UrSpecialty is an online specialty coffee company based in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Come, peruse our selection of signature and featured coffee beans. Learn about various brewing methods, refine your skills, and produce a custom crafted café-quality experience. We encourage you to use your favourite mug, tumbler, or flask to reduce single-use cup wastage. We offer some eco-friendly accessories from local artisans.
Our Customer Satisfaction Guarantee: If you are not satisfied with your beans, we'll exchange them for something you enjoy!
What is Specialty Coffee?
Specialty coffee considers every step that makes a coffee special (from farm to cup). The relationships that made your drink possible, between: the farmers and the land that they work with, the mill and the exporter, the selection and then roasting, storage and the brewing. Every step in the chain is valuable. For example, a coffee tastes great, but if it comes at a cost of the producer’s dignity or the land it was grown on, then it does not really qualify as a specialty coffee.
UrSpecialty is committed to bringing you the best of our local specialty coffee roasters, and offering you the coffees that you will enjoy. We will help you learn to brew great-tasting coffee, bringing the specialty coffee shop’s quality into your home or the office
Brewing Tips
To make a café quality cup of coffee, follow these steps. Select specialty coffee beans of your choice. Ideally grind beans right before brewing. Use a burr grinder (grinds must be uniform). Brew ratio must be consistent for brewing method. Ensure accurate extraction times so coffee is not sour or bitter. Lastly, use your favourite mug or tumbler or flask. Enjoy your coffee.
Grind Size: Coarse | Brewing Time: 4-6 Minutes | Bean to Water Brewing Ratio: 1 to 15 (17g to 250ml water)
Step 0: Heat water. While the water is heating, grind beans to about the size of sesame seeds.
Step 1: Boil water and let it sit about 30 seconds
Step 2: Grind coffee (17g). It should be coarse, looking like sea salt or sesame seeds.
Step 3: Rinse your french press to heat the vessel. Discard the water.
Step 4: Place ground coffee into the vessel.
Step 5: Start your timer!
Step 6: Pour water (about 50 ml) over the grounds to wet all the coffee. Let it sit about 30 seconds and then stir the slurry.
Step 7: Now pour in the remainder of the hot water (about 200ml)
Step 8: Place the screen/plunger portion of the press onto the french press brewer. Let the screen just touch the surface crust, but don’t push it down yet.
Step 9: Let the coffee brew a further 3-4 minutes before gently pressing down the plunger.
Step 10: Decant the coffee into a mug or carafe, so that the coffee grounds do not continue extracting.
Pro-tip: A shorter brew time might taste sour (indicating under-extraction) and longer will taste bitter (over extraction).
Grind Size: Medium | Brewing Time : 3-4 Minutes | Bean to Water Brewing Ratio: 1 to 16 (16g to 250ml water)
Step 0: Heat water. While the water is heating, grind beans to a medium (about the size of poppy seeds, or coarse sand).
Step 1: Boil and let it sit about 30 seconds
Step 2: Grind coffee. It should be like coarse sand or poppy seeds.
Step 3: Fold the paper filter and set it into the cone or filter holder. Wet the filter with hot water and discard the water (to rinse out the paper taste). Set this on top of your favourite mug.
Step 4: Place ground coffee into the filter’s base. Make a little well with your fingertip or the tip of a chopstick.
Step 5: Start Your timer!
Step 6: From your kettle’s spout, pour water in circular motions, starting from the edge of the grounds, working toward the centre.
Step 7: If the coffee is freshly roasted, there will be a bubbling-up called the coffee bloom. Wait for this bloom to subside (up to 45 seconds) before continuing to add water.
Pro-tip: Aim to pour ⅓ of the water per minute, so that the total brewing time is about 3:30 minutes. If the water flows quite slowly then adjust the grind size (coarser) so that liquid will flow more quickly through the brew bed.
Grind Size: Medium-Fine | Brewing Time: 2-3 Minutes | Bean to Water Brewing Ratio: 1 to 16 (16g to 250ml water)
Step 0: Heat water. While the water is heating, grind beans to a medium-fine size
Step 1: Boil and let it sit about 30 seconds
Step 2: Grind coffee. It should be like table salt.
