FAQs

We don't allow dogs into either of our cafés. We have an outdoor seating area at our Udny café that we love welcoming dogs into and provide dog bowls. We are happy to serve you there all year round. If you are tough enough to brave it in winter (and sometimes summer too!) so will we and will be happy to serve you there. 

Yes, we have lots of options for breakfast and lunch that are made with GF ingredients and can provide a separate GF menu, which you can see here for the Udny café and here for the Ellon café. There is also a copy in each café that we can give you on request. We also always have at least two GF options in our cake cabinet. Please note that as we use gluten in our kitchens, we can not guarantee any item to be completely gluten free.

Yes, we cater for a range of allergies. Our serving staff would be happy to advise, please have a chat with us on arrival or you can contact us prior to your visit if you would prefer, on hello@thecoffeeapothecary.co.uk. Please note that although we will do our very best to keep your food/drink separate, as we use a range of different ingredients and products in our kitchens, we can not guarantee any item to be free of a specific allergen.

Yes, we have a menu that you can see here. We can also do half sized portions of several items on the lunch menu which our serving staff will be happy to advise on. Both our cafés have high chairs.

Yes, we have a disabled access door at our Udny café and easy access for wheelchairs at our Ellon café. We have disabled accessible toilets at both cafés.

We can provide double handled mugs for hot drinks or soup. Assistance dogs are welcome inside the cafes at both our sites.

If you have queries ahead of your visit, please contact us on hello@thecoffeeapothecary.co.uk and we would be happy to help.

In Udny there is on street parking right outside the café and all along the 'layby' that we are situated on. In Ellon there is pay and display parking right outside and in a few other places very close by. There is also free parking in the old school car park behind the Ellon doctors' surgery. 

Sure! Just log into your account and and pause it. Dont forget to restart it though when you want some more tasty coffee! 

Absolutely! Just log into your account and change it. You can drop us a line if you are unsure if you have done it time for the next delivery. 

We will dispatch your subscription the next working day. 

Sure! The best way to do this is the set up a subscription and put the delivery address as the lucky recipient of the gift. You will have control of the subscription rather than the person receiving the subscription. (I didn't tell you this but if you then fall out with them you can then change the delivery address to yourself - don't fall out with them on purpose now!) 

Absolutely! 

Your subscription will be charged every 2 weeks from the day you purchased it. Your coffee will be shipped on our 2 weekly subscription shipping cycle. 

I'm sorry but we just ship subscriptions to the UK. 

We are roasting regularly to keep the shop and our cafes stocked up with coffee. If we don't have the coffee you have ordered already roasted and ready to go you can be sure it will be roasted very soon and sent straight on its way to you. All our delivery options are tracked so you can follow your beans all the way to your door.

An order of a single 250g bag should go through most letter boxes. Any more than that won't squeeze through. 

We use Royal Mail for all our shipping with the options for tracked 1st class (<2kg - £4, >2kg - £7.50) and tracked 2nd class (<2kg - £3.30, >2kg - £6.50). 

We offer free shipping for orders over £30 and for over £15 if it is a subscription. 

Yes, the cost of this varies by which country you would like the parcel sent to and also the weight of the parcel. Please note that you would be responsible for any customs / import charges.

The countries we regularly ship to will appear when you enter your delivery address at checkout.  If your country doesn't appear, you can drop us a line on hello@thecoffeeapothecary.co.uk and we will do our best to help. 

We do! We ship all our coffee and merch but not any of the coffee brewing equipment or subscriptions. The shipping rates will be calculated at the checkout. 

Any gift cards can be used in both cafés or in our online shop, regardless of where it was purchased.

You can add in a different shipping address to your billing address when you place your order.

If you would like to add a little note that we will put with the order,  please type it into the order special instructions box on the cart page.

We do our best to package everything as best as we can but sometimes these things happen. Drop us a line to hello@thecoffeeapothecary.co.uk and we will do our best to make things right as fast as we can. 

Sure! You should have received one automatically with your order. Please note whole coffee beans do not have VAT on them.

You can pick up our coffee in either of our cafés or here on our online shop. 

As with everything we do, we strive to make sure everything is as ethical as possible. We do everything we can to avoid making money from something that is harming anyone else. 

We're learning all the time in regards to the ethics of coffee sourcing. What may seem on the surface like it should be straight forward is often anything but. We are very confident that what we are doing at present is ethical but we are are always asking questions and learning and pushing ourselves forward. 

Our coffee is not Fairtrade certified. We think The Fairtrade Mark is incredible and such a valuable thing. All our sugar and similar ingredients are Fairtrade marked but when it comes to speciality level coffee the Fairtrade mark just doesn't quite work work for a number of reasons. 

One of those reasons is that the price we are paying for green coffee is a lot higher than the Fairtrade price already. This means there is no need to go through the pen and paper exercise to certify it, which in itself costs time and money. Another reason is that Fairtrade coffee has to be from a co-operative. Some of the coffees we have come from co-operatives, often the African ones, but not always. However, many of the coffees we get come from one farm and most likely just one small part of one farm, and so the mark doesn't fit this situation. 

These are just a few of the reasons. There are lots of certifications out there but making one that covers a very wide range of products and a range of qualities within that is very hard. We do our very best to keep learning and buying as best as we can and are always open to saying we got something wrong and moving off in a new direction armed with more knowledge. 

This is a hard one to answer exactly! The simple answer is that we roast all our coffee to bring out the best we can in it. 

One of our main aims in roasting is to not have any roast flavours at all in the coffee. This means we don't roast as dark as any coffee you will find on a supermarket shelf. This doesn't mean our coffee isn't "strong" as we would suggest the coffee's strength comes from how you brew it. 

Other than saying we are lighter than a supermarket, it is hard to quantify further. One roaster's espresso roast is lighter than another's filter roast and so on. If you have ever been to our cafés we roast in the same way to the coffee we have always served there. 

Sorry, the roastery is not, but look out for occasional coffee tastings and other events which may be held at our roastery. If you are a business and wish to speak to our roastery team in regard to a wholesale supply, supply for an office, or visiting the roastery as part of an event, please email us to make an appointment on roastery@thecoffeeapothecary.co.uk. 

All the classes start at 6pm in our Udny café.

You don't need to bring anything apart from yourself! 

Cancellation Terms
within 7 days of class - 50% of course cost
within 36 hours of class - 100% of course cost