The Algerian Coffee Stores

0207 437 2480

Coffee has been traded for 115 years here, in the heart of Soho, London’s most cosmopolitan area – and since 1887, ownership of this site has been in turn Algerian, Belgian. British and Italian.  And it is full of character – the counter and shelves are the originals, and at any time will be packed with a breathtaking stock, maybe up to a hundred coffees and around 160 teas.   Private consumers have known about this Aladdin’s cave of tea and coffee for generations, but what is not generally known is that Paolo Crocetta  (or Paul, he answers to both!)  is just as happy to talk trade with café owners.  He has no outside sales force – but making an appointment to go and see him in his cramped upstairs office, with the almost certain chance of being served one of his ‘specials’, is an hour very well spent for any serious caterer. The depth of stock comes from Crocetta’s deep interest in finding truly interesting things for his customers – and, while it makes stockholding a nightmare, he is prepared to do it because he regularly uncovers the gems his customers are looking for.   “Customers’ tastes have changed,” says Paolo, “they are more choosy, and we’re not surprised to have customers coming in asking for Mexican, Bolivian or Cuban coffees. We have one private customer who comes in every day, generally looking for 125gm of something different – and in the long run, customers like him make up a large, loyal customer base.  I’d rather have dozens of small, loyal, private and trade customers than put up a sign saying I’ll only sell a minimum quantity of anything.”

James Aimer

01382 229733

There was a quite delightful statement of independence when the management of the James Aimer roastery bought their company out from the giant European name which had previously owned it – “in a specialist marketplace, to take yourself away from a multinational means that you aren’t encumbered by them,” explained managing director Eric Duncan.  “Clients like to deal with the people who make the final decision, so the buy-out allowed us to open up new opportunities for ourselves. Becoming independent allowed us to give some of our competitor roasters the fright of their lives!”  It was Eric Duncan who predicted, some years before we heard anyone else say it, that consumers would begin looking for origins and taste profiles instead of brand names, and it was also Duncan who predicted some years ago that organic coffee would establish itself, and in both cases he has been right.  Although James Aimer has been roasting coffee for 125 years, and although it does have brands of its own (the newest is the Alpha espresso blend), the company’s work is largely anonymous – it roasts and blends for a vast number of independent coffee caterers and trade suppliers, and offers particular expertise in ‘matching’ an existing taste profile.  As a result, Eric Duncan calculated for his local newspaper recently, the Aimer company probably produces the base ingredients for 350 million hot drinks a year.

Bunn

01908 241222

For the caterer who wants to present good filter coffee, the Bunn corporation really is one of the most interesting technological organisations in the beverage world – it concentrates on machines and equipment intended to make the service of good filter coffee a practical business proposition.  Although Bunn does have some espresso machines,  it is on the filter brew where the company really scores, and Bunn has created equipment which will serve the filter coffee market in a vast number of different places, from the conference market at six gallons of filter coffee at a time, to the pub, small coffee house, restaurant or office sectors. The extremely interesting thing about this is that Bunn is a great fan of respecting the science of filter coffee, and indeed of the Speciality Coffee Association guidelines on correct brewing, and has worked hard to create equipment which makes it convenient for the operator to create and hold a filter brew for the right length of time, in optimum condition.  Modern technology such as ‘pulse brewing’ and ‘soft heat’ means that there really is no need for any pub or restaurant to serve stewed coffee which has been held on a hotplate – and Bunn’s team are able to explain why and how better filter coffee is attainable, in everyday practical language.

