Crankhouse Coffee launched in 2014 in Exeter. Its founder had watched third wave coffee take off in Australia in the mid-2000s, came back to the UK, ran roasting clubs on a small home roaster and then bought a well-used Italian Petroncini, which ended up in a single-car garage in a residential area. Complaints about the smell moved the roastery to a converted barn on the edge of Dartmoor, then to a basement in central Exeter that it shared with a separate café business, and in 2025 to its fourth home, a unit near Exeter Airport.

The roaster there is a Loring S15 Falcon known as Loretta, under a mezzanine with a viewing platform, a quality-control area and a training space. The unit also has retail shelves and a brew bar, and it hosts public cuppings. Crankhouse is a Rocket Experience Centre, with Rocket machines and a grinder for demonstrations.

Crankhouse roasts in the middle of a profile, an omni roast for filter and espresso, and CHX is its espresso blend, the tenth in the series. Many lots come from producers it has visited, in Ethiopia with Daye Bensa, in Guatemala’s Huehuetenango, in Mexico and in Brazil, and it has bought from the Red Villa María community project in Caldas for seven years. It is a member of the Specialty Coffee Association, World Coffee Research and the Alliance for Coffee Excellence, and of 1% for the Planet.

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Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Crankhouse Coffee