Day In The Life at Durham Coffee Roasters

What does an average morning look like at Durham Coffee Roasters…

When you’re a 2 person band, there is no norm and every day varies as there's so many different tasks to complete, from roasting, labelling, packing, delivery runs, training, sales, admin, socials, markets…the list goes on.

However, I suppose an average day would usually start with a few early morning roasts on Aeolus, our air motion roaster before we sit down to enjoy breakfast with a large quantity of freshly brewed V60 coffee and plan the day ahead. Next, I tend to head to the office to work on e-mails, socials and various other admin tasks whilst Dad packs up any orders that have come through. Around 11ish we try and make sure to have a tea break to stay hydrated and then it's back to whatever tasks take priority that day. Sometimes it's delivery rounds or training new wholesale clients, other days it's an afternoon of pre-labelling bags or fulfilling an order of a couple hundred bags of ground coffee with our Scayl packing machine. It's never a dull day and with speakers on loud, usually rotating between Soul Music, Disney Hits or Songs from Musicals, we try and have as much fun as possible.

What is your favourite blend? How do you drink your coffee?

Neither of us have a favourite coffee. What we favour varies each day and depends on mood, time of day, occasion etc. For example, dad tends to prefer a bolder coffee for breakfast and would often choose our Castle Blend (a mix of Brazil, India & Uganda) or our Dun Cow (Indian single origin), whereas if I'm making our breakfast coffee, I'm more likely to choose one of our lighter roasts such as our Miners' Gala (Brazilian single origin).

We're both massive V60 lovers - in our eyes you can't beat a freshly hand poured filter coffee; drank black of course to really highlight all it's wonderful intrinsic flavour notes. Personally, I'm not big on milky coffees but on the odd occasion I do have one, I would go for something like an oat milk flat white. Dad on the other hand does enjoy a nice strong cortado most afternoons.

How did it all start? What inspired you to start roasting coffee?

Before we started roasting, we owned a Viennese Coffeehouse. Inspired by our Austrian/German heritage we served freshly filtered coffee, offering customers a variety of speciality quality single origins beans to choose from, as well as delicious homemade cakes such as the Sachertorte and German cheesecakes. We wanted to showcase hand poured filter coffee, encourage people to try different beans and share our passion for quality speciality coffee.

Everything was homemade at the café, from the bread and soup to the cakes and, following that line of thought, we knew from the get-go that we also wanted to serve our very own coffee. Eventually we were at the stage to start planning our roastery and as our café was created to honour our Austrian/German routes, Durham Coffee was born to celebrate the North East and it's heritage which we're proud to call our home.

Favourite part of your Durham Coffee?

Apart from obviously roasting coffee (which is especially fun on our air motion roaster as it's such an interactive way of roasting), I think dad and I would both agree that we love running our coffee courses best. Educating people on speciality coffee and how to get the best out of their brew at home or at work, be it on an espresso machine or an AeroPress, is always great fun. 

Any exciting new projects in the works for Durham Coffee?

Yes actually. There's a lot going on behind the scenes at the moment, including the planning of new limited editions and charity coffees, etc…. To stay up to date with all the latest, make sure to give us a follow on socials @durhamcoffeeuk or sign up to our newsletter via our website .

What are your top selling products at Durham Coffee?

Our Miner's Gala, a naturally processed single-origin bean from Brazil and our Castle Blend, a well-balanced creamy blend of beans from Brazil, India and Uganda would probably be our top sellers. Our Miner's Gala makes a wonderful cafetiere/filter brew, and whilst our Castle Blend is mostly bought for espresso, there are plenty who love it as a bolder cafetiere/filter brew too.