Howey

In Hackney Wick, we nattered all things death, mental health, starting the roastery for Grind and retirement with our friend Howey.

Can you juggle?
Yeah

Do you know how few people can? How many balls?
Like 5. I’m not joking. I think anyone who cares about coffee this much is weirdly geeky. I learnt to juggle when I was 12. A guy in my hometown was teaching people to juggle in my school and I just carried on doing it. I think he was an MBE, he was part of ‘Surfers Against Sewage’. 

Where’s home?
Bexhill, it’s on the south coast. It’s Britain’s number one retirement town.

Are you going to retire there?
Probably not. By the time I’m retiring, everyone that I care for down there might be dead. How much can we talk about death in an interview about coffee?

So much. What’s your thing about death?
Everything dies. 

*At this point Justin ran to get tissue. Not for tears but to help battle hay fever. Turns out Howey is a fellow hay fever sufferer*

Is there a better analogy for life than pollen? It’s just trying to cause more life further away.

Whilst causing so much pain for a few people. So you wouldn’t return to Bexhill to retire?
Nah it’d be cool to spend time in a coffee-growing country. I could retire in Brasil. 

Do you tan well?
Yeah but I imagine by the time I’m retiring, my skin will be this tissue-like veil.

Like the old-school gangsters that retire to Spain? 
Yeah exactly.

How do you feel about getting older?
I feel like your 30s are a great decade. I was really anxious about getting older in my 20. But every decade you get older is an achievement statistically. Like you’re likely to die every year so every year you survive should be a greater celebration than the last. 

So you see birthdays as a survival?
Yeah I do feel lucky that I’ve managed to see and do a lot of cool things in my life. There gets to a point where you’re like ‘I have done a lot, if I die tomorrow it’s not the worst thing in my life’. I mean that positively.

I think I felt like that at 19. 
Everything thing else is a bonus essentially.

How many vests do you own?
I don’t have that many clothes in general, I’m not a fashionable guy. So I’m going to say maybe 7. 

One, you are fashionable and two, I thought it’d be in double digits.
Nah, I have a small rotation I just keep it tight. I’m not deliberately trying not to buy clothes I just have enough.

I ‘m a big fan of your vests.
I’m not wearing one now but I do have one in my bag. You’re not allowed to wear one on the roastery floor anymore which is a shame. Armpit hair is the health and safety problem. 

Are you a protective older brother?
I would be if I needed to be. If anything I need protecting. 

They’re not in coffee I hope?
No, one was a wine importer thankfully. One lives in Madrid, he’s 2 years younger than me. The other brother is 6 years younger and he lives in my hometown. 

Do you struggle to make friends?
No, but I struggle to give friends the time they deserve. I say yes to everything and then don’t give them the correct attention because I’m worried  about the next thing that’s happening. I’m also always doing about fifteen different things. I’m trying to be a coffee guy; and a music guy; and trying to go climbing.

You’re doing alright at just being a guy.
Yeah it’s not that hard I suppose, I’ve got a lot of privilege.

I think there’s a lot of privilege in roasting.
Yeah but there’s also an incredible lack of minorities in roasting. I’ve hired a lot of roasters in my time and realised it starts with who is actually ever going to read this advert? Then who’s had the chance to taste and cup coffee, worked in cafes? For some reason you get a lot of straight white men applying. When we put out an advert we get a couple of hundred applicants and it’s overwhelmingly from white men and that’s the pool you’re choosing from.

A lot of roasters are straight white men, but baristas are all over the place.
Yeah that’s good because baristas tend to feed into the roasting world over time. The coffee world is becoming less straight which is a good thing. 

Do you think there’s a correlation with cycling? Never met a roaster who doesn’t cycle.
There’s all these things like cycling, vegetarianism, veganism, left wing politics, tattoos. I don’t know. 

*Justin then investigated Howey’s tattoos*

Is the fish tattoo a marker about a time in your life.
It was at a difficult time in my life when I was particularly anxious and had a whole load of mental health issues going on. I was just coming out the other side of that so agreed to get this tattoo done with a friend. I actually drew it.
I can tell.

If you weren’t in coffee what would you be doing?
Music! I was a musician before I was a coffee guy. I was a drummer and still am. I was a poor full-time musician. I got into coffee because I needed to make extra cash. But as I got more into it, I loved it and music became the side hustle. Now I’m older, I’d like to sit somewhere in the middle. Honestly, neither of those is a side hustle. 

I loved coming to see you play at Koko with Tom Rasmussen. I loved it, you were pretty amazing!Thank you! When you share your art you’re sharing your soul aren’t you so it’s a bit scary what people will think. I’d like people to think the same about coffee to be honest. When they taste my coffee, they should be tasting my soul. 

I was on a BA flight, probably doing something of privilege, and thought ‘what the hell, why’s Howey’s coffee here’? I can’t escape it.
I’m everywhere. That BA coffee was intense.

I was really proud of you sourcing and profiling that coffee. I like other people doing well, plus I’m an only child so don’t really get competition. 
I like when people are doing well too. But I get that competition thing as well, it’s a big thing in music. There’s definitely 5% of you that’s like that’s great…but…

Hard relate, sometimes I want a larger space to work in.
Yeah, we started off with a tiny space that was way too small and now we’re in a huge space but I miss the old days.

Everything is for a season?
Comes back to what we were talking about earlier regarding Hackney Wick, being okay with things dying and changing. 

Why are we here in Hackney Wick?
This is the first cafe I worked in when I moved to London. Moved here with the band when we were touring. I walked in and they were serving Square Mile beans and playing Wagner. I knew I had to work here. This place formatively made me the coffee person I am now. This is where we started roasting in the kitchen then the back of the cafe. After that I went to roast at Alchemy then I started the Grind roastery.

That will be on your obituary, ‘started the Grind roastery.’
‘Doesn’t mind when things die.’ Good to put that on a tombstone. I don’t think my family would be able to afford a cemetery grave. Well not that they couldn’t afford it, it’d be a waste of money for them. 

Practical folk?
Yes

I like the idea of giving back so if you have a vegetable patch that needs nutrition, chuck me in.
Do you think it’s a bit arrogant to think that you’ll be good nutrition?
Nope just science. Pure Carbon.
Carbon, some microplastics. I suppose pop me on a coffee farm and see hoe that affects the coffee in that area. A little co-ferment.
Very metal. What worries me is how well that will sell
I’d buy it and I don’t even like co-ferments,

Last question, how’s your mental health? 

Pretty good, these days I feel quite balanced. I think I’ve come to terms with a lot of the things that make me less usual compared to the average population of the UK. Definitely the tendency towards obsession, tasks, even some things that you might consider to be mildly on the spectrum. But I see all these things as positive things about me and I embrace them . I’ve been working over the past couple of years to embrace instead of fight them. Everything in my life seems to be working out a lot better since I’ve been doing that.