The Best Coffee Roasters in New Orleans
Let’s settle something right now: New Orleans has been a coffee town since long before “third wave” was a phrase anybody said with a straight face. This is the city that taught America to stretch a bean with chicory, to drink it sweet and milky at a marble-topped table at 2 a.m., to treat a café au lait like a sacrament. Coffee here isn’t a trend. It’s heritage with a powdered-sugar mustache.
But here’s the fun part — under all that history, a whole crop of serious roasters has quietly turned this town into one of the South’s best places to buy a bag of beans. We’re talking direct-trade Ethiopians, century-old family roasteries still firing the same drums, and pirate-themed cafes in the Bywater that take their cold brew very, very seriously. Folgers may have built its empire down by the river, but these folks are writing the next chapter.
So whether you’re a born-and-raised Yat or just passing through with a beignet in one hand, this is your map. Ten roasters who actually roast — no middlemen, no mystery beans, just real people behind real drums. Pour yourself something while you read. We’ll wait.
Table of Contents
First, A Little Homework
Great beans deserve a great setup at home — otherwise you’re paying roaster prices for gas-station results. Before you go fill your pantry, make sure the rest of your kit is pulling its weight:
- Coffee Grinders: The single biggest upgrade to your cup. Non-negotiable. A great bean ground badly is just expensive dust.
- Coffee Makers & Machines: From pour-over to full espresso setups — find the one that fits your morning, not somebody else’s.
- Storage Containers: Fresh beans go stale fast in the wrong jar. Keep all that hard-won flavor where it belongs.
- Coffee Scales: Eyeballing it is a crime against good coffee. Weigh your beans and watch your cup get better overnight.
Alright, kit sorted. Now let’s meet the roasters worth your money.
French Truck Coffee
If New Orleans specialty coffee had a poster child, it’d be driving a little yellow vintage truck. Geoffrey Meeker started French Truck back in April 2012, roasting on a 5-kilo machine in the laundry room of his Carrollton home and delivering bags out of those charming old trucks because, frankly, piling beans into the back seat wasn’t a good look.
What started as a one-man laundry-room operation is now arguably the city’s most recognizable roaster, with cafes across New Orleans plus outposts in Baton Rouge and Memphis. They’re known for bright, clean, modern roasts — think single origins from Rwanda and Colombia alongside crowd-pleasing house blends — and they helped drag this coffee-rich town squarely into the third wave. The bags are as colorful as the trucks, and that’s the whole point.
Find them: frenchtruckcoffee.com · @frenchtruck
Congregation Coffee
Cross the river to Algiers Point and you’ll find one of the most decorated roasters in the whole state. Congregation Coffee was founded in 2015 by Eliot Guthrie and Ian Barrileaux — a New Orleans native and a Seattle transplant who met working at Cochon Butcher and hatched a plan out of a shed behind a shotgun house. The name? It’s the collective noun for a group of alligators. Of course it is.
That little shed grew into a full roastery-and-cafe that Food & Wine named Louisiana’s top coffee roaster. New owner Patrick Brennan (yes, of the Brennan restaurant family) took the reins in 2023 and has been expanding ever since, including a newer Uptown cafe on Magazine Street. The coffee is thoughtful, seasonal, and genuinely some of the best you’ll drink in the region — well worth the ferry ride.
Find them: congregationcoffee.com · @congregation_coffee
Cherry Coffee Roasters
Here’s a great New Orleans origin story: Lauren Fink founded Cherry Coffee Roasters in 2013, roasting out of a corner of Stein’s Market and Deli before opening her own Uptown brick-and-mortar in March 2016. From a deli corner to a beloved local institution — that’s the kind of grind we respect.
Today Cherry roasts approachable, expertly dialed-in beans and runs a cozy cafe on Laurel Street, with house-made syrups and a serious commitment to doing the simple things well. They’ve built a loyal following the honest way: by making coffee that tastes great cup after cup, plus supplying beans wholesale to spots all over town. No gimmicks, just really good coffee from people who clearly love it.
Find them: cherrycoffeeroasters.com · @cherrycoffeeroasters
Mojo Coffee Roasters
This one’s pure New Orleans grit. Demian Estevez and Angee Jackson opened Mojo Coffee House in 2006 — after evacuating for Hurricane Katrina, they came home, scraped together their savings, and revived the old Rue de la Course space. The name nods to Muddy Waters’ 1957 blues classic “Got My Mojo Working.” If that doesn’t tell you everything about this city’s stubborn heart, nothing will.
Mojo was one of the first shops in town to pour hand-crafted pour-overs, and in 2015 they teamed up with roastmaster Matt Cronin to launch Mojo Coffee Roasters, a small-batch operation with a serious eye for sourcing. Their lineup leans into Certified Fair Trade and Organic single origins — bright Ethiopians, snappy Kenyans — roasted to let the bean do the talking. Find their cafes on Magazine, Freret, and Tchoupitoulas.
Find them: mojocoffeeroasters.com · @mojocoffeeroasters
HEY Coffee Co.
