We were excited to visit the Conscious team, Lea and Culainn, back in May at their roastery.
Having first met this dynamic duo in 2023, we were eager to catch up and see firsthand the incredible work they've been doing in the last year. Nestled 20 miles north of London in the charming Welwyn Garden City, their roastery is a haven for coffee lovers and enthusiasts alike.
As soon as we arrived, Lea and Culainn greeted us with open arms and infectious smiles. Their energy is always palpable, radiating their passion for their craft. It was clear from the start that this isn't just a business for them; it is a mission driven by a deep commitment to quality and fairness, inspiring us with their dedication.
Lea and Culainn have set out on an admirable journey to transform the coffee industry. Their mission is simple yet profound: to establish a direct and equitable supply chain that brings quality coffee from producers to roasters, brewers, and ultimately, consumers. This approach not only ensures that consumers receive the best possible product but also that the farmers who grow the coffee are treated fairly and compensated justly. Their mission is inspiring and worthy of our support, as it paves the way for a more sustainable and equitable coffee culture.
Their meticulous attention to detail was evident in every aspect of the roastery, which was spotless and a testament to their careful and calculated approach to every step of the process. Although we didn't witness the roasting firsthand, it was clear that they had a well-organized and thoughtful plan for each stage, ensuring a smooth workflow. This allows them to efficiently handle everything from receiving the beans, roasting, cupping, marketing, and packaging to delivering their products.
They see their work as something other than a business but as a means to connect people. Whether it’s through their relationships with Peruvian farmers, collaborations with local roasters, or interactions with customers, they strive to build meaningful connections at every level, making everyone feel a part of something bigger. Their friendly and approachable nature makes them easy to talk to, and it's evident that they genuinely care about the people they work with and the products they create. This commitment to community and quality sets them apart and makes their coffee special, making us feel included and part of their journey.
Lea and Culainn are not just roasting coffee but redefining what it means to be conscious in the industry. Their dedication to ethical sourcing and quality paved the way for a more sustainable and equitable coffee culture. It is a must if you ever find yourself in Welwyn Garden City to visit Lea and Culainn's roastery. Not only will you enjoy some amazing coffee, but you'll also support a mission making a real difference.
Here's to the Conscious team – may your passion and energy continue to fuel your incredible journey!
Find them on Instagram.
If you can't watch the videos, here is the transcript:
Culainn and Lea - Founders Conscious
Hi, my name is Culainn. I'm Lea. We run Conscious, which is a small independent green coffee sourcing and importing company and roastery. We're based where we are now, which is in Welwyn Garden City, but then Lea and I live in North Islington, so we're kind of based in London and around London as well.
Culainn: Our backgrounds are a little bit different. So mine's in design and design research and Lea's in law. We started with exporting coffee and importing coffee and then roasting and then brewing. The last thing we learned was making flat whites. So it's a little bit backwards, you could say, or organic, depends how positive a spin you want to put on it.
Roles and Responsibilities
Culainn: Day to day we're just doing lots of things and juggling lots of things at the same time. So like, you know, we try to talk about our strategy and direction, like vision and mission and they are kind of, help us, lead us towards what it is we want to achieve. Lea and I kind of have the best of both worlds of that, because I'm quite like, I see like a lot of opportunity within, like I want a bigger picture and kind of, you know, I'm quite happy not being comfortable in like, a kind of lack of understanding of how to aproach the bigger challenges with coffee and work through that in a very human way, like going to Peru for example or Bolivia and just trying to make connections and seeing where that takes us. And Lea is in a great way very analytical, so I just said about being quite clear cut of where we're literally at in terms of black and white facts, like here's much coffee we bought, here's much we have to sell, here's much we've made from that much, we've lost, Lea brings that, so we have a great partnership in that way, like business-wise, as well as our relationship. I think we're quite, naturally quite inquisitive and kind of like, want to see like, well what's our role kind of more so within like, you know, the entire supply chain.
The Idea Behind the Name
Culainn: We called our company Conscious because we wanted to try and vocalise or verbalise what it is that. We're trying to do, which is kind of create a connection across the entire supply chain and make the people we work with feel more connected to their role with coffee from growing and processing, roasting, brewing, consuming. So there's little illustrations we use which basically try to kind of show the different ways in which you might experience consciousness through like speech or thinking or your different senses like touch or there's noses that go on in a circle.For example, the name Conscious, that could be so, you can imagine where I started talking about this idea of feeling more connected with ourselves and other people and they were like, okay, okay, okay. Let's kind of turn it into something that can be understood by many people as opposed to something that might sound a bit too abstract, you could say.
Fairtrade vs Direct Trade
Radu: You sound like you're a lot more direct.
