Bottleneck

About the Coffee

Bottleneck is Detour's year-round blend, built to shift with the seasons. Rather than locking in a fixed recipe, Detour selects coffees from different farms and cooperatives each season to maintain a consistent flavour profile as individual lots come and go. The current iteration draws from Ethiopia and Peru, both processed using the washed method, which involves removing the fruit from the coffee cherry before drying to emphasize clarity and clean flavour.

The blend format gives Detour flexibility that single origins don't. When one component peaks or fades out of season, it can be swapped for another that plays a similar role in the cup. The goal is a coffee that's interesting enough to drink black but approachable enough to hand to someone who doesn't usually think much about where their coffee comes from. One more thing worth knowing: the name Bottleneck comes from a baby raccoon that was rescued behind Detour's original Dundas roastery. Reach out to them if you want the full story.

About Detour

Detour started in 2009 out of a back alleyway in Dundas, Ontario. The premise was simple: coffee is fun, and that should be reason enough to do it well. Their sourcing philosophy is built around three priorities: relationships with the people growing the coffee, traceability through the supply chain, and quality in the final product.

All roasting is done in small batches on a Loring Coffee Roaster, which uses convection heat rather than direct flame. Detour uses it to highlight what's already present in each coffee: sweetness, acidity, texture, and aroma, without masking the origin. The approach is consistent across their lineup, whether it's a single origin or a blend like Bottleneck.