Transcend Coffee & Roastery

Poul Mark founded Transcend Coffee in 2006, and nearly two decades later the Edmonton roaster still roasts to order rather than to stock, shipping fresh beans within a few business days of a batch coming off the roaster. Two cafes, on 124 Street and in the Ritchie neighborhood, sell the same lots poured in-house - single origins from Ethiopia, Costa Rica, and Peru sit alongside the roastery's two standing blends, Argyll and Gateway, and a green, unroasted coffee option for home roasters. Transcend also makes Vamos, a specialty instant coffee produced from its own roasted beans rather than a generic freeze-dried base, extending the direct-trade sourcing it applies to its bagged coffee into a format meant for travel or an office desk. The company reports sustained customer volume - 256 verified reviews averaging 4.83 stars - built over years of shipping across Canada with free shipping thresholds for Alberta and the rest of the country. Between the two cafes and the mail-order roastery, Transcend has kept the same direct-trade sourcing language since Mark started the company in a city not typically associated with specialty coffee.