This is a long story.
I’m dyslexic, so I probably wouldn’t read it either.
Here’s the short version: we think butter has been treated unfairly, we make it differently, and we believe it deserves to be the main event.
If that intrigues you, the longer version is below.
Before you scroll
About
Most people think butter is a supporting ingredient.
We believe it is the main show.
Our story didn’t begin in a dairy. It began in a bakery, in 2020, when we founded Lev&Tine, a Babka bakery built around obsessive sourcing and old-fashioned standards. That mindset earned us a Great Taste Award and a feature in Waitrose Magazine, but more importantly, it taught us where quality truly lives.
Great baking doesn’t hide only behind technique. It depends on ingredients that behave properly and taste unmistakably real.
We could source exceptional chocolate. We found beautiful local eggs. We worked with millers who cared deeply about flour. But butter, the one ingredient that touches almost everything, kept disappointing us.
It worked. It just didn’t inspire confidence.
So we did the least efficient thing possible.
We decided to make it ourselves.
At 82% fat, butter behaves.
At 84%, it makes demands.
Getting to 82% is relatively straightforward. Pushing beyond that requires a second churn, a process that adds risk, time, and uncertainty. Done poorly, the butter breaks. Done well, the structure changes, the flavour deepens, and the texture becomes quietly indulgent.
There is no shortcut here.
Which is exactly the point.
This is the moment butter stops acting like a background ingredient and starts behaving like something worth paying attention to.
We realised we had crossed a line during a blind tasting with my 92-year-old grandfather. He tasted our butter alongside some respected premium butters.
He didn’t know the percentages.
He didn’t care about process.
He chose ours without hesitation.
All he said was that it tasted like butter should.
That was enough.
We began sharing it with other bakers and cooks. The feedback was consistent. Doughs behaved better. Flavour lingered. Meals felt more considered.
Eventually, the butter stopped being a solution to a problem and became the thing people asked for first.
The bakery followed the butter, not the other way around.
84* exists to return butter to its rightful place.
We work with farmers who respect their animals and land. We prioritise flavour over yield and patience over speed. Every batch is tasted. Every decision is deliberate. Nothing is added casually and nothing is made to chase trends.
From there, we allow ourselves to be playful, but never trivial.
We use living processes like koji fermentation, slow smoking with leek ash and time itself as an ingredient. These flavours are not designed to shout. They evolve. They reward attention. They turn butter into something you serve, slice, and talk about.
This is not garlic butter to complement the slice of your sourdough.
This is butter with a point of view. a statement.
84° is for people who believe the simplest things deserve the most respect.
For people who understand that quality often feels quieter than excess.
For cooks who build meals around a single great ingredient.
For bakers who notice when butter behaves differently.
We are not trying to reinvent butter.
We are trying to remind people why it mattered in the first place.