In the first part of this story, I met five exhibitors and heard how they found their way into coffee. But Nottingham Coffee Festival is far too big to take in all at once. So, with another coffee in hand, I wandered back onto the show floor.
One person I was keen to meet was Josh, one of the festival’s co-founders. With a little help pointing me in the right direction, I eventually found him in the crowd. Asked what makes Nottingham Coffee Festival special, Josh described it as a gathering point for the wider coffee community.
“We bring together a whole bunch of different people from the coffee community, whether that be roasteries or bakeries or soft drink brands.”
The idea, he explained, came from spotting an opportunity in the Midlands. “It’s really just spotting that little gap. The Midlands is a great hub of coffee roasters and independent businesses. For us, it’s about bringing that all together into one space.”
Just behind where Josh stood for our chat was Cartwheel Coffee, so I made my way over to their stand to start my next round of interviews.
Tasting 500 Coffees to Find 55 Worth Sharing: Cartwheel Coffee
“I was kind of paid in coffee and cake at the time.”
That’s how Alex, founder of Cartwheel Coffee, describes his start in the coffee industry. His history in coffee goes back to 1998, when he worked in the coffee shop his mother started. “Since then we had the vision of having good coffee and good food together,” he said.
Cartwheel itself began in 2015. “We started in my garage and have iterated the business since then,” Alex said. That vision of good coffee and good food first became a café in the city centre, but the ventilation wasn’t up to it and they were roasting into the night, so the roastery moved into its own premises shortly after.
“We want to move against the kind of dark roasted, homogenous standard blends that appear on most of the high street,” he explained. Instead, Cartwheel focuses on single-origin coffees, usually from small-lot farms, highlighting the producers and the origins, processes and stories behind them.
Choosing 55 Coffees From 500
When it comes to deciding what makes it onto the offer list, Cartwheel is highly selective. “We taste more than 500 coffees a year and we select around about 10% of them,” Alex said. “55 coffees make it onto our offer list. And that’s not to say that the other 450 aren’t good. Usually we’re looking for coffees that are excellent and offer great value as well.”
As trends come and go, Alex prefers a measured approach. “There are a lot of co-ferments around now,” he said, meaning coffees fermented with other ingredients such as cinnamon or lavender. “We haven’t generally tended to purchase those types of coffees. And not that we’re considering ourselves purists, but we think that a lot of the natural fermentation that occurs within coffee can add enough flavour to make the coffee delicious.” The range still includes some of the more experimental natural lots.
Getting People to Taste Side by Side
The biggest challenge, however, is not sourcing or roasting coffee. It’s helping customers understand it.
“Communicating all of the history, the backstory of each of those producers can be a challenge,” Alex said. “Getting people to understand what specialty coffee really is and what it is not as well is certainly a challenge.”
That is why festivals matter. “Getting people to taste coffee side by side is really important,” he said. “It’s something that a lot of the time people don’t do. Even if they come into our roastery and we do a cupping session, getting a chance to experience coffees side by side is a great way to get people to engage in the coffee that they’re drinking, to taste the coffee specifically and to really be able to share some of that story and some of the passion that we have.”
Cartwheel Coffee | 1 Stoney St, Beeston, Nottingham, NG9 2LA | Mon-Sat 8am-5pm, Sun 9am-4pm | Instagram: @cartwheelcoffee | Details checked: October 2026
The Coffee That Tasted Like Purple: Saints of Mokha
“Just good coffee, man. That’s it.”
It was a down-to-earth response from Omar, co-founder of Saints of Mokha, when I asked what he hoped visitors would take away from their experience at the festival. “Our aim and ambition is just so people go away with a great coffee. That’s it in a nutshell,” he said with a big smile.
Omar started the business with his brother in 2016. Today, Saints of Mokha is a family-run coffee shop, roastery and bakery, approaching ten years of trade this year, with a recently opened second site on the De Montfort University campus in Leicester.
Cupping Blind
Yet for all the growth, curiosity remains at the heart of the business.
“100%,” Omar replied when I asked whether a coffee had ever challenged his understanding of what makes a great cup. He pointed to an Indonesian coffee they were serving at the festival, a coffee selected through the company’s blind cupping process.
