014 as a subscription. Two bags a month, chosen from Malaysia's independent roasters, posted to people who wanted to taste further than the supermarket shelf.

A decade of other people's coffee taught us what we could not buy anywhere. Verified testing. One-farm traceability. A label with nothing to hide.

Bean Shipper, our online shop from that era, still runs. In 2026 we brought Blaq back for the coffee we wanted to make ourselves. Same hands. A different question.

Every coffee grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers, so without glyphosate. Where a coffee carries a laboratory report, its green beans were screened for ochratoxin A and aflatoxins before we roast, and the report is published in full: Ethiopia Kayon and Peru Palto carry one; the others carry none and say so. Single origin. One farm, one lot, one harvest. The roast date printed on every tin.

We decide as though we were the ones drinking the coffee. Because we are.

The long version is on Our Standard.

On the shelf today: coffees from Ethiopia, Peru, Colombia and Sarawak, Malaysia. Each a single farm, a single lot, a single harvest, grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers. Two of the farms hold organic certificates; the others tell us how they farm, and we say whose word it is.

We buy directly where the relationship allows it. Where it does not, we buy through importers who share the paperwork. The chain from tree to tin should be readable, not a matter of trust.

Malaysian Liberica is the unusual one. One estate, at Long Banga in Sarawak. Uncommon in specialty catalogues. We carry it because it deserves carrying.

A small room in Cheras. Three stools at a bar.

We roast small batch, light to medium, never past second crack. We do not contract roast. We do not flavour beans. We do not nitrogen-flush stock. What leaves the roastery carries our name, and only our name.

We keep our name off the label.

Not out of mystery. Out of quietness. A name on the bag only gets in the way of the coffee.

If you want to find us, find the showroom. The door is plain. A kettle is usually on.