Choosing the right coffee requires a lot more brain power than it used to.
Back when John Gartly entered the industry in 1997, Scotland’s coffee drinkers were split mainly between a couple of standard choices: black or milk and sugar.
For many, their experience was limited to occasionally dabbling with the jar of Nescafe they had lurking in the back of their cupboard.
But it’s a lot more sophisticated now.
Take a step inside John’s Grain and Grind cafe on the edge of Inverness city centre and you’re confronted with choice.
Whether you want a hot drink there and then or some to take home and make yourself, there are more than 20 varieties for you to consider.
The cafe opened in Tomnahurich Street in 2021.
And it’s been building a loyal following ever since.
How Grain and Grind’s story began
John is originally from Turriff, Aberdeenshire, but Grain and Grind’s story began on the south side of Glasgow.
Alongside co-owner Matthew Mustard, the pair opened their first cafe in the Battlefield area in 2018.
They’ve now expanded to eight different locations, with Inverness the only one outside the greater Glasgow area.
It became the obvious location for growth when John moved to the city in 2019.
The company set up its own roastery – Highlander Roastery – the following year and the new cafe followed around six months later.
Alongside the cafe and the roastery, John and his wife Magda also run Atherstone Guest House in Fairfield Road.
It’s a busy life split between the Highland capital and Magda’s native Poland.
John, 55, said: “I was always going to move back up north and Inverness is a great city.
“My wife loves it here. It’s a fabulous place to live and I’ve probably found this cafe to be one of our steadiest.”
‘We’re really into coffee’
There’s definitely a boom in tourist season.
The cafe is just around the corner from where cruise ship passengers begin their wander through Inverness.
And the growing number of Airbnbs nearby provide regular folk looking for a bite to eat and their morning caffeine fix.
I visited on a weekday morning in the dead of winter and there was a steady stream of customers.
It isn’t always like that, I’m assured, but some stellar reviews and good word-of-mouth have certainly helped.
Grain and Grind describes itself as dog-friendly but even that’s probably an understatement.
If you take your canine pal here, there’s a very good chance the cafe’s friendly staff will want to give them a cuddle.
The vibe is relaxed – the P&J even interviewed Gareth Gates there recently. But the coffee is taken very seriously indeed.
John said: “The quality of the coffee itself is so important, it’s massive.
“We’re really into coffee and most of that comes from the roastery and my own background.
“With the roasting, it’s about getting the balance right. Getting rid of the bitterness through roasting, but not roasting too many sugars away and losing the sweetness.”
The roastery
The roastery itself is a fascinating place.
In a quiet corner of the Longman industrial estate sit bags of coffee beans delivered to Lotland Place from all over the world.
Colombia, Honduras, Tanzania, India, Indonesia – just some of the locations a quick scan of the area reveals.
The roastery works with smallholders and farming co-operatives from all over the world – many that are committed to ethical, organic and sustainable methods.
From here, the coffee makes its way not only to Grain and Grind but to numerous businesses throughout Scotland.
John said: “The marketplace changed tremendously when Starbucks came about, it changed people’s perceptions of what coffee was.
“We now sell around 1,000 bags of coffee a week. If you go back 20 years, you would never have done that.”
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