Sought and Found Coffee Roasters ★9.5

Every bag that leaves Sought and Found Coffee Roasters has its origin and tasting notes written on it by hand. That single detail explains the business better than any mission statement: this is a husband-and-wife roastery small enough that somebody still picks up a pen for every batch, sitting at the bottom of the Crescent Heights hill just north of the river.

Highlights

• Handwritten bags. Origin and tasting notes go onto each bag by hand rather than through a label printer — a deliberate signal of the scale they intend to stay at.
• Founded by a former social worker. Caleb Leung left social work for coffee; he and Kitty Leung spent years getting professionally trained in tasting, roasting and brewing before opening, and taught themselves the business side by trial and error.
• Alberta dairy in the milk drinks. The milk comes from an organic dairy farm in southern Alberta, which is a rarer commitment in a café than it sounds and changes how a flat white actually tastes.
• A gallery as well as a café. The room grew into the unit next door, turning the space into a combined gallery and café with a far more comfortable seating area than the original.
• A coffee tasting menu. Guided tasting is offered as a proper item rather than as an occasional event, which is unusual outside of a training lab.
• A sibling in the Beltline. The company later opened a second room on the other side of downtown, so the roastery now serves two very different neighbourhoods.

What’s in the cup

Sought and Found roasts its own coffee in small batches and supplies other businesses as well as its own counters, which puts it in the working roastery category rather than the café-that-also-sells-beans one. The stated principle is three words — pure, fine, ethical — and the part of that worth taking seriously is the third. The owners talk about sustainable trading practice for the farmers at origin, and about presenting coffees in a way that represents what the people who grew them actually risked. In a market where the word ethical is applied loosely, the handwritten bag is at least a piece of evidence: a company shipping at industrial volume could not do it.

Small-batch roasting is the technical decision underneath all of this. It is slower and less efficient than filling a large drum, and the reason to accept that cost is control — the ability to profile a delicate lot for the qualities that made it worth buying instead of pushing everything towards a safe, uniform middle. The practical consequence for a visitor is that the list moves. Coffees appear, get written up by hand, and are eventually gone, and the notes on the bag are the roaster’s own reading rather than a marketing department’s.

The most distinctive thing about the drinks, though, is the milk. The house sources dairy from an organic farm in southern Alberta, and anyone who has compared a milk-based drink made with commodity milk against one made with a real dairy’s product knows this is not a decorative choice — the sweetness and the texture are different. The same local instinct extends past the fridge: the chocolate, the pastry and other supplies come from Alberta makers and growers wherever the owners can arrange it. For a café this size, that is a lot of separate relationships to maintain, and it is the clearest expression of what the business is.

Who’s behind it

Sought and Found was started in Crescent Heights by Caleb and Kitty Leung. Caleb had been working as a social worker and left the field to pursue coffee, which had been a long-standing obsession; the two of them then spent several years acquiring proper training in tasting, roasting and brewing before opening the doors. They are candid that the one thing they did not train for was running a business, and that they learned that part by trial and error — an unusually honest thing for founders to say out loud.

You can hear that origin in how they describe their customers. They talk about loyalty as reciprocal — something a café owes its regulars as much as the other way round — and about a narrow but devoted following rather than the biggest possible crowd. It is a social worker’s framing of a coffee business, and it is consistent with what the room feels like: this is a place that would rather know two hundred people well than serve two thousand anonymously.

The trajectory has been steady rather than explosive. During the pandemic years the couple took over the neighbouring unit, rebuilt the space as a combined gallery and café with a much larger seating area, added a pick-up window, moved from a five-day week to a seven-day one, and set up online ordering and local delivery. A second location in the Beltline followed, on the opposite side of downtown. Each of those steps was a response to circumstance rather than an expansion plan, which is the difference between a small business that grows and a brand that scales.

What it’s good for

This is the rare Calgary specialty room that genuinely works for a long sit. The expansion into the unit next door was made specifically to create a comfortable, larger seating area, and the gallery format means the walls give you something to look at instead of just a queue to watch. For laptop work, a book, or a conversation that runs past its intended length, it is one of the better-suited independent rooms on the north side of the river.

It is equally good as a deliberate coffee visit. The tasting menu exists precisely for the customer who wants to sit down and be walked through several coffees rather than order a flat white and leave — a format that most roasteries reserve for staff training. If you have ever wanted to understand the difference between two lots without pretending to know more than you do, this is a very low-pressure place to ask.

