News / coffee roastery
Roasting workshops helping people ‘connect deeply’ with coffee
The owner of a micro-roastery in Bedminster hopes to make it a “participatory” site for coffee enthusiasts.
Contour Coffee has opened in the shipping containers in Willway Yard, where owner Sonny King hosts workshops and experiences for people to “connect more deeply with coffee”.
“It’s also about celebrating everything behind every bean,” he told Bristol24/7. “From the people and places at origin through to the final brew.”
Owner of Contour Coffee, Sonny King lives in Southville with his wife and daughter
Sonny King, who lives in Southville with his wife and daughter, has a background in coffee roasting and has previously worked at Clifton Coffee and Triple Co Roast.
“Over that time, I developed a real passion for sourcing, roasting and tasting coffee, but also for sharing that knowledge with others,” said King. “A big part of my role at Triple Co Roast was hosting tastings and events, and those moments where people discover how complex and fascinating coffee can be really stayed with me.”
He added: “I love helping people move from unconscious consumption to conscious enjoyment by showcasing the rich stories behind every cup.
“Roasting itself can be quite a focused, behind-the-scenes job, so I wanted to create something that brought a more social and participatory element into it.
Contour, he explained, was his way of “opening that world up a bit” through small-batch roasting, workshops and coffee-related experiences.
Beans roasted by King are available to purchase from the shop in Willway Yard
While the site on Willway Street is not a cafe in the traditional sense, people can drop in to buy freshly roasted beans when it is open.
King said: “Bristol already has an incredible cafe scene, so I wasn’t looking to replicate that.
“Instead, I think of Contour more as a coffee studio – a space for roasting, but also for hosting workshops and tastings where people can come in and learn more about coffee.”
For King, coffee roasting is a “process of transformation”, where one takes raw agricultural products from different parts of the world and unlocks its potential and flavour.
“The lion’s share of the work has already gone into those beans at origin, from the producers and farmers, so it’s a real privilege and responsibility to treat them with care and do them justice in the roasting process,” he added.
King believes Contour being based in a shipping container makes it “a very small, intimate environment” to host workshops.
He said: “The popularity of Willway Yard is also a great case study in the need for relatively lower cost business spaces in the city.
“There’re so many fledgling businesses out there that can’t take on high cost commercial spaces, but still offer so much colour and value to the city if they are provided with the spaces to do it.”
The process of roasting, King said, requires a balance between science and intuition – managing heat, time and the beans’ development to bring out desirable flavours and aromas.
Diversity in how each set of coffee beans responds to roasting is what makes the process exciting for him.
He said: “Coffees from different regions can taste completely distinct, and roasting is the process that reveals that
“It’s also something I think more people should be able to experience, rather than it all happening behind closed doors.”
All photos: Contour Coffee
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