Cafe du Monde

01322 284804

The trade rather enjoys a supplier it can talk with, and is always re-assured to meet a supplier  who has clearly been there and done the job themselves  -  and conversation with Café du Monde of Dartford is peppered with experience of the practical side of serving beverages.  The company records its 20^th year in business in 2009, having been formed to try and support caterers in achieving ‘the same high level of quality and profit from their beverages as they expect from other parts of their menu’.  In doing so, Café du Monde has demonstrated that it is perfectly capable of bringing in new, creative and practical ideas for that best of all reasons… to solve ‘a known problem’.  A typical example is Service en Chambre, which was born of the company’s worry that the beverage trade was letting hotels down with in-room drinks. The quality of bedroom furnishing and décor was rising steadily, but always the beverage offer was a tray with a cup, a kettle, and some sachets of instant coffee.  Café du Monde set to work creating a cafetiere service in which the consumer could not possibly get the brew wrong, and would not make a mess – and the result was a ‘coffee bag’, which could be slipped into a cafetiere, brewed at exactly the right dosage, and the visitor would be in no danger of spilling coffee grounds anywhere.  Such was the company’s interest that the directors spent a lot of time sitting with needle and thread, experimenting with ‘coffee bags’ which would hold exactly the right dose of coffee.  But they got it – the result was something which allowed hotel visitors to make a good cup of ‘real’ coffee, and allowed chambermaids to easily clean cafetieres in the room, instead of having to cart them away.  And, adds the company extremely realistically, it also got round the problem of spent coffee grounds blocking the drains, as well!

Coffee Community

01484 34 00 33

It is rather re-assuring, at a time when the beverage community has come awash with a whole new wave of 'barista trainers', to realise that the longest-standing specialist consultancy company in the sector is just on its tenth birthday - which means that Coffee Community was in at the very beginning of the modern coffee-bar boom.  But this is not just a training company – the breadth of things that Coffee Community has brought to the café trade makes a quite impressive, if pretty exhausting, list.  It was Coffee Community which produced the first barista-training video on CD, an item which was enthusiastically taken up by several major suppliers who were keen to put their own brands on it.  When the Beverage Service Association succeeded in creating the first nationally-recognised barista qualification in barista work, it was Coffee Community who wrote the courses.  The company has been extremely active in the organisation of the various barista championships (and is game enough to occasionally compete in them, as well - David Olejnik picked up a regional prize this in the last series.)  The company is an 'auditor' for many of the top branded chain businesses, which means making sure staff skills are up to scratch, and what is not widely known is that it also has a notable expertise in the planning and design of hospitality venues, as well… founder Paul Meikle-Janney won an award for it at one time, and will readily join a café operator in discussing the practicalities of traffic-flow through a café, which is a more important art than you might think.  “We have seen the most beautiful coffee bars fail because the customer didn’t know where to stand, or in which way to walk to the till,” he told us. “You can lose a fortune by getting this wrong. Our job is to make sure you don’t!”

Crem International

01282 458 473

This really is an interesting story, with some interesting products appearing as a result. Up until a couple of years ago, Style Café of Lancashire was an independent distributor of various products, including the Jura brand, and then became part of the Crem organisation of Sweden.  Shortly afterwards, the British side split itself into two different companies – one half concentrated on the Jura machines, while the other concentrated on the machines specifically made by Crem, notably the Coffee Queen ones.  The result of this is the launch in Spring 2011 of the Qube machines, with the interesting advertisement strapline: ‘are you ready to think inside the Cube?’   This, says the company, ‘will change how people drink coffee in offices, canteens and board rooms round the world’. One particular feature is the use of a new milk which is the result of two years’ testing – it is a bag-in-box solution that contains regular, semi-skimmed milk that is pasteurized at ultra high temperatures and then packaged aseptically. Forget refrigeration and the constant need to buy small quantities of milk on a regular basis, says the company – this is a 5-litre system which can be stored at room temperature for up to six months, and once opened and installed in the machine, the milk will stay fresh for days.

Douwe Egberts

01753 508 123

This is a fascinating company with quite a heritage, but nonetheless one which still remains directly relevant to the modern-day coffee trade.  It’s a Dutch company, which was started in 1753 by Egbert Douwes (that’s the right way round)  as a grocery shop in Joure, called De Witte Os (‘the White Ox’).   Thirty years later the business was taken over by his son Douwe Egberts (that’s the right way round, too) and by now specialized in coffee, tea and tobacco.  Today it is part of the giant Sara Lee Corporation, and is the world’s largest buyer of Utz Certified coffee, which is a very highly-regarded ethical-purchasing certification, although not one which gets the high profile of the other ethical badges.  It has also been instrumental in several very interesting technologies – it worked with Philips on the development of the Senseo machine, which remains one of the very simplest espresso machines for pod use, and its Cafitesse was (and is) one of the most interesting coffee-concentrate systems. The coffee is brewed in the conventional format by Douwe itself – but it then goes to catering businesses in a kind of ‘bag-in-box’ format.  Douwe Egbert’s trade website is one of the more interesting sites by a trade supplier, and includes some genuinely useful information… the list of brewing tips from its own staff is pretty good.

