Our History
The adventure began in 2005, when Patrick Hébert opened Lili & Oli, a neighbourhood café on the banks of the Lachine Canal in Montreal. Inspired by his time at Café Olimpico, Patrick infused the café with a warm, accessible and resolutely community-oriented atmosphere.
In the early 2010s, his brother Daniel Hébert joined the project. Together, they turned Lili & Oli into a meeting place centred around coffee, while nurturing a growing idea: what if we took quality control and the provenance of the coffee we served even further?
Towards the end of the 2010s, they teamed up with Éric Gingras, a loyal customer turned partner, to found what would become Torréfaction Canal, a project focused on rigorous selection, transparency and artisanal roasting in Montreal.
Our approach to speciality coffee.
We carefully select speciality coffees from traceable batches that are produced responsibly, often at high altitudes, by committed farms.
Each coffee is roasted in Montreal in small quantities, with a focus on revealing the characteristics specific to its terroir, variety and processing.
We seek to remain faithful to the identity of the bean, rather than imposing a house flavour.
A coffee truck, coming to you
In 2025, we launched a new mobile coffee service: a coffee truck designed for events, festivals, public markets, weddings and film shoots.
It's a way to meet people where they are and share our coffee in a different way, always with the same commitment to quality and hospitality.
