Norma is a small roastery run by Lauren & Joe, it is situated in a barn on the edge of Dartmoor. We are small working with small: a two-person contemporary roastery working with under-represented growers doing great things.

Each coffee we sell is the final result of a multitude of different people’s hard work; before it gets to us, many people have contributed to making it the best it can be.

Whilst the launch of Norma has been a recent process, the idea has been brewing for more than 10 years. Here’s our journey in ten steps.

Step one: Find (and marry) a business partner

Lauren and I have a lot in common: a love of all things analogue, an unending appetite for pasta, and anything related to water; the sea, rivers and the outdoors.

The call of beach bummery was strong to two individuals who could easily spend a lifetime living by a rhythm defined by early morning swims, eating pastries and enjoying stone fruits. However, we knew that deep down we had the desire to start something ourselves, something small that could employ us both (and maybe someone else in the future).

Step two: have an idea

This one is easier said than done and involves cycling through a few dead ends until you end up back at the beginning and the most obvious one. 

Option one: Do what you are good at, have experience in, and love: coffee.

Option two: single-farm honey sourced from across the globe, showcasing the diverse flavours found in honey…. anyone?… no? 

[Eighteen ideas later...]

Option twenty: back to coffee. This little ingredient, so diverse in flavour, origin, history, context, story, was what we decided to pin our dreams onto.

Step three: quit your job, move county, get another job, have a baby, quit the second job, borrow some money, get pregnant again

Naturally. What else would you do? 

Step four: find a location

Sorry, and please forgive me anyone who works on an industrial estate, but: industrial estates suck. For years I have worked on one and let's be honest, the only way to get over it is to put on your squinty specs, go out in the middle of August and pretend you are manufacturing tiles in a factory in the south of Spain, surveying the concrete vista that mainland European countries do so well. For a handful of days a year you can do this, and it feels okay. 

Hey, there was also an apple tree in the car park of the last estate I worked in; it gave hope and life to us all. One of my proudest moments in life was standing up to Sarah [not her real name] from Quality Control when she proposed we cut it down as a pest-control method. Long live that apple tree*.

We wanted something a bit more interesting: something that felt more connected to the product we were selling. What is coffee? Simply: an agricultural product. Great, cue the following WhatsApp with Farmer Sam, our farmer friend. 

Joe:

[builds up courage, puts it off for a few days, spends five minutes crafting the right text, casual enough to not come across intense, serious enough to show we mean business]

“hey Sam would you ever be up for putting a roastery somewhere on your farm”

[presses send]

30s later...

Sam:

“100% emoji”

Excellent, location sorted.

Step five: find a roaster

This one is relatively simple, if you have a spare £100k to get your hands on a good one. A good roasting machine is essential, not something we would compromise on, so for us, this wasn’t simple.

 
Cue serendipitous timing.

Six years ago I was working at a roastery in Cornwall. It was great, and busy (very very busy) so we decided to buy a bigger new roaster. Well, an old one that needed refurbing (side point: this roaster is a Probat UG22, considered to be one of the best roasters ever made). However, it arrived smashed up, obviously having been dropped off the side of a lorry somewhere en route. 

(Very) long story short, this roaster took seven years to be refurbished, so long it was no longer needed at the original destination. This seven years takes us to... early 2026 and to yours truly, in need of a roaster. Combine this timing with the generosity of former employers and you have completed step five in style.

Step six: spend the rest of your money on nice coffee and converting an old barn into something that resembles a roastery.


Step seven: build a brand.

We want to do one thing well (coffee) and do it really well. And if it doesn’t work, then that's fine. We would rather stay authentic, small, and good but fail as a business, than create something fake but successful. This is how we ended up with rice paper bags (no plastic please), in a barn (no industrial estates thanks), shooting on film, not afraid of long form (hi), and working only with small producers and companies in our supply chains, using Regenagri and organic where it is possible and doesn’t impact quality. 

Step Eight: launch.

Step Nine: sell coffee.

So, here we are, with over a decade working for the best roasters in the country, we decided to go there ourselves. Despite the saturation of coffee roasters in the UK we felt there was room for one more. So, here you go, here is Norma, something (hopefully) authentically us, great (not good) and, above all else, tasty.

Step ten: have that second baby.

*here is the apple orchard outside the roastery: