Coldblow Coffee - Far-reaching Flavour
Coldblow brings international passion to the Kent coffee scene
“One of the best coffees I’ve ever had was from a service station in New Zealand - that was a real game-changer for me.”
In fact, it was that trip abroad that fully unleashed Grant Robinson’s passion for coffee. It’s an obsession that has led to where he is today, running Nutmeg deli and coffee shop in Tenterden as well as roasting company Coldblow Coffee (@coldblowcoffee) in Warehorne.
Robinson says he’d always loved it, admitting that when he worked in London many years ago he would travel across the city just to get good coffee from Monmouth in Covent Garden.
But it was in New Zealand that his interest was truly piqued.
“The first coffee I had was when we had pulled in to get some fuel. I thought ‘What the hell’s going on?’ - it was probably one of the best coffees I’ve ever had. They were just way ahead of us. That was when I thought it was a pretty exciting industry to be involved in.”
It led to Robinson, who was an arborist for 20 years, launching a mobile coffee van on Hythe seafront before opening Nutmeg in Tenterden 10 years ago.
Then, finally deciding to hang up his tree harness for good five years ago, he started Coldblow Coffee Company, roasting his own product.
The business runs from an industrial unit on a farm in Warehorne near Ashford and supplies Nutmeg and wholesale customers, in addition to online sales. The company also sells its products from a coffee bar at Heist Market in St Leonards.
Robinson buys green coffee - raw, unroasted beans - from different importers and deals only with speciality-grade coffee.
“We buy it from different origins depending on the time of year and what’s fresh because there are different harvest times for different coffees,” he says.
“We roast them individually to bring out the flavours we want from that coffee. I have a Dutch roaster called a Giesen and it’s all done in small batches.
“At the moment we’ve got two African coffees and others from Honduras, Columbia, Brazil and Guatemala, so all very different ones.”
Robinson says the deeper you get into that world the more fascinating it becomes, especially on the sourcing side.
Crucially, he says, they use the best speciality importers who work directly with farmers in an ethical, responsible and transparent way.
“Coldblow Coffee is a genuine hands-on and heart-led operation.”
