In a sleepy Yorkshire village hidden just off the A19, dozens of bulging hessian sacks are stacked in the corner of a converted farm buildings. But for a building that once housed livestock, the smell emitting from the building is nothing short of divine.
This is the home of Rounton Coffee, an independent roaster that last year scooped eight Great Taste awards for beans sourced from every corner of the Coffee Belt.
“We import from traditional coffee hotspots like Colombia, Costa Rica and Rwanda but also from less obvious countries like China and Yemen,” said founder David Beattie.
A former chemical engineer, Beattie’s love affair with coffee started on a trip to Sumatra where his mind – and palate - was blown wide open.
“I’d never tasted anything like it – the quality was just sublime,” he reminisced.
“The whole process, the tradition and also the respect they have for coffee was literally life changing, and I knew that when I returned home, I wanted to spend my career bringing that to the UK.”
Rounton Coffee was born. But Beattie’s travelling days are anything but over.
Establishing relationships
Around twice a year, Beattie leaves Teesside to embark on long-haul journeys to some of the most far-flung corners of the earth.
African jungles. Amazonian rainforests. Pockets of Latin America – all of which can take well over 24 hours to get to on plane, train and some very long treks.
And all for one cause: Quality coffee.
“It isn’t the sort of business trip most business owners go on – there’s no Wi-Fi or Premier Inn breakfast in the middle of the Amazon,” he laughed.
“We are sourcing coffee when we are there, but I’m also working on building and maintaining the supplier relationships that are the beating heart of what we do.”
Getting beans to Britain
This year, the company has eight different suppliers, although the process of getting Rounton Coffee’s ‘Great Taste’ beans back to Britain isn’t as smooth as some of their roasts.
From bean-to-cup, the journey can take up to six months – and is often fraught with logistical hurdles and red tape.
For example, Rounton Coffee has a Uganda natural coffee called Rwenzori – named after the sprawling snow-capped Ugandan mountain range from where it is sourced. The Yorkshire firm works with Agri Evolve to select the best coffee from each season for its Rwenzori coffee.
A Ugandan social enterprise, Agri Evolve supports smallholder coffee farmers, providing everything from training to market access to help their yields, and ensuring farmers receive a fair price for their beans.
As a ‘1% for the Planet’ member, Rounton Coffee donated over £5,000 to Agri Evolve last year. For every kilo of Ugandan coffee sold, the firm contributes 60p to the ACE2030 project, which funds essential sustainability programs – including tree planting – for the region.
And for that coffee, ripe cherries are carefully hand-selected by farmers before being delivered to Agri Evolve’s processing station in the village of Nyabirongo.
“Once processed the green coffee will then be bagged up ready to be transported by trucks to the port to be loaded into containers,” said Beattie.
“These containers are then shipped to the UK, and once they pass through customs they are destuffed onto pallets and then taken to specific warehouses that deal with the UK ordering logistics for the suppliers.
“We will then place an order with our supplier and the warehouses will pick the coffee sacks up, palletise them, and deliver to us via their hauliers.”
That challenge is mirrored across the Coffee Belt (located between 25°N and 25°S around the equator and home to major coffee producing countries).
“We live in an instant world of DPD and Amazon Prime, but the reality of the coffee trade is that getting beans to Britain is anything but easy,” he added.
“But like all good things, coffee takes time. It can’t be rushed – and nor should it be.”
Roasting, tasting and bagging
Once the beans eventually do arrive, the roasting process commences.
Having started life at local farmer’s markets in 2013, Rounton Coffee now has the capability to roast more than a ton of coffee each day thanks to a £150,000 investment in technology.
The process is overseen by Jamiel El Sharif, the firm’s head of coffee. His job in the bean-to-cup process is more than just roasting though.
Sharif regularly oversees ‘the ritual’; lining up new varieties, dipping in his teaspoon and slurping coffee to unlock the flavour profile - in the same way a sommelier would swill and sip wine to find the flavours.
Once roasted, the coffee is bagged on-site. It really is all hands-on deck, given the growing demand.
You see, Great Taste Award winning coffee is also seemingly great for business – with the company packing-up and posting well over 2,000 bags of beans each week to increasingly far-flung destinations.
“We’ve recently secured a customer in the Outer Hebrides, which I don’t think was on anyone’s minds when we started the business,” added Ben Taylor, Rounton Coffee’s operations manager.
Additionally, demand is also rocketing for the company’s subscription service. Rounton Coffee is currently receiving around 100 new subscription sign ups per month.
But while the pace of the business is fast, the journey from bean to cup is anything but.
And that’s exactly how Dave likes it.
“At the end of the day, great coffee is built on relationships as much as it is roasting,” he added.
“And if you get that right at origin, everything else falls into place.”