So what’s the

‘Other Stuff’?

I grew up in a very remote location and always longed for the opportunity to learn practical and creative skills. Traveling around Scotland, visiting small villages and towns, I noticed that coffee is something that remains underdeveloped.

Adventure Beans operates as a coffee van and also offers barista training, to help the development of barista skills within rural communities. The goal is to provide specialty coffee and barista training to people, particularly in rural areas, offering affordable and accessible training to those seeking to enhance their skills, improve employability and to local businesses that may want to build on existing knowledge and abilities. After covering expenses, all profits are reinvested into the business, funding training resources, expanding our geographical outreach, and developing the coffee van community.

We aim to be a part of communities and to build our own wee coffee community. Being a part of rural events and festivals, while always being there when you just fancy a coffee. We organize social events to ensure that Adventure Beans is not just a van that supplies coffee, but also an active participant in community engagement, fostering togetherness and community.

The seeds for this business venture are already sown, tried, and tested. I have travelled across Shetland's rugged landscape, supporting small businesses, and teaching a range of ages in both group settings and one-on-one. This approach has been incredibly well-received, proving that this is a viable and necessary enterprise. The testimonials of which can be seen below.

  • “Having Helen come to Unst to do training with us has been brilliant, being a rural small business, we don’t get a lot of opportunities to be able to access training. She was brilliant and very knowledgeable helping us all understand not only how to make coffees but the process as well. If we had someone like Helen when we first started our small tea rooms it would have been invaluable to us instead of having to just learn through trial and error, making costly mistakes along the way! I think Helen’s idea of taking training into rural areas is genius, I see it helping many small rural businesses like ours, and giving young people the opportunity to learn new skills to help them in the future.”

    Café Owner, Victoria’s Vintage Tea Rooms, Unst, Shetland Isles

  • "Thank you so much for the coffee training. We all thoroughly enjoyed it and you have the patience of a saint! I personally found the training very, very helpful and your warm, friendly approach put us all at ease, ready and willing to learn. I have had compliments from some of our regulars who say they can fairly taste the difference in our coffee now. It was very informative but did not bamboozle us with too much and you ensured we all knew what we were doing at each step. I would highly recommend this training for anyone, whether they are new or old to coffee making."

    Cafe Owner, Braewick Cafe, Hillswick, Shetland Isles

  • She is kind and funny both attributes of a great trainer! She made everyone feel at ease especially when the nervous ‘all eyes on you’ feeling watched over when practicing but even when my milk exploded everywhere she made me feel so at ease. She has excellent barista knowledge and skills however as a trainer it’s her personality and manner that made my training experience excellent. I now have another skill and have been trained by the best. I understand what makes a good coffee so customers will never be disappointed. Great learning experience. Thank you!

    Cherie Wallace (Training group of 3 in Shetland)