Reuben Hills

There’s a suburb in Sydney, Australia called Surry Hills.

It’s an evolving area known for its stylish cultural and cafe scene.

Terraced houses on Crown and Cleveland streets showcase hip coffee joints, fashion boutiques, and global eateries.

Trendy pubs, wine bars, and galleries dot the area around Surry Hills Library, a community hub with a contemporary, sustainable design.

And held once a month, Surry Hills Markets lure shoppers for snacks and vintage goods.

So it’s no surprise that Reuben Hills, a boutique micro-roastery, started operations there in January 2012.

Their cafe/roastery was designed by architects Herbert Mason.

Reuben Hills roasts coffee for use in the café downstairs and their roster of wholesale customers across Sydney and beyond.

Unlike most coffee roasters, the Reuben Hills team travel around the world to coffee-producing countries (origin), meeting the farmers, cupping their coffees, and selecting beans to buy.

Traveling to origin and sourcing coffee directly from farmers is a more sustainable approach to buying coffee for roasting, even when taking the carbon load of traveling afar into the equation.

Buying coffee beans directly in select small lots and paying a more than fair price, is game-changing for those farmers.

And it gives the coffee consumer the best possible experience at retail.

So everyone wins.

Project Team

Architecture and Photography

Herbert Mason

Herbert Mason is an architectural practice that uses landscape, materials, theatre, art, and sustainability (environment and financial) as tools to create genuinely, end-user-focused designs.

www.herbertmason.com