Milk Chocolate, Nutty, Biscuit
Black Gold No.3 is the coffee Coaltown built everything on - a rich, approachable espresso blend with nutty milk chocolate and biscuit running through it, as comfortable black as it is with milk. Roasted daily in small batches in Ammanford, it's the kind of cup you come back to without really thinking about it. Which is probably the best thing you can say about a morning coffee.
Rich, no-fuss chocolate espresso blend
Black Gold No.3 is Coaltown's everyday espresso - the coffee that started the whole thing back in 2014, when it picked up two gold stars at the Great Taste Awards and gave the roastery its footing. It's a post-blended seasonal espresso built around nutty milk chocolate and biscuit, roasted just beyond first crack to bring out a rich, rounded body while keeping hold of what the beans brought from origin.
The current blend draws on a natural-process Catuai from Fazenda do Salto in Brazil and a washed Bourbon and Caturra from Finca El Parisio in Honduras, grown at altitude and chosen for how well they sit together in the cup. It pulls well as an espresso and holds up comfortably with milk - the kind of coffee that works morning after morning without asking anything of you. Rich enough to feel considered, familiar enough to reach for without thinking.
Coaltown serve it daily at their own espresso bar in Ammanford, which tells you something about how they feel about it.
About the Roaster
Scott James set up Coaltown in Ammanford, a South Wales town that ran on anthracite coal for generations, with a straightforward idea: that great coffee could give a post-industrial community something to rally around again. The team roasts daily in small batches, working a range that moves from easy-drinking espresso blends through to more expressive single origins.
