Hand Roasted Speciality Coffee
Proper coffee is good on its own. It doesn’t need waffle and jargon, or fancy packaging and preachy how-tos. It just needs coffee lovers like me and you to show it some love!
Here at Two Chimps, we’re on a mission to help you enjoy the best, freshly roasted speciality coffee without any nonsense. Whether you’re a pod lover wanting to break free from plastic or a caffeine fan in need of great cups at home, our range has a coffee that’s perfect for you. Well, quite a few, actually…
Two Chimps coffee: always fresh, always fun, always brimming with awesome flavour!
What we do
At Two Chimps Coffee, we roast ethically sourced, single-origin speciality coffees in our little Rutland roastery. To guarantee full traceability, we source all our coffees from like-minded single farmers, plus estates and pioneering coffee cooperatives.
All our beans are arabica (the good stuff) and speciality graded (the REALLY good stuff). Unlike commodity coffee pods and the instant dust, which usually contain underripe fruit, speciality coffees are picked by hand to ensure only the ripest beans make it to your mug.
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.
As well as tasting fantastic, our speciality coffees do their bit for the farmers. We pay between 30 and 150% more than the ‘going rate’ for our green beans to make sure the growers receive a fair price for their skill and dedication.
We purchase our green (unroasted) beans through a select number of UK-based importers who each maintain direct relationships with farmers and put ethical trade top of their list.
Choosing Our Coffees
Like trying new coffees? Then you’ve found your happy place. Seasonal sourcing means that our coffees change from time to time and gives you an ever-evolving range to enjoy! Sorry, who said coffee had to be samey?
Coffee is a living, breathing product, and we respect that. It’s why we purchase from specific lots and go the extra mile to understand the growing conditions and climate that season. One harvest produces a finite amount of coffee, so it really has gone once it’s roasted and drunk. Our coffee doesn’t come from a conveyor belt or whizz down a factory line. It’s grown by real people on real farms and is unique every single time.
When it comes to sourcing a new coffee, we get our cupping heads on. Well, we jump up and down and get really excited and then get our cupping heads on. Coffee Cupping is the professional way of tasting coffee. Maintaining strict brewing conditions (yes, we can be serious…) allows us to compare a range of coffees and select one we know you’ll love!
How often do our coffees change? Not too often. Our regular coffees alter every eight to twelve months, and we cup new limited editions once every few months. And don’t worry if you find one so good you can’t imagine life without it; we keep our regular coffee range pretty similar. Just use the label colours as a guide.
The yellow coffee, for instance, will always be a light roast ideal for morning, while the bag with the green label always contains easy-drinking beans great any time of day. Same, but different, see?
The Roast
When it comes to coffee, fresh is best. Today, tomorrow, always.
Choose Two Chimps and you’ll receive fresh coffee hand roasted multiple times each week. We don’t schedule in mega roast days and bash it all out in one go. Rather, we roast throughout the week to bring you beans that are genuinely fresh and impossibly flavourful. We’re big on the honest front and write the roast date and roaster on all our bags. Just so you know.
So, roasting, what’s it all about? It’s a bit more complex than doing the Sunday lunch. Before we start, we analyse the moisture and density of the green coffee beans. This helps us set the start temperature of the roast. A bean grown at a higher altitude will be denser and usually require a higher start temperature to penetrate its strong cell structure.
It’s all eyes and ears (and noses) throughout the roast, too. Using the sensory milestones of grass, hay and bread allows us to monitor each roast and adapt the timings as we go along. When each milestone has passed, we listen out for the first crack. This is when the little beans grow up and become big guys. Rather than taking on heat, they start to emit it and make popping noises. It sounds just like popcorn.
As we roast
The pop-pop-pop of the first crack signifies that the beans have entered an exothermic reaction. Cue the ‘Development Phase’ – the time between the first crack and the end of the roast. A short development time accentuates fruity, floral notes, while a longer time gives us those rich, caramelised flavours of a darker roast coffee.
