About Drury…
The Drury Tea & Coffee Company was established in 1936 in London when three Italian brothers set up a tea company, originally called Olmi Brothers Tea. They began by blending and packing tea from premises opposite London’s Windmill theatre and started roasting coffee for wholesale and retail just a few years later. It was their move to Drury Lane in 1946 that gave rise to the Company’s present-day name, The Drury Tea and Coffee Company. Drury was one of the very first British companies to roast coffee for espresso use and it was thus at the very heart of the UK’s ‘frothy coffee’ revolution of the 50s.
Today, Drury remains a family business with the third generation of Olmis now running the company. Although we have retail premises in London’s Covent Garden, over 90% of our output is destined for the hospitality industry, both here in the UK and abroad, where we have earned a reputation for quality and consistency among top restaurants. It is a proud boast that between them our customers hold 30 Michelin stars. We serve London directly, with accredited distributors covering the remainder of the UK.
We were quick to recognize the importance of coffee equipment and to ensure a synergy between our products and the equipment they are made on. It led us to source equipment from some of the best European machine fabricators. Our association with Rancilio goes back a quarter of a century and we have also forged relationships with leading manufacturers such as Ceado, Marco and Bravilor.
Today, Drury offers 16 different espresso blends – the most comprehensive range of any roaster. Its tea portfolio is equally broad with 120 different teas and a highly successful range of speciality pyramid teabags packed in-house. Drury has flourished respecting the traditional values of quality and customer care which are best found in family companies.
In June 2015, we moved our factory and headquarters from Bermondsey to the Royal Arsenal development in Woolwich. Although the impact of such a move on the business is significant, it has allowed us to expand our production facilities with a brand new Brambati 300 kilo batch roaster which has essentially quadrupled our coffee production capabilities to over 2000 tonnes per annum. Other features in our new premises include a purpose-built training centre, which enables us to run advanced barista training courses for the benefit of our customers and their staff.
