“Slightly uncomfortable is exactly where you want to be”

When Gabriel Shohet and Eirik Holth quit their office jobs to sell specialty robusta from a trestle table, few in the coffee industry took them seriously. World Coffee Portal speaks to Shohet about building one of the UK’s most provocative coffee chains, the conviction that started it all, the gamble that changed everything, and why, at more than 130 stores and counting, they are only just getting started. Words by Tobias Pearce

By 2013, the specialty coffee movement had already spent a decade defining itself against robusta. The Third Wave had planted its flag firmly in origin-forward, terroir-driven arabica, and was deeply sceptical of anything associated with commodity blends or instant coffee.

Against that orthodoxy, two university roommates with £20,000 of savings between them and a rented espresso machine decided that specialty coffee had it all wrong.

That conviction became Black Sheep Coffee.