Carrow Coffee Roasters is a small Irish roastery located on the Carrowgarry farm on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in County Sligo, Ireland. It was founded by Paola and Andrew, two coffee enthusiasts who had been dreaming of opening their own roastery long before it became a reality.
It all began in Colombia, where the two lived for four years, traveling to coffee farms and getting an up-close look at the world of coffee.
Andrew is a journalist by trade and spent more than four years in Colombia as a correspondent for Bloomberg, where he covered the coffee industry. Thanks to this, he built direct contacts with growers, exporters, and experts across the industry and began roasting himself on his Huky 500 in his apartment in Bogotá. Today, he is a certified Q Grader and has completed roasting and barista skills courses from the Specialty Coffee Association.
Paola, meanwhile, grew up in Trieste, one of Italy’s major coffee hubs, where the aroma of coffee literally permeates the streets, and she works as a project and communications manager. Their Colombian blog, filled with reports from farm visits and coffee shop reviews, shows that for them, coffee wasn’t just a business—it was a true way of life. When they returned to Ireland, to the family farm, they knew what they wanted to do next.
Carrow Coffee Roasters focuses on sourcing from small-scale farmers who practice sustainable farming and prefers light to medium-dark roasts that allow the beans’ natural flavors to fully shine through.
However, the roastery’s philosophy extends beyond just the coffee in the cup. The roastery is built from natural and renewable materials, such as wood from Irish forests. Larch is a highly resinous wood that is naturally waterproof and requires no chemical treatment. Inside the roastery, the countertops are treated with natural beeswax instead of synthetic preservatives. All water from the sink is returned to the farm’s fields, and chaff from the roaster and coffee grounds are used as compost for the vegetable garden.
Retail packaging is 100% compostable, and wholesale deliveries in the Sligo region are made in reusable containers. For Paola and Andrew, the roastery is a gathering place for the specialty coffee community and, at the same time, an expression of their deep respect for the nature that surrounds them every day.