Terres de Café
Terres de Café is an independent specialty coffee roaster founded in Paris in 2009 by Christophe Servell, and one of the pioneers of specialty coffee in France. It sources directly from farms and cooperatives in Latin America and Africa, roasts in the Île-de-France, and has been named Best Roaster in France. Clipperton features it as our coffee brand.
The house
Christophe Servell is a third-generation roaster, the son and grandson of roasters, who spent years traveling through coffee-producing countries before opening Terres de Café in 2009. His aim was to bring to France the specialty movement that was already reshaping coffee elsewhere: beans graded above 80 points on the Specialty Coffee Association scale, traced to a single farm or cooperative, and roasted to reveal their origin rather than mask it. He was named Best Roaster in France in 2015, and in 2024 his peers gave him the Outstanding Achievement Award at the European Coffee Symposium in Berlin.
All the coffee is roasted in the Île-de-France on Loring roasters of 7, 35 and 70 kilograms, a technology the house chose for its zero carbon emissions. The permanent range runs to more than thirty exclusive coffees across four families, pure origins and blends, in beans or ground, with organic lots throughout. Terres de Café also runs its own coffee shops, where the baristas are trained in what the house calls coffeeology; two of them, Pierre de Chantérac and Jordan Tachnakian, were crowned Ibrik world champions in 2023 and 2024, and the house won Best French Espresso in 2024.
Behind the awards is a stated commitment to a sustainable specialty coffee industry that respects producers, the environment and consumers. Terres de Café works with a large network of farms and cooperatives, and every bag names its farm, producer, altitude, variety and process.
What they make
Clipperton imports a tight selection of the house's Ethiopian work, in 250 g bags of whole beans. Old Yeti is a micro-lot from the Konki Yeti farm of Dhinsa Soreso in Wallagga, picked from Moka trees planted in 1914: the century-old trees give fewer cherries but denser ones, and the red-honey process brings out dried strawberry, cocoa and sweet spice with a long, winey finish. It is organic and scores 88 and above.
KSF comes from the Khalid Shifa Farm at 2,000 meters in Yirgacheffe, a honey-processed heirloom lot, organic and 88-plus, with a nose of flowers, spice and fruit and a cup of vanilla, black tea, apricot and mango. For everyday drinking, Blend The Forest marries organic Ethiopian heirloom from Wallagga with Brazilian Bourbon from Minas Gerais, natural and washed processes together, for a velvety, full-bodied cup of chocolate, warm spice and praline.
- Old Yeti: Wallagga micro-lot, red honey, organic, 88+
- KSF: Yirgacheffe, honey process, organic, 88+
- Blend The Forest: Ethiopia and Brazil, organic, 80+
Find them in the Terres de Café collection.
Why Clipperton chose them
Clipperton is a family importer, and we chose a single coffee roaster rather than many, because we wanted one whose sourcing we could stand behind bag by bag. Terres de Café tells you the farmer's name and the year the trees were planted; that is the same directness we look for in every producer we work with, from the olive mill to the salt marsh. We explain what sets specialty coffee apart, and why it is worth it, in our Journal: Premium French Coffee: What Makes It Worth the Extra Cost?
