Title:

Founder and roast-master
Union Hand-Roasted

Areas of expertise:

Making exceptional coffee the norm

Interests:

Loves the outdoors, scuba-diving anywhere exotic and horse riding

Steven was born and bred in Essex. He trained as an Immunologist and received his Doctorate in 1987 from the National Institute of Medical Research, UK. Whilst working in California, in scientific research, he discovered great tasting coffee and embarked on a new career.

Realising that coffee like this was not available back home in the UK he decided in partnership with Jeremy Torz, to create premium quality roasted coffee in England. The time in California was put to good use acquiring a coffee education by working with highly respected and established roasters and green coffee importers.

Steven and Jeremy began trading in early 1995 from a small workshop in the outskirts of London, supplying premium quality fresh roasted coffee and were supplying to Harvey Nichols, Le Manoir au Quat'Saisons, Le Caprice and The Ivy. At this time, high street coffee culture began to emerge creating a demand for quality espresso - so Torz and Macatonia became the exclusive coffee roasters for Seattle Coffee Company. They went on to merge with the company and Steven, along with Jeremy, oversaw all the sourcing, roasting and blending decisions.

Just one year later, the group was the subject of acquisition by Starbucks Coffee Company. Steven was appointed the role of Director of Production within the new company and was responsible for setting up the first Starbucks roasting facility outside of the USA.

In 2000, Steven left Starbucks and took time out to travel with Jeremy - who also moved on from his role with the company. It became clear that coffee was still their true passion. So revisiting some of the hopes, dreams and excitement behind the launch of Torz and Macatonia, Jeremy and Steven decided to re-enter the coffee business as independent artisan coffee roasters.

This time they wanted to work directly with farmers and growers. They realised that to produce exceptional coffees they would need to directly source the beans from the farmers and set up sustainable trading systems. From this concept of forming a 'union' with the farmers, the company was born - in September 2001 - Union Hand-Roasted.