Two Canadians Walk Into Amsterdam

Louis-Philippe Boucher and Veronique Lagarde grew up in Montreal — a city with a strong café culture, a French-language sensibility about food and flavour, and a long tradition of treating coffee as something to be enjoyed rather than merely consumed. When they moved to Amsterdam and founded DAK Coffee Roasters in 2019, they brought that sensibility with them and grafted it onto a city that was already becoming one of Europe's most exciting specialty coffee hubs.

DAK — the name itself a spare, clean syllable with no fixed etymology — was built around a specific conviction: that the name of a coffee should tell you something true about what it tastes like. Not the farm. Not the altitude. Not the processing method. The cup. The dessert. The sensory experience. This is why DAK's lots are called Cream Donut, Milky Cake, Strawberry Kiss, Jazz Fruits, and Rumba rather than named by harvest year and washing station alone. Each name is a promise that the coffee backs up.

By 2024, that approach had earned them global recognition: #13 in the world on Roastful's expert-panel Top 100 Roasters list, making DAK one of the highest-ranked European roasters and the roastery with the deepest presence in BrewFusion's catalogue — 10 lots available.

Roast Philosophy: Light, Expressive, Honest

DAK roasts light — not in the paler-than-pale, almost-raw style of some ultra-light roasters, but in the expressive, well-developed Nordic tradition that preserves fermentation complexity and varietal character while still delivering the sweetness and body that make their dessert-named coffees live up to their names. The roast is calibrated lot by lot: a yeast-inoculated natural co-ferment like Cream Donut needs different development than a thermally-shocked Colombian washed lot. DAK's skill is reading each green coffee and finding the exact point where its character is maximised without its structure being compromised.

The Daye Bensa Partnership: Ethiopia's Best

DAK's relationship with Daye Bensa — the Ethiopian exporter founded by Asefa and Mulugeta Dukamo in 1996, now operating 71 washing stations across Sidama, Guji, Bale, and West Arsi — is one of the most productive roaster-exporter relationships in specialty coffee. It has produced three distinct lots for BrewFusion's catalogue, each with a different character and purpose.

Jazz Fruits (Iron Lion lot): The community natural from Bensa — DAK's own description calls it "one of the best picks in terms of price versus quality." Strawberry, white chocolate, orange. The entry point into DAK's Ethiopian range and a genuinely crowd-pleasing natural that converted filter-coffee drinkers into specialty enthusiasts.

Strawberry Kiss (Rumudamo lot): The premium tier — sourced from Rumudamo washing station at 2,300 masl in Arbegona district, which placed 2nd and 3rd at the 2020 Ethiopia Cup of Excellence. Strawberry gelato, star fruit, apricot, honey. The most technically precise natural in DAK's Ethiopian catalogue.

Rumba (Gatta Farm): DAK's 5th anniversary release. From Daye Bensa's Gatta Farm — a former natural forest discovered by Mulugeta Dukamo during construction of a nearby station, first planted with coffee in 2013, drying station built 2017, at 2,200 masl. Yeast semi-anaerobic natural. Stewed strawberries, apricot, brown sugar. The most complex and celebratory lot in the partnership.

The Diego Bermúdez Partnership: Colombia's Scientist

Diego Bermúdez of Finca El Paraíso in Cauca, Colombia is one of the most technically innovative coffee producers in the world — a chemical engineer who built a full microbiology and quality laboratory on his farm and developed the INDESTEC processing protocol: double anaerobic fermentation followed by thermal shock, applied with scientific precision to create specific, repeatable cup profiles. DAK's Milky Cake lot (Blog #2 at BrewFusion) comes from this partnership.

Milky Cake — Castillo variety, 1,730 masl, Cauca — is processed through INDESTEC and produces a cup of concentrated caramel sweetness, tropical fruit, and the creamy texture that gives it its name. It is one of the clearest examples of how a roaster's name-as-promise philosophy aligns with a producer's science-as-craft philosophy: Diego designs the cup at origin; DAK preserves and presents it in Amsterdam.

The 5th Anniversary: Rumba's Story

In 2024, DAK marked five years of roasting by releasing Rumba — arguably the most personal lot in their catalogue. A DAK team member travelled to Ethiopia specifically to experiment with yeast-assisted fermentation at Gatta Farm for the second consecutive year. The 2024 result — a semi-anaerobic natural with selected yeast culture — was, in DAK's own words, "more beautiful and cleaner than last year, with a silky and super fruity body." The lot's name, Rumba — the warm, sensual Latin dance — captures the character of a coffee that delivers warmth, richness, and the jammy complexity of stewed strawberries, apricot, and brown sugar in every cup.

"One of the best picks we've made in terms of price versus quality in the cup." — DAK Coffee Roasters, on Jazz Fruits