Using their own roaster made from the finest Sheffield steel, Frazer’s Coffee source beans from around the world and create exciting blends distributed to businesses across South Yorkshire.
Frazer Habershon’s passion for coffee started at home. When it came to brewing up, his mum would always ensure there were good quality beans available in the house, but it would take a few years for the Sheffield lad to go from avid coffee drinker to building one of the city’s best-known independent roasters.
After studying a gas engineering course at college, Frazer worked at a number of pubs and cafes including Caffe Latte and Tamper Sellers Wheel in Sheffield, with the latter being particularly instrumental in igniting a passion for the industry. This eventually led to some experimenting with blends at home using a small roaster purchased online.
Roasting initially for himself and family, Frazer later began passing out samples to neighbours, who were suitably impressed and began placing orders. Word quickly got around and he was approached by a trader in Meadowhall to see if he was interested in roasting for their shop. It was a huge jump that provided something of a baptism of fire for Frazer’s Coffee, the first major step in a pretty remarkable journey for the company
“At that point I decided to go and open premises in Attercliffe,” Frazers tells us. “My mum was instrumental in me taking that step; she also persuaded me to open the company in my name. The initial confidence and belief was instilled in me was through her being such a foodie, and since then she’s been a huge part of it all – behind the stall with me at events, always at the roastery, and just generally being a great, supportive mum.”
After researching the market and setting up the company, Frazer went from roasting a couple of kilos of coffee a week to around 40 or 50 kilos. So, in true Yorkshire DIY style, Frazer got his hands dirty and built a bigger coffee roaster out of an old barbeque. It was in action at the first ever Peddler Market in 2014 and facilitated the company’s development into a fully-fledged wholesale business.
The growth continued, seeing the company twice move to larger premises. It was while based at their Carbrook location that a need to upgrade roasters returned again. Holding true to the company’s strong ‘made in Sheffield’ ethos, Frazer purchased a 12 kilo roasting drum – all the company could afford at the time – and set about making his own state-of-the-art roaster using steel from the famous Forgemasters next door.
Every coffee roasted since 2016 had been made with that homemade roaster, a machine imbued with self-determined graft and a genuine love for the craft of coffee-making. Today Frazer’s Coffee are an established local brand with a strong focus on supporting direct trade, building stronger connections with farmers across the globe and ensuring the stories behind each bean are told.
Read about more of Sheffield’s finest independent businesses in ‘The Little Book of Sheffield’, available to purchase online here.
