Try A Delicious, Ethically Sourced Coffee With Manifesto

Manifesto Coffee is a specialty coffee roastery focusing on small-batch, ethically-sourced coffee, made from grains across the globe, including China, Colombia, Brazil, East Timor, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Zambia and Madagascar.

They put a huge emphasis on fairness, environmental sustainability, quality, and transparency. Manifesto’s goal is to be able to tell their customers what each farmer earns for every packet they sell.

After losing their incomes on the very first day of lockdown in March 2020, Alex MacIntyre and Lukasz Lewaszkiewicz decided to start their own coffee roastery in Alex’s kitchen in Leith, Edinburgh.

In the recent months, Alex and Lukasz have not only launched a new coffee brand, but they’ve also launched a unique coffee stout in collaboration with the Twotwonsdown independent brewery.

Co-founder Alex, who is originally from Australia – moved to the UK about 10 years ago, and he has worked in the industry for around 15 years.

Prior to moving to Scotland, he spent a number of years running his own coffee shops in London; one called MacIntyre Coffee and another one named Millfields Coffee.

But disagreements with his business partners and professional fatigue led him to wrap things up, and move up to Edinburgh to have a break from business.

In Edinburgh he worked in a few different places before being offered a job at a coffee company that he really respected, but he was only offered a minimum-wage pay packet, with the assurance that it would be increased several weeks after starting.

This was really the catalyst that formed the foundation of Manifesto, and timing-wise, this aligned perfectly with an old colleague of his moving up to Edinburgh too, and an agreement between them formed to create a coffee company that would be a force for good, with a manifesto dictating their principles, hence the name.

Manifesto roasts their coffee for balance not acidity, understanding that coffee is a fruit and therefore acidity is important.

The brand sells their coffee in 125g sample bags, and more commonly in 250g bags, and they’re in the process of developing revolutionary new packaging that will keep the coffee fresher for longer in a container that is more widely recycled without the caveats that most recyclable or compostable bags offer.

Alexander said : ‘We put a lot of effort into deciding which coffees to sell by trying many samples and performing multiple, comparative test roasts, which then we cup for quality. Only then can we ensure we only sell coffees that we are proud of and happy to share with the people.’

Find out more here.