The James Gourmet Coffee Story

The James Gourmet Coffee Story

A long time ago, and not that far away, in the idyllic and beautiful Herefordshire countryside, I had an idea.

This may be a long one (relatively, but it is 30 years in the making)

A long time ago, and not that far away, in the idyllic and beautiful Herefordshire countryside, I had an idea.

To paint the picture, we lived on a smallholding with native Herefordshire Ryeland sheep, which I have always thought of as looking like teddy bears with their arms removed, from the front view. My husbandry efforts (farming term BTW) reared the most beautiful pigs in the world (of course!) that happened to be ginger with black splodges on their sides and backs.. And I had a favourite, called Miss Bliss.

We had ducks, chickens and some geese for a while. Rescue dogs filled the house and had wonderful, full-time, free lives. As I write this account, trying not to let my latest obsession with Thomas Hardy blur the reality. This is now called Rosy Retrospection in 2026. Dougal the GSD (AKA Douglas) is fast asleep next to my office chair, drifting in and out of his dreams.

Many traditional Hereford smallholdings used to make cider as a part of paying the farm workers. To do this, you needed cider fruit. You have already guessed the next part.

As a young’un, I used to enjoy a drink; it was normal then. What I hadn’t expected was that if I was at home on this idyllic farm, I wouldn’t be sitting watching the sun go down unless it was Christmas or I was cooking. Good skills! For the first few years, when the cider and perry trees were producing good fruit, we (my 2 siblings and I) were roped in (included in activities) in return for board and lodging at one of the most stunning places on earth. (He chokes!) Rosy retrospection may be a thing after all.

There was a breaking point when my (now) late father wanted me to stop working for 2 weeks to pick and press cider fruit. This is at least 30 years ago; I vaguely remember my sister being involved, and I broke the mould. What I would do now to retake those 2 weeks…Rosy Retrospection again.

My coffee journey started when I was working as a Supervisor at The Country Garden Centre Huntley, in what is now known as Leaf Creative (Blue Diamond). Before I go on here, I am happy to see that this is still a horticultural business of sorts.

Some years before, I had returned from travelling and tripped over horticulture and coffee on my way. What started as a casual walk-in asking for a job in Huntley became the next 5 years of my life. One day, a customer approached me and asked if I would work in his garden and pack coffee, as he needed some help. In those days, I worked every day and evenings too, so the idea of something new that offered an opportunity was worth a look. At this point, I was also dealing in Tea Chests and hessian sacks, as well as growing rare trees and landscaping, on top of the full-time job.

For the next few years, I did a few days of gardening a week and then packed coffee. I noticed differences in the coffees, and in those different times, the guy I was packing for was laser-focused on saving pennies on a plastic bag, over the quality of the contents. This is a recurring theme in coffee. R~R?

Slowly, I started to bring in customers of my own and later started working with an ex-Manchester United football player (named Mike) who taught me a lot about sales and integrity. That is code for the opposite, if you were wondering at all. We worked out of a huge unit next to a runway between Carterton and Brize Norton. Every week I would turn up (as a director of the business); there was a new member of staff and quite often a new vehicle too. We were the “engine room” of the business, some 65 miles away in the shed on the farm. A few weeks before our firstborn (Jacob) was due, we (my wife Anni and I) stepped back from the joint business, which was called “Espresso House!”. It was hurtling in the wrong direction, fast and out of control.

From the outside, you must remember that there were no “speciality importers” in the 1990’s. You had to buy what was available. Quietly, I started buying raw coffee and moving it across the country, from one end to the other, to be roasted and shipped back to us. Once a week, a pallet of coffee would arrive, and we would always have too little of some things and too much of others, and the roasting then was not great. We had ordinary coffee, roasted badly, but it was still so much better and fresher than other coffees out there!

The next step was finding one of the first speciality green coffee suppliers. The mission was simple. Buy the best coffee that we can. This meant that we had some incredible coffees, and around this time, we had imported a few roasters from the U.S., and we were on fire! Sometimes literally!) We had regular visits from producers and other up-and-coming roasters across the world.

Over time, James Gourmet became bigger than Peter and Anni. We had a team, most of whom are either still working with us or at least we are in contact with, if they are still with us. We were our own little coffee family, but something was missing. Buying great coffee and paying a broker left us telling stories but not living them.

In the next stage, we have carefully widened our net and connected with some of the best coffee growers on the planet. Many of these are amongst the humblest people, and we are mutually dependent.

Today, JGC is a team of 9. We were the first company in the UK (and Europe) to use the clean roasting system from Loring. We are partially solar-powered and always focused on the future. We have so many ideas about how the future can play out with speciality coffee, as well as supporting the best of British-made products, Direct trade tea from India and more.

Watch this space for new things and random musings.
Thanks for being part of what we do. We do most of it for you and some of it purely for pleasure.