WHAT WE DO

We source and roast coffee from single farms, estates and cooperatives. When we taste a coffee that we like, we want to know where it comes from and who grows, picks and processes it. We travel extensively throughout the year, visiting the producers and cooperatives with whom we currently work and looking for interesting varietals of coffee and new farms from which to buy. During these visits we talk to farmers and cooperative members, learning more about the coffee they grow and process and the challenges that they face. We then look to establish a relationship with the grower and exporter of that coffee. We believe that where such a relationship exists, quality, quantity and price requirements can be discussed in an open and equal way. We see this as sustainable, fair and equal trade.

HISTORY

We started roasting and retailing coffee in 1978. At the beginning we roasted in the basement of our shop on Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, using rather old‑fashioned, direct-flame machines, first a small UNO and then a 1930s Whitmee. Almost thirty years later in 2007, having opened another shop in Borough Market and outgrown our basement in Covent Garden, we moved into three converted railway arches in Bermondsey. And now after ten years, we have moved our roasting site again, just a little further east to Spa Terminus in Bermondsey where we have converted five arches into a roasting, tasting and office space. In the new roastery we have installed two roasters from Loring in California, USA. Loring roasters combine air roasting technology with energy efficient design.