Coffee roasters in Cornwall

Cornwall has 11 independent coffee roasters, which for a county at the far end of the country with a small year round population is remarkable. Tourism is half the answer: millions of summer visitors created the demand for high quality food and drink that now sustains businesses year round. The other half is character. Cornwall holds two of the most distinctive UK roasters by approach (Yallah, who ships some coffee by sail; Potterbeans, who roasts over wood) plus one of the longest established specialty names in the country.

Origin Coffee was founded in 2004 in Cornwall by Tom Sobey, making it one of the UK's longest running specialty roasters. The roastery remains in Porthleven and the business has expanded to seven coffee shops across Bristol, London, Edinburgh and Cornwall, holds B Corp certification, and has built a direct trade sourcing programme over two decades of producer relationships. Yallah Coffee runs an unusually transparent operation: it publishes both producer prices and its own margins, and ships some coffee to the UK by sail to reduce supply chain emissions. Potterbeans is the rarest method on the list. The roastery uses traditional wood fire roasting, a technique almost no other UK roaster employs.

If you are visiting Cornwall, roastery cafes in Porthleven (Origin), Falmouth, Truro and Penzance are well worth a detour. Summer is busier but the coffee is good all year. Several Cornish roasters supply nationally and you will find their beans on cafe menus far beyond the South West.