Olisipo Coffee Roasters

Overview

Olisipo Coffee Roasters is a Lisbon specialty roaster owned by Antony Watson, named after the Roman name for Lisbon, and consistently described in city guides as a mecca for specialty coffee drinkers in a country where the dark, sugar-burned bica still dominates almost every café counter. Watson is also the author of Bean on a Bike, a coffee anthology that he keeps stocked at the roastery alongside a tightly curated set of single origins.

Known for

• Lisbon specialty roastery named for the Roman name of the city
• Owned by Antony Watson, author of Bean on a Bike coffee anthology
• Light- to medium-roasted single origins as a deliberate counterpoint to Portuguese bica tradition
• Roastery serves as a destination tasting space rather than a high-volume café
• Often cited by Lisbon coffee guides as a reference roaster for the city's third wave

Why it matters

Portugal's everyday coffee culture is built around the bica — a short, dark, sugar-laden espresso whose flavour profile is the opposite of what light Nordic-style specialty coffee is trying to do — which has made building a third-wave market in Lisbon harder than it looks from the outside. Olisipo is one of the small handful of Lisbon roasters who have stayed committed to a clean, light roasting philosophy long enough to influence how the next generation of city baristas think about Portuguese coffee.

Production

head roaster

Antony Watson

roastery location

Lisbon

Café

This roaster operates a café.

Sources

• 2foodtrippers.com · lisbon cafe guide