|
Our
History
In
1985 journalist Ian Henshall started roasting
coffee literally on the street corner in Portobello Road, London
as way of financing his magazine Outlook, which was
launched in 1987. The Evening Standard ran a feature on the
combined operation. The coffee took off somewhat more than the
publishing..
Reality
hit Ian Henshall in a big way in 1994 in the
form of newborn twins Stephen and Timothy with partner Jutta
Wuttke, who later became well known to our Friday customers.
Publishing was still a financial drain and Ian dropped Outlook,
but with support from New Internationalist, The Big Issue and
others, he helped form INK,
the umbrella organisation for the UK's alternative press. The
main visible result of INK so far is the INK joint subscription
leaflet, of which 300,000 are printed and distributed in the UK.
The
boom in our wholesale business began when we
identified a source of coffee that was both organic, fairly
traded and high quality. Since then our silver packs of coffee
from Guatemala, Mexico and Peru have become a familiar sight to
London's coffee purchasers in many different outlets. We now
believe we have the largest range of organic and/or fairly
traded coffee in the UK
Starstruck
. Then came a Hollywood movie, which most of us
took little notice of at the time, Notting Hill . Of
course hardly any of it was shot down here, and our sizeable
minority of black people evaporated from Notting Hill's
Notting Hill. The shop rents went up, the tourists flocked and
the corporations moved in. In the wake of the stars came, you
could probably guess it, Bill and Hillary. No, he didn't drink
any of our coffee but he dined at a pub which sells it.
Unfortunately there was a power cut at the time. As so often
before, Clinton had greatness within his grasp but it eluded
him.
Philosophy.
Ian and Jutta moved to Brighton in 2002, but Ian is to be seen
in the shop most weeks. Ian mainly handles new business, web and
marketing activity, and suppliers. The philospohy: if your
supplies are good the demand will follow. This seems to have
worked so far.
In
2003 we amalgamated with John Hedges' roasting operation in
Brick Lane, Spittalfields and stopped roasting in the shop to
make more space for customers.
Permanent.
In July 2004 the shop moved to its third location in our parade,
this time permanent, fully refurbished and custom designed for
us. Danny Davies, general manager for five years left to pursue
new opportunities in Australia. During his time our turnover has
grown by around 600% and our payroll from three to ten.
Ian
co-authored "9/11 Revealed" published in the UK and
the US in August 2005, the first mainstream published book to
question the official story of the attacks that became the
pretext for war without end. The book had a three page
serialisation in the Daily Mail,and became a non-fiction best
seller, but was still ignored by most of the establishment.
2005
was a busy year, we moved the roasting operation to larger
premises in Acton, London NW10.
New
Roaster. In early 2006 we purchased a (very) second
hand Probat L12 10kg coffee roaster. Shortly after, we consigned
the latest of our home made roaster series to the skip. However
our pre-war Uno shop roaster can still be seen in the shop, it
was used by us not so long ago in Spittalfields
In
September 2007 Ian's second book was published: “9/11 The
New Evidence” and he has become a regular guest on the
less mainstream media, from Talksport to Al Jazeera. In
September 2008 on BBC Southern Counties radio he confronted
producer Guy Smith who made the BBC's “Conspiracy Files”,
a grossly misleading 9/11 whitewash.
At
the end of 2008 the talk is all of a financial crisis, but so
far Coffee Plant is doing fine, with ever more caterers choosing
our espresso beans and turnover in Portobello Road booming under
the new manager Claudio Ambruoso. We are in the process of
buying a new 30kg roaster for Acton
|
Fair
Trade and organic
In
those days organic was a term anyone could use. Then the EU made
it illegal to describe unaudited produce as organic. In spite of
the extra paperwork, we believe the audit trail which
certification requires is essential to uphold the integrity of
the the organic system. An organic crop must not only start off
as organic but be transported and processed in a chemical free
environment too. Non-organic coffee, for instance, can be
fumigated during transport.
As
the organic movement has become mainstream, a new problem has
arisen - bulk producers supplying supermarkets with cheap
technically organic produce which somehow doesn't taste good
enough. Crops
grown using the wrong strain, in the wrong soil or climate
conditions will taste poor whether organic or not.
In
the coffee market, which is highly volatile, the main advantage
of Fairtrade is to put a floor under a market, so that in bad
years the producers are not at risk of losing everything to
creditors. Until 2007 when the financial world started to go
beserk the coffee market was depressed after the IMF put
pressure on Vietnam to flood the market with low grade coffee.
For nearly ten years we paid about 80% more for our Fairtrade
coffee than for the uncertified equivalents
Our
Fairtrade coffee has been from audited sources for years. By
January 2005 our new IT systems were finally able to supply the
data needed for official Fairtrade auditing and the use of the
Fairtrade Mark. All our Fairtrade coffee is now Fairtrade
audited and carries the Fairtrade mark.
Since
then we have extended both our organic and Fairtrade lines, so
that by now most of our coffee is both organic and Fairtrade.
This is welcome to caterers who can appeal to two often
different markets with our coffee. We advise retailers however
that the mains selling point is the quality of the coffee.
Why
do we have any coffee which is not organic Fairtrade? Some
origins still do not supply it, often because their high quality
coffee sells very well anyway. This is the case with all Kenyan
coffee and many premium estate coffees.
Portobello
Market
Described
in the Evening Standard as creating the best smell in
London, our retail coffee is roasted twice each week in
Spitalfields and delivered the same day to our main premises in
London's Notting Hill district, at the heart of the world famous
Portobello Road Market. (Note to visitors: the full antiques and
bric a brac markets are only there on Saturday with some on
Friday). We are opposite the Electric Cinema, open Monday to
Saturday, from 8.00am to 5:30pm, and on Sundays from 10.00 to
5.00.
Wholesale
and catering
We
mainly supply espresso beans in kilos to caterers and ground
coffee in valve packs of 250gm for retail. As we roast and pack
in small batches we can supply to most requirements. However we
advise against sachets for filter machines. These are wasteful
and expensive. Far better to use a scoop and a kilo bag of
fresher coffee which can be kept in the fridge.
Our
250g valve packs are available from London distributors Marigold
or, for larger outlets, directly from our Acton factory. They
can be bought at Wholefoods, Local Hero, and other retail
outlets around the UK.
We
supply many caterers who are not licensed organically but just
like to use top quality ingredients. Most buy our espresso 1,2
and 3 blends. Our pre-ground 250g packs of organic Fairtrade
decaf ground for professional espresso are very popular
Mail
order
We
offer a retail mail order and wholesale delivery service. See
the price list and the trade
price page for full details. You can order online from our
secure server.
|
