Recently a friend and I decided to find The Grumpy Mule coffee shop in Yorkshire. We were looking forward to tasting different types of coffee in a slick looking coffee shop where we could buy coffee machines, bags of ground coffee, coffee beans and sit down to enjoy a nice cup of coffee, cake or toast for our breakfast before we went on our way.  We set off snaking through the beautiful peak district national park heading to Holmfirth to find this Yorkshire coffee haven.

We arrived in Holmfirth and followed the directions to Bentley Road, “this must be wrong” we both remarked as the directions took us to an industrial estate, “surely this can’t be the place where the coffee shop will be”. Helen began laughing as she wound down the window to ask a passerby for a place that sells coffee. “yep you’re in the right place, turn around it’s the last unit up that road”. Well now we both felt a bit stupid but continued anyway.

The last unit up that road happened to be a factory, the home of Bolling Coffee Ltd a family run business which roasts, grinds, packs and sells specialist coffee to independant coffee shops and some retail companies.

We went in and the owner very kindly offered to show us around the factory. It was a really great and unexpected gesture. So here are some facts that I learnt about coffee.

1. Coffee beans are import from all over the world, some fair trade and some organic. They arrive whist they are still green and don’t smell anything like the coffee that we drink.
2. They come over in jute sacks via boats and can stay stored in the factory for up to 12months, typically they will be stored for about 3months.
3. The sacks of green beans weigh about 70kg. When the beans are evenutally roasted and ground the volume will increase but the weight will decrease, they will loose about 10% in weight, producing about 60kg of ground coffee, this is due to water being lost in during the process.
4.  You get a better flavour from the coffee beans if they are slow roasted, much to my surprise a “slow roast” was much quicker then I thought, between 13-19mins at about 230 degrees.  Most coffee is quick roasted which will only take 3mins at a temperature of 260degrees.
5. After roasting the beans are cooled by passing air through them which happens in seconds and then they are whizzed through tubes to the grinder.
6. Once the beans have been roasted and ground which releases that wonderfully intoxicating smell, the coffee is packed and boxed ready for distribution.

It was really clear that everyone at Bolling Coffee Ltd really cared about what they do, their customers, their suppliers and the coffee they roast, grind and sell. It would have been easy for them to turn us away but by giving us some of there time they have really demonstrated the strength of their brand and their ethics. There is a really good lesson here in a) good customer service and b) great marketing.

Since this trip both Helen and I have been recruiting people to buy Grump Mule Coffee and telling people how good Bolling Coffee Ltd  are, we have both advertised the company on facebook, twitter and told countless people about our adventure story, we estimated that we have told in excess of 600 people. If you read Seth Godin’s thoughts on marketing this is a great way to start building a Tribe!