Cheers to 20 Years: The Coffee That Started It All Returns

Small Batch turns 20!



This year Small Batch turns 20, and to mark it, we've done something we've never done before. We've brought co-founder Al back into the roastery to recreate the very first blend he ever made: the original 2006 Goldstone, rebuilt from the ground up. We're calling it OG Goldstone, and it's the coffee that started everything. 

Some coffees take a month. This one's taken twenty years, and the best part of this year to bring back.

There's been a proper buzz around the roastery lately, and we've been dying to tell you about it. This year Small Batch turns 20, and we couldn't let a birthday like that slip by with just a quiet nod and a new sticker. We wanted to do something BIG. So we went back to 2006:

Two twenty-somethings, a small roastery in Hove, and a country still largely drinking instant. "Specialty coffee" wasn't a phrase anyone was using yet. It was just our co-founders Al & Brad, some green beans, and a stubborn idea about what a cup of coffee could actually taste like.

"The early days of building Small Batch are some of my fondest memories from my whole career in coffee," says Al. "Back in 2006 it was a completely new thing. We did a rough count of UK roasters not long ago, there used to be two or three hundred. Now it's more like six hundred."

The first blend the founding team ever made was Goldstone: a fruit-and-nut, chocolate-bar balance that went on to define everything we do. Traditional espresso with a modern twist, before many people were doing either.

Goldstone has been our best-seller for as long as we can remember. It's poured in our cafés every single day, sits in more of your cupboards than any other bag. For a lot of people, Goldstone is Small Batch. 

But it hasn't stood still. That blend has evolved more times than we can count. Growing regions shift, processing gets cleverer, roasting knowledge stacks up. The one thing that's never moved is the taste profile. So for our birthday, we asked Al to come back and help us recreate the very first thing he ever made.

Working alongside him was Art, our current Roaster, alongside the rest of the current Small Batch team, many of whom knew Al from the old days. Together, we all sat at the same cupping table.

What followed was part reunion, part detective work. Al and Art dug the original 2006 roasting notes out of the archive and started piecing the recipe back together. What beans went in? How was it profiled? What made that first cup taste the way it did? Records shift over twenty years and processing methods change, so there was a fair bit of head-scratching, plenty of "not quite yet," and a lot of coffee tasted along the way. Cup by cup, the original Goldstone came back into focus.

"The process of creating the OG version of Goldstone has been fantastic," Al tells us. "What's always made Small Batch special is that the quality of the coffee was paramount in everything we did, and that hasn't changed one bit. Goldstone will always be a special blend."

Between them, Al's memory and Art's craft rebuilt the original recipe as faithfully as they could: the same three single origins as close to the originals as we could source, roasted lighter to match the way Al profiled it two decades ago. We're calling it OG Goldstone, and it's back for one birthday only.

So how does a coffee from 2006 taste in 2026? We'll let Art take this one:

"Compared to the Goldstone we know today, the OG is zingier. Lighter, a little crisper, brighter all over. The components all sing to the same tune: refreshing and light, but it still works beautifully with milk, as a straight black espresso, or through softer methods like filter, pour over and Aeropress. It shares the same tasting notes as the current Goldstone, but it leans harder into the berry and citrus, keeps that milk chocolate sweetness and nuttiness, and finishes with a buttery mouthfeel."  Art, Small Batch Roaster

Milk chocolate, hazelnut and berry, but with the fruit turned up. A proper time capsule of a cup, and one we're seriously proud of.

You don't have to choose between then and now, either. Our 20th Birthday Bundle pairs OG Goldstone with the current Goldstone so you can taste both side by side. The same idea, twenty years apart, different components and a clear read on how much the craft has moved on. And if you want to get properly into the details, the OG Goldstone Discovery Set gives you the three single origins behind the blend, one bag at a time, so you can taste what each brings before they come together.

We made a short film about it all Al's return, the archive dig, the cupping sessions. Watch the story on YouTube here before you brew.

Ready to taste where it all began?

• Shop OG Goldstone: the 2006 recipe, rebuilt. Back for one birthday only.

• The 20th Birthday Bundle: OG and current Goldstone together, twenty years apart.

• The OG Goldstone Discovery Set: the three single origins behind the blend.

Here's to 20 years. Brew one with us.