“When we cupped that coffee, I don’t know how else to put it, but it tastes like purple,” he said with a laugh.
The coffee came from producer Reza Nurullah and immediately stood out. It is not an arabica but a liberica, a species that grows at low altitude, and Omar explained that Indonesian coffee, with its monsoon-season humidity, can often taste “quite baggy”. “This is anything but,” he said. “I was extremely surprised when we had a coffee come out of Indonesia tasting the way that it does. And that’s why it’s come along with us today to the festival for people to experience that too.”
The story also revealed how Saints of Mokha approaches coffee buying. The team cups coffees blind, removing details about origin, variety and processing until after they have tasted them.
“If we remove our bias, then we can’t nudge anyone engaging with the coffee to any bias,” Omar said. “It’s purely based on taste.”
That, he believes, makes specialty coffee more approachable. “I can confidently say that this is a great tasting coffee, do you want to know more?” he said. “People are a lot more open to their own palate than the things I’m saying.”
From a Cousin’s Coffee Shop to His Own
Omar’s journey into coffee began at 16 while helping in a cousin’s coffee shop. Two years later, instead of heading to university, he decided to open his own café.
“I finished my A-levels and decided to start a coffee shop rather than go to university and my gap year,” he said. “And lo and behold, ten years on, we are where we are.”
As we wrapped up, I put out my hand for a handshake. Omar had other ideas. “Bring it in,” he said, pulling me into a hug before I made my way to the next stand.
Saints of Mokha | 51 Belvoir St, Leicester, LE1 6SL | Mon-Fri 8:30am-5pm, Sat and Sun 10am-5pm | Instagram: @saintsofmokha | Details checked: October 2026
Built on Bikes, Running Shoes and Great Coffee: Kickback Coffee Roasters
“It’s so synonymous with cycle culture, with running culture.”
That’s Oli, Wholesale Account Manager at Kickback Coffee, on why coffee and the outdoors go together. Behind him hung a photograph of a cyclist, helmet on, coffee in hand, gazing out across sweeping countryside views.
“Actually, it just started with the team,” Oli explained. “Where we live, we’re blessed that we live right on the edge of the Peak District. Everybody that works for us pretty much is really into running, into biking.”
Coffee and the outdoors have always shared a close connection, so building a brand around both came naturally to the team at Kickback.
“Coffee is such a big part of that,” he said. “It’s so synonymous with cycle culture, with running culture.”
Rather than building a brand around a marketing concept, Kickback built one around the lives its team were already living.
“We’re all adventurous anyway,” Oli said. “We’re all enjoying coffee and making that a part of our daily lives at Kickback. That’s just sort of where that was born from really, the fact that it was such an important part of our lives and we love the outdoors, so why not build the entire brand and our ethos around that? Everybody that works here is a part of that themselves.”
Growing Without Losing the Team
From its roots, the business has grown to four coffee shops, but Oli believes the key to maintaining the feel of an independent company lies in protecting the culture that got them there in the first place.
“The team and the team dynamic is so important,” he said. “The team that does the training process and the barista training is such an important part of that. So that never goes away as we expand.”
Growth, however, is far from over.
“I don’t think it has an end for Kickback,” Oli said. Speaking about the ambitions of Kickback’s founder, who is also called Alex, he added: “He would unashamedly say that Kickback is going to be the Red Bull of the coffee world. Synonymous with sport and outdoor culture. Sky’s the limit ultimately.”
Kickback Coffee Roasters | Kickback Coffee HQ, Clough Bank, Bollington, SK10 5NZ | Daily 8am-4pm | Instagram: @kickbackcoffee | Details checked: October 2026
Building a Better Coffee Supply Chain: North Star Coffee Roasters
“Building a coffee industry that works for everyone.”
I met Bee, Coffee Partnerships and Training Manager at North Star Coffee Roasters. We found a quiet corner of the stand amid the festival bustle, where she told me more about the coffee company.
“Hols and Krag, who own North Star, went to Kenya and saw how the supply chain was really challenging and had a detrimental effect on some of the producers,” Bee told me. “It’s something that really stuck with them and has become the guiding principles for how North Star runs.”
That experience got them thinking about the journey from coffee farm to the café counter.
