What is it with Dundee men and coffee?

Men in Dundee seem to have a particular passion for coffee.

From city staples like Heather Street Food and EH9, to new kids on the block like Höfn, I chatted to the caffeine-infused Dundee businesses to find out what inspired their passion.

Chris Heather, 35, runs the popular food truck Heather Street Food at Dundee waterfront.

Chris started the business with his wife, Melodie, during lockdown.

“Coffee is something I had worked with in New Zealand, and the quality of coffee there was really high,” he says.

“So when I came back to Scotland, the contrast was crazy.

“You’d go into a garage in New Zealand, and you could get a perfect flat white.”

The quality back here, he says, just wasn’t up to scratch.

“I wanted to be Dundee’s first speciality coffee roaster,” he tells me.

‘It’s really nice being part of that chain’

Now, Chris roasts his own brew at award-winning Dundee coffee roasters Brewery Lane Coffee.

And he serves it to eager tourists and locals down by the V&A at Heather Street Food.

“Now,” he says, “I think, people love our coffee.”

So what draws Chris to coffee?

“It feels like quite a primal product,” he tells me.

“It’s a raw bean, and it has this amazing origin.

“You’re really close to the growers when you’re roasting the coffee.

“It gets delivered in these big seven kilo jute sacks, and it feels quite nice because we used to make jute in Dundee.

“It comes from Ethiopia, Columbia, Uganda, Brazil – all these exotic locations. And then you get to turn it into a finished product, that’s drinkable and delicious.

“It’s really nice being part of that chain.

“There’s a lot of pride in handing over a product that you’ve roasted yourself.”

Dundee men and coffee: ‘The community of coffee’

Mark Edwards, 30, is part of the trio running Höfn on Dundee’s Bank Street.

He’s delighted to see the café become a part of the city’s thriving coffee scene.

“Being able to work with something you love is incredible,” he tells me.

“I think I’m one of the few people that I know who can hand on heart say I don’t get that feeling on Monday morning of dreading going to work.

“It seems to be getting more rare. So I’m very fortunate.”

So what’s in it for Mark?

“I personally love the community element of coffee,” he says.

“It creates a community, sharing something that people are passionate about.

“When you see someone that’s so passionate about creating something high quality, it’s infectious.”

“And it makes you elevate what you do.

“For me anyway, seeing other people around me and wanting to share things with them has spurred me on.

“People like to share what they love and creating communities of people.

“I think that’s definitely why there has been such a big surge of coffee in Dundee.”

EH9 boss Fraser says coffee is both ‘exciting’ and ‘polarising’

Fraser Smith runs EH9 Espresso on Perth Road, which gained a sister venue on Annfield Road this year.

“I actually got into coffee just as a part time job when I was at uni,” he tells me.

“I was previously working in retail but I found it quite like monotonous.

“My mum and I spoke about it, and I realised that I felt like quite faceless and I wasn’t able to make connections with people.

“So she suggested that I got a job in a coffee shop, and that’s what I did.

“From then on, it’s always been about connections with people about relationship building.”

“There’s this whole new world to coffee,” continues Fraser, “that’s both exciting, but it can be quite polarising in the same respect.

“So I think that’s our job to demyth that, and that means we need to understand it in a way that we can explain it in a palatable fashion.

“Certainly in the early years of coffee, it has had this issue with accessibility.

“Especially in terms of that speciality coffee space. And I think there has been a layover from the industry as a whole which has for some time, been fairly male-dominated.”

Dundee coffee community aiming to be judgement-free zone

Fraser has seen more women get involved with the Dundee coffee scene lately with events his team hosts at EH9.

“Hopefully we are seeing that picking up just now in terms of increasing female participation,” he says.

“We’ve had a really good uptake of women for things like our coffee tasting events.

“It’s definitely something that we’ve got our priorities set on, to open the industry up to people of all demographics and intersectionalities.

“The common thread is the events that you make less serious and more accessible seem to get more uptake from that side of the community.”

Fraser is also planning “queer craft nights” and female-only coffee tastings, in a bid to open up the scene to a wider group.

“A lot of coffee tasting is about the community side of things and meeting your mates,” Fraser adds.

“But I think the public perception of this is that it’s very serious and coffee-related.

“So what we’re trying to do is communicate the message that this is about making friends and coming into the community.

“Nobody is going to judge you for your coffee ability.”