DR Wakefield

020 7202 2620

As speciality coffee has become more important to the everyday British beverage trade, the sourcing of the best coffee beans has become absolutely critical.  DR Wakefield has been in this for forty years, and has established itself as an extremely reliable source of not just beans, but a vastly knowledgeable source of information and advice on the issues which surround today's coffee trade.  The company's directors have formed lasting relationships with growers and their representatives in all the major coffee-growing areas of the world  (Africa, Indonesia, Africa, India and central and south America)   which allows them to put in place absolutely reliable audit trails for the 'traceability' which is such an important part of today's ethical business. The company has also formed strong links with every one of the ethical-sourcing accreditation organisations, and can give authoritative help and advice on the issues surrounding Fairtrade, the Rainforest Alliance, Utz Kapeh, and the general organic and decaffeinated options.

Java Republic

00353 1 8809300

In a trade full of opinionated people, Java Republic stands out - there is no shortage of suppliers in the trade willing to tell you what's what with regard to coffee, but Java Republic has distinguished itself by standing up for its beliefs in everything it does, to a degree which is quite exhausting, and always entertaining.   Founder David McKernan began his own roastery after serving his time in the Dublin coffee business, which is widely acknowledged to be a market of extremely high quality products and best-practice work - having formed his ideas about how coffee should be roasted, he then began his own roastery to do it the way he considered it should best be done.  (Did he succeed? He has won 94 Great Taste awards to date).   Then he established his own set of ethical principles about the sourcing of his coffee, much of it inspired by the shock he felt when he first visited impoverished farmers.  After turning his attention to a high-quality tea range, he then demanded that the world should know about the conditions that cocoa workers are expected to live in, and created his concept of 'the other bean', his ethically-sourced drinking chocolate range (you can read about this on our linked page).  Turning his attention to questions of environmental sustainability, he set out to create 'the first carbon-neutral coffee roastery on the planet' just outside Dublin, which now offers an open invitation to any interested operator in the beverage trade.   The company has just won an environmental award for it.  This is indeed a company which is not shy about making its opinions felt - but it welcomes interested trade customers, and any meeting with Java Republic is always full of exhilarating and challenging conversation about the way our market works.

Marco Beverage Systems

01933 666488

It is a very unfair thing indeed, but up until very recently, the trade suffered from a problem called ‘espresso-ism’ – that is, espresso-based coffees were the fashionable drinks which got all the glory, and things like tea and filter coffee were regarded as something slightly less ‘cool’.  Certainly, the art of boiling water for such things was not seen as needing any kind of skill. Suddenly, we all know better, and the beverage gurus are falling over themselves to show that good filter coffees and great teas are very wonderful beverages indeed, and very profitable for the café and tea-room. And beside this has come the appreciation that certain companies who specialise in the heating of water have actually been doing some terrific technical work in recent years, even if they didn’t get the praise for it. At Marco Beverage Systems, the Dublin-based manufacturer, there is keen and questioning attitude to the treatment of water, which has led to a great deal of practical support for café and tea-room operators, who require absolute precision in the heating of their water – green teas, white teas, oolongs and the like all need different brewing temperatures, and are too delicate to be left to a Saturday part-time waitress and a kitchen kettle.  And at the same time, there has come a new appreciation that filter coffees, too, have their own ‘sweet spot’ brewing temperatures and need just as much care.  Having watched all this develop for years, Marco unveiled a surprising product which drew the attention of the entire beverage trade – the ‘uber-boiler’, which promises a delicacy of temperature-control previously unknown in the preparation of top-quality teas and filter coffees.

