Manchester's Roastin'

Wednesday evening found me braving the roasting-hot streets in order to wander down to the Deansgate Locks area of Manchester in search of magic beans.  Feeling much like Jack and the Beanstalk, I found some in the shape of ManCoco's coffee beans.  

A host of bloggers and coffee fanatics alike were invited to learn more about Manchester's very own micro coffee roaster.  The friendly and coffee-passionate Stuart Bromley was already in full swing when my plus one and I stumbled into his hidden coffee oasis.  (We'd got a little lost - oops.)

The little demo area was super cute and can be hired for events

ManCoco makes sure it's green beans are traceable and ethically sourced and they import from all over the world.  We were lucky enough to sample a selection of beautiful beans from Ethiopia, Peru, Colombia, Rwanda, Uganda and Indonesia.  We were encouraged to taste the coffee in it's optimum state and learnt a bit about the art of 'cupping'. Stuart was the perfect showman and slurped his coffee to perfection.

Getting my 'cup' on and Stuart demonstrating an expert slurp

I'm certainly not a coffee connoisseur and so some of the beans produced a flavour a little too refined for my English-tea-tastebuds but I did notice the difference in the beans and came to pick a favourite (Peruvian Chirinos Churupampa - if you're interested in the details).

ManCoco sell direct to both consumers and retail and Stuart shared some exciting details that he has in the pipeline for smaller coffee taster hampers, which sound perfect for gifts (Christmas in July anyone?) The event was pulled together by the friendly folk at MediaCom with the support of The Co-operative Electrical Shop and my plus one even won the very generous raffle in the shape of a new Delonghi Coffee Machine!  

Claire x

Photo of me taken by Chloe Hesketh using my camera phone