Nektar is a Greek family coffee roastery founded in Argos in 1951 by Georgios Neofotistos. It is now in its third generation, led by his granddaughter Iris Katsarou since 2015, and produces Greek, filter and espresso coffee from its own facility near Mycenae in the Argolid.

Is the coffee organic?

Yes. The company completed certification for organic coffee production in 2015, and the organic line now includes traditional Greek coffee, filter coffee, espresso and capsules. The beans are grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers.

What does it taste like?

Rounded rather than sharp, with nut and cocoa notes over a soft earthy base and a long finish. The very fine grind produces the thick kaimaki foam that Greek coffee is judged on.

How do I brew Greek coffee?

Use one heaped teaspoon of coffee per demitasse of cold water in a briki, adding sugar at the start if you want it. Heat slowly over a low flame and lift the briki off as soon as the foam rises, before it boils over. Pour the foam into the cup first and let the grounds settle for a minute.

What is in the coffee kit?

The 200g organic traditional Greek coffee together with a hammered copper briki with a long handle, presented in a windowed cardboard box. It is the complete set required to brew the coffee the way it is made in Greece.

Where is Nektar coffee made?

Blending, roasting, packing and storage take place at the company’s own automated unit at Mycenae in the Argolid, completed in 2008. The original shop in central Argos still trades, and the company’s offices are in Athens.

It suits anyone who drinks Greek coffee regularly and wants a certified organic version from a roastery with a traceable history, as well as anyone buying a first briki and wanting the right grind to go in it.

Nektar Traditional Greek Coffee

Discover the Unparalleled Quality of Nektar

Greek coffee is unforgiving of shortcuts. It is ground almost to a powder, brewed unfiltered in a briki, and drunk with the grounds still settling, so every flaw in the bean and every misjudgement in the roast arrives undiluted in the cup. There is nowhere for a poor blend to hide.

Nektar built its reputation on that specific discipline. From 1980 the company specialised almost entirely in Greek coffee blends, and the recipe that Georgios Neofotistos arrived at in 1951 is still the reference point for the house style: nut and cocoa notes over a soft, earthy base, with body rather than harshness, and the thick kaimaki foam that Greek drinkers judge a coffee by before they taste it.

What makes Nektar special

A family roastery working continuously since 1951, now across three generations.
Certified organic coffee production, completed in 2015.
Beans selected from arabica and robusta origins across the Americas, Asia and Africa.
Roasting, blending, packing and storage in the company’s own automated unit at Mycenae, completed in 2008.
Second place at the World Coffee Championship (SCAE) in Vienna in 2012, and first prize for its Greek coffee the same year.

The Argolid is not coffee-growing country, and Nektar has never pretended otherwise. What the region contributes is the craft: a roasting culture built around a drink that Greece adopted, adapted and made entirely its own, in a corner of the Peloponnese where the daily coffee is a fixed point of the day rather than a passing habit.

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The People Behind Nektar

Georgios Neofotistos, working alongside his wife Spyridoula, opened the first Nektar roastery in central Argos in 1951. In 1980 their daughter Varvara Neofotistou took over as managing director, and it was under her that the company narrowed its focus to Greek coffee blends of the highest grade it could produce, then extended the same recipe logic into filter coffee from 1981.

Since 2015 the company has been led by Iris Katsarou, the founder’s granddaughter and the third generation in the business. Her arrival coincided with the completion of organic certification, and with a wider range that now runs from the traditional Greek grind through filter blends, espresso and organic capsules.

How Nektar began

The starting point was green coffee. Before there was a company there was a buyer walking through producing countries, learning which beans held their character through a dark Greek roast and which collapsed into bitterness. That selection work, done through 1950, is what the 1951 roastery was built to use.

The first commercial point in the centre of Argos was a shop in the ordinary sense: local customers, small quantities, coffee ground to order. That original site is part of why the brand still reads as a roastery rather than a label, and the scale of the early years explains the house preference for frequent small batches over long production runs.

Roasting for the briki

A coffee destined for a briki has to be built differently from one destined for a filter or a portafilter. The grind is finer than espresso, close to flour, and the water never separates from the grounds, so the blend has to carry sweetness and body without leaving a rough edge behind.

Nektar’s answer has been to keep the roast slow and the blend broad, drawing on beans from several origins so that no single one dominates. The result is a cup with a settled, rounded character: nuts and cocoa, a faint earthiness, and enough structure to take sugar or none at all without falling apart.

Why this matters

The Greek coffee recipe in use today traces back to the founder’s 1951 blend.
Green beans are selected by origin rather than bought as a finished commodity blend.
The organic range is certified, not simply described as natural.
Production, packing and storage sit in one privately owned facility, which keeps the chain short.
Competition results in 2012 tested the Greek coffee against international judging rather than domestic loyalty.

“Nektar is a roastery that stayed with one drink long enough to get it right, and then had the certification and the competition results to show for it.”

A Daily Ritual from the Argolid

Each packet of Nektar coffee belongs to a routine that has changed very little in the Peloponnese: coffee brewed slowly in a briki, poured with its foam intact, and drunk sitting down. The point is not the caffeine but the pause, and the conversation that fills it.

