About Us
Where we come from
It all started with a small café in Düsseldorf and the goal of making life a little better through coffee. To this day, we haven't strayed from this core principle. The circles surrounding it have simply grown larger.
The first café led to the company's own roastery, which bore the four stages of cultivation from bean to cup as a tribute in its name - Roastery VIER .
Through the roastery, partnerships developed with coffee farmers around the world. And some of these partnerships led to long-term involvement directly in the country of origin. We called this on-the-ground work The Commonage.
How it developed
We never followed a long-term strategy. But at some point, it felt right to consider our two strengths separately.
The Commonage, with its own location in Ntchisi Forest, Malawi, has become an integral part of communities in a coffee-growing country. Here, on the edge of the rainforest, we revived an old forest lodge, roast coffee, plant trees, and work hand in hand with local smallholder coffee producers.
To this day, Ntchisi Forest Lodge is not only a destination for ecotourism in Malawi, but also a true farm-to-cup experience.
Meanwhile, Rösterei VIER developed into Düsseldorf's coffee experts. We were no longer roasting coffee just for our own cafés, but also for an ever-increasing number of restaurants, hotels, offices, coffee enthusiasts, and everyday coffee lovers.
Our coffees increasingly came from producers who, over the years, saw themselves not merely as anonymous suppliers but as partners. We visited each other not only in the coffee fields in the growing region, but also at our locations in Düsseldorf.
status quo
Both areas of our work existed in parallel for a long time – and their tasks repeatedly overlapped. At some point, it was time to bring our strengths together again in one place.
We expanded the Wallstreet Café area to include our headquarters, which finally provided space for everything that had developed over the years in Germany, Malawi and the rest of the world.
Here we store, roast, and taste coffee, pack and ship it daily all over the world, RVTC Radio broadcasts from here, and you'll find equipment, our latest releases, and workwear. It wouldn't be unusual to bump into a coffee producer or two here, or even happen to be around when a limited-edition microlot is being prepared at the Shortlist Bar.
Our headquarters for Rösterei Vier & The Commonage together form RVTC. From here, we work together for better coffee and a better life. Right where the coffee grows and right where it's drunk.
COFFEE CREATES COMMUNITY
DIRECT SOURCE COFFEE
We know the farmer
We know almost every one of our coffee producers personally. Many partnerships have lasted for more than five years, some even over ten. Getting to know a farmer personally always means gaining a better understanding of the land, the region, and the natural environment around him or her – and growing together.
Developing a shared vision for coffee, on equal footing, is our highest priority in every collaboration. We are prepared to pay higher prices for this, but always link them to exceptional quality. When we talk about transparency, we mean that we must understand the producer's value chain just as well as they understand ours.
Nachhaltiger Specialty Coffee
Specialty coffee is not a fixed term and is often defined purely by taste or the type of roasting.
For us, specialty coffee means sustainably produced coffee – ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable. Hardly any organic label can guarantee this, which is why we refrain from mentioning in our communications even if producers have had their farms certified.
Instead, we find out through direct dialogue whether the farmer and we share the same understanding of sustainable coffee production. This means something different in every country and often goes far beyond coffee.
Roasted with precision
Roasting is one of the most crucial steps in the chain of events that leads to a good cup of coffee. We try to highlight the characteristics of a particular variety or farm and not roast so dark that it doesn't matter where the coffee comes from.
We work to identify what the land and the farmer have put into the coffee, always keeping in mind which coffee might be right for whom.
And if we do our job correctly, when drinking, one should not think about the intensity of the roast, but only about how a particular region, variety, or country tastes in the cup.
CONTACT US
What's on your mind?
Do you have questions about a country of origin, coffee, or our roasting process? We're here to help!
