James Hoffmann

An interview with James Hoffmann
Coffee pioneer James Hoffmann is now arguably the best-known expert worldwide when it comes to all things coffee … and it all started at Gaggia UK.

​Coffee pioneer James Hoffmann is now arguably the best-known expert worldwide when it comes to all things coffee … and it all started at Gaggia UK.

For James’ first role in the coffee industry was selling Gaggia coffee machines at top London Oxford Street store House of Fraser in the early 2000s and it began his lifelong obsession with coffee.

It also turned out to be a thorough grounding for what was to come which ultimately led to James being UK Barista Champion in 2006 and 2007 and World Barista champion in 2007.

One of his early inspirations was Raj Beadle who is still managing director of Gaggia UK and renowned for his support for charities. Raj did several events and workshops with James at Oxford Street stores.

James said: “I had a great working relationship with Raj, how could you not? He’s always been an incredibly kind, generous and very thoughtful person who has been a pleasure to work with and I’m a big fan.

“It was an amazing start. It was a great way into coffee that showed me there were pathways forward in the industry, there were career opportunities.

“I could have my interests fed and stoked and then turned into something useful. It wasn’t just knowledge for knowledge’s sake, I could turn what I was learning back into value for the people I was working with so it was a great place to start. I was fully obsessed.

“Working with Gaggia opened up a whole new world of knowledge for me and I quickly realised there’s so much to learn about coffee that you never stop learning.

“They gave me the ‘help’ emails to answer and that was an incredible education for me as it showed me in 2003 and 2004 what people were thinking, what they were expecting, what frustrated them and all that was very useful for me in my career going forwards.

“I did that for a couple of years and it was a great opportunity to learn. At one point Gaggia was involved with the Prince’s Trust and that was a real trial by fire for me as I was given these kids who were not traditional coffee interested people. I had to teach them and really enjoyed the challenge and seeing how they responded to it.

“That set me down the path of coffee education which has been a weird constant in my varied coffee career over the last 20 years.

“That thirst for knowledge keeps me in coffee. There’s a lifetime of stuff to learn here – you can go into history, culture and coffee production. It’s so global, it’s so intwined in many cultures in many different ways. It’s such a massive industry and all of it contributes in one way or another to this final experience you have when you drink a cup of coffee in the morning.

“Pretty early on I thought coffee was this hidden world that was amazing but no-one really knew about it and certainly people who drank coffee didn’t know about it. I think that was a big impetus for me to do what I do.”

James says the 2020 pandemic saw a massive growth in the number of people buying home coffee machines.

“Home coffee machines had already been growing in a steady line,” he said. “Coffee was getting better and better, there were more and more businesses encouraging your interest in coffee, not just more coffee shops, there were more coffee roasting companies and everyone was trying to get you to drink and enjoy coffee more and it was working.

“But the pandemic super-charged coffee at home. We had got used to nice coffee being part of our lives in nice cafes and we weren’t willing to just let it go. Suddenly we were stuck at home and occasionally just needed to do something else and coffee fitted that niche nicely.

“People thought ‘I’m not going to work and just have some time to myself to make a coffee and indulge in the process of making a coffee. Oh, it’s a bit tricky so maybe I’ll learn something.’ Learning is always satisfying so that was the big sharp uptick which was huge.”

Although he’s been a world champion, James’ tastes when it comes to coffee are very traditional.

“My go to default most days is filter coffee because I’m a slow person and I need a little bit more time,” he said. “I don’t drink milk or milk alternatives so I’m either expresso or black coffee.”

But does it keep him awake?

“I have a 2pm cut-off now for my final cup,” he said. “I feel as if that cut-off is getting earlier and earlier as I get older and older as I do value my sleep quite a lot.”
But would he ever drink a cup of instant coffee?

“I don’t choose it but I do drink it so if I’m at someone’s house and that’s all they have and they offer me a coffee then I’ll drink it,” he said. “Also, if it’s 6am and I’m desperate. I won’t enjoy it, it’s a functional beverage rather than a pleasurable one. It’s a different drink to me but it’s still out there and a part of life.”

James revealed he originally didn’t like coffee but quickly grew to like it during his Gaggia days.

“Acquired tastes are quite literal,” he said. “The science says if you try to like something and you taste it with a positive mindset seven to eight times your brain eventually just accepts that you want to like it and you like it. Most of us go through this with things like beer as adolescents when the first sip of beer is not a good time but you want to like it and so eventually you do.

“And it’s the same with coffee. I really wanted to like it so I kept going back tasting and wanting to like it and I knew it was interesting. I’d already been captured in my head by it. I’d read enough and seen enough and thought this is really interesting. I wish I liked it and then I did and I remember drinking my first expresso, enjoying it and thinking ‘I’ve done it, I like this now.’
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That like quickly turned into his life’s passion.

Based on an interview with James Hoffmann by Andrew Hirst

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