Tom Assheton is the proprietor of Elizabeth Street cigar merchants Tomtoms. Assheton served as a soldier in the Household Cavalry for seven years, and later ran a fruit farm in Gloucestershire. After a visit to Cuba, he became interested in the combination of cigars and coffee, and set up his own cigar shop in 1997. Two years ago, he opened a coffee house opposite, on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Ebury Street.

7am

I wake around this time, and hope to be out by 7.30. I live in Stockwell, so it’s a 10-minute drive to Elizabeth Street. I like to get around in London in a number of ways. I don’t understand why country people say Londoners aren’t very fit. It’s probably the other way round. I cycle and walk a lot.

 8am

I head to the coffee house to have my first coffee of the day, which is either a cappuccino or one of the Single Estate bespoke filter coffees. My daughter, Molly, who is 18, is our cook at the moment. She did a course with Leith’s Cookery School, and I’ve had her working there for two or three months.

 9am

I'll go over to the cigar shop, because that’s where I have my office. That opens at 10am, but I like to have a head start on the day. I try not to just get stuck in the endless round of emails and administration. I cultivate a reputation for not really responding too quickly to emails.

10am

I like to look at the product, either the coffees or the cigars. My coffee roaster, Giles Dick-Read, and I change the espresso blend every week to keep it varied. If it’s not looking at products, I try and look at marketing or improving our website. We have to attract people to Elizabeth Street because it’s all been beautifully done up and we’ve no longer got a congestion zone in the area. There’s plenty of parking!

 1pm

I’ll go back to the coffee house and have some soup. I really like chatting with our customers, because the coffee house is a really intimate space and everyone tends to sit around the communal table talking. We don’t have WiFi there, so we encourage people not to clutter up the place with electronic gear. There’s a nice feel of the Regency coffee house scene. We even had a play reading the other day.

 2.30pm

The morning is the time for the nitty-gritty. The afternoon allows me to catch up with the guys who work for me, and the customers.

 5pm

I might head to the gym to see if my cigar smoking is reflecting itself in my level of health and fitness. I’m also learning to tango. There’s something amazing about it. It’s a language. I can speak about five words so far.

 8pm

When I get home, I will eat supper, fire up a cigar and watch a movie.