Our Story
Sea Island was born in 2007, in the wake of the Third Wave Coffee movement. After decades of trading green (raw) coffee beans from the most renowned coffee estates through our sister company, our founders recognised that they should use their sourcing experience, existing relationships, and product expertise to make the world’s best coffees directly available for coffee connoisseurs to drink at home.
The world’s very finest coffees tend to come from high altitudes and tropical islands like Jamaica, Hawaii, and St Helena, and it was in recognition of this agricultural phenomenon that we named ourselves 'Sea Island Coffee' and began roasting and selling rare origins to consumers nearly 20 years ago.
Our Mission
Stemming from a life-long love of coffee, our vision has always been to source the rarest and most exclusive coffees from around the world and make them directly accessible to consumers who would otherwise be unable to experience some of these wonderful origins.
Now, after 20 years of operation, we stock one of the largest selections of single-origin coffees in the UK, with many exclusive rarities like Pitcairn, São Tomé, and the Canary Islands. We're committed to continuing our mission to source more rare and unusual origins, investing in small farms while we do so, helping to develop coffee industries in some of the world's most remote origins and ensure the coffee industry is able to thrive amid growing environmental and economic challenges.
Our Values
Coffee can only be considered truly great if it is grown and cultivated with respect for both people and planet. We source all our coffees directly from origin, typically from a specific estate with whom we have maintained a personal relationship for years. Sourcing from origin ensures that most of the value created by the coffee goes directly to the farmers who own, run, and work year-round on these farms.
Though our coffees come from origins that are far away and exotic, the relationships we have with those we source from are close and personal. For over two decades, we have been visiting origins and forging long term personal relationships with their coffee farmers; in many cases, like with Jamaica, St Helena, and Pitcairn, we have even invested directly in the estates we buy from - such is our belief in their coffees.
Sourcing our Coffees
Aside from sourcing sustainably and fairly, we always prioritise two main factors when it comes to sourcing our coffees: Quality & Rarity. Many of our coffees are sourced from the world’s most renowned estates and origins, which have been widely recognised for producing exceptional, often award-winning beans. Thanks to our long-term experience and connections in the coffee world, we're able to source from some of the rarest and most unusual origins in the world - many of which are not typically associated with coffee production and are not available anywhere else.
Each of the coffees that we offer is the result of unique combinations of the right soil, topography, and climate, with superior and often highly delicate coffee plants. Many of these coffees come from small islands with limited cultivation acreage and tiny annual yields, making them exceptionally rare and difficult to get a hold of, but our goal will always be to offer the largest range of exotic coffee origins in the world - regardless of how difficult they are to obtain.
Our Prices
The price of our coffees reflects the labour-intensive nature of growing and reaping small batches of artisanal processed coffees in extremely remote locations. Because many of our coffees are award-winning and come from small and remote islands with very limited acreage and no commercial-scale coffee industry, the costs are often very substantial and quantities available very limited. For many other coffee retailers, not only would sourcing these coffees be near-impossible, but the costs associated to acquire them would simply not be viable.
Cheap coffee found in supermarkets is a very poor reflection of the hard work and time that went into growing, harvesting, and processing the beans. Cheap coffee is available oftentimes only by using unethical, poorly paid labour and cost-cutting production methods that destroy the original flavour of the beans. The higher volume speciality and commercial grade coffees you see on the high street at coffee shops and chain retailers tend to be traded under 'Contract Pricing', a standard price set for coffees based on grade, varietal, and certification. This price is often still very low, and only viable for very large-scale farms in underdeveloped countries.
By contrast, the producers of our coffees set their own prices, insulating them from fluctuations in commodity pricing and thus giving them a sustainable pricing regime that keeps them in business, pays their farmers fairly, and provides them with the ability to continue producing their extraordinary coffees to the highest standard. The majority of our coffees are sorted by hand and processed by artisanal and labour-intensive methods that take time, patience, and respect the unique characteristics of the beans, and the farmers deserve to earn a proper living wage from their work. We often pay farmers a much higher rate than they originally ask for, in order to help them invest in their coffee production. When you buy coffee from Sea Island, you are not only buying exquisite coffee, but helping to support small-scale coffee farmers and families in remote origins who may one day produce world-famous coffees.