We monitor the ‘rate of rise’ throughout the roast to make sure each batch spends just the right amount of time in each stage. We’re fussy about getting it down to the second every single time. It’s not like we’re perfectionists or anything…
When we’re happy with the roast, we drop the beans into the cooling bin. This stops the roasting process and prevents the roasted beans from taking on ‘baked’ flavours. It also looks like a coffee bean waterfall.
Our coffee range
What’s in store? Pop along to our online coffee shop and you’ll find a range of seven single-origin coffees. All perfectly roasted and waiting just for you. What takes your fancy? A sunshiny light roast with hints of berry?
Or maybe a classic medium or darker roast that reminds you of milk chocolate? Each coffee has a unique flavour; just take a peek at the tasting notes (*dribble at your screen*) and decide.
To add to this lineup, we also have some rather smashing limited-edition options. These extra special coffees are a bit more avant-garde. Rather than following a familiar flavour pattern, they mix things up with experimental new flavours. It’s the once-tasted-never-forgotten kind of cup!
Why not take a look at the full range and find your mug’s new friend?
Quirky Coffee Gifts for Coffee Lovers
Each coffee in our online shop is available as a single ‘one off’ purchase. Choose from a 50g taster (great for a few cups) or our regular 250g, 500g and 1kg bags.
Love flavour, hate faff? Want to streamline your arabica experience? Join the Two Chimps coffee club!
Our coffee subscription service allows you to create a tailor-made plan that suits your lifestyle. No matter how you roll, your coffee plan rolls with you. Whether you’re a keen bean for whole beans or a cafetiere lover wanting fresh grounds, we deliver freshly roasted coffee prepared just the way you like it.
You’re in control of your plan and set out the grind size, weight and frequency of speciality coffee you receive. Feel free to pause, amend or leave at any time. As much as we love you, we don’t tie you into any kind of contract.
Our website has lots of advice about choosing the best subscription plan for you, but we’ll pop a little top tip here. Always go for a little and often approach when buying your coffee. Rather than subscribing to mega deliveries each month, for instance, try more frequent deliveries of smaller amounts. This way, your coffee tin stays topped up with fresh coffee. Because loo rolls should be stockpiled. Coffee should be drunk.
And don’t let delivery charges put you off frequent deliveries. Here at Two Chimps, delivery charges don’t exist to our subscribers: we deliver every order First Class and free of charge.
Quirky Coffee Gifts for Coffee Lovers
Make their day/month/YEAR with a special gift from our coffee gift shop. From coffee hampers to taster sets, bespoke subscriptions to cool coffee gift vouchers, you can find it all in our online shop.
As well as making the gift-giving incredibly simple (condense the whole choosing-wrapping-posting process into a few clicks), our bespoke service means you can tailor their coffee and send a truly personal gift. Perfect!
The Wizard
Need a little help deciding which coffee to choose? Or which subscription options are right for you? Our trusty Wizard is on hand. With a few quick questions, the Wizard suggests a coffee to suit your style.
You can browse our full range while you’re there to see if anything else tickles your fancy, too. Whether you follow the Wizard’s advice or opt for a different coffee entirely, this is the speediest way to your best ever coffee! Seriously, it could be magic…
Why ‘two chimps’?
Speciality coffee can be daunting. We want to introduce you to better coffee in a fun, down to earth way. And what is more fun than two chimps?
Love Coffee? So do we!
We promise to introduce you to dreamy, quality coffee. We won’t be preachy or snobby, but we will offer all the information you need so you can brew the best coffee at home. We’ll also make you a caffeine whizz kid, if you fancy it.
Our blog is your one-stop coffee companion. Move over Google: we’ve got the answers to all things java! Does altitude make a difference? What about the brew device? And processing methods – what are they all about? Explore the site to get you’re A* in beanology!
Taking your first steps into speciality coffee? Great stuff. We’re so happy to have you! Check out our Jargon Buster or A-Z of Coffee to get clued-up on the lingo.
Life is confusing and waffly enough. Let’s keep things simple with fresh, ethically sourced coffee delivered to your door with a healthy dose of fun.
Ten questions with the Chief Chimps
Want to know more about the founders of Two Chimps Coffee? Read on, my friends, read on.
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.
