Hi! We’re Two Chimps Coffee, an independent carbon neutral speciality coffee roastery based in the UK’s smallest county, Rutland.
Small Team, Big Dream
We’re a small, seven-person team with a passion for opening the world of speciality coffee to everyone. We think that coffee culture can sometimes get a little wrapped up in itself, and we love changing that, making coffee fun and easy to get in to.
Our Vision is to provide better coffee that doesn’t cost us the earth.
And our mission is to introduce more people to better coffee while keeping our planet, our growers and our customers our number one priority.
What We Do
We hand roast ethically sourced, single-origin speciality coffees. All our beans are arabica (the good stuff) and speciality graded (the REALLY good stuff). Commodity coffee (the opposite of speciality) tends to be grown in massive fields and harvested mechanically. The fields need to be fairly flat for the machines, so these farms tend to be low altitude, rather than the higher elevations that allow coffee trees to produce great tasting beans. These harvesting machines can’t tell the difference between a ripe and an unripe coffee cherry, and instead just shake them all off the tree, resulting in a mishmash of sour and bitter notes in the coffee that must be fixed by roasting the flavour profile flat. This is why so much bad coffee tastes the same. It all tastes of roast.
Speciality coffee on the other hand tends to be grown at altitude and picked by hand. This means the beans that arrive in our roastery have all been carefully grown and are perfectly ripe. Because the beans are already great, when we roast, we roast lightly, keeping all the beautiful flavours and origin characteristics intact for you to enjoy. This is coffee that’s naturally sweet rather than bitter, jam-packed with flavour rather than dull and dreary. This is coffee that’s AWESOME!
To guarantee full traceability, we source all our coffees from like-minded single farmers, estates and pioneering coffee cooperatives. We also keep our supply chains really short, meaning the farmers get a much greater share of the profits from their work. This in turn leads to better, more sustainable farming practices, as well as improved quality of life for the farmers, the workers, and the wider community. And of course, a continual supply of fantastic coffee!
Awesome Coffee, No Nonsense Since 2016
We opened the roastery doors for the first time in 2016. Back then speciality coffee was still a pretty new thing, and kind of elitist. Although the loved the coffee, we didn’t like that it was so closed off to everyone, and thus Two Chimps was born.
The roots of the company actually go back a little further than this. In a previous life, Head Chimps Andy and Laura were wedding photographers. Although the work was fun, the lifestyle wasn’t – wedding photographers work a lot of weekends. Like, all of them. Andy was already roasting coffee on a Genecafe home roaster in the studio, and this combined with a desire for their weekends back, and a lifestyle that would fit their plans to start a family, convinced Andy and Laura to take the idea of starting a coffee roastery seriously.
One thing immediately became apparent – there was a real knowledge gap in the speciality coffee world. Attitudes were quite insular, and information hard to come by. Things needed demystifying, and this fact became the guiding principle behind Two Chimps Coffee – an accessible, fun, friendly coffee roastery for everyone. When we say ‘Awesome Coffee, No Nonsense’ we mean it.
Seven years later, Two Chimps has grown to be a seven-person team with a range of speciality coffees going to homes, wholesalers and stockists across the country. Andy and Laura have welcomed little chimps Felix and Autumn into the world, they have their weekends back, and most importantly of all, they’re happy!
What Do The Two Chimps Colours Mean?
No coffee lasts forever, and no two harvests are ever the same. Whilst we love this diversity, it means we can’t roast exactly the same coffee all year every year. Nor would we want to. We buy seasonally and roast regularly in small batches to ensure every bag of Two Chimps coffee is at its best when it arrives in your hands.
