Meet the supplier - Penningtons Coffee Roasters and Tea Merchants

One of the things we love the most about running the Three Shires Inn is waking up to a beautiful sunrise in Little Langdale.

There are few things more beautiful than a Lake District dawn and it’s a real privilege to watch the first light breaking over Wetherlam and the Coniston range of fells.

But no morning is complete without a good cup of tea or coffee and, for many years now, this has been taken care of by Dave and Gina Pennington and the team at Penningtons Coffee Roasters and Tea Merchants, in Kendal.

In the latest of our series of blogs featuring some of our wonderful suppliers, we caught up with Gina to find out a bit more about the business.

Gina and Dave both worked for Farrers tea and coffee merchants, also in Kendal, for over 20 years before taking the plunge and starting their own business in 2018.

“We’d picked up a lot of experience in the trade at Farrers,” says Gina.

“We really wanted to run our own family business and put all the knowledge we had to work for us. It’s really important to have locally owned and run businesses in the Lake District and we do everything we can to help other local businesses and we all try to support each other.

"We set about making handcrafted, really high quality products but with great customer service as well.

“We’re a small team of five and we import coffee beans from all over the world and roast and blend and package it. We also have a great range of teas and some of our own special blends. We’ve got our own showroom in our roastery, so customers come down and enjoy a brew here as well.

“The coffee beans travel thousands of miles and are handled by hundreds of different people before they arrive with us, so we feel there’s quite a responsibility to get things right and do it justice. We put a lot of love and effort into making sure it’s roasted in just the right way and it’s really satisfying to get so many amazing comments about the taste.

“We sell barista machines to hospitality businesses and Dave has been trained by all the manufacturers of the major brands so we offer maintenance and repairs to our customers, as well as training in how to use them.

“It’s OK selling a product, but customers need to know that they can get that help and support when they need it. If they have a problem with their machine then we can shoot out and repair it and we pride ourselves on having a really quick turnaround.

“Beyond the Lake District, we sell products all over the country and even overseas in America and Canada. People come to the Lake District and they enjoy the coffee so much that they want to keep drinking it to remind themselves of their time here.

“The inspiration for our logo comes from our favourite mountains in Wasdale - Kirkfell and its neighbours. Whenever we get the chance we head out into the hills ourselves and we’ve both completed all 214 Wainwrights. Our black labrador Lucy loves coming with us as well. She is the real CEO of Penningtons and most of our customers really come to see her.

“We really like what Tony and James have done with the Three Shires Inn and all the hard work they’ve put in to develop and refurbish it. We’re just lucky that we get to work with such lovely people every day.

“Our customers are a bit like an extension of our own business really; they all become ambassadors for what we’re doing and everyone helps each other. The Three Shires Inn is such a lovely place to stay and it makes us really happy to think of all the guests enjoying themselves and drinking our coffee and tea.”