HEY started as Hey! Cafe back in 2009, dreamed up by baristas Tommy LeBlanc and Greg Rodrigue who figured New Orleans could use more genuinely good, ethically sourced coffee. Turns out they were right. In 2018 they leveled all the way up, opening a roastery-cafe on the Lafitte Greenway in Mid-City with a proper Diedrich IR-12 roaster.
What sets HEY apart is the sourcing: they buy direct trade from farmers around the world, roast small batches, and care a real amount about fair wages and sustainable growing. The Greenway spot is a destination in its own right — pull up on a bike, grab a cup, and watch the roaster work. Ethically minded coffee that doesn’t lecture you about it. Just good beans, plainly done.
Find them: heycoffeeco.com · @heycoffee.co
Alinea Coffee Roasters
Every great roaster starts somewhere, and Alinea started as a hobby. Michael Matthews bought his first Arc 800 roaster at the end of 2018, roasting for family and close friends until word got out — as it tends to do when the coffee’s this good. What began as a passion project has become one of New Orleans’s most quietly respected small-batch roasters.
Alinea works with a rotating cast of seasonal coffees from Central and South America, East Africa, and the Pacific, and Michael’s roasting has earned recognition at the US Coffee Championships — no small thing for a one-roaster operation. They also run espresso carts for weddings and events around town. This is meticulous, competition-grade coffee made by someone who never lost the hobbyist’s obsession with getting it exactly right.
Find them: alineacoffees.com · @alineacoffeeroasters
Try-Me Coffee
Now this is heritage. In 1925, a bank teller named Henry Kepler roasted his first batch in the Bywater and went door-to-door down Franklin Avenue asking neighbors to “try my coffee.” A century later, Try-Me is still roasting in that same unassuming building, on roasters that have been turning since the Coolidge administration. The Kepler family ran it for over 90 years before passing it to Lauren “Mermaid” McCabe and Abby King in 2023.
Try-Me is one of the longest-running independent roasters in the country, and its blends have quietly fueled New Orleans icons like the Court of Two Sisters, Cafe Degas, Brocato’s, and Slim Goodies. The new owners are on a mission to take this 100-year-old secret out of the shadows — full pounds, fair prices, real roast-to-order coffee. Drinking a cup here is basically drinking history.
Find them: trymecoffeeroasters.com · @trymecoffeeroasters
Orleans Coffee
Before specialty coffee was cool — before it was even called that — Orleans Coffee was small-batch roasting right here in New Orleans. The company traces back to 1983, and some of the coffees on the menu today were on the menu back then. That’s not nostalgia; that’s a roaster that figured out what works and stuck with it.
They’ve survived more than four decades, including a Hurricane Katrina flood that left six feet of water in the roastery, and they came back roasting. You’ll find their espresso bar on Prytania Street in the Garden District, pouring single origins and classic blends to folks who’ve been loyal for years. Forty-plus years of small-batch craft in a town that knows its coffee — that’s a track record worth toasting.
Find them: orleanscoffee.com · @orleanscoffee
Ghost Ship Coffee Roasters
Leave it to the Bywater to give us a pirate-themed coffee roaster, and leave it to Ghost Ship to actually pull it off with style. Tucked into a historic building at 3726 St. Claude Avenue, this swashbuckling spot roasts its own beans and leans all the way into the theme — see if you can resist ordering a “Buried Treasure Affogato.”
Behind the playful branding is a genuinely good neighborhood roastery-cafe, pulling espresso, brewing cold brew, and serving up fresh-roasted bags to a devoted local crowd. It’s the kind of place that makes the Bywater the Bywater: a little weird, a lot welcoming, and serious about the coffee under all the fun. Drop anchor and stay a while.
Find them: ghostshipcoffee.com · @ghostshiproasters
New Orleans Roast
In 2008, New Orleans Roast set up shop in the historic Faubourg Marigny, just steps from the French Quarter, with a simple idea: bring artisan small-batch coffee to people who wanted it at home, not just in a cafe. Roastmaster Felton Jones — who brings over 20 years of roasting experience — fires the beans one small batch at a time.
What you get is coffee with real New Orleans personality: classic dark roasts and chicory blends alongside local-flavored favorites like Southern Pecan and Mardi Gras. They’ve grown into a brand you’ll spot on grocery shelves across the region, but the roasting stays small-batch and hands-on. It’s the taste of a Marigny morning, bagged up to take home with you.
Find them: neworleansroast.com · @neworleansroast
So, Where Do You Start?
Honestly? Grab a bag from whichever roaster’s closest and start pouring. But if you want my two cents: buy two bags from two different roasters, brew them side by side this weekend, and pay attention to what you actually like. Once you’ve found your bean, the rest is fine-tuning — and that’s the fun part. Get comfortable adjusting coffee strength until the cup tastes like yours, and if you’ve got an espresso machine collecting dust, our at-home espresso guide will get you pulling shots you’d actually pay for.
That’s the beauty of a coffee town like this one: there’s no wrong door. Whether you go a hundred years deep with Try-Me, cross the river to Congregation, or let a pirate in the Bywater pour you something fun, you’re drinking the work of people who genuinely love this stuff. Support them, ask them questions, and let them point you toward something new. Now go pour one. ☕