Step 3: Place a paper filter into the filter holder (the black screw-cap on the vessel). Wet the paper and discard the water, to rinse away any paper taste.
Step 4: Extend the plunger until about 1 finger-width of it remains in the vessel. Turn the assembly so that the plunger is on your tabletop, the seal inside the vessel, and the filter end is facing upward, left uncovered.
Step 5: Using the funnel, place the ground coffee into the vessel and start the timer!
Step 6: Pour water over the grounds, enough to wet them. (about 50 ml)
Step 7: Stir the slurry 15 seconds, using the aeropress paddle.
Step 8: Let the coffee “bloom” (up to 30 seconds)
Step 9: Add the remainder of the water in 10 seconds.
Step 10: Place the filter cap onto the assembly and wait one more minute.
Step 11: Set your mug or tumbler over the filter cap and carefully turn the whole thing right-side up. Press down on the plunger, in 30-45 seconds.
Total brew time: It depends! This recipe takes 1:45 - 2 mins.
Pro-tip: using the aeropress is like driving “stick shift”. The method allows you to adjust brewing time according to the grind size and personal preference. Grinds that are coarser can be steeped a little longer (up to 2 minutes) or given a longer stir. Try it and see if you like how it tastes!
This is a strictly-defined drink. The espresso is produced by pushing hot water through a compacted puck of finely-ground coffee. A double-shot is 18g of dry coffee grounds, to produce 36 ml of liquid espresso. A well-calibrated espresso machine applies 9 bar of pressure to the process.The brew time ranges from 25 to 30 seconds, and grind size is micro-adjusted so that the final volume is achieved within the expected time. There should be a layer of faintly sweet golden-orange, called crema, on top of the dark brown liquid. The basic recipe: 18 g of dry coffee, 36 g of beverage extracted at 9 bar in 30 seconds .
Grind Size: Fine | Brewing Time: 3 Minutes | Bean to Water Ratio: 1 to 7
Notes: This is also known as a machinetta, stovetop espresso, but is not a true espresso. Make sure your moka pot is clean -- the oils left over from previous pots of coffee will add rancid notes to your drink.
Step 1: Grind your coffee beans. The grind size is a little finer than sand.
Step 2: Fill the lower vessel with hot water, but be careful not to cover the steam vent.
Step 3: Carefully place the funnel into the vessel. Lightly fill the funnel with ground coffee; level off the top but do not pack it down. Make sure the rim of the funnel is clean; loose grinds will cause the pot to leak or lose pressure.
Step 4: Now screw the whole assembly together (carefully because the reservoir is full of hot water!) and set it on the stove burner… medium heat. (or low flame)
Step 5: Once the coffee starts to flow into the top carafe, turn off the burner. Residual heat will complete the brewing.
Total brew time is up to 6 minutes (3 mins if you use hot water). Serve immediately in small cups. Add milk or sugar to mellow out the bitter notes.
Pro-tip: use hot water to shorten the amount of time your mokapot is on the stove.
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Grind Size: very fine. | Brewing Time : 3 Minutes | Bean to Water Brewing Ratio: 1 to 10.
Step 1: Start with a clean cezve (in Arabic, ibrik). Grind size is very fine, flour-like. Usually you have it ground for you at the shop.
Step 2: Spoon about 20g of grounds into the cezve and pour in 200ml of hot water.
Step 3: Set the pot over a low flame and add in 1 tsp of sugar. Stir gently, once.
Step 4: Prepare small coffee cups now. (200ml is two portions of Turkish-style coffee)
Step 5: Watch the coffee as it heats. When it starts to foam-up, quickly pull the pot off the heat.
Step 6: Replace it over the heat and watch again for the second time it foams-up. Heat again, and foam a third time before pouring into the prepared cups.
Pro-tip: pouring Turkish coffee from a height helps produce froth in the cup. Arab and Turkish friends look forward to these bubbles!
