Claye Tobin from Australia, Nina Tromp from the Netherlands, and Josh Cotton from Britain founded Uncommon in Amsterdam in 2018 under the roasting company name Common Greens, opening their first space near the Overtoom with a focus on breakfast and lunch before adding a second spot called Uncommon Bar across the road in late 2024 that specializes in extravagant pastries and dinner service from Thursday to Saturday. The roastery sources coffees where 80 to 90 percent of the green beans carry organic certification or equivalent accreditation such as Rainforest Alliance, and every coffee in the range must have something uncommon about it, whether that is the taste, the variety, the processing method, or the story behind it. The founders have personally brewed coffees for producers in Myanmar and Thailand, bringing them roasted coffee from their own farms for what was in some cases the first taste of the finished product, and are setting aside a percentage of profits to donate coffee seedlings to farmers in Myanmar to help them transition from opium to coffee cultivation. A planned project in Guatemala aims to introduce eco water filters made of clay to provide children with access to clean water, extending the brand's mission of supporting small communities and setting up small scale development projects well beyond the boundaries of the coffee supply chain. Uncommon has established itself as a fixture on the Amsterdam coffee circuit near the national museum and Vondelpark, a roastery where the seasonal rotation of origins, processing methods, and newly discovered varieties reflects three founders who came from three different countries and built something none of them could have built alone.