I am always in movement,

I like to change, experiment, shift, dance.

Sometimes I become sad and melancholic,

but not for long, soon enough I will draw a smiley face on any situation I am in.

value imperfection, although I am a perfectionist.

I like contrasts.

Nothing can be too serious,

I make many dad jokes… maybe sometimes too many. 

soon after I came to this beautiful city over 10 years ago…

Time flies!

It was a very different Porto then.

Anyways, that was a starting point for all the illustrations to come.

I still collaborate with Ó! Galeria,

there is no other place like it.

I wish to do it again sometime soon.

I chose a Masters degree here and I had one Portuguese friend at that time.

I lived in Lisbon before and I was really in awe of the climate, architecture and people.

Porto is a bit smaller and greyer, but still,

it conquered my heart and as the years passed by, it became my home.

I would recommend visiting the gallery Senhora Presidenta and the vinyl-bookstore Materia Prima.

Epoca is a cozy place to grab some delicious food,

and if you want to spend a night out having cocktails and dancing,

that would be at Maus Hábitos

Bracia Ziółkowscy stands for Ziółkowski Brothers.

There are two of us.

The business guy, CEO, aka the Older Brother.

And the coffee guy, the Younger.

We started out as home roasters back in the early 2000s.

Five years ago we decided to go pro.

We roast specialty coffee, filter, and espresso.

Last year we took 3rd place in the Polish Coffee Roasting Championship.

It's a small village an hour's drive from the city center.

We like it here.

There is a nature protection area in our backyard.

In the front yard, we grow tomatoes.

That’s our vibe.

We see new roasters starting all the time.

The existing businesses seem to be roasting more coffee than last year.

There are even more people who drink specialty coffee.

We can’t think of any new trend that has revolutionized the industry.

I guess we are no better at reading the future.

In May we held a cupping at the Bratislava Coffee Festival.

Only when we started setting up we’ve realized that we’ve brought 6 washed coffees and 1 natural.

This is contrary to our menu policy - we want to keep it diverse in terms of different processes,

even though we seem to like washed coffees the best.

As for the new processes - we sample and look for coffees that would be tasty and are more or less open to experimentation.

So far we’ve learned to like some natural anaerobics from Indonesia.

In Costa Rica, they do interesting things with those modified natural processes.

Oh, and we will soon launch a fake fermentation coffee. Although the launch is too big of a word - it’s going to be a short series.

We see that a good Brazilian single-estate espresso may do wonders.

It’s a relatively easy transition for people drinking dark blends.

We also always keep on a menu darker roast of specialty Ethiopia.

Some would say it’s blasphemy, but we see it as an opening for new customers to explore.

We are excited to brew coffee outdoors.

We have a Kokekaffe kettle which we love.

Brewing is kind of similar to the French Press.

It’s easy and let’s be honest - coffee always seems tastier when you drink it outdoors."

It all started with a love for quality, design and good coffee.

We started as a small company and we grew every year.

As of today, we employ nearly 30 people,

we work on Probat and Diedrich,

we conduct Coffee Skills Program training and we are constantly looking for development opportunities.

Coffee is an endless adventure for us.

We are a team of enthusiasts who love their work and are not afraid of new challenges.

Our head roaster, Aleksander Smęt, is a Q Arabica Grader and the current Polish Cup Tasters Champion and Polish Roasting Champion.

If he's not standing by the roaster, he's probably somewhere in Guatemala or Rwanda looking for new, unique beans.

Our head barista, Daria Figaszewska, has recently become an Authorized SCA Trainer in Barista Skills and Brewing module,

and in a moment also Green Coffee and Sensory Skills.

She's not in the training room?

She is probably running a cupping or workshop at a friend's cafe right now.

We are never bored :)

When it comes to single-origin filter coffee - we usually order several bags of a given coffee and try to constantly introduce new products so that our offer never gets boring.

On the other hand - we have many loyal fans of our classics, mainly for espresso.

We offer coffee without which our customers cannot imagine a morning or a day at work.

We love to show the diversity, variability and ephemeral nature of coffee.

Sometimes it's hard to keep up with us,

but you'll always find something for yourself. 

It is very difficult to choose,

but we will be happy to recommend some young players with great potentials,

such as NAPAR, El Cafetero, MAMAM or Miga Coffee Roasters

We are located right next to Warsaw,

so unfortunately we don't have climbing facilities in the area.

However - we are in the center of Poland,

so you can easily get anywhere from here if you have enough time :)

Ask Daria - she is always on the way!

new opportunities, and new adventures.

Aleksander is getting ready for the World Roasting Championship (keep your fingers crossed!),

which will be held in Taipei in November.

Daria is focused on new modules in an AST license.

We also have some ideas that we are not talking about out loud yet,

but we will certainly show off when the time comes!

We believe you will love them.

We were pleased to answer your questions.

We think we've gotten to know each other a little bit already, we'd love to get to know each other better in the future.

Have a wonderful coffee!"

We both started working in the coffee industry around 2012 and had completely different paths, although we crossed a few times,

so we had a chance to work together.

We met in the middle of the pandemic to catch up and realized we both have skills and ideas that merge perfectly.

Karolina wanted to use her marketing experience to design coffee packaging and a whole brand story,

Piotr wanted to source and roast coffee he enjoyed,

just the best stuff without compromising.

So while none of us actually wanted to have a roastery before,

the idea for Heresy just popped out!

It’s just 3 souls on a daily basis plus a supporting team!

Karolina, the co-founder, is responsible for all “internet stuff”, like marketing & PR, but also finance and strategy.

Piotr, the co-founder, is responsible for all coffee-related stuff, including roasting and green buying.

And there’s Ola, who is a roastery manager and logistics wizard, doing all the “hands-on” stuff needed to deliver our goods to the customers.

We also have Dorota and Antek,

who support us, when it gets super busy.

She co-organized a couple of national championships, either as a producer or a stage manager.

She was also involved in helping several Polish Barista Champions for their national and world-stage performances through the years.

Piotr used to work in many top specialty cafes in Warsaw back in the day and then pursued his career as a roaster and green coffee buyer.

He then worked for or consulted several roasteries in Poland and abroad. Now he also works in import with coffee producers around the world.

Heresy is the result of connecting all the dots!

Therefore, we are very open to be a part of national events, run both by SCA and independently, offering our support, coffee and Piotr judging experience.

We are also very proud of the “HaHaHa” project, which was a combo of 3 polish roasteries, Heresy, HAYB and Hard Beans (all starting with a letter H, pronounced as “ha” in polish) creating coffee together, with a goal to highlight the fact that roasteries can actually work together and be friends, not necessarily rivals.

• Because 252 is more symmetrical than 250.
• Because there are 252 ways of writing the number 4 as a sum of six squares of integers.

• Because everyone makes 250 and we find life shouldn’t be boring!

• Because 252 is divided by 6 (actually not our idea, one of our customers noticed!)

• Because why not?

• There are no incorrect answers to that!

While quite a fun fact, it also showcases our approach to business and life in general.

We always challenge the status quo, analyzing if it’s actually the best way, or is it just the common way.

The same goes for our packaging, which we believe to be more practical and environmentally friendly than common bags, but also all the “heresies” we preach, such as brewing coffee with boiling hot water.

Around one to 400 trillion. That’s already absurdly funny.

We try not to take life too seriously, so why would we take coffee even half as seriously?

Have fun, make jokes, do pranks, enjoy stupid things and it should be at least alright!