STEVEN, 55, CO-FOUNDER UNION HAND-ROASTED COFFEE
Jeremy and I are both Jewish, and we met in 1986 through the social group of a religious organisation. I was studying for my PhD at the time and Jeremy was an optician. Eventually, I plucked up the courage to ask him out for dinner. This was my first major relationship. You know straight away when someone is ‘the one’; it just feels right and comfortable. We really understood what was going on in one another’s heads intuitively. Jeremy moved down from Nottingham to London and we set up home together, and we’ve had a number of very exciting life events over the 30 years. We both moved out to California for four years, and that was exhilarating and very exciting. There was a period there where we were separated for about three months and that was probably one of the most traumatic periods of my life. At that point, we were working in separate professions – but we had a dream of owning a business together. We thought about what interested and motivated us both, and it was food and drink, and flavour and taste, so after months of research, we decided to set up our own coffee business having been inspired by what was happening in the San Francisco and Seattle areas. For some people it may seem strange to want to live and work together but I get a lot of reassurance and confidence from that. It makes me happy. We haven’t got married yet, but at some stage in the future we will.