We all love a good cup of coffee, and we believe there’s none finer than Lonton’s coffee served at Norman’s, Low Wood Bay’s Juice and Coffee Bar.
A Coffee Obsession
Coffee is all about great taste. Sit back, cafetiere to hand, and we’ll tell you the story of Lontons Coffee, where it comes from and the coffee-loving friends that are happy to share their obsession nationwide and beyond.
Coffee Roasting down on the Farm
Scott and Sarah, husband and wife team, live with their Alpacas on a homestead in Lonton, a village bordering North Yorkshire and County Durham. For over twenty-five years Scott worked as a wine merchant. As you can imagine, he’d tasted a vintage or two and as a result had developed a finely tuned and delicately balanced palate. Realising that the prospect of developing his own vineyard in County Durham was perhaps a little bit unrealistic, Scott turned his heightened sense of taste and smell to coffee. And we’re very glad he did!
My job as a wine merchant took me to many high end retailers around the world. I was experiencing the best on offer from fine wineries but what always astonished me was that, despite the quality of the wine, the coffee on offer as I waited to meet clients or during our discussions was often, to put it bluntly, bad.
One weekend, sledge hammer in hand, Scott set to and started some fairly basic alterations to a disused cow shed on the farm. Over six weekends he transformed it into their Coffee Roastery and a new cottage industry came into being.
We have discovered a new level of creativity and we just love the process of developing interesting and previously untasted.
From Cocktails to Coffee
The team has grown and they were delighted when Sam joined the duo. Previously a multi-talented and creative Mixologist working in a Cocktail Bar, he fancied a bit of a change. They were certainly able to offer him that down on the farm! He offered them his expertise and his willingness to take their coffee knowledge much further by enrolling at the London School of Coffee (yes folks, there’s a school for coffee making!)
In the last six months, Gary, (when he’s not touring with his rockerbilly band) joined the team as Head Roaster, and their coffee family has rounded out – without diluting any of their passion and enthusiasm.
We are purists and decided to invest in a Diedrich IR-12 coffee roasting machine. It uses revolutionary infrared burner technology and its unique heat exchanger process makes it possible to manipulate the complex chemistry of the bean to make advanced roast profiles that produce speciality coffee. A normal roasting machine might roast about 100 kg – ours roasts only 4 kg. I think that highlights the order of scale of our passion for the best possible coffee taste.
Green Credentials
The Diedrich also makes roasting coffee 50-60% more energy efficient and cleaner than any other roaster on the market. As well as that, Sarah is in charge of design and packaging and has ensured that all packaging is 100% compostable.
The environmental aspect of the business is very important to the team and key to their future development in the coffee market. The green beans are sourced from various countries in South America. Scott prides himself on knowing each and every farm and farmer that supplies the beans. In many cases he also knows the specific field from which the crops came.
A Cup of Coffee and the Best View Around
Drop in to Low Wood Bay and enjoy a cup of Lonton’s coffee. We’ll serve you in The Atrium with a stunning view over the lake.
