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Hamilton · Canada

Detour Coffee Roasters

Since 2009 · Kaelin McCowan

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Overview

Kaelin McCowan founded Detour in 2009 in a back alley in Dundas, Ontario, after driving across the country to buy a roaster. The company moved its main operations to Hamilton and has stayed at the front of Canadian specialty coffee — building long-running producer relationships (nine-plus years with the Calderón family in Costa Rica) and roasting on a Loring, which uses convection heat for cleaner profiles and substantially lower emissions. Ryan McCabe joined as Co-Director of Coffee in 2015. The company now has four cafés and a sister espresso bar chain, Dark Horse, with eight locations.

Known for

  • One of Canada's earliest specialty third-wave roasters (2009)
  • Loring convection roaster with ~80% lower emissions than drum roasters
  • Sister café chain Dark Horse Espresso Bar (8 Ontario locations)
  • Long multi-year relationships with origin producers including Costa Rica's Calderón family
  • Bottleneck blend (Brazilian + Central American base, named after a baby raccoon rescued at the original Dundas cafe)

Why it matters

Detour predates most of Canada's specialty coffee scene — when it opened in 2009, the country's coffee identity was Tim Hortons. It's a foundational name in Canadian specialty alongside Phil & Sebastian and Pilot, and the Loring + Dark Horse combination gives it both quality and distribution reach uncommon for an independent Canadian roaster.

Production

roaster machine
Loring (convection)
roastery location
Hamilton, Ontario

Café

This roaster operates a café.

Sources

More roasters