Made of Many — Frequently Asked Questions

I think we're less reactionary. We're a very relationship-focused specialty coffee roaster, which means we're not just buying coffees on a whim, or simply because they taste good. We do a lot of forward planning to make sure we're building a more robust understanding of coffees and relationships over time.

Because we're working closely with the same producers and the same coffees again and again, each season we're picking back up where we left off. It means we can get really deep down the rabbit hole of how we approach those coffees, how we showcase them and how we express them. We get really good at that.

We're a very focused kind of specialty roaster. We don't need to offer lots of different products, just a few really good, focused coffees. They're not necessarily meant to appeal to the masses, but to people who really want to understand what they're tasting, taste something distinct, and know there's a relationship and a backbone being built behind it.

Of course, we want to work ethically, but we're more interested in doing than telling. We'd rather demonstrate that through how long our relationships last and how well we know our coffees.

You can buy all of our coffees online, but you're also very welcome to pop into our café, Brighter, at 102 Northumberland Avenue in Stanmore, Sydney.

One of the lovely things about having the café is that you can taste almost any of our coffees at any time. It's a great opportunity to experience something before buying it, have a conversation about what you're tasting, or simply pick up a bag of coffee from the shelf.

We don't necessarily specialise in light roast coffee, although most people would consider us a lighter roaster than many.

That's largely because we're buying coffees that are incredibly clean and incredibly high quality. We don't need to roast them darker to cover up defects. We're also buying coffees with lots of inherent sweetness and acidity, characteristics that tend to showcase themselves beautifully at lighter roast degrees. There wouldn't be much point in roasting them darker if we were going to lose the very things we prize about them.

But we don't roast light as a statement at all.

We're roasting mainly for full expression and as much clarity as possible. We want coffees to stand on their own as something extremely distinct, rather than having some kind of lens or stamp put over them by us.

We're really just trying to get out of the way of a coffee and allow the coffee itself to be the best representation, and the most distinct version, of its own flavour profile.

We don't really define our coffees by whether they're for espresso or filter. It's more about whether you're planning to drink them black or with milk.

Our filter coffees can also be used as light espressos, particularly when brewed at longer ratios. We generally recommend starting with a 1:3 ratio for these.

Our milk-based coffees are roasted a little further, which helps soften their acidity and brings out a different intensity and type of sweetness. The flavours tend to become a little darker and more pronounced, allowing them to pair better with milk and cut through its flavour.

The idea is for everything to work a little more harmoniously together, rather than having the milk or coffee dominate the experience.

One of the most useful starting points is to work out how much acidity you enjoy experiencing in a coffee.

If you're looking for something with a little less acidity and a more balanced profile, lower-altitude coffees and those from Latin America can be a good place to start.

If you enjoy brighter, more pronounced acidity, there's a whole world of coffees to explore beyond that.

Altitude, origin, variety and processing all play a part, so it's worth paying attention to which coffees you enjoy and starting to build an understanding of what they have in common.

Yes, single origin specialty coffee is all we do.

We particularly value coffees from individual estates and producers because they give us a more focused example of what's happening in a particular region.

It means we can start to understand the influence of variety, terroir, climate and processing, and then track those coffees over multiple harvests.

Over time, this gives us a really good vantage point for understanding the nuances between vintages, what makes certain coffees distinct, and what we might expect when we return to them the following season.

We roast our coffees every Tuesday.

If you'd like your coffee included in that week's roast, orders need to be placed by Monday night.

You're also very welcome to pick up coffee directly from our café, Brighter, at 102 Northumberland Avenue in Stanmore, where we keep our retail coffees available on the shelf.

We advocate for quite a long resting time.

In our experience, coffees can continue tasting beautiful for months after roasting. They tend to soften and become a little more integrated over time. After around three months, we often notice the acidity becoming more mellow and the coffee becoming a little more mild. It isn't necessarily that the coffee tastes old, but that you're experiencing a different version of it.

We generally recommend allowing a minimum of two weeks of resting before brewing.

Freshly roasted coffee releases quite a lot of CO₂, which can disrupt brewing, particularly with espresso. This can create inconsistent and inadequate extractions.

Filter coffee benefits from resting too. With less CO₂ being released during brewing, the whole process tends to run more smoothly and consistently.

Absolutely, although we'd recommend starting by looking at how each coffee has been roasted and what we've suggested for it.

On each coffee's product page, you'll find information about whether we recommend it for black coffee or for milk.

If it's intended for filter or light espresso, you'll also find our recommended brewing recipes towards the bottom of the page.

That's generally the best starting point, and then you're very welcome to experiment from there.

Yes, we offer a few different coffee subscriptions, depending on how you'd like to explore and enjoy your coffee.

Our Showcase Subscription is about putting a spotlight on one particular coffee each month, giving you an opportunity to spend time with something distinct.

We also offer subscriptions that are simply about getting really good coffee into your hands, in the right volumes and at the right frequency. These include our milk coffee subscriptions and subscriptions featuring a changing selection of origins.

We also have a sampler subscription called the Little Black Box, which is a lovely way to experience a broader range of what we're roasting.

We source coffees from a variety of countries, but what's particularly important to us is the relationship between the importer, exporter and producer.

If those people have been working together for long periods of time and have built really good relationships, that's something we want to leverage and become part of.

We're interested in returning to the same coffees and producers consistently because it allows us to track what's happening over time.

We can better understand the differences between harvests, how we're manipulating coffees through roasting, and the nuances between vintages.

It helps us become better at our craft, but it also gives us a deeper understanding of how climate, terroir and cultural influences are affecting what's happening in the cup.

For us, there's an enormous amount of value in picking up where we left off, rather than starting again with something completely new every season.

Yes, we ship our coffees Australia-wide.

If you're ordering internationally, please email us at info@madeofmany.com. We're always happy to look at arranging individual international shipping options.