Maxabel

01344 876588

It really is remarkable that probably the most important single strategic product for most coffee-house operators does not get the discussion, debate and information it warrants. It's not coffee, nor indeed is it tea, or snacks - it's the takeaway packaging.   About ten years ago, Allert Elema saw this and decided to create a 'brand awareness solutions provider' - which means getting together the two major features of takeaway packaging needed to do the beverage operator a complete job.  Those two major features are the overprinting and the cup - to have a cup without an overprinted message is one of the great missed opportunities in the trade (and people still do it!), but even if you have a wonderful message to impart, putting it on a low-quality cup will make your promotion a waste of time.  Maxabel devises its own products, and is particularly proud of its triple-layer ribbed-paper cup - and then, the company likes nothing better than to start discussing what message to put on it!   Maxabel has also become an enthusiastic member of the trade's Paper Cup Recycling Group - it is a vastly important subject for takeaway packaging, says the company, and apart from the environmental considerations, all operators in the trade now value being regarded as conscientious companies.  "We are viewed as a caring and conscientious company," says Maxabel. "Not just by our customers, but also by colleagues and suppliers alike. We work hard for our customers, an approach that seems to work as we have a repeat rate of over 85%... and we are striving to improve on that!"

Nescafe (Nestle Professional)

0800 742 842

What is remarkable about this company is that while it is probably the single biggest giant corporation in the entire world of coffee, it retains a surprisingly human face. The 'real coffee' side of the trade hurls all kinds of abuse at the instant coffee sector, but at Nescafe, certainly in the UK office, they respond in a delightfully civil way.  No, they don't argue the case of instant coffee against roast-and-ground - indeed, they operate in both sectors, and this is why they will very readily sit down and argue their main proposition, which runs like this: there is an appropriate coffee solution for each location at which coffee is drunk, and while it might be a roast-and-ground solution, and it might be an instant/soluble one, the important thing is to establish which.  After that, the company is then prepared to roll up its sleeves and discuss coffee sourcing, ethics (there has been criticism of the time it took, but Nestle does now work with Fairtrade and the Rainforest Alliance), roasting techniques, and taste.  Nescafe is even readily willing to argue the case of its 'speciality' drinks made with soluble coffee, a concept which is alien to many in the coffee-bar trade... but as Nescafe points out, there are some locations in which the barista and espresso machine simply is not possible.  Discussion of the qualities of instant/soluble coffees can be remarkably detailed, and brand rivalries are every bit as hard-fought as they are in the roast-and-ground sector, to the degree that one of Nescafe's best-known soluble coffees, Gold blend, actually has different taste profiles to suit the various parts of the world in which it is sold.  Of course, the 'real-coffee lobby never invites the soluble makers to discuss these subtleties... but they exist, all the same.

Rapido Coffee Servcies

01785 851348

There are many novel angles to the coffee trade, and although Capuccino Rapido of Cannock is a coffee supplier, its special niche is in what top man David Wiggins describes as ‘a short-term decent-quality coffee facility’.  That means he supplies machines and a beverage service on hire for those who run trade shows, business exhibitions and the like.  For these people, he points out, offering visitors and important clients a really super and top-notch coffee is a hospitality touch which lifts them above the norm and gets them remembered – it is serving it which causes them the problem, and this is where Rapido steps in ‘to help them achieve greatness’!  David Wiggins has been in delis and speciality coffee for almost thirty years – he was a very early example of the ‘roaster-retailer’, preparing a Mysore/Mocha/Costa Rica blend on the premises over a live gas flame. Pioneering stuff at the time, Wiggins recalls – then, he was asked to put on a ‘coffee shop’ for a corporate event. “Nobody does short-term hire at the level we do – it’s a very difficult thing for an organiser to put on, because the equipment, running water, and power is all a problem. But we show that with our careful management, that they can appear to be running a very tidy ship!”  Rapido still supplies coffee houses with that original blend, although it has been slightly adapted with a Java,  and in this, David Wiggins was again a pioneer – he was one of the very first to put a date of roasting on his packs.  “I love long conversations with coffee-houses, because I like to learn about their businesses. I find that they dislike being dictated to by suppliers, so we maintain that our coffee service for them, against the big brands, is what Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream is to Haagen-Dazs - rather more fun!”

