The origin of Apollon's Gold
The owner and head roaster of Apollon's Gold originally started roasting coffee simply because his friends asked them to, and they thought it was fun. It was only a hobby at the time. But when the owner of the next door patisserie (who ended up becoming the head chef at the Tokyo Peninsula Hotel) asked them to roast beans for his shop, it became something more. The then small Ekoda-based roastery was turned into a shop, and Apollon's Gold came to be.
In the logo, 9 smaller logos form the sun, representing Apollon, the Greek god of the sun. We interpret his "gold" as the coffee which the world is only able to produce via the power of the sun.
Secretly though, the A's forming the sun in our logo actually stands for anonymity, as the owner and head roaster have decided to remain anonymous since the rapid growth of the brand internationally. Therefore, the name "Apollon's Gold" was chosen because it sounds recognizable, and allows our owner to remain anonymous.
Our approach
Our main goal in the specialty coffee world is to respect the terroirs from which each coffee originates, trying as hard as we can to bring the best out of each terroir in our coffees. For this same reason, we often stay away from non-natural processes in coffee, despite recent trends (double fermentation, carbonic maceration, infusion, etc.). We also like to source coffees based on the current season, ones that are in their peak harvest, so that we can always be serving you the best coffees we can.
The coffees we source are ones that we believe shine brightly on their own, ones that represent the terroirs they come from, and which match our roasting style best. This doesn't mean that we aren't open-minded though, as we are also excited to slowly but surely introduce competition style coffees and experimental process coffees to you as well.
Roasting style
Apollon's Gold has become renowned for our unique omniroasting style, which is a style of roasting that we believe allows for both enjoyable espresso and filter coffee alike.
Our roasting style is typically quite light, often being referred to as one of Japan's few ultralight roasters. With our style though, the bean often ends up looking darker than the roast actually is. The goal with our roasting is to bring out each coffee's unique personality by roasting in a way that represents each coffee's terroir as accurately as possible, no matter how it's brewed.
Everything done in-house
Green bean purchasing, roasting, quality control; everything at Apollon's Gold is executed in-house by the owner and team at our Tokyo roastery. We are always working interactively with farmers, distributors, and coffee lovers to improve and elaborate upon our coffee and its quality.
Every batch of coffee that comes to us is roasted by our owner and head roaster, which then go through multiple cupping sessions with our roasters, tasters, and baristas. A coffee is not approved for sale until the entire team agrees that the roast is right and the resulting coffee meets our standards.
