A sportsman in Cornwall who set up an online coffee business has told The Packet how he's ready to introduce it to the whole of Cornwall.
Alex O’Meara, a professional rugby player who many will recognise as a wing/full back for the Cornish Pirates, set up Blackbeard Coffee back at the end of October last year and has high hopes that the people of Cornwall will share his passion for coffee in the county he has come to love.
Blackbeard Coffee is an online business where customers can buy coffee, accessories and merchandise and is also now the main coffee of Cornish Pirates.
Speaking to The Packet, Alex said: "It was actually a lockdown kind of thing.
"I did lockdown at my family's cottage in Padstow, they offered me and my partner the opportunity to do it here together to look after their house at the same time.
"It was a matter of waking up every morning and having a coffee, working out and thinking any minute we're going to get back to the rugby.
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"It got me thinking it would be really cool if I owned a coffee company, and I know that rugby,at some point, is going to end, so it was a matter of going down different avenues and talking to different people.
"Then Cornish Pirates put on an entrepreneurial course, so I jumped at the opportunity to do that, but it turned out all the case studies were for owning a cafe, so I thought I just have to go for it."
As it turns out, a contact of Alex's dad owns a gin company, but had previously been looking at going down the coffee route himself.
Alex continued: "He was like 'these are the contacts I've made going down the coffee route, why don't you give them to Alex and see how he gets on with it?
"And the rest is history really.
"We're introducing it to the whole of Cornwall as I want it to be a Cornish brand and give a little Cornwall to everyone.
"If we were to scale up, I'd want people to see that it's a Cornish brand, as they've given so much to me since I've been down here, I wanted to give something back to them."
For more information on Blackbeard Coffee, visit: blackbeardcoffee.co.uk
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