Coffee roasters in Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire has 6 independent coffee roasters, anchored by Lincoln (Stokes Tea & Coffee since 1902, Lincoln Tea & Coffee, Seven Districts) and reaching out to Spalding (Jackalope Joe) and North Lincolnshire (Lincoln & York at Elsham Wold). The east of England's largest county is not the first place people think of for specialty coffee, but the range here runs from a one person micro roastery in Spalding to one of the UK's largest contract roasters, and the heritage end goes back over 120 years.

Stokes Tea & Coffee has been trading in Lincoln since 1902, founded by Robert William Stokes and now in its fourth generation under managing director Nick Peel; the business operates three cafes including The Lawn at the Union Road headquarters (where roasting takes place) and the High Bridge Cafe on Lincoln High Street, which opened in 1937. Seven Districts Coffee runs a direct trade sourcing model that pays an average of ten times the Fairtrade price, with each coffee in the range tied to one of the county's seven historic districts and a local fable. Lincoln & York is the scale outlier: founded in 1994 by James Sweeting and Simon Herring, who began hand roasting in a garden shed and now roast up to 10,000 tonnes of coffee a year from Kahawa House on Elsham Wold Industrial Estate, making them one of the UK's most significant contract roasters.

Lincoln has the highest concentration and the easiest visitor access, with Stokes' three cafes the obvious destinations. Spalding (Jackalope Joe) and North Lincolnshire (Lincoln & York industrial site, by appointment only) reward longer routes. Several Lincolnshire roasters supply nationally and many of the UK's private label coffees come out of the county.