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Coffee roastery opened by cafe colleagues
Charlotte Fong and Ernest Ho met while working at a cafe in Hong Kong and are now familiar faces within Bristol’s coffee scene after opening Greytone, a Hong Kong-style cafe in St Paul’s.
Now the pair have taken things one step further by opening their own roastery which now supplies all of the coffee in Greytone on Dean Street.
Bags of coffee can also be purchased by customers to enjoy their favourite Greytone coffees at home; with recent releases featuring beans from Ethiopia, Panama and Colombia.
The roastery in Montpelier is run by Johnny Leung, who also worked at Knockbox in Hong Kong with Charlotte and Ernest.
Greytone’s roastery is located on Bath Buildings within what was most recently a framing workshop, and shares a building with musicians, artists and architects.
Man of few words Johnny becomes animated when talking about the fully electric roaster imported from Norway.
Johnny has now swapped duties in the cafe to work in the roastery, a role which he describes as “a little bit creative and a little bit science”.
Greytone head roaster Johnny Leung at the controls of the Roest P3000, a fully electric 3kg roaster imported from Norway – photo: Martin Booth
Opening a roastery was always part of the plan for Charlotte and Ernest, following a formula of both of their previous places of work – with Charlotte formerly a barista at Full Court Press on Broad Street in the Old City and Ernest a barista at Sweven on North Street in Bedminster.
“We have been lucky to have a lot of people supporting us when we opened Greytone,” said Ernest.
“The support we have had in Bristol has been so good. It’s a very different culture from Hong Kong.”
Greytone’s latest releases are from Ethiopia, Panama and Colombia – photo: Martin Booth
“We all love brewing coffee at home as well as brewing coffee in the coffee shop,” Ernest added.
“So I think our roasting style is for people to get a very good result at home as well. The coffees we roast are very easy to extract.
“We want people to be able to enjoy Greytone coffee at home as much as we enjoy making it.”
Greytone’s roastery is on Bath Buildings in Montpelier – photo: Martin Booth
Main photo: Martin Booth
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