Over 175 years of experience in every cup
Founded in 1840, Bewley’s is Ireland’s leading coffee and tea company. We’ve been perfecting the craft of tea and coffee making for many generations, from our humble beginnings in a little shop on Sycamore Alley in Dublin, Ireland, to the home and heart of our brand, our Grafton Street Café, right through to our present-day operations across the globe in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Our Quaker origins are at the heart of our company, guiding our business practices and the development of long-term sustainable supply relationships with the world’s best tea and coffee producers. From five-star hotels to independent coffee shops, we serve over 600 million cups of tea and coffee worldwide every year, so we know a thing or two about crafting the perfect taste for even the pickiest of palettes. Some 180 years on from our beginnings we still love tea and coffee. It’s our passion and we want to share this with you.
A History of Firsts
In 1835, Samuel Bewley and his son Charles dared to break the East India Company’s monopoly by importing 2,099 chests of tea on board the clipper ship, The Hellas, the first ship chartered directly from Canton in China to Dublin. At this time, Ireland had yet to develop its famous thirst for tea. The stakes were high and both men were faced with ruin if the tea could not be sold. Thankfully the venture turned out to be more successful than either could possibly have imagined, changing the taste of a nation and making Bewley’s a household name in Ireland.
Following on from our origins in the tea trade, Bewley’s was then officially founded in 1840 and expanded into coffee and the operation of coffee shops, most notably our legendary Grafton Street Café which was opened by Ernest Bewley in 1927. The rest as they say is history, but it is still history in the making as we continue every day to enthuse and delight tea and coffee lovers all over Ireland and further afield.
Bewley's Today
From our adventurous beginnings some 180 years ago, Bewley’s has grown to become one of the largest coffee roasters in the UK and Ireland with an annual turnover in excess of €170m. We are leaders in the provision of tea and coffee solutions to the food service and retail sectors. In addition to our award-winning range of teas, we also have a wide range of espresso blends and single-origin coffees, roasted to suit the varying tastes of today’s sophisticated coffee consumer.
In Ireland, we are the market leader in the supply of hot beverage solutions with over 4,000 hotels, restaurants, and cafes proudly serving Bewley’s tea and coffee. You’ll also find our award-winning products in most supermarkets and convenience stores around the country.
We are at the forefront of Irish coffee culture and were the first to import Fairtrade coffee into Ireland, the first to introduce Cup of Excellence coffees, the first to introduce latte art, the first to roast coffee in-store, and the first Carbon Neutral coffee roastery in Ireland.
In the UK and USA, we are market-leading suppliers of hot beverage solutions to the foodservice sector. Bewley’s UK offers nationwide sales and service support with coffee roasting capability at our roastery in Yorkshire. In the USA we have major roasting operations in Sacramento, California through our wholly-owned Java City subsidiary and café operations in Boston through our Rebecca’s Cafés subsidiary.
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