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A familiar order, a quick hello. It’s how the day begins in many cafés. Some customers stop by every morning; others come to meet friends or ask the barista where a particular coffee was grown. These everyday conversations are part of the Northern Irish coffee community that Bailies calls home.
Bailies Coffee began in 1993, when Russell Bailie turned his love of quality, hand-roasted coffee into a business. Across the UK and Ireland, interest in freshly roasted coffee was growing, along with a desire to know where it came from. Bailies started by roasting and supplying coffee to businesses, later adding barista training, equipment and technical support.
As those relationships grew, so did its place in the local coffee scene. Through the cafés it supplies and the people it trains, Bailies has helped shape a culture built on conversation, shared knowledge and a love of good coffee.
Giving someone a reason to return takes care, day after day. There’s the coffee itself, of course, but also the skill of the barista, a friendly greeting and the comfort of knowing what to expect. Working with its café partners, Bailies helps support the experience that brings customers back.
Through barista training, the team shares skills and ideas with people working across Northern Ireland’s coffee scene. Some have since opened cafés of their own, built a following of regulars and passed on what they learned to their teams.
Local events offer another reason to get together. At the 2018 Northern Ireland AeroPress Championship, sponsored by Bailies, baristas, roasters and even one of the company’s engineers took part. People who usually worked in different cafés and roasteries gathered to brew, compare methods and enjoy a little friendly competition.
A cup of coffee might introduce people to Bailies. Training, shared interests and gatherings like these give them reasons to stay connected. Over time, those individual relationships become a community.
Sometimes, those connections travel a little further—with a bag of coffee along for the journey.
Writing about its local coffee community, the Bailies team shares its enthusiasm for NI Coffee Maps and the Irish Indy Coffee Guide. They’ve even set themselves a small mission: to visit every café on the map.
It sounds like a good excuse to take the scenic route.
Following a coffee map means returning to favourite spots and finding places you might otherwise have walked past. There are familiar faces to catch up with, new people to meet and, somewhere along the way, another story to bring home.
Holden Pak plays a small part in those stories by producing Bailies’ coffee packaging.
At Holden Pak’s factory, Bailies’ packaging carries the brand’s identity out into the community, where new connections are made and new stories unfold. We’re delighted to see the connection begin with the packaging, bringing the brand closer to the people.
Connection starts with a cup of coffee, and grows through the people and places we know—and those yet to know.
PHOTO CREDITS: BAILIES
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