Hamilton · Canada
Detour Coffee Roasters
Detour Coffee Roasters roasts in Hamilton, Ontario.
Since 2009 · Kaelin McCowan
Overview
Kaelin McCowan founded Detour in 2009 in a back alley in Dundas, Ontario, after driving across the country to buy a roaster. The company moved its main operations to Hamilton and has stayed at the front of Canadian specialty coffee — building long-running producer relationships (nine-plus years with the Calderón family in Costa Rica) and roasting on a Loring, which uses convection heat for cleaner profiles and substantially lower emissions. Ryan McCabe joined as Co-Director of Coffee in 2015. The company now has four cafés and a sister espresso bar chain, Dark Horse, with eight locations.
Known for
- One of Canada's earliest specialty third-wave roasters (2009)
- Loring convection roaster with ~80% lower emissions than drum roasters
- Sister café chain Dark Horse Espresso Bar (8 Ontario locations)
- Long multi-year relationships with origin producers including Costa Rica's Calderón family
- Bottleneck blend (Brazilian + Central American base, named after a baby raccoon rescued at the original Dundas cafe)
Why it matters
Detour predates most of Canada's specialty coffee scene — when it opened in 2009, the country's coffee identity was Tim Hortons. It's a foundational name in Canadian specialty alongside Phil & Sebastian and Pilot, and the Loring + Dark Horse combination gives it both quality and distribution reach uncommon for an independent Canadian roaster.
Production
- roaster machine
- Loring (convection)
- roastery location
- Hamilton, Ontario
Café
This roaster operates a café.