We discovered Beanworks at the Bristol Coffee Festival this year, where I was pretty bowled over by fruit bomb co-ferment coffee they had on 🤯 We also stood and chatted to their ‘resident caffeine geek’ (his own words, not mine), Will Harvey, for a while about the coffees that they were showcasing that day. I was somewhat taken by his passion and knowledge, which I know isn't exactly unheard of in an industry filled with artisans, but either way, I was hooked.
A short while later I shot a couple of DM’s back and forth with Rob Lawes, their account manager and arranged a call to chat about getting Beanworks on board with us.
Beanworks, founded by David Blair and Darren Thorpe, have been roasting coffee for a long time at this point, around 20 years, so why had I not heard of them? Well, until fairly recently, the bulk of their roasting wasn't really aimed at the speciality coffee market. They had been roasting coffee for a heap of wholesale customers, garden centres and the like, whilst they grew their business. They started out roasting by eye on a second-hand Trabattoni Italian coffee roaster in Derbyshire. Fast forward to today and they have a dedicated roasting team, using Geisen Roasters with all modern tech in Northampton.Â
Like all good roasteries, there is a definite focus on both quality and sustainability. For example, the coffee that we have chosen for you this drop is from a women-only cooperative in Mexico, that has a heavy focus on sustainable farming practices, so the coffee starts out doing good from square one. Interestingly a byproduct of the roasting process, the chaff from the beans, is used by the local farmers on their estate for compost. Also, Beanworks work with One Tree Planted, the charity that plants a tree for every dollar donated, so one sale over £25, one tree gets planted, how awesome is that!