Lea: Well, that's how we began. So that's the start. That was the start of the story. So Cullen going out to Peru, well, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and identifying small scale producers in Peru who didn't have an opportunity to sell their coffee to the Speciality Coffee Market, or who wanted to transition to Speciality Coffee. So we began working, who weren't doing so otherwise. So that was really the beginning of it. So working with each of those producers, developing relationships with those producers, importing the coffee, working out how to import the coffee, how to take the coffee from their farms to to like a dry mill, then to a port in Lima, then to bring it to the UK. So it feels like that's how it began, but it's not sustainable for us just to be purchasing coffee from one country.
Culainn: We're not against working with imports. That's why our name Conscious as well. It's just like, whoa, this is the reality of where we're at right now, and here's the most we can do with what we have. But I think we just kind of wanna do more. And so you can see how we started, and we're pushing to get into more urgent countries and form those direct partnerships, but not in order to have any sense of ownership of it. Just to be like, is the way we understand the supply chain now really the way it has to be? And maybe some of it is the best it can be, other parts could be better, and we just want to be a part of that progression really.
The Best Part of your Job
Culainn: People we meet along the way. When I was first in Peru, I was trying to take a course in specialty coffee, a kind of like, you know, a week long, here's what this industry is type of thing. And I got in contact with like 20 different coffee roasters. I should say this is like literally during COVID times. Yeah. Between the first and second round. And so no one got back in contact with me apart from one roaster in Lima. So I was, so I flew to Lima to do this course with him. He spoke English as well as Spanish luckily. Because I had done a previous day course in Medellin and I had to have like a translator with me to like pick up the pieces between like... because it gets quite technical right? So you have to like... I can follow along enough and then like be like okay right there's a whole like concept here that likely needs to be explained in English. I just want to be able to understand more people from different cultures and kind of just have a nice time. Going to different places and like kind of being part of like you know that energy of like making something happen.
Favourite Coffee - Samuel Muñoz
Culainn: We work with David Bisetti now, he's based in Lima. He helps source a couple of the coffees we import, Samuel Munoz and Tulimayo.
Lea: Well, I think my favorite is a washed geisha by Samuel Munoz, who is based in the central region of Peru called Junin. And that to me is our most elegant, complex, fruity, with a slight floral kind of notes. It's a standout coffee for me. So he began by, he entered into the speciality coffee scene. Samuel, yeah. By participating in a series of workshops that were sponsored by the EU and run in the central region of Peru to support producers in the area to transition from growing cocoa leaves to growing coffee. So Samuel attended those workshops, was inspired to produce speciality grade coffee, introduced himself to David Bisetti and I think a few months later sent him samples of his most recent harvest. And David was apparently very impressed and thought that it'd be a great partnership. So then they began working together and I think that was in 2015. They've been working together for about eight years now. Nine years.
Coffee Industry Challenges
Culainn: It's just so much work, like working in this industry. I think...It's an advantage and a disadvantage. It's fun but it's still all encompassing. I think that's maybe my personality as well, going really deep into something. The way we approach it. I started learning about coffee about four years ago and every day is complete. There's so much to learn. It's a lot.
Lea: I would say that one of the... It's not a disadvantage but it's a challenge. Is the fact that we're working with producers to produce amazing coffee.They are putting in so much work to produce this incredible coffee. To get it here involves a lot of work to then you know design a roast profile and continue to iterate and refine that to ensure the optimal flavors takes a lot of work and then you end up with your product and ultimately but ultimately the kind of flavors depend on how it's brewed and you don't always have complete control of that. So I think that and whether it's when you sell your coffee to your consumers, wholesale clients, other, you know, a third party, you can provide as much guidance, training, advice as you can, but ultimately you'll, the kind of final, like, flavour notes will depend to a degree on how it's brewed. So yeah, I think that, I find that, that's a challenge.
Culainn: You know, we work directly with coffee shops as well, and like, I'll be doing training in a coffee shop with somebody who's maybe, it's their first time ever working with coffee. And I'm standing there and I'm like, explain something as clearly as I can. And Lea and I always talk about how we approach doing training.But it's just like, at this very moment, you could just not really care and throw away everything. All that work. And then when you get down to this final point, it's just like, I guess the point is like, it's that we have to, we're kind of working in all parts of this. So like, when something doesn't work out at the later stages that we have, like, we're involved with, it's just like, oh my God, like, because we look back at everything else. Like all the coffees behind us are coffees that we've got a kind of dual story about how we've gone and got each of those really. And that's a bit of a challenge, because it's relentless.
Culainn: You know, Lea and I are still building our confidence within this industry. I think we're quite shy and kind of a bit a little bit nervous, so we don't get too caught up in...
Lea: What are you talking about, like, half as specific?
Culainn: Well, I think like overcomplicating things, because we can't get too caught up in it. Are we happy with the way something is? Then we're happy with that. We want the best from everything, but we also want to understand, like, what's our role in this context, working with these people, without kind of pushing people too far, because we want to make sure it works, not be like, it has to be done this way, or like, but if people want to learn more, then, you know, we're then incentivised to learn more, to make sure we can teach more and be part of that progression, but that's a big challenge.
