How did Assembly come to be and who makes up  Assembly? 

In the summer of 2014 we brought together cafes and restaurants in the UK to share their experiences and help define what we could do as coffee roasters to be genuinely different and therefore valuable.

After six months of conversations, we emerged with a vision to source and roast the highest quality specialty coffees in the world through the lens of our customers. We knew we had to be dynamic, innovative and responsive in the way we worked with our wholesale partners.

This approach guided us to create our coffee catalogue, coffee taste note illustrations, packaging, insight reports and more through collaborative working with our partners - with our shared aim of creating innovative solutions to industry challenges.

In April 2015 we officially launched as sponsors of the inaugural Coffee Masters at London Coffee Festival and there began our journey.

Who makes up Assembly – 

Assembly is made up of our co-founders Michael and Nick and a team of 14 staff members all with unique point of view and experience in the hospitality industry.

What is Assembly purpose/mission?

Assembly Coffee exists to demonstrate better ways to define, communicate and distribute value in specialty coffee. Collaboration and innovation to increase value in and through specialty coffee is at our core.

Hot take: How would you describe the coffee scene in Ireland?  Overrated or underrated and why? 

Everywhere could be considered underrated in the sense that in general more people could be discovering specialty coffee (i.e vs the big chains) but Ireland also has a pretty rich history with people like Colin Harmon and Stephen Morrissey who have inspired loads of coffee professionals. Then we've always been a fan of places like Proper Order and worked with people like Rob Dunne so safe to say Ireland is often front of mind for us

BEST coffee you ever had…where?

Probably everyone on an individual level remembers a handful of experiences that changed the way they see coffee but the great thing about the industry is that we're continuously having the best coffee(s) we've ever had. There's are so many different ways of defining best in coffee and so much innovation happening for each of them all the time. Coffee never ceases to surprise and it's honestly impossible to choose just one.

What's one thing about Assembly that most people don't know? 

We have a new coffee bar at our roastery in Brixton serving everything we have plus early releases and signature drinks that don't see the outside world. Get amongst.

What do you want to change most about the coffee industry?

 Propose different models for defining value (SCA Q Arabica is just one) not just for taste but across the whole industry and explore/ demonstrate new more effective ways of translating this value to consumers. 

What's your favourite way to brew and why?  

Can’t go wrong with an Orea brewer, most of us also have Sage espresso machines at home and trusts by them. 

What is your favourite processing method at the moment? 

It's so hard to say. Everything is multistage or hybrid. Processing methods previously defined a narrower spectrums of flavour experiences and now you have flavour experiences that can defy the expectations you might have from processing. We focus on flavour and structure and probably have a different answer whether we're discussing espresso, guest espresso, filter brewing etc Personally I love the dried fruit characters of a Natural processed El Salvador as Christmas is approaching. If not that a Washed or Natural Ethiopian always wins.