Our Story
It started with a popcorn machine and a complaint.
The Beginning
Élodie Vasseur didn't set out to open a roastery.
In 2015 she was a sommelier in the 11th arrondissement, spending her days talking about terroir and her mornings drinking coffee she wouldn't have served at her own table. The gap between how carefully she thought about wine and how carelessly she drank coffee started to bother her.
She bought green coffee from an importer near Gare de l'Est, borrowed a modified popcorn machine, and started roasting small batches in her apartment. Neighbours complained about the smell. Friends kept asking for more anyway.
“I wasn't trying to build a brand. I just wanted one good cup before I left for work.”
A year later she met Julien Marchand, a roaster who'd spent four years at a Lyon specialty house and wanted to build something of his own. They leased a 40-square-metre unit near Belleville, split the rent, and called it Maison Ardent — a small nod to the ember-and-attention idea they kept coming back to in early conversations about what the coffee should taste like.
8
Origin partners
27.4t
Coffee roasted / year
11
People on the team
2016
Founded
How We Got Here
Ten years, mostly unhurried.
2015
A roaster in a Belleville apartment
Élodie Vasseur, then a sommelier, starts roasting green coffee on a modified popcorn machine for friends who complain about café coffee in the neighbourhood.
2016
Maison Ardent is founded
Élodie partners with roaster Julien Marchand, formerly of a Lyon specialty roastery. They lease a 40m² unit near Belleville and buy a 5kg drum roaster.
2018
First direct origin partnership
A trip to Yirgacheffe leads to a direct relationship with the Konga Cooperative — the first coffee Maison Ardent buys without a broker in between.
2021
The Marais flagship opens
After five years roasting for wholesale and mail order only, Maison Ardent opens its first public room — a 22-seat space built around a single espresso bar.
2023
Eight origin partners
Rwanda and Panama join the roster, bringing the total to eight producer partnerships across four continents, each visited at least once a year.
2026
Today
A team of eleven roasts in small batches out of a larger facility in the 11th arrondissement, still tasting every batch before it ships.
The Team, Today
Still small, on purpose.
Eleven people now work at Maison Ardent — three roasters, a green coffee buyer who spends a third of the year travelling to origin, a small café team in the Marais, and the two founders, who still cup every batch before it's approved to ship.
We've had chances to grow faster than this. We've turned most of them down — not out of caution, but because tasting everything ourselves is the only part of the job neither of us is willing to hand off.
See How We Roast