An English indie-rock band has teamed up with a Lake District coffee roaster as they kick off their international tour.
London-based post-punk rockers White Lies, who have over a million monthly listeners on Spotify, have been selling coffee by Duffin’s Coffee in Staveley as fan merchandise on the recent UK leg of the 2025-26 tour of Night Light, their seventh studio album.
White Lies now plan to spread the Duffin’s Coffee love across Ireland into Europe and as far as Mexico from January.
Coffee and ice-cream specialist Steven Duffin, who roasts inhouse at the Staveley Mill Yard headquarters he shares with his wife, Eleanor, says the Duffin’s house blend Juicy Gossip, made from beans bought direct from growers in Peru and Uganda – is a “perfect fit” for the band’s new single, Juice, the name the coffee will be given for the White Lies tour.
He said: “We supplied them 250 x 250g bags and I have a feeling it will do well. They look great, and on a merch stand people will buy this sort of stuff along with tour T-shirts if it’s got White Lies on it.
“We like to be a little bit quirky about everything we do and when our barista Chris told me he’d invited his friend Jack Lawrence-Brown – the White Lies drummer who’s obsessive about coffee – to come and do some roasting with us, I said, let’s do it!
“Under three hours later, two of the band, Jack and bassist Charles Cave, came up here and spent the whole day roasting.
“And then Jack came the next day and spent the day learning how to make coffee. He had a fantastic experience, then after they went back down to London the band said they wanted this coffee as merch on their new tour.”
Jack added: “I had the pleasure of travelling up to the beautiful Lake District to spend some time in the company of Chris and the team at Duffin’s who expertly helped me fulfil a long-held dream of roasting specialty coffee and also creating a really unique and high-quality product for White Lies.
“I’m so pleased and proud of the results – Juice tastes fantastic, of course, but with the Duffin’s team’s help we also created a great-looking package which celebrates both Duffin’s and the new White Lies music that it’s been roasted in celebration of.
“All in all a wonderful thing to have created together and something I hope White Lies can be involved with again.”
Steven and Eleanor began their family-run business in Staveley 10 years ago.
