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 became well known to our Friday customers until late 2002.
Publishing was still a financial drain and he 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 coffee shop was opened in 1997 near the old market stall. The wholesale business started
to grow. With demand for
organic produce booming and hardly any other roasters certified as
organic
it was a good time to increase capacity.
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, but
it didn't look like that to the millions of fans in the States. There
was one odd thing as well - the sizeable monority of black people
seemed to have 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.
That
was four years ago now . Since
then we've seen two time election thief Bush set on exploiting
the suspiciously convenient 911
attacks
to embark on a major war for oil. The tourists have thinned out.
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. His philospohy is that if your supplies are good
the demand will follow. This seems to have worked so far.
The famous
Electric Cinema opposite
our shop reopened in 2002 and after massive building work added a
preposterously expensive restaurant. It is one of the oldest cinemas in
the world, but that's another story...
In September 2003
we amalgamated with John Hedges' roasting operation in Brick Lane,
Spittalfields and stopped roasting in the shop to make more space for
customers. 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 has 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 has
co-authored "9/11 Revealed" due to be published in the UK and the US in
Augist 2005, the first mainstream published book to question the
official story of the attacks that became the pretext for war.
|
Fair Trade and organic
It was
in the early nineties that organic and fairly
traded coffees first appeared commercially. For us it was obvious: if
the planet is to have a decent future, fair trade and organic products
are the only way forward.
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. Currently the coffee market is very depressed after the IMF
put pressure on Vietnam to flood the market with low grade coffee. We
pay
about 80% more for our fair trade coffee.
By January 2005 our new IT systems
are finally able to supply the data needed for official Fairtrade
auditing and the use of the Fairtrade Mark. All coffee sold in the shop
is now Fairtrade audited and wholesale customers have the option to use
the Mark on their coffee. (Our coffee has been from audited sources for
years but our simple financial systems could not deliver the auditing
required to us the Mark ourselves).
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
6:30pm, and on Sundays from 10.00 to 4.00
Wholesale and
catering In the eight years since we moved into our shop we have
built up
a large mainly organic and Fairtrade wholesale business with over
fifty tonnes of coffee on our books at any one time.
We mainly supply espresso beans in
kilos 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, and are produced by pre-staling the coffee and gas flushing
into the bag. Far better to use a scoop and
a kilo bag of fresher coffee which can be kept in the fridge.
We supply booming gourmet food chain Fresh and Wild
with all
their own label coffee. We also supply numerous organic
restaurants and caterers who are not licensed organically but
just like to use top quality ingredients.
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.
|
Retail
Prices
About us