iaro

iaro started in 2020 as a small window café in Karlsruhe, opened by co-founders Armin Zandieh and Nabila, and didn't begin roasting its own coffee until 2022, when the company built out its in-house roastery. That two-year gap between opening the counter and controlling the roast shows in how the menu is structured now: Muriqui, the modern signature espresso, sits alongside Oso as an easier entry point and Cotorra as the decaf option, each named rather than numbered, and each also sold as Nespresso-compatible capsules for home use. The original café, now called iaro west, is on Sophienstraße; a second location, iaro ost, opened later on Rintheimerstraße, both keeping the same Monday-to-Friday 8am-5pm, weekend 9am-5pm hours. An in-house bakery supplies both sites, baking pastries on-site rather than bringing them in from a separate supplier. Beyond the counter, iaro runs paid instruction — a €129 barista workshop, an €89 latte art class, and a €29 online Barista Basics course — extending the roastery's self-described focus on controlling 'the entire process, from the coffee plant to your cup' into teaching customers to replicate parts of that process themselves.