“Our motto is that we are building, or trying to at least, it’s a big task, but building a coffee industry that works for everyone,” Bee said. “That’s everyone from the producer to the barista.”
The phrase sounded ambitious, but Bee quickly backed it up with practical examples. Sometimes that meant supporting young producers so they could stay in coffee rather than leaving for more lucrative work elsewhere. Sometimes it meant helping farmers build the infrastructure to process their own coffee on their own farm, rather than selling it as cherry to be processed elsewhere, which increases the money they can sell it for.
“Every time we’re faced with wanting to buy coffee from somewhere or wanting to start a new relationship with producers, we really are considering what impact our purchasing power has on the whole supply chain,” Bee explained.
Growing Without Losing Its Values
North Star’s growth has been significant. The Leeds roastery has expanded into wholesale, education and four retail sites: three kiosks and one coffee shop and brunch space, which also has the training and event space attached. Yet Bee was clear that expansion only made sense if it reinforced the company’s original values.
“It’s been really important for us to do that because it means that we’re putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to saying that hospitality can be a viable business still,” Bee said.
In practice, that meant holding themselves to the same standards expected of their wholesale customers.
“We don’t sell ourselves the coffee from our roastery any cheaper than we’re selling it to our wholesale customers,” Bee said. “We want to look after the whole supply chain, we want to look after the whole thing, including hospitality.”
The Impact Fund
The next stage of that mission is the recently launched Impact Fund, which lets customers contribute to impact projects both in coffee-producing countries and closer to home through local charities. In the coffee shop, that can be as simple as adding a little at the till. The aim, Bee said, was to give customers more control over adding value to what they believe in.
Asked how she keeps her energy up through a long festival day, Bee smiled. She is, she said, very extroverted, and “talking to people all day fills my cup”. It can still be draining, she admitted, standing on your feet and doing a lot of talking, but belief in the work makes the difference.
“When you work somewhere and you believe in what you’re doing, it doesn’t feel like it’s hard,” she said. “This is what I love. It’s the best part of my job.”
North Star Coffee Roasters | Unit 10, 280 Tong Rd, Leeds, LS12 3BG | Instagram: @northstarroast | Details checked: October 2026
Get People Talking About Coffee: Coffee Central Roasting Co
“Just get people talking about the coffee.”
My final conversation of the day came as the afternoon was beginning to wind down. With a long ride home still ahead of me, I stopped at the stand of Coffee Central Roasting Co for one last chat, this time with Gavin, founder and managing director.
Founded in 2003, Coffee Central has spent more than two decades helping businesses serve great coffee. While the business has expanded considerably over the years, the original mission remains much the same: helping customers create the best possible coffee experience for the people walking through their doors.
A Festival Regular
Having attended the festival since its earliest days, Gavin has had a front-row seat to its growth.
“We were here right at the start,” he told me. “I think it’s the fifth year now or something like that.” Looking around at the busy hall, he was clearly impressed by how far the event had come. “It was pretty good on day one if I’m honest. But look at it now. It’s just thriving. It’s absolutely brilliant.”
His praise wasn’t limited to the festival itself.
“Josh and Matt are doing a fantastic job,” he said, referring to the festival’s co-founders. “A colleague of mine has just come back from the Belfast Coffee Festival. He says this Nottingham one is loads better.”
I asked him what he hoped visitors would take away from meeting the Coffee Central team.
“A lot of people are just selling coffee,” he said. “It’s a little bit more interactive. A few more talking points.”
Ultimately, the goal was simple.
“Just get people talking about the coffee, associate it with the company,” Gavin said. “It’s all I can hope for.”
Coffee Central Roasting Co | Unit 1, Pentrich Road, Giltbrook Industrial Park, Giltbrook, Nottingham, NG16 2UZ | Instagram: @coffee_central_roasting_co | Details checked: October 2026
That makes ten exhibitors across the two parts. Each took a different route into coffee, but all of them were happy to stop, talk and pour something for anyone who wandered over. If you get the chance to go next year, it’s well worth the ride.
Also read: Nottingham Coffee Festival 2026: Meeting the Roasters, Part 1 and A Day at Bristol Coffee Festival.
