Belleville Brûlerie
Paris · France
Belleville Brûlerie opened in September 2013 in Paris's 19th arrondissement, founded by David Nigel Flynn (formerly of T
Overview
L'Arbre à Café was founded in Paris in 2009 by Hippolyte Courty, a historian, gastronomy critic and trained wine taster from a knife-making family — his approach was to treat coffee as a wine sommelier would, focused on biodynamic farms, single-parcel and single-fermentation lots, and direct producer relationships. Where the global third-wave was leaning into bright acidity and Nordic intensity, Courty pushed in the opposite direction toward what he calls a New French Art of Coffee — equilibrium, balance, gastronomic compatibility. Since 2019 the company has produced its own coffee from Finca Mariposa, a biodynamic farm at Villa Rica, Junín, Peru. L'Arbre à Café is doubly Demeter-certified — as a producer at Finca Mariposa and as a roaster in its Saint-Mandé atelier — and is a B Corp with a 48/75 environmental score (national average 26.2).
Known for
- Founded 2009 in Paris by Hippolyte Courty — France's first specialty coffee roaster
- Demeter biodynamic certified twice — producer (Finca Mariposa, Peru) and roaster (Saint-Mandé)
- Owns Finca Mariposa biodynamic farm in Villa Rica, Junín, Peru (since 2019)
- Mission-based company, B Corp certified
- Courty is the author of the reference book Café (250 pages, re-edited)
Why it matters
Courty is the Burgundy-style sommelier of coffee — explicitly modeled on French wine appellation thinking, deliberately rejecting the bright-acid Nordic playbook. L'Arbre à Café is the supplier of choice for top French gastronomy (Anne-Sophie Pic, Pierre Hermé) precisely because Courty thinks like a sommelier, not a barista. The vertical integration via Finca Mariposa Peru is unusual: Demeter biodynamic certification at both producer and roaster ends of the chain is rare anywhere in coffee.
Production
- destoning
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- head roaster
- Hippolyte Courty
- color sorting
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- roaster machine
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- filter equipment
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- cupping frequency
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- roastery location
- Saint-Mandé (Paris suburb), France
- espresso equipment
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- annual volume tonnes
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Café
Two boutique locations in Paris
Recognitions
- Demeter biodynamic certification (producer and roaster)
- B Corp certified (48/75 environmental score)
- Mission-based company status (France)
- Pioneer of specialty coffee in France
Sources
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