A Taste of Calgary with Phil & Sebastian Coffee!

This Months Discovery subscription features two offerings from Phil & Sebastian. 

All discovery subscribers received Plum Runner, which is a profile they created to showcase distinct fruit with base notes of maple pecan, sweet spice, and cola. This lot comes from our longtime friend Ricardo Pérez at Helsar Mill in Costa Rica’s West Valley. His coffee is delicate, elegant, and beautifully balanced.

Our rareglow subscribers received Benjamín “Ben” Paz, one of the most respected producers in Honduras. Ben also farms his own land, La Salsa, where he experiments constantly and pushes for better quality every year. His dedication has earned him a Cup of Excellence win, and his coffee is stunning, with floral notes of elderflower, tropical lychee, nectarine, black tea, and incredible sweetness.

Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters started back in 2007 after leaving careers in engineering. Sebastian and Phil met at the University of Calgary, worked in tech for about seven years, and eventually decided to follow their obsession with coffee. They started small, just a little booth at the Calgary Farmers’ Market, and began roasting in 2009. That same year they started traveling to origin, which has been at the heart of what they do ever since.

"Even now, we both travel every year to visit producers. Sebastian heads to Latin America, and I focus on Africa. Our engineering backgrounds make us pretty detail-oriented, so we’re always looking at the whole chain to figure out where quality can improve, whether that’s on the farm, in shipping, or in roasting."

That mindset led them to build a one-of-a-kind roaster from the ground up and to start flash-freezing all their green coffee as soon as it arrives. It’s expensive and maybe a little unconventional, but it’s made a huge difference in quality and consistency. At the end of the day, they’re still just obsessed with great coffee and building strong relationships with the people who grow it.

Phil, Co-Founder of Phil & Sebastian!

"Back in 2007, when we started, there really wasn’t much of a coffee scene. We were both coffee geeks and frustrated by the lack of good cafés, so instead of just complaining, we decided to do something about it."

Fast forward 18 years, and Calgary now has a thriving coffee culture they’re proud to have helped shape. Many of the city’s top baristas trained with Phil & Seb, and Calgary has consistently produced national champions over the past decade. It’s been amazing to watch the city grow into one of Canada’s strongest coffee communities.

"Honestly, our approach isn’t really shaped by being in Calgary. From the start, we’ve seen ourselves as part of the global coffee community and have always wanted to push the industry forward by challenging the status quo."

Phil & Sebastian would like to bring attention to something less talked about: freshly harvested and well-preserved green coffee.

Coffee is actually more fragile in its unroasted state than after it’s roasted. A green coffee bean is a living seed with an embryo that can germinate under the right conditions, and that embryo plays a key role in protecting the seed’s quality. If it dies—due to stress from heat, humidity, or handling—the coffee degrades quickly.

"Our approach is to maintain that seed’s dormant state through careful storage, and then we flash-freeze all of our green coffee as soon as it arrives. This completely locks in quality until we’re ready to roast.

If you’re passionate about coffee and want to take your understanding to the next level, start looking at harvest dates and how roasters preserve their coffee between harvest and roasting. That’s one of the biggest factors behind exceptional flavor, yet it’s still under appreciated in the industry."