We love being the kind of place that brings folks together, somewhere neighbours and strangers can come to enjoy great food and company. We are a locally owned independent business founded in 2012 in the owner’s garage here in North Berwick (NB). We started using our vintage VW van to sell coffee at markets and festivals and in 2014 we moved into our current warehouse home located in the centre of North Berwick, just behind the High Street.
In addition to our Roastery, our warehouse building houses our busy cafe over two floors, with a sheltered sunny terrace. We serve food all day that is
Visit the Steampunk website to see all our coffee types https://www.steampunkcoffee.co.uk
freshly made in our own kitchen from scratch. Homemade granola, artisan bagels and homemade cashew butter, soups grilled cheese and wraps are available alongside a range of mouth watering cakes. We cater for gluten free and vegan too and on Friday nights our pal Big Blu pizza pulls up his Citroen van on our terrace from 5-7pm and servers the best wood fired pizzas. We stay open later that night for filter coffee, home made lemonade and cakes. Our opening hours are 9-5 Monday-Saturday and 10-5 Sundays.
We sell our range of coffees prepackaged (plastic free) and also loose to fill your own containers alongside brewing equipment and Steampunk merch and have an interesting and varied range of gift ideas in the run up to Christmas. Most things can also be purchased at our webshop on www.steampunkcoffee.co.uk where you can also find out more about our coffees and our business. We post regularly on Instagram and FaceBook so you can keep up to date on our news and events by following us on those channels. We host a range of events and this Autumn we will host a series of workshops (including coffee brewing classes) as well as some live music events so keep an eye out.
About our coffee
Did you know that coffee is the largest traded commodity in the world after oil? Prices are set by the stockmarket and fluctuate based on quantity of supply of coffee worldwide. Fairtrade works within this commodity system, guaranteeing growers a few cents more per kilo, but does not enable farmers to earn more through improvements in the quality of their crops. This commodity system means coffee growers suffer from cycles of boom and bust and earn little for their hard work. This is why most coffee is cheap.
The commodity coffee system is at odds with our businesses ‘purpose’. How can we talk about bringing people together over a cup of coffee when the people doing the hardest part – the growing, picking and processing – can’t earn a living from their work? That is why we work within the ‘Specialty Coffee’ system where coffee is graded through standardised evaluation (cupping) and then traded through auctions where prices are paid based on the quality of the coffee. These coffees earn vastly more than they would at the commodity price.
All of the coffees we roast for you are fully traceable. This means they can be traced to a single farmer or washing station and we are transparent about that information with you, our customers. We buy small quantities of each coffee so our selection changes regularly according to what is in season and we believe these seasonal differences in the coffees should be celebrated.
You will find tasting notes on your box of coffee, in these we hope to give you an idea of the sweetness, acidity and mouthfeel of a coffee as well as its flavour notes. By comparing the coffee to flavours you know (eg dried fruit, chocolate) we are trying to communicate the flavours in the coffee to you as best we can.
We roast our coffees in small batches of between 4-6kgs in the roaster in our shop and we taste every batch to ensure quality and consistency. We aim to bring out maximum sweetness while maintaining a good balance with the natural acidity found in the coffee. We do not wish to add flavours through the roasting process itself which is why our roasts are medium to light. Our coffees work across all brewing methods from espresso to filter.