Moon Roast are a speciality coffee roaster, based locally in Alresford with a rich family history in the tea and coffee trades. Inspired by his family heritage, in 2012 in a small barn in his garden Francis Bradshaw began roasting coffee in the evenings after a day’s work. Fran started to develop roast profiles for carefully selected beans and before long he was supplying freshly roasted coffee to local people and businesses!

We have had Moon Roast Coffee at Lime Wood and in Raw & Cured for 3 years now, we sat down with the founder Francis, to find out more about them…

Tell us a bit about Moon Roast coffee and how it came about?

Moon Roast began as a side hustle! Roasting in the evenings after work, I began importing very small batches of specialty coffee beans and roasting them in a small Probat roaster installed in a little barn I built in my back garden. I was intrigued by the growing specialty coffee culture at the time and wanted to learn more. In 2017 we moved into some converted Grade II listed outbuildings on a working farm, just up the road from where it all began, in the beautiful Candover Valley.

Tell us about your coffee and how it is made.

We source specialty grade Arabica beans from countries as diverse as Burundi, Peru and Timor Leste, working closely with a handful of trusted importers. Traceability is as important to us as quality. Our importers help small farmers produce the best quality coffee, improving knowledge, infrastructure and welfare in the various coffee growing communities they source from. By helping raise the quality of coffee and production in these communities, they are able to offer a higher price for the coffee and by extension, raise the quality of life for the farmers, their families and their communities.

What makes your coffee unique?

Team Moon Roast is a small one, and each of us are passionate about the product. But our experience is informed by four generations of expertise. We hand roast our coffee in small batches every day, which means we can pay attention to detail, cupping (tasting) our coffee regularly to ensure the highest quality and creating unique taste profiles not found anywhere else. Each single origin coffee has a unique flavour, it is up to us to showcase this and pay tribute to the many people in the coffee chain, from farm to cup, who have created this exceptional product. We strive never to lose sight of just how special our product is, and what a privilege it is to work with it. At Moon Roast you will find the name of each coffee denotes the name of the farmer, the cooperatives or communities it has come from.

Tell us about why you have partnered with us at Lime Wood.

Few hotels consider their coffee offering as an important feature, many cater for discerning guests who love food but rarely consider that coffee, like wine, is a part of the meal where quality is paramount and the taste and ritual can be truly savoured. We feel our coffee compliments Lime Wood’s food and drink offering and applaud their commitment to sourcing outstanding local produce. We are thrilled to partner with Lime Wood and to see our coffee served in such a beautiful setting. We know the guests really care about fantastic food and the quality of their coffee too.

What inspired you to create coffee?

I am the fourth generation in my family who has worked with coffee. I started my career in Agriculture but returned to the family trade just as a new specialty coffee culture was emerging. My background gives me a real understanding of how coffee is farmed and how agronomy and process can significantly contribute to the quality of the coffee. Considering how coffee has been consumed for centuries there is still so much to discover! I recently returned from a coffee sourcing trip visiting our farmers in Peru, and I brought along my son Tom. Maybe it has inspired the next generation, who knows!

Describe how you feel after a Moon Roast coffee in three words?

Excited. Inspired. Appreciative.

Excited because I am always amazed by how the process of roasting can enhance the infinite variety of natural flavours inherent in the bean. There are infinite possibilities and still so much to learn! Inspired because our craft is the perfect balance of science and art. Appreciative because the journey from bean to cup involves the care of so many: from farmer to producer to importer to roaster to barista.

We know this may be a hard one, but what is your go to coffee order!?

A fine aromatic Kenya, filter brewed, served black. Kenyan coffee has a distinct flavour, due to the unique environment in which it grows - high altitude and fertile volcanic soil combined with meticulous cultivation practices used by smallholder farmers there.

Have you got any exciting upcoming plans/projects?

We are searching for some amazing coffees from exotic origins for our ‘Explore’ range, this process always excites me! We will be roasting them on our state of the art, Loring coffee roaster which is producing some incredible results and is also a highly energy efficient machine. We have new coffees in our Explore range every month or so, and we are soon to launch some exciting ones from Nicaragua, Panama and Uganda. Also, watch out for our ‘Meet the Founder ‘cupping events we will be hosting in the autumn and winter, where you can learn more about what we do and taste a range of our coffee.