HISTORY

FOUNDATION

On 1 May 1832 Carl Lambert Josef van Gülpen and J.H. Lensing founded the company J.H. Lensing & Co. as a "drug and colonial goods retail shop". Since Carl Lambert Josef van Gülpen was still Dutch at that time, his name was not allowed to appear in the company name at first, according to the laws of that time.

In the course of the years the trade with green coffee became more and more important for the company. At that time Holland was the main importing country for coffee through its colony Java. Unfortunately, however, the Dutch "Handels- Maatschappij" sold only to Dutchmen. In order to be able to buy at first hand, a branch under the company name C. van Gülpen & Cie., `s-Heerenberg was set up in 's-Heerenberg, the Dutch neighbouring town of Emmerich, to handle the purchase of green coffee.

 

ROASTERY

When Carl Lambert Josef van Gülpen died in 1865, his son Alexius took over his father's business unofficially because he was still too young before the law. It was also Alexius van Gülpen who had the idea of roasting the raw imported coffee in larger quantities and thus selling it. Until then it was customary to buy the coffee "raw" and roast it on one's own stove.

Together with the engineer Theodor von Gimborn the legendary "Kugelbrenner" was designed according to the experiences and ideas of Alexius van Gülpen and in 1868 the "Emmericher Maschinenfabrik und Eisengießerei van Gülpen, Lensing & von Gimborn" was founded together with J.H. Lensing. This was later renamed "Emmericher Maschinenfabrik" and even later "PROBAT Werke".

On 6 June 1870, the two coffee wholesalers J.H. Lensing and Alexius van Gülpen received the first two ball coffee burners. They paid 198 marks each and roasted coffee production at Lensing & van Gülpen could begin.

 

SPECIALITY COFFEE

During the 2nd World War the roasting plant was completely destroyed in 1944. The reconstruction after the war was taken over by the 4th generation in the person of Fritz Reinhart-van Gülpen. The coffee was then called "van Gülpen's Javata" and was mainly sold in grocery stores in the Lower Rhine region. In the 60s, Fritz Reinhart-van Gülpen did not want to get involved in the price war of the big roasting plants and from then on he preferred class instead of mass.

Lensing & van Gülpen thus became one of the first roasters for speciality coffee in Germany and supplied specialty food stores throughout the country with the "Royal Dinner Mokka".

After many years in which we at Lensing & van Gülpen concentrated on food retailing and operated the roastery on a relatively small scale, Alex, the son of Fritz Reinhart-van Gülpen, put all his energy back into the roastery from 1996. New blends and single origins were introduced and new customers such as the premium mail order company Manufactum or the KaDeWe in Berlin were acquired.

In 2012, the sixth family generation started to operate the roasting machines at Lensing & van Gülpen, and more than ever we are dedicated exclusively to high-quality speciality coffees, which we select with great effort and roast by hand with great passion.