Special coffee being produced for Llangollen
A speciality coffee maker who started off roasting coffee beans over a camp stove in his shed is celebrating his sixth anniversary by brewing up a luxurious blend in honour of the Llangollen food festival.
Barman turned barista Tim Parry, 40, is now producing in one afternoon what he previously made in one week..
He originally launched his business, Mug Run Coffee, in December 2013 - and credits top 10 UK food festival Hamper Llangollen for getting his name on the map.
As a thank you to the festival, he is concocting a new limited edition blend for this year’s event which will be exclusively available to visitors to the popular food festival.
The event will be held at the international pavilion at Llangollen on October 19 and 20
“The festival really is a great place to be. I’ve been coming along for five years now. There are lots of Welsh speakers and it brings lots of local traders together.
“I’ve always had a really positive experience meeting new people there and it’s nice to see the same ones returning every year. It really has helped introduce people to my brand and grow.”
Originally, Tim worked in the hospitality industry, mainly in pubs and bars in Rhyl. But coffee has always been a passion and he continues to have aspirations of owing his own café or shop one day.
Coffee roasting started off as an experiment until he realised the quality of what he was roasting was actually good enough to be sold.
“I’d roast the beans off a camping stove in the shed and pack them in the house,” he said.
“I did a lot of research to find biodegradable, compostable packaging. At that time, there wasn’t too much of it about. When I found the right packaging, I saw some labels which I could print myself and it all came together.”
Tim bought a shed in his back garden and transformed it into a coffee roasting unit and has now moved production to an industrial unit in Rhyl and supplies cafes shops and restaurants in Shropshire as well as north Wales and Cheshire.
“We’re now selling a lot more. What I used to produce in one week I now produce in an afternoon. It’s going quite well.”
“Coffee has changed a lot in the last five or six years. People are becoming more knowledgeable about coffee and understanding the different flavours. It’s like fine wine. Some wines have gooseberries or raspberries – the flavours are already locked in there – you have to know how to bring them out and when coffee is brewed correctly all the flavours should come out."
