A B O U T

A M B E R + H A Z EL

is a small-batch specialty coffee roastery in Nuremberg founded by Will & Julia. After 10 years of living and working across Australia, New Zealand and Germany, we thought it was time to start our own roastery.

We roast coffees we genuinely enjoy drinking — from bright and expressive filter coffees to sweet, full-bodied espressos.

A M B E R // stands for the colour of light-roasted filter coffee. For us, seeing those warm tones in the cup is usually a sign that we’re going to enjoy that coffee.

H A Z E L // reflects how we think about espresso. We roast a little lighter than most because we’re looking for sweetness, depth and plenty of flavour, while keeping bitterness to a minimum.

Amber for filter. Hazel for espresso. Simple as that.

OUR DREAM

We’re Will & Julia, and AMBER + HAZEL is our small-batch specialty coffee roastery here in Nürnberg.

If you want to know how we ended up here, we have to go back a little.

I’ve wanted to have my own café for as long as I can remember. Even as a kid, I used to tell people that one day I’d have one of my own. Back then, though, the dream was mostly about baking.

Somehow, along the way, that dream shifted towards specialty coffee.

I still absolutely love baking, but specialty coffee has become such a huge part of my life. It’s an incredible industry, full of curious, passionate and genuinely wonderful people — many of whom have shaped the way I think about coffee today.

THE BEGINNING

My specialty coffee journey started in Melbourne — the coffee capital of Australia. It’s also where Will and I met, so in many ways, Melbourne is where our story began.

I used my time in Melbourne to land my first barista jobs and work my way up.

By the time we moved to New Zealand for the first time, I had enough experience to join a specialty coffee shop in Auckland. They also had their own roastery, which gave me the opportunity to dive deeper into the specialty coffee world.

After that, we moved to Germany together. That’s when I started working for Jörg, the owner of BERGBRAND.

Jörg quickly became both a mentor and a friend. After working as General Manager for a while, I knew I wanted to take the next step and learn how to roast. Jörg taught me everything he knew, and I also had the opportunity to complete my first roasting course at Probat.

After four and a half years in Germany, Will and I decided to move back to New Zealand. This time, we thought it would be a permanent move.

I worked across several cafés and a roastery there, and eventually, we took the leap and started running a business of our own.

CORNER PEAK

CORNER PEAK was our first business — a wee coffee cart in Wānaka.

The roastery owner I worked for at the time kindly let me use his roaster to roast our own coffee, which we then served from the caravan.

It was the first time we really experienced what it was like to build something of our own - from the fitout, the bureaucracy, to the regulars that became friends, and everything in between.

Unfortunately, Wānaka was just on the wrong side of the world for us.

We missed Nürnberg. We missed our family and friends. And eventually, we made the difficult decision to move back to Germany.

That meant selling CORNER PEAK, but luckily, we found the perfect couple to take it on. Tara & Lewis have not only kept it going — they’ve truly made it their own, and it’s been so lovely to see it thrive. We couldn’t be happier knowing it’s in such good hands.

WHY NÜRNBERG?

Because it feels like home.

We’ve lived in some pretty special places. I grew up in a small village, Will grew up near London, and together we’ve called Melbourne, Auckland and Wānaka home at different points in our lives.

Each place has left its mark on us. We’ve made friends, learned new things, built a life — and taken a little bit of each place with us.

But somehow, Nürnberg was always the place we called home.

So when the time came to build something of our own, the choice felt easy. This is where we want to be. And this is where we want to build AMBER + HAZEL.