York full of beans as it hosts first coffee festival
A YORK-BASED boutique roaster and coffee consultancy has hosted the city’s first festival of coffee.
Husband-and-wife Laurence and Philippa Beardmore, owners of York Coffee Emporium, invited local businesses and online customers to a four-day coffee festival.
The festival, which was organised by the Coffee Emporium and its parent company, Upton Group, not only offered tours of the new coffee tasting lab, but also demonstrated how coffee beans from around the world are roasted to create connoisseur blends, and staged master classes in coffee brewing, extraction and latte art.
Co-owner Laurence Beardmore said: “We were celebrating the roastery and the joining with Upton but we thought we’d put in some other customer events as well to connect with our customers.”
Among the series of events, the brand’s new coffee bean roaster was officially launched by the Sheriff of York and some of the founding members of the York Green Party.
Jonathan Tyler of the York Green Party said: “We are pleased to support small enterprises with a strong ethical ethos and it is wonderful to share this event with York Coffee Emporium and see small artisan businesses supporting one another.”
More than 20 of York Coffee Emporium’s customers also attended the event, including cafes, restaurants and hotels, as well as suppliers and businesses from North Yorkshire’s food community of small enterprises.
Laurence and Philippa Beardmore, who built York Coffee Emporium from an £11,000 to £1m turnover business in just four years are expecting further growth in their new premises, with hopes to make the festival an annual event.
Laurence added: “The market for coffee is growing, certainly in the specialist domain, people are really beginning to appreciate a good cup of coffee. So we worked out where the market was going and what we could offer that was unique and it just gathered its own momentum from there.
“Now we’re just making sure we’re growing as a company and putting the right processes and systems in place so that we can maintain the quality and delivery as we grow.”
