Our Story · Antwerp, since 2008
We roast the coffee Antwerp wakes up to.
Caffenation began behind one small bar counter with a second-hand machine and a stubborn idea. Eighteen years later we still roast every batch by hand and still chase the same thing: a cup that tastes alive.
Chapter one — The beginning
It started with one bar and a stubborn idea
In 2008 we opened a tiny coffee bar in Antwerp with a chalkboard menu, a borrowed grinder and a belief that a city this curious deserved better coffee. We served it slow, talked too much about origin, and refused to hide anything behind milk and sugar.
Word spread the way it does here — over the counter, then across the Scheldt. Regulars became friends, friends became a queue, and the queue became a reason to stop buying roasted beans and start roasting our own.
Coffee is a fruit. Our whole job is to get out of its way.— Rob Berghmans, founder
Chapter two — The roast
Fresh is a date, not a slogan
We roast in small batches, days before the beans reach your shelf, never months. Every profile is dialled in by taste and by nose, then logged so that the next batch tastes like the last good one.
There is no warehouse of old coffee here. If a roast is more than a few weeks old it does not leave the building — it goes home with the team or into the training room. That obsession with freshness is the whole business.
If it isn’t fresh, it isn’t coffee. It’s just brown.— The roasting room, painted on the wall
Chapter three — The source
We know the people who grow it
We buy green coffee from producers we can name, and we pay above commodity so they can keep farming the way they do. Long relationships beat clever marketing every single time.
Our bags are recyclable, the chaff goes to compost, and we ship across the city by bike whenever the weather allows. Small things, done every day, add up to a roastery we are happy to stand behind.
What we stand for
Three things we never compromise on
01 — Freshness
Fresh, always
Roasted in small batches and shipped within days of the roast. Never warehoused, never sat on a shelf.
02 — Sourcing
Direct relationships
We buy from producers we know by name, at prices that let them keep growing great coffee.
03 — Craft
No-nonsense craft
No gimmicks and no syrups hiding bad coffee. Just good beans, roasted with care and served honestly.
The people
A small crew with strong opinions
Roasting is a team sport. These are the people who cup, source and pour every day — and who will happily argue about water temperature for an hour.
Lotte De Smet
Milan Peeters
Milestones
Eighteen years, one obsession
- 2008 The first Caffenation bar opens in Antwerp
- 2012 We start roasting our own beans, in small batches
- 2016 A second bar, the same no-nonsense service
- 2019 Our direct-trade sourcing programme begins
- 2022 The roastery doubles in size to keep up
- 2026 Still roasting fresh, still shipping every week
Now taste it
Taste what we’ve been talking about.
Order a bag roasted this week, or come and sit with us at the bar.