Rocket Bean Roastery

Overview

Rocket Bean was founded in Riga by Mārtiņš Dzenis (owner), Aivars Rodčenko, and Ancis Romanovskis — partners whose corporate-Latvia background dates to the 2007-era takeaway-coffee project King Coffee Service. First roasts came in 2013; the flagship roastery-cafe in an old socks-factory building on Miera iela opened in 2015 after roughly two years of bureaucratic and reconstruction work. Roastmaster Mārtiņš Drungils anchors production. Rocket Bean is Latvia's first specialty coffee roaster and runs the country's largest specialty footprint. The brand has expanded across the Baltics (Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius) with 70+ employees, and won multiple Gold Medals at the 2025 Global Coffee Awards plus 2025 European Coffee Trip Awards.

Known for

• First specialty coffee roastery in Latvia (first roasts 2013, flagship cafe 2015)
• Three-Baltic footprint — Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius — covering all three countries
• Multiple Gold Medals at 2025 Global Coffee Awards; 2025 European Coffee Trip Awards
• Roastery housed in a converted 1900s-era socks-factory building at Miera iela 29/31
• Co-founder Mārtiņš Dzenis served as inaugural SCAE Latvian National Coordinator and helped launch the country's first Barista Championship (2016)
• LV100 — single-origin Honduras (Typica/Bourbon/Catuai) blend roasted to commemorate Latvia's centenary

Why it matters

Rocket Bean built specialty coffee in the Baltics. Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania all had effectively zero specialty roasteries when Rocket Bean started; today the brand operates across all three capitals and supplies the bulk of serious cafes in the region. Co-founder Ancis Romanovskis trained in Dubai with Union Coffee's Matt Wade before coming back to roast — and brought a genuine technical baseline to a market that didn't have one.

Production

destoning

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head roaster

Mārtiņš Drungils (Roastmaster)

color sorting

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roaster machine

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filter equipment

V60, Chemex, Aeropress, custom flow-timer-equipped vacuum brewer

cupping frequency

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roastery location

Miera iela 29/31, Centra rajons, Riga (former socks-factory building)

espresso equipment

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annual volume tonnes

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Café

Miera iela 29/31 (roastery flagship), Gustava Zemgala gat. 74a, multiple Riga locations; plus Tallinn (Estonia) and Vilnius (Lithuania) cafes

Recognitions

• Multiple Gold Medals — Global Coffee Awards (2025)
• European Coffee Trip Awards (2025)
• First specialty coffee roastery in Latvia (industry consensus)

Sources

• https://www.rocketbeanroastery.com/
• https://rocketbean.com/rocket-bean-roastery/
• https://europeancoffeetrip.com/roaster-stories-rocket-bean/
• https://mtpak.coffee/2021/09/roaster-of-the-week-rocket-bean-roastery/
• https://sprudge.com/rocket-bean-91787.html