We embrace our history but are not bound by it. Our aim is to ally the traditions and artisan roasting techniques of our past with the latest available technology. When we installed Scotland’s first Loring Smart Roaster, a New Standard was born. New Standard is a curated collection of speciality coffees produced exclusively on our Loring Smart Roaster, these are exceptional coffees of unrivalled quality and true provenance. Our aim is to preserve the natural flavours that our farmers have worked hard to nurture while growing and processing the beans and to avoid masking them with generic roasted flavours.
We are proud to follow the same pioneering spirit that our founder David Thomson instilled when he opened his first shop in Glasgow all those years ago. We have been introducing customers to new and exciting coffees for over 175 years and we continue to do so. Thomson’s Lab is our testbed, a place for us to uncover the tastes of tomorrow - here we focus on exceptionally rare and unique coffees, micro-lots and experimental roasts.
We are proud to be an independently-owned Scottish family business with a rich heritage. Having supplied coffee throughout the 19th, 20th and now into the 21st Century, we have a huge legacy to draw on and are proud to still carry many recipes that go back over 100 years. Thomson’s Legacy collection is the embodiment of our history, pioneering flame roasted blends that steadfastly defy current trends. These coffees may be an acquired taste to some, but they have been enjoyed by generations of loyal customers and are the cornerstone of Thomson’s DNA.
Each of our coffees is given a roast level – This is defined in a circle on the product page. Low numbers refer to darker roasts, while high numbers represent light roasts. As a reference, Full French is our darkest coffee, and its value on the scale is 34. In contrast, a Light Roast will be 90 or over.
We measure the roast level with the Agtron Gourmet. It analyses the coffee colour and correlates it to a scale from 5 to 140. This tool is typically used for quality control, but we thought it is the best and most accurate way of understanding the darkness/lightness of a coffee. If you want to know more about measuring colour in coffee, we recommend this article from Roast Magazine. The score given does not relate to a coffees SCA score.
Check our roast level chart for more detailed information.