But this does mean your favourite coffee won’t last forever. Enter the Two Chimps colour system. We scour the speciality coffee world, searching for great coffees with similar characteristics to the current range. When we finally say farewell to one coffee, we have a new, equally awesome one ready to take up the mantle. The current standard range consists of the blue, green, pink, orange, yellow, and our purple decaf. [links to all]
Then there are our limited-edition coffees. These don’t follow a particular flavour profile, they’re just awesome coffees we find on our adventures. The current limited-edition colours are White, Red, and a lilac decaf. [Links to all]
Then we have a few special-edition coffees, like our famous yearly father’s and mother’s day coffees. We’ve enjoyed having these in the range so much, that we’ve decided to add more, even without a calendar-based excuse. So keep an eye out for our new Monthlys, coming soon to a brew device near you! [Link to Monthlys in webshop]
Finally, we have one more line of extra special, extra awesome coffee we’re calling Must-Trys. Available in very limited quantities (there are only 110 bags of our first one!), these are some of the best coffees we’ve ever tasted. They’re all numbered, and come in a lovely gift set including an awesome Two Chimps Tin. Check them out in our webshop!
Our Favourite Colour Is Still Green Though
If our motto wasn’t ‘Awesome Coffee, No Nonsense’, it would be ‘Awesome Coffee, Tiny Footprint’. We work hard to make our roastery and the coffee we sell entirely carbon neutral. Wherever possible we reduce our carbon footprint and minimise waste by using things like recyclable packaging and paper tape.
What we can’t reduce, we offset. Initially we worked with Ecologi, funding some awesome projects and planting trees around the world [link to dashboard]. We’re now taking things and step further and working with Positive Planet to become a real force for good in the fight against climate change. You can read more about it all on our blog , but if you’re short on time, simply know that should you ever choose to calculate your own carbon footprint, you don’t have to count your coffee. We’ve already taken care of everything.
From The Mouths Of Chimps
Want to know more about the founders of Two Chimps Coffee? We put ten of the most important questions to Andy and Laura. Here are their answers…
If you could have one superpower for the day, what it would be?
Andy – To make the days longer so I can do more fun stuff!
Laura – To never get full or fat from food so I can eat all day long!
What’s your favourite song of all time?
Andy – SL2 – On A Ragga Tip.
Laura – Jackie Wilson – Higher and Higher.
What would your last meal be?
Andy – Sausages and beans under mash with a bit of cheese. It reminds me of when I was young(er!)
Laura – Lasagne with loads of cheese.
What’s your go-to brewing device?
Andy – An Espresso Machine. However, if I had my superpower as mentioned above, it would be a Chemex.
Laura – An AeroPress.
What flavours do you look for in a coffee?
Andy – Anything out of the ordinary but generally I look for fruity and lighter flavours.
Laura – I look for sweet, chocolatey flavours because they’re smooth and easy to drink.
What’s your favourite thing about Two Chimps Coffee?
Andy – That we do our bit for the world. We pay our farmers more for their product which means they can improve aspects of their lives. And on the other side, we get to make people smile every day when they drink our coffee.
Laura – That we get to meet our customers and build friendships with them through our coffee courses. And also how I get to pass on my knowledge to other people and give them a better understanding.
What do you do at Two Chimps coffee?
Andy – I’m responsible for the coffee side of things and making sure our coffee is always the best. This involves sourcing and buying green beans, collecting the green coffee, roasting and then delivering.
Laura – I take the lead with social media and marketing, and answer the phone, make calls and reply to emails. I help pack all of the coffee orders, too.
What’s one dance move that should never make a comeback?
Andy – My dad’s microwave burger dance.
Laura – The left foot, right foot dance.
What is your party trick?
Andy – I can walk up and down invisible stairs and go up and down an invisible elevator.
Laura – I can make a chicken out of a napkin.
It’s the weekend! What do you want to do?
Andy – BBQ and spend time with friends and family.
Laura – Go for a walk, have friends over for food with a record player doing its thing in the background.
Ha – and that’s a wrap! That’s who we are and where we came from!
Want to learn more about Andy and Laura? What they did before opening Two Chimps Coffee?
This video reveals all… Enjoy!
