St Martin's Coffee Roasters
St Martin's are the Leicester based coffee roaster with big ambitions.
St Martin’s have been around since 2010, they were the first coffee roaster in Leicester and have been growing with the speciality coffee industry ever since.
Starting their days as a cafe and evolving into one of the most exciting coffee roasters in the UK today.
Having spoken to Ole from St Martins over the last few weeks it feels as though something special is happening in the Midlands. With a recent rebrand, they are looking at breaking into the top flight of speciality coffee roasters in the UK.
Their journey was perfectly described using the analogy of a certain local football club that have recently started challenging the big clubs of the UK.
There is no reason why these guys can’t challenge the more well-known roasters, their passion and knowledge alongside a really personable culture are some of the key ingredients to creating a world-beating coffee roastery.
Questions With Ole From St Martin's
Take us back to the beginning, what sparked your interest in coffee and then coffee roasting?
I was lucky enough to work at a great speciality cafe, Opposite, during my time at university in Leeds. I was shown just how good coffee could be, from a quality and ethical standpoint. From there, I moved back to my hometown of Leicester where I managed to wangle a job at St Martin’s. The rest they say is history!
How has it been operating a coffee roastery in Leicester?
The company was founded 10 years ago by my Partner Andy. The company has evolved massively, from a small cafe to a small cafe with a tiny roastery to a large cafe with a small roastery, and over a decade later, we’re now purely a roastery, housed in our newly built barn just outside the city centre. Leicestershire is a region famed for its quality of produce, and I think that’s transferred well to the city and county’s adoption of speciality coffee. Like any business, it’s had its challenges, but I think our ability to grow over the years is a testament to our customer’s love of great quality coffee.
Where did the name St Martin’s Coffee come from?
The original cafe was in a lovely part of Leicester called ’St Martin’s Square’, hence the name!
What sets St Martin’s apart from the others?
We pride ourselves on trying to be the least speciality, speciality roastery. What we mean by that, is we don’t want anyone to feel alienated or intimidated by our coffee or specialty coffee in general, something I think the industry is often guilty of. There was a backlash to McDonald’s advert a while back, that essentially took the mic out of our industry and our over complicatedness which can be perceived as snobbery. Though some were annoyed by this, we should ask ourselves the question, is that something that the customer genuinely feels when they try out a specialty cafe/roastery for the first time? If so, we have some changes to make if we really want to become the general public’s first point of call when they think of buying coffee.
Now that’s not to say we don’t operate like other specialty roasters. Our green coffee's quality is excellent, often scoring 86 points or above. We pride ourselves on the ethical, sustainable and traceable nature of our coffee, and we have an excellent partner who we source 90% of our raw coffee from. We constantly quality check everything in house, to ensure everything going out to the consumer is the very best it can be. We take great care when roasting our coffee, aiming to highlight the amazing work carried out at origin. However, whenever someone interacts with our company, we endeavour to treat them with respect and engage with them at their level of Coffee knowledge, wherever that may be. If they have no idea, and just want to have a better morning brew, we can happily help with that. If they want to discuss experimental processing methods, happy days, pull up a chair and let’s chat!
To summarise, I think it’s our attitude and values that hopefully set us apart!
Favourite all-time origin/region/lot?
Hmmm, this is a toughy. If I had to choose, it’d most likely be something from Ethiopia. Though saying that, I’ve had outstanding coffee’s from pretty much every growing nation around, so it’s really tough to single one out!Any coffees that have stood out recently?
I may sound bias, but Cocoa Nibs, the Coffee included in this box is (in our opinion) really amazing. It’s an anaerobic natural from Brazil, and the body, depth and clarity of flavour really blew us away when we first sampled it, and it continues to do so today!
Is there anyone famous that has bought your coffee?
We don’t kiss and tell, however just in recent weeks, we’ve had grand tour winning cyclists, professional footballers and F1 drivers drink our coffee which has been awesome to see!
What would you like to see happen in the coffee industry over the next ten years?
Similar to what I said above, but I’m hoping that the industry becomes more open to all, allowing us to really shift the perception and buying habits of all coffee drinkers. I hope that specialty Coffee will go the way of craft beer, with it widely available and drank both in and out of the home.
What does the future have in store for St Martins?
We’re looking forward to returning to a sense of normality in the coming months, and seeing our customers get back to doing what they love, serving great coffee to their local community! Aside from that, we’re looking forward to settling into our new roastery and hopefully announcing some exciting updates in the short to medium term too!
And lastly Jamie Vardy or Marcus Rashford?
Short answer: Vardy on the Pitch, Rashford off. Long answer: Vardy is the true king of Leicester. He’s the player that every fan hates, whilst secretly wishing he was at their club. I actually spend a little too much time worrying about life after Vards, as he’s truly irreplaceable. Saying that, I’m the son of a proud Mancunian mum who was born and raised in Wythenshawe, on the same estate as Marcus. The work he’s done this past year has been truly awe inspiring, and it’s shameful that it took a 23 year old to force our government into a decision that surely should’ve never even been debated. He’s Sir Marcus Rashford in my mum’s house, and rightfully so.
Latest Batch Coffee Reviews
The Coffee
The Cacao Nibs coffee from St Martin’s originates from the Minas Gerais region of Brazil.
The owner of the coffee farm, Rodrigo Behrend has recently invested in the quality of his machinery, which eventually leads to higher yields and higher quality produce.
Rodrigo’s Grandfather, Heiz emigrated from Germany in the 1930s and originally settled in Parana Where he worked picking coffee. After 10 years of labour, he planted his first crop of coffee and began his coffee-growing adventure.
In the 1990s his son Carlos, who studied as an agronomist moved to Panana and really started to explore and experiment in the processes of coffee farming, a passion that was inherited by his son Rodrigo whose drive fuels the coffee farm today.
Brazilian coffee makes up a whopping 40% of the world’s production. With a huge range of coffee that starts with gigantic farms producing low-quality commercial coffee through to tiny micro-lot farms that are pioneers in processing and produce some of the worlds best coffee.
The quality of coffee is rising on both ends of the spectrum. When coffee picking machines were first introduced they would strip all of the coffee cherries from the plant (aptly named, strip-picking). Resulting in ripe and underripe coffee getting lumped together. With the technological advances of today, coffee picking machines are becoming more accurate and are able to pick only the ripe cherries effectively increasing the quality and the yield.
The Review
The Cacao Nibs from St Martin’s is a pretty lively coffee and did take around a week to fully rest and the flavour profile to mature. It was something that Ole pointed out when we were tasting their coffees, he mentioned that they had recently changed the location of their roastery which was now at a higher altitude and believed this was effecting the resting time of the coffee, which I thought was amazing as it highlights the delicate balance of speciality coffee plus the fact that it sometimes seems to write its own rules.
The coffee has a delicious punchy fragrance that does change in time. It suggests the exciting and unpredictable notes that some naturals possess.
The very first flavour that I tasted on the first sip of the coffee was treacle. It also had a hint of something sharp at the back of my palate a little like green apple, reminding me of a toffee apple.
The coffee cools slightly and the sharpness of the apple subsides into smooth chocolatey notes, that as the name suggests evolves into a cacao aftertaste.
The cacao nibs works really well when extracted with a little more body. The cacao is more present throughout the sip in methods such as a stovetop or cafetiere.
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