How long will your order take to arrive?
We roast and pack online orders on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and offer Royal Mail 24 or 48 postal service, which you can choose when you place your order. We start roasting at about 9am and then pack orders.
When orders are dispatched, you will receive an email with the tracking details. So if you order Royal Mail 24 at 8am on a Monday, you should receive your tracking on Monday evening and the coffee on Tuesday. But if you order on Friday after midday, chances are your coffee will not be roasted until Monday and hence not delivered until Tuesday, or if you order Royal Mail 48, it could be on Wednesday.
If your order is over a bank holiday is will mostly add a day or two to the delivery date.
If you need your coffee urgently, please do let us know. We will always try to get your order out as soon as possible.
Can I cancel or change my subscription at any time?
Of course, we do not believe in tying anyone into a subscription. Our coffee subscriptions are totally flexible and can be changed at any point up until dispatch. You can change the coffee or delivery frequency, or you can pop us an email, and we will change it for you.
We believed coffee subscriptions should be for convenience and to help avoid that awful, dreaded day when you realise you have run out of coffee!!!
Since we have introduced our coffee subscriptions, more and more of our customers have opted for the convenience of this option. If you have to move home or are going away for a long holiday or with work, you can change the address, pause or cancel your subscription.
Are freshly roasted coffee beans the best?
Yes, fresh roasted coffee tastes better than coffee roasted several months before. Coffee oxidises after roasting and slowly loses parts of its flavour profile, so you should enjoy beans from our coffee roasters in Wales soon after purchase. Ground coffee loses parts of its flavour profile more quickly, but if you don’t have a grinder, we can grind it for you and pack it in our special packaging, which has a one-way valve to help the coffee stay delicious for as long as possible.
What is barista-grade coffee?
Barista-grade means coffee beans are of high quality and selected to deliver a specific flavour or aroma not typically found in supermarket coffee. All barista-grade coffee beans are ground at high altitude and picked when the cherry that the bean grows in is perfectly ripe to ensure they have the best flavour.
Our beans are also graded by size before roasting, which helps ensure we can roast them consistently and get the best provenance from all of our coffees. Browse and buy speciality coffee online here.
Which is better, light or dark roast coffee?
It all depends on your personal preference. Light roast coffee retains more of the natural flavours (e.g. berry, floral) and acidity.
Our personal preference is more of a medium roast that develops the natural flavours of the bean and starts the mallard (caramelisation, chocolate notes) process, delivering the nuances and characteristics of each farm’s provenance.
Dark roast coffee imparts more generic roast flavours into the coffee. The taste is generally stronger and more intense.
Are coffee subscriptions cheaper?
Yes, you can receive money off your first coffee subscription order. Frequent drinkers can save on postage costs by subscribing to a monthly delivery of £30 or more.
What does freshly roasted coffee mean?
Fresh-roast coffee means that your beans were roasted within weeks of the purchase date. Supermarket coffee is typically several months old and isn't considered fresh-roast.
Black Mountain Roast coffee beans are roasted to order in small batches, meaning the coffee you get will have been roasted just a few days before it arrives. Buy fresh coffee beans and ground here.
What is a Breakfast Blend in coffee?
The breakfast blend from our Welsh coffee roasters is made from carefully selected speciality coffee beans to create a balanced, smooth, rich, nutty coffee flavour perfect for starting the day. Black Mountain Roast Breakfast Blend is multi award winning coffee, having been awarded Gold in the UK Food and Drink Awards at Farm Shop and Deli 2025 and two stars in the 2025 Great Taste awards.
How do you source your specialty coffee beans?
Our founders lived in the coffee growing regions of Africa for many years, visiting coffee farms and stations and building long-standing partnerships and local understanding. One of our owners is from the Neiva, Huila in Colombia, and we regularly visit our growing partners to ensure we have the best beans and environmental and sustainable coffee growing and processing practices.
We believe that high quality specialty coffee and responsible social and environmental stewardship go hand in hand. We never import coffee beans by air and use carbon offsetting to reduce the impact of unavoidable transportation.
Do you grind coffee for specific brewing methods for the perfect cup of specialty coffee at home?
Yes, our coffee can be ordered as whole beans or ground for your specific brewing method. Once you have selected your chosen beans, you can then select the grind setting you would like: coarse for Cafetiere, medium for Pour Over and Filter, medium fine for Moka Pot and AeroPress or fine for Espresso.
Our coffee roasting and grinding are always done to order, and our packaging is designed to keep the coffee fresh and at its best for as long as possible.
Are your freshly roasted coffee beans suitable for all types of coffee makers?
Yes, our freshly roasted coffee beans can be ground to suit any type of coffee maker, from espresso machines to drip coffee makers and everything in between.
We recommend that you consider buying whole beans and grinding at home, as this ensures that you get the freshest coffee possible. If you need advice on the best grind size for your brewing method, please see the details above on Grind for specific brewing methods or get in contact if you have any specific questions before you buy fresh coffee beans.
Can I visit your roastery to learn more about specialty coffee?
We do open our roastery for tours and tastings, coffee roasting workshops and barista training, but being a small business, it’s always best to pre-book in advance. You can find out more details about visiting us, a tour and tasting, coffee roasting or barista training via our website.
We are located in a stone barn at Bridge Farm, with Black Mountain Distillery, The Bridge Inn Pub and Bridge Farmhouse self-catering accommodation all within walking distance. We also offer gift vouchers that can be purchased as the perfect gift.
Why are you called Black Mountain Roast Coffee?
As Welsh coffee roasters, we are located on the edge of the Black Mountains on the border between Powys, Herefordshire and Monmouth. The Black Mountains are a beautiful location to visit, live and work, forming the easternmost part of Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park. Our nearest towns are Hay-on-Wye, Abergavenny, Crickhowell, Talgarth, with the cathedral City of Hereford about 30 minutes by car. The area is known for its quiet, rural character, featuring farming and open access land.
How are your beans ethical?
We are committed to ethically sourcing our green coffee beans. We believe in supporting a sustainable coffee industry that benefits everyone involved - from the farmers to you, the customer. Here’s how we ensure our beans are ethical:
Aiming to build transparent, sustainable supply chains that foster socioeconomic change, environmental stewardship, and direct relationships between us and the coffee farmers at source. We focus on empowering smallholder farmers, promoting quality to increase household income, and implementing, for example, mental health initiatives for women in Colombia.
We also deliberately choose to source coffees from regions that have been, or continue to be, affected by conflict, terrorism and criminality such as the illicit crop trade. This can lead to local economic distortions and legal crop substitutions, and coffee producers often struggle to survive in the legal industry. By partnering with these producer groups, our green coffee importers provide the technical support needed to allow farmers to increase the quality, volume, and value of their crops through skill development and improved supply chain access, ultimately providing a valuable and reliable source of non-illicit income.
Environmental Impact: Recognising the impact of coffee production on the environment, we take steps to minimize our carbon footprint. This includes using eco-friendly packaging, optimising our roasting processes to reduce energy consumption and encouraging recycling and composting. Providing training to farmers on best practices for sustainable farming. This includes methods that protect the environment, conserve water and reduce chemical use, ensuring the health of the land for future generations.
Zero Waste Initiative: By offering our trade customers delivery in returnable packaging, we have been able to eliminate coffee packing waste. For many years, we have working with partners such as ‘Natural Weigh’ in Crickhowell to send weekly coffee bean deliveries in returnable packaging, hence with zero waste.