RECENT BEANS COFFEE ROASTERS OPEN AT THE HISTORIC QUEEN’S MILL IN CASTLEFORD

Barry Back recently took voluntary redundancy from being an area manager with Wetherspoons to start a coffee roasting business in the Queen’s Mill in Castleford, home of Castleford Heritage Trust. Whilst out doing market research one day he popped into the Queens Mill Tearoom to talk coffee and started to chat to the owner Dana, who mentioned that the Queens Mill might be the perfect venue for the roasting.  One tour and Barry fell in love with the Mill, the staff and the volunteers who keep it running.  Two months later and the roaster was installed and the Mill was filled with the smell of roasting coffee

He said ‘I’ve always been interested in coffee, I’ve never understood why the biggest selling coffees at the supermarket are also the ones that have been stored for months or years on a shelf.  When Wetherspoons offered me the chance to take voluntary redundancy, I knew what I wanted to do” 

Coffee tastes completely different in the first two weeks after it’s roasted.  Fresh coffee has flavour notes that will disappear if stored too long and the coffee extracts so much better fresh. Once you’ve tasted really fresh coffee, you never return to old beans. Recent Beans wanted to really showcase freshly roasted coffee so they decided they would do it the hard way by roasting to order. When you place an order online with them, thats the day your beans will be roasted and posted out to you Monday to Saturday. Many roasters will roast beans once or twice a week and send out from stock, while this is obviously better than supermarket beans, you can lose those amazing first few days after the roast, Recent Beans won’t do that. Small batches, roasted daily. 

Because they want you to try really fresh coffee, the team ask that you try to use the beans in the first two weeks. Recent Beans don’t charge for 1st class posting so you can order small quantities as often as you like. They also don’t do a order limit for free postage as that encouraging customers to buy in bulk and store in the cupboard. 250g and 500g orders are sent in a letterbox size box so you don’t need to be in and won’t have to go and collect it from the post office.

For more information on Recent Beans visit their website here.