Prototype Coffee

Prototype Coffee runs a microroastery and tasting room at 883 East Hastings Street, with a second tasting room at 222 West 5th Avenue in Mount Pleasant. The operation is built around traceability: beans are sourced, in the roastery's own words, as 'highly traceable specialty grade coffees, sourced with integrity by importers who pay what the coffee is really worth' -- a sourcing standard the shop states outright rather than leaves implied. Each lot gets a custom roast profile rather than a house style stamped on everything that comes through the door; the stated aim is to 'accentuate their particular characteristics while maximizing sweetness and balancing acidity,' treating the roast curve as a tool specific to each coffee rather than a fixed recipe. The shop frames its own mission plainly -- 'to source, roast, and serve the best coffees we can find' -- and pairs that with an operational habit of continual refinement, describing a standing search for 'new and better techniques and flavours' rather than treating any current method as finished. For visitors, that translates into two small, deliberately unfussy tasting rooms on opposite sides of the neighbourhood, both built to let a carefully sourced, carefully roasted cup speak for itself without much else competing for attention.