The third mode is the pick-up run. The window installed during the pandemic never stopped being useful, and a neighbourhood roastery with a hatch on the street is a genuinely convenient thing on a cold morning. Add the local delivery service and the bagged retail, and a large share of this business never involves sitting down at all.

The room

The space is a two-part room: an original café unit and the adjacent one absorbed later, joined into a single larger area with real dining-height comfort rather than a row of stools against a window. The gallery element gives the walls a rotating job, which changes the character of the room over time in a way that a fixed interior cannot, and it ties the café into the artist community around it.

The setting is Crescent Heights, a residential district on the slope immediately north of the river, and the crowd reflects that: local, repeat, and unhurried compared with a downtown bar. It is a busier corridor than a purely residential street — this is one of the main north–south routes out of the core — so the room is not silent, but the traffic is passing outside rather than churning through the tables.

With your coffee

The food offer is deliberately compact: bites and treats to have with a cup rather than a kitchen menu. What makes it interesting is the sourcing rather than the length of the list — the pastry and chocolate come from Alberta makers, on the same principle as the milk, so what you eat here is chosen in the same way as what you drink.

Beans are the other half of the counter, and for a roastery-first business that is not an afterthought. The handwritten bags are the retail product the whole operation was built around, and the tasting notes on them are a genuine guide rather than packaging copy. If a coffee you drank in the room worked for you, the same coffee can go home with you the same day.

When to come

Since the seven-day week arrived, the practical answer is: most days. That itself distinguishes this room from the downtown roasteries that shut down with the office week — a Crescent Heights café serves a residential catchment, and weekends are part of the business rather than an interruption to it.

Within a day, the pattern is the ordinary one for a neighbourhood roastery: a commuter and school-run surge early, a longer quiet stretch through the middle of the day that is the best window for working or for a tasting, and a social afternoon. If you want the tasting menu or a proper conversation about what is currently on, avoid the morning rush — the same staff who could talk you through three coffees at a quiet hour have a queue to serve at the peak.

Getting there

The café sits in Crescent Heights, just north of the Bow River at the foot of the hill, close enough to Chinatown that walking over from downtown is entirely reasonable in decent weather. The route is a river crossing and then a few blocks, which puts it within reach of anyone working in the core without needing a car.

Transit is straightforward because this is one of Calgary’s principal north–south bus corridors, and services along it run frequently, connecting the district both to downtown and to the communities further north. Driving is easier than in Kensington or downtown, though the immediate stretch is a busy through-route rather than a quiet residential one, so parking takes a little patience at peak. Cyclists can pick up the riverside pathway a short distance to the south.

Good to know

This is a small independent operation, and the things that make it worth visiting are the same things that limit it. The list is not long, the food is not a menu, and the coffee you loved may be finished by your next visit because it was a small lot roasted in small batches. If you want a consistent year-round house blend and a large all-day kitchen, this is the wrong shape of business.

Two practical notes. First, if you specifically want to be walked through several coffees, come at a quiet hour and say so — the tasting menu is a real offer, but it needs staff time to do properly. Second, the Beltline sibling is a different room on the other side of downtown, so if you have read about one, check which one you are heading to; the roastery is shared, the neighbourhoods are not.

Questions and answers

Do they roast their own coffee?

Yes, in small batches, and they supply other businesses as well as their own counters.

Who founded it?

Caleb and Kitty Leung, a husband-and-wife team. Caleb left a career in social work, and both trained professionally in tasting, roasting and brewing before opening.

What is written on the bags?

The origin and the tasting notes, by hand, on every bag — a deliberate marker of how small they intend the operation to stay.

What makes the milk drinks different?

The dairy comes from an organic farm in southern Alberta rather than from a commodity supplier, which changes both the sweetness and the texture.

Can I work here on a laptop?

Yes. The café expanded into the neighbouring unit specifically to create a larger, more comfortable seating area, and it is one of the better independent rooms for a long sit on the north side of the river.

What is the tasting menu?

A guided tasting through several coffees, offered as a standing option rather than a special event. Come at a quiet hour if you want the full version of it.

Is there a full food menu?

No — bites and treats to accompany a cup. The interesting part is that the pastry and chocolate are sourced from Alberta makers.

Is this the only location?

No. The original room is in Crescent Heights and a second one later opened in the Beltline, on the other side of downtown.

How do I get there from downtown?

Walk north across the river past Chinatown, or take one of the frequent buses on the main north–south corridor that runs directly past the door.

Opening hours