¡Hecho con alma!
The story behind Tostado Leonte
From Tenerife to South London
Leo didn’t set out to become a coffee roaster. He came to London the way many people do — looking for something, not entirely sure what. He found it in coffee. Not the chain kind, not the pod kind. The kind that tastes like somewhere specific, grown by someone specific, processed with care.
He started roasting in the back of a café in South London. A 3kg drum roaster, bags of green beans from Colombia, and an obsessive need to understand why the same bean tasted different every time he changed the temperature curve by two degrees.
Six months in, he’s still learning. But the coffee is good — genuinely good — and the people who’ve tried it keep coming back. That’s the only metric that matters.
The Little Coffee Shop
Tostado Leonte has a physical home: a small café in South London where Leo serves the coffee he roasts. It’s where the ideas get tested, where regulars get first access to new batches, and where the feedback loop that makes the coffee better actually happens. If you’re in the area, come in.
107 Sanderstead Road, South Croydon, CR2 0PJ
Mon 12–3 · Tue 10–3 · Wed–Fri 8–4 · Sat 9–4 · Sun 9–3
Why Colombia?
Colombia isn’t a country Leo chose for marketing reasons. It’s where the coffee he fell in love with comes from — the regions, the altitudes, the processing methods, the farmers. Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta for the depth and chocolate. Caramanta in Antioquia for the fruit brightness. Cauca and Tolima for the decaf that actually tastes like coffee.
The beans come through a UK importer with direct relationships with the farms. No commodity lots, no anonymous origins. Every bag is traceable to a specific region and processing method.
What does Tostado Leonte mean?
Tostado is Spanish for roasted. Leonte is Leo’s surname. That’s it. No brand consultants, no focus groups. The coffee is roasted by Leo, so it’s called Tostado Leonte. ¡Hecho con alma! — made with soul — is the promise behind the name.