Ground extremely fine, to a near powder, for briki brewing
Certified organic beans, from a family roastery working since 1951
Nut, cocoa and gently earthy notes, with a thick kaimaki foam
Made for slow brewing rather than speed
A considered choice for anyone who takes their Greek coffee seriously

Nektar brings together three generations of one family, an automated roastery in the Argolid hills, and a way of drinking coffee that treats ten minutes at a table as something worth protecting.

Nektar: What Sets a Traditional Greek Roast Apart

Greek coffee is defined less by where the beans come from than by what is done to them: the blend, the roast, the grind and the brew are a single continuous decision. Nektar controls all four.

Quality	Description
Bean selection	Arabica and robusta chosen by origin across the Americas, Asia and Africa, the practice the company was founded on in 1950.
Certified organic	Organic coffee production certified to EU standards, completed in 2015, covering beans grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers.
The house blend	A Greek coffee recipe developed in 1951 and kept as the reference for the range ever since.
The grind	Milled to a near powder, finer than espresso, which is what allows a briki to produce kaimaki at all.
Own production unit	Roasting, blending, packing and storage completed in 2008 at the company's own automated facility at Mycenae.

In the cup the traditional blend is rounded rather than sharp, with nut and chocolate notes over a soft earthy base and a long, clean finish. It takes sugar well, which matters in a culture that orders its coffee by sweetness, but it holds up perfectly well sketo, without any.

Daily Use in the Greek Kitchen

A briki, a spoon, cold water and a low flame. Greek coffee needs no equipment beyond that, which is exactly why the method has survived unchanged, and why the coffee kit pairs the organic grind with a hammered copper briki.

Use	How to Enjoy
The classic briki	One heaped teaspoon per demitasse of cold water, sugar added at the start, brought up slowly over low heat and taken off the moment the foam rises.
Choosing your sweetness	Sketo with no sugar, metrios with one spoon, glykos with two. The blend is balanced enough to work across all three.
With something sweet	Served alongside loukoumi, a spoon sweet or a piece of walnut cake, the traditional accompaniment across the Peloponnese.
The afternoon pause	Brewed after a late lunch and drunk slowly with a glass of cold water, the way it is taken in the Argolid.
As a gift	The kit with the copper briki gives someone the coffee and the vessel together, which is the only way the method makes sense.

Store the ground coffee sealed, cool and away from light, and use it within a few weeks of opening. A fine grind loses its aromatics quickly, so buying in modest quantities and finishing them is better practice than stockpiling.

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at Nektar

At Nektar, the organic side of the business is a certified production line rather than a marketing position. The certification completed in 2015 covers the organic coffee produced at Mycenae, and the range built on it has grown to include Greek coffee, filter coffee, espresso and capsules.

The company also states a firm commitment to recycling across its packaging and operations. Since 2017 it has run a flavoured coffee range in collaboration with the Wise Greece social enterprise, whose model converts a share of product proceeds into food supplies for people in need.

Their approach

A roastery that has stayed in one family for three generations tends to think in decades rather than quarters, and Nektar’s decisions read that way: a privately owned production, packing and storage unit completed at Mycenae in 2008, organic certification completed in 2015, a stated recycling commitment, and a partnership with Wise Greece since 2017 that turns part of the flavoured range into food for people who need it. The original shop in the centre of Argos still trades, which keeps the company anchored to the town where Georgios Neofotistos started, while Iris Katsarou runs a business now present in more than thirty countries.

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Award-Winning Greek Coffee

Nektar put its Greek coffee in front of international judges in 2012 and came away with results: second place at the World Coffee Championship organised by the SCAE in Vienna, alongside a first prize for the Greek coffee itself in the same year. For a blend first assembled in 1951 and refined by three generations of the same family, that is a useful outside check on a recipe otherwise judged entirely by the customers of one Peloponnesian market town.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Nektar

What is Nektar?

Nektar is a Greek family coffee roastery founded in Argos in 1951 by Georgios Neofotistos. It is now in its third generation, led by his granddaughter Iris Katsarou since 2015, and produces Greek, filter and espresso coffee from its own facility near Mycenae in the Argolid.
Is the coffee organic?

Yes. The company completed certification for organic coffee production in 2015, and the organic line now includes traditional Greek coffee, filter coffee, espresso and capsules. The beans are grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers.
What does it taste like?

Rounded rather than sharp, with nut and cocoa notes over a soft earthy base and a long finish. The very fine grind produces the thick kaimaki foam that Greek coffee is judged on.
How do I brew Greek coffee?

Use one heaped teaspoon of coffee per demitasse of cold water in a briki, adding sugar at the start if you want it. Heat slowly over a low flame and lift the briki off as soon as the foam rises, before it boils over. Pour the foam into the cup first and let the grounds settle for a minute.
What is in the coffee kit?

The 200g organic traditional Greek coffee together with a hammered copper briki with a long handle, presented in a windowed cardboard box. It is the complete set required to brew the coffee the way it is made in Greece.
Where is Nektar coffee made?

Blending, roasting, packing and storage take place at the company’s own automated unit at Mycenae in the Argolid, completed in 2008. The original shop in central Argos still trades, and the company’s offices are in Athens.
Who is Nektar for?

It suits anyone who drinks Greek coffee regularly and wants a certified organic version from a roastery with a traceable history, as well as anyone buying a first briki and wanting the right grind to go in it.

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Nektar: Greek Coffee Roasted in the Argolid Since 1951