Our Story
Ten years of roasting on the same stretch of harbour front.
Harborlight Coffee Roasters was founded by Miriam Okafor in 2016, in a converted fisherman's shed on Quayside Row. What began as a one-drum operation selling bags at the Saturday market has grown into a small team supplying home customers and nine local cafés — without ever moving out of Whitcombe-on-Sea.
How we got here
The shed on Quayside Row
Miriam bought a second-hand 1kg sample roaster and began roasting evenings and weekends, selling bags to friends and at the Saturday market stall.
First direct-trade relationship
A trip to a cooperative in Huila, Colombia, led to our first direct-purchase agreement, cutting out two layers of trading houses and paying growers a price fixed a season ahead.
Moved to a 12kg drum roaster
Demand from home-delivery customers during a difficult year for hospitality pushed us to upgrade our roasting equipment and take on our first full-time roaster, Tomasz.
First wholesale accounts
The Ropewalk Café became our first wholesale customer. Eight more cafés and two restaurants have joined since, each with a bean list matched to their menu.
Full traceability across every origin
We completed the move to sourcing every coffee we sell — not just our flagship lots — through direct or verified relationship-trade arrangements. See our sustainability page for detail.
The Team
Four people, one roaster
Miriam Okafor
Founder & Head Roaster
Roasts every core blend personally and manages origin relationships. Ten years into the trade, still tastes every batch before it's bagged.
Tomasz Nowak
Roaster
Joined in 2020 from a bakery background; now leads on our decaf and single-origin roast development.
Priya Desai
Wholesale & Cafés
Manages our nine café accounts, running tastings and barista training sessions for new wholesale partners.
Dan Fenwick
Packing & Despatch
Hand-packs and labels every bag with its roast date, and runs our Tuesday and Thursday market deliveries.
Our Approach
Roasting philosophy
We roast to show origin character rather than to chase a single house flavour. That means lighter roasts for washed African lots where acidity and florals are the point, and slightly longer development for Central and South American coffees that suit a rounder, sweeter cup.
Every batch is logged against a roast profile — the same kind of chart shown on our home page — so a coffee that customers love can be repeated deliberately, batch after batch, rather than by chance.
Why "Harborlight"?
The name comes from the small lighthouse at the end of Quayside Row, visible from the roastery window. Miriam liked the idea of a fixed point that boats — and, in our case, customers — could navigate back to, batch after batch, year after year.