Roastery Name: Gold Box Roastery
Where can people find you? Al Quoz Industrial 3, Dubai
Name of Participating Roaster: Emmanuel Verola
Tell us the story of how your roastery began? *
Gold Box Roastery started from a small pop-up selling coffee on the banks of river tyne in Newcastle, UK. But in short; Gold Box Roastery began in UK in 2012 and was simply born from a love of coffee.
Question for roaster: How did you learn to roast coffee? And what drew you to roasting?
In 2015, I started roasting for a small Korean coffee shop in Cebu Philippines. It was the start of my career back then and curiosity took over.
What do you love most about the coffee roasting industry?
For me personally, I love meeting the farmers; the real heroes of our trade. Without whom we could not run our business. Going to origin, living and breathing the hard work and being part of their journey is very humbling.
Was there a particular cup of coffee that changed the way you think about coffee? *
There have been a few over the years, I think the first cup was in 2014 in our UK branch - a cup of Ethiopian Rocko Mountain - Natural. It just blew my mind.
What is your focus as a roastery?
We focus on quality for whoever wants great coffee, be it a cafe, hotel or a home brewer
May you please tell us a bit about your team?
Teamwork makes the dream work! Everyone on the team plays apart in the success of the roastery and the quality of our coffee. From Barbara Croce who founded the company in the UK back in 2012. Barbara is our Q grader and green buyer down to our packers and delivery team. We are all committed to driving the company's policies in sustainability practices
How have you seen coffee culture in your region grow over the last few years?
It’s grown massively, and I’m pretty sure before long it will have the most roasters per sq foot than any other city in the world. Dubai really does love coffee.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us that makes your roastery special?
In addition to being committed to quality sourcing, we have stepped up our efforts in becoming a more sustainable company by introducing various practices such as switching to recyclable packaging, offsetting our carbon foot print by planting trees, as well as going through the process of being an ISO 22000:2018 certified company; the first specialty coffee roastery in the country to obtain this certification.
