The Story
Phil Robertson and Sebastian Sztabzyb opened their first café on March 30, 2007, in Calgary — a city not then known as a specialty coffee destination. That changed, in no small part, because of Phil & Sebastian. Over the following decade, they trained a generation of Calgary baristas and produced a run of national competition champions that made Alberta a name in the broader specialty coffee world.
Ben Put, who worked with Phil & Sebastian before co-founding Monogram Coffee, won the 2014 Canadian Barista Championship while affiliated with the company. Jeremy Ho won the 2013 Canadian title outright from the Phil & Sebastian team. These weren’t coincidences — Phil & Sebastian invested in training infrastructure and competition preparation in a way that few Canadian roasters matched at the time.
Phil Robertson also designed a custom roasting machine and wrote the software that controls it, reflecting the engineering precision that defines how the company operates across every function.
Sourcing & Relationships
Phil & Sebastian source directly from producing farms, prioritizing transparency about what they pay and where the coffee comes from. Their sourcing spans Ethiopia, Colombia, Guatemala, and El Salvador, with an emphasis on returning to farms year after year to develop genuine relationships rather than one-off spot purchases.
The company publishes information about their farm partners and has maintained a consistent direct trade program since the early years of the operation. Their wholesale accounts across Western Canada rely on this traceability as a differentiator.
Roasting Philosophy
The roasting program at Phil & Sebastian is analytically precise — built on data, repeatable profiles, and consistent cupping. The custom roaster Phil designed gives the team fine-grained control over development and airflow that isn’t available on off-the-shelf equipment. The result is a house style that leans toward clarity and sweetness, with espresso profiles calibrated for both straight shots and milk drinks.
They have always treated filter coffee as seriously as espresso, offering single-origin filter options through both retail and cafes — a commitment that was ahead of the curve for Canada in 2007.
What to Try
The Campo Belo Espresso is a Calgary institution — rich and versatile, designed to perform well across different brewing parameters. Their Reserve Series single-origin releases are worth watching, particularly Ethiopian and Colombian lots that highlight what direct relationships and careful roasting can extract from well-sourced material.