For the past year I have been (slowly) learning to roast coffee and have been wanting to gain more experience in a production roastery.

‍Hard Lines were kind enough to arrange 3 days with them in their Taffs Well site. I travelled down with the intention of being a fly on the wall for a few days to see how a roastery works day to day but, thanks to the team, I felt completely involved and got a much greater insight.

Hard Lines are a specialty coffee roasters based in Cardiff. They select, roast and serve great coffee that's sourced sustainably. They supply us with Ropes and Twines house espresso- currently a washed Mexican but we are in the process of picking our next one with the guys.

On my first day I met the team and ate at the infamous Hard Lines cafe in Canton (it's long been on my list of places to try especially for their breakfast burrito- did not disappoint!). From there, head roaster Sam gave me a run down of how he goes about sourcing, sample roasting and picking the coffees we see in the friendly faced bags on our retail shelves.

Throughout the week I was introduced to the Loring s15 Falcon roaster. This genius bit of kit is said to be the future of coffee roasting because of its intuition and sustainable running practices, saving up to 80% fuel with every roast. I first watched then followed Sam's instructions on loading the hopper with green beans, setting the burners for roast then observing as the Loring did it's thing.

The experience for me was so worthwhile and I really enjoyed my time there- everyone of the team took some time out to show me an area of the business from packing to design which I was very grateful for considering how busy the guys are!

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