When Dundee’s oldest shop closed its doors in April, we as a city reacted with sadness and a great deal of nostalgia.

JA Braithwaite, our oldest independent tea and coffee merchant, had traded for 158 years before fourth-generation owners, Allan and Dawn Braithwaite, made the decision to retire.

I’d wager the emotions we felt – if my own are anything to go by – included a sense of guilt.

It’s all very well being melancholic about the ending of an era, but where was my custom?

Perhaps I wasn’t the only one to feel a little embarrassed – that I hadn’t thought about Braithwaite’s for a second as I bought my coffee capsules from Tesco or Asda, while this iconic independent was still here.

Sports store was an Aladdin’s cave

The family-run shop had weathered decades of global players coming onto the coffee scene – the Starbucks and Costa, capsule market and huge supermarkets with aisles dedicated to granules and beans.

And still, Braithwaite’s remained – underdogs, heroes, warriors in the coffee industry.

I was reminded of this recently when I ventured into the store of Graham McLaren, a fellow........

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