About

about us

BEYOND SPECIALTY . . .

Dark Woods is an adventurous, community-focused coffee roastery, dedicated to bringing you responsibly sourced specialty coffees from some of the world’s best producers. Our home is a converted Victorian textile mill at the foot of the West Yorkshire Pennines, surrounded by windswept moorland, drystone walls, and ancient woodland. This landscape, and the people who live here, help inspire how we craft our coffee.

BEYOND SPECIALTY...

Read any Specialty coffee roasters web site or promotional literature and you will be bombarded with phrases and claims about the quality of the coffee and the welfare for the farms they come from. These aims are welcome, most are well-meaning, but the generic messaging makes it hard to differentiate what each are actually doing.

In order to understand the context in which we operate it is necessary to know what is meant by Speciality coffee. Strictly speaking these are coffees that score over 80 points in an industry (SCA) grading system. The system is not an external “certification”; anyone can grade coffee if they are trained in the correct procedures. Specialty Coffees usually come with better traceability and involve higher prices paid to the farms than their Commercial Grade counterparts but this is not actually accounted for in the current system (but should be under new plans).

The result is that the term “Specialty Coffee” can still cover a vast range of prices, qualities and ethics.

We believe that buying Specialty Coffee is the bare minimum that we should be doing as a quality focussed and ethical roaster. Over the last 10 years this philosophy has driven our behaviours and helped us develop a model that we call “Beyond Specialty”.

We hope this approach drives our industry leading B Corp score, well over 100 Great Taste Awards, and our involvement in creating coffee education programs used worldwide.

DISCOVER OUR COFFEE

HISTORY

Dark Woods Coffee was set up in 2014, by three local friends all with a rich history in the coffee industry.

Damian was the senior roaster and coffee buyer for a well-established coffee company in Huddersfield. His drive for excellence and ability to spot stand-out coffees gained him a reputation as one of the country’s most respected roasters. Damian’s extensive travels to origin and judging for both Cup of Excellence and Best of Panama competitions, forged relationships that helped Dark Woods access many of the world's best coffees and some of the rarest and most interesting micro-lots.

After an award-winning career in catering, Paul founded Coffee Community back in 1999, which pioneered education and consultancy in the coffee industry, advising many of today’s best known café brands and espresso machine manufacturers. He co-wrote the City & Guilds Barista Qualifications, as well as being “lead creator” for the SCA Barista Qualification, now the “industry standard” taught worldwide. Involved in the World and UK Barista Championships from the very start, Paul was Head Judge for both the World Latte Art and the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championships, as well as a board member of World Coffee Events which organises the World Barista Championships.

Ian's life before coffee began in community housing and outreach here in the UK, working in the voluntary sector supporting marginalised communities. In 2002 he moved to Namibia where he lived and worked with San Bushmen in the Kalahari on a range of development issues, such as human rights cases, livelihoods programmes and development support. On his return to the UK, he became director of a small charity supporting farming communities (including coffee farmers), mostly in Africa and Latin America to gain more value from what they grow, through the Farmers’ Voice Radio Programme. Ian helped set up the UK’s first refugee-owned social enterprise coffee company, with Oromo communities resettled in the UK from Ethiopia. Seeking a coffee roaster for the enterprise, Ian met Damian, and the rest, as they say, is history.

OUR AWARDS

The Great Taste Awards have always been very important to Dark Woods. Not just because over 14,000 products a year are entered, or because they are judged by a wide range of food lovers - deli owners, chefs, food critics etc, but because all the products are blind tasted. The quality of the products have to stand up for themselves, with only the best winning the highly acclaimed stars, and only a handful going on to win the "Golden Forks" each year.

It's testimony to the quality of coffee our farmer partners supply, that we have been grateful to win well over 100 awards over the years, including three Golden Forks.