Java Roasters is a coffee roastery in Leslieville that makes specialty home brew coffee suited to just about anyone's tastes. Whether you prefer a fruity cup of joe or lots of nutty notes, Leah and Kay have you covered.

The two long-time best friends run the roastery together — Kay has been in the coffee business for 14 years as the roaster in-house, while Leah takes care of the business side of things.

All of their coffee, which is sourced from farmers from all around the world but primarily Central and South America, is roasted from one single roasting machine in small batches of four kilograms at a time to bring out the flavour even more.

The beans only stay in the roaster for 12 minutes and development time, or the time that determines how the coffee will taste in your cup, is just between one minute to 25 seconds. 

The freshly roasted beans are then put into pails where they stay for one to two days while further degassing takes place before they're put into the packages and sealed. 

When looking for farmers, their goal is to support female producers first, and always ensure that the farmer is sustainable, transparent and ethical when it comes to wages paid to their workers.

Another thing that they look for, of course, is flavour. With Kay as the winner of last year's Cup Tasters Championship in Canada, all of the coffee is tasted and profiled before selling.

You'll find the tasting notes as described by Kay and Leah on the back of each package, along with the origin of the coffee and instructions on how to brew at home.

With the roasting being serious business, Kay, who designs the labels, takes some liberties in making them as fun and quirky as possible. With each label made special for every coffee, the most relatable to Toronto has to be Winter Wonderland ($20 for 300g bag).

The beans are sourced from El Salvador for clean notes of strawberry shortcake and plum wine. 

Another fan favourite is Cosmic Goose ($19 for 300g bag) with beans sourced from Columbia. You might pick up on flavours of dried fig, yellow plum and chocolate. 

Besides providing home brews to customers, the two friends also sell their coffees to a number of cafes across the city including Milky's, Brodflour and Page One.