I think it means that they don't rely on automated machinery to roast our coffee to perfection, instead we control the development of the roast by hand, using sensory skills to monitor changes in colour, aroma, and physical transformation in the beans.

Our "flavour notes" are the tastes flavours in the brew that remind us of particular fruits or food items.

Our team of coffee tasters are passionate about memorising all types of flavours they encounter daily and are trained to recognise them in coffee.

"No! The coffees we sell have no artificial additives or syrups at all. When you visit the Coffees page on our website, you’ll notice that we’ve included flavour notes for each coffee. These refer to the flavours that are embedded in the bean from the surrounding landscape while the coffee is growing.  The chocolates, nuts and fruits mentioned in each coffee are identified by our Head of Coffee, Will, when he first tastes each batch. Our coffee team will then hand-roast each coffee to enhance these flavours further.  We hope that by including the flavour notes, it will be easier for our customers to pick the right coffee to suit their taste. Think about it in the same way you would wine; the flavour is natural and very subtle!"

Coffee freshness is important because coffee loses its qualities over time at the contact of oxygen and humidity, which is why we recommend you to store your coffee in a tight and sealed container once it is open.

Once opened keep in a cool dry place or refrigerate and consume regularly to ensue you get the best tasting coffee. Please see the back of the package for Best Before date.

Coffee is good to store for up to 12 months if its sealed and kept in cool and dry place.

As a general rule the shorter the contact time between water and coffee, the finer the grind size:

Espresso: ~25 seconds of contact time = very fine grind
Cafetiere: ~4-minute brew = coarse grind

Then if your coffee tastes too acidic and watery, making it finer will help- too bitter and gritty, coarser you should go.

All of our coffees are great for any brew method, but if you’re interested in maximising the potential of each bean, we tend to go by this rule of thumb:

Cafetieres work well with nutty, chocolatey and toffee flavours, as well as some light fruits.
Drip coffee makers work well with dark chocolate, stonefruit and berry flavours.
Aeropress is similar to drip, but works well with even more acidic and complex coffees.
Stovetop works well with nutty and chocolatey flavours.
Espresso works well with darker roasts of any of the above flavours.

Contrary to popular belief, espresso is not a coffee bean or a type of roast. It is a way or making (brewing) coffee. Consequently, any coffee bean can be used to make espresso. The only restriction on making espresso, because of the added pressure and quickness of contact between water and coffee grounds, is that you do not use light-roasted coffee or very dark (oily) coffee.

Our bags are made from a mixture of materials which are recyclable on their own, but we recommend that our customers check with their local council and separate the components accordingly for recycling.

Unfortunately our packaging has a plastic protective layer to keep the coffee fresh. All our paper materials are FSC and recyclable (including the box around the retail packs, and all leaflets, corrugates and outer packaging), but we don't have 100% plastic free coffee packaging unfortunately at the moment. 

This is something we are working on.