Journal — August 2021

I’m really excited to share Talormade with you this month. These coffees are tasting so good. You’re really in for a treat. This is our second time featuring Talormade. Last time we worked with them, they had just opened their roastery. It was a bittersweet story that now, a few years later, has gotten significantly sweeter—like donut glaze sweet.

Talor Browne grew up in Australia and got her start in coffee at some of Melbourne’s best coffee companies. She was then hired to help grow Coutume, one of Paris’ most famous cafes, before moving to Oslo, Norway to work as Tim Wendelboe’s head roaster. You can feel the impact of those coffee meccas, and how all the amazing people she worked with in each of them rubbed off on her. But one look at Talormade and you can see that she leaves her neon rainbow fingerprints on everything she touches, making them fully her own.

So how is that bittersweet? It sounds fantastic. Well, after roasting for Tim Wendelboe, she was ready to start her own company. Talor&Jørgen opened and changed the speciality coffee game, shipping to over 50 countries in its first year. They roasted amazing coffees, but became famous for Talor’s donuts. I got to try one on a trip to Oslo, and can honestly say it was the best donut I’ve ever had, hands down. They took the world by storm. But then out of the blue, her business partners tried to push her out of her own company. After a very public, ugly lawsuit, they settled and parted ways.

Looking back, Talor realized the publicity might have felt like a curse, but it actually turned out to be a gift as well. Because a lot of people loved and stood behind her, and before long, out of the ashes of tragedy, Talormade was born. That was the end of the story last time we worked with them, but not anymore. During Covid, they managed to open 3 more shops around Oslo, hiring over 50 employees, and aren’t done yet. Each coffee they’ve shared with us this month reflects Talor’s goal to always roast delicious coffees the way that people like to drink them, to be as transparent as possible, to be kind and—most importantly—to have fun!