Rombouts Coffee GB

0845 604 0188

One of the most eye-catching news items in the last year was when the Rombouts name made its re-appearance in the British trade – this really was one of the most famous high-street coffee brands before the espresso boom, and although its traditional strength was always in filter coffee, the brand bounced back into the trade’s attention with a novel line in espresso pods, and a new machine - Rombouts developed the 1,2,3 Spresso Pod system and then collaborated with a number of manufacturers including La Spaziale and La Cimbali to adapt their traditional machines to take the pods.  The brand is back under the ownership of the Belgian family which founded it, and the British side is back under the control of three people who have 30 years’ experience of working with the company. The aim, firmly stated, is to ‘regain the position we once held in the UK’, and two big moves have already been put in place towards this – one is the 1-2-3- Spresso pod espresso machine, (which features the use of some interesting coffees not normally seen in espresso) and a bold attitude towards supporting the catering trade with training – a complete support from beginner-barista right up to the three-day City & Guilds Level 2 VRQ in Barista Skills.  “It is very often the barista who is first to meet the customer, so this training is vital,” says Rombouts’ Rob Briggs. “When it comes to espresso, a good barista can make a good bean great… but a poor barista can make a great bean bad!”

Taylerson's Malmesbury Syrups

01666 577 379

It came as quite a shock when a new, all-British, flavour company arrived on the scene in 2008 – for the coffee-bar market, the flavoured latte section had been dominated by a few big names for years. Then a new company from Wiltshire, practising a slow-pasteurisation method and using pure water from a natural spring on its own land, popped up out of nowhere to win a Great Taste award, and even had its amaretto flavour featured on TV’s Ready, Steady Cook.  And more recently, the company produced its own independent research to show how the development of flavours through the coffee-shop trade has progressed – and consumer interviews around the country showed that flavoured coffees have been tried by far more of the market than was expected, and a far older age-group as well.   The product was the idea of John Taylerson - “what got me really wound up was that people think all flavours and syrups are the same, and the misunderstanding of ‘natural’.  I’m a country boy who has been through agricultural college and the dairy and grain industries, and I always thought that the food and drink of this country needed to encapsulate the personality of the place it is made.  Our syrup is made in the rolling English countryside, amid fresh air and trees, with no artificial colourings.  We did not deliver the flavours that people expected, because people are used to a synthetic, faceless, smack-in-the-face vanilla, not the distinctive natural one. Our almond syrup is not from chemicals, it is natural, and we have ad audit trail of documents which will always lead you back to a nut!  And we have recently found that our ginger, in coffee, is seriously fab – we sold out of it on its first weekend!”

Teapigs

0208 568 2345

This is supposed to be the 'year of good tea', and if any company was going to pioneer it, it would have to be Teapigs.  It is quite possible that the catering trade has never seen a company quite like this - it steamed into the industry a few years back on a crusade to rid the world of second-rate tea, and gained instant attention with not just its attitude, but its quite bizarre packaging.  There is no retail packaging quite like it, and sometimes you have to think hard to find the relevance of the design - one pack has a bathtub motif on it!   However, when you dig deeper, you find a small company which is intensely proud of its tea, with a perfectly well-defined aim which is quite in accordance with the targets of the cafe industry.   The theory is this - if you strip away all the pomp and pretentiousness which has surrounded tea for so long, and show both catering staff and the consumers that there can be great fun in discovering interesting new teas, then everybody benefits.  With this in mind, Teapigs introduces some quite super greens, whites, and oolongs, and some interesting other items such as popcorn tea (which actually was a genuine oriental tea in which the peasants used bits of corn to eke out their meagre rations of real tea), a chocolate tea, and a chilli tea.  You can guess what the pack illustration is for that - it's a fire extinguisher!