Shrewsbury-based speciality coffee roaster Iron & Fire is celebrating after an unprecedented seven of its coffee blends were awarded star status at one of the world’s most coveted food awards.
The Great Taste Awards are widely recognised as a stamp of excellence in the food and drink market and all products submitted for judging are blind tasted by a panel of experts. Iron & Fire’s coffees have previously received awards in 2017, 2019 and 2021, but at the latest round of judging, seven of its coffees were recognised for their outstanding taste.
Iron & Fire’s ‘Severn Blend’ is a South American coffee and offers a full bodied and smooth coffee drink with rich chocolatey, nutty flavours. The judges, when awarding it two stars, commented on its consistent, even roast and hazelnut tones. The other Iron & Fire blends recognised were: Colombian Jazz, Iron & Fire’s flagship coffee used by the best coffee houses and restaurants the length and breadth of the country; On the Rocks, a whiskey barrel aged coffee; Tutti Frutti; Choc a Bloc; Zewdu; and Mombassa Twilight.
Speaking of the awards, Iron & Fire’s founder Kev Burrows said:
“It’s great to be recognised for what we do. Our goal is to produce great coffee that both consumers and coffee shop owners love, but it’s always reassuring to gain additional validation from those who judge our coffees purely on their taste. The awarded coffees cover a huge spectrum of tastes and we have spent a lot of time carefully crafting roast profiles for all these coffees, so it’s nice to know the effort is appreciated.
“We’ve built a great team of people who are passionate about coffee, invested heavily in state-of-the-art equipment, and spent countless hours on our own research to perfect the coffees we produce and receiving these awards makes that all worth it.”
Not resting on their laurels, the team at Iron & Fire have also been announced as a finalist in the Great British Food Awards with two blends shortlisted in the coffee category. Kev concludes:
“2022 has been a hugely successful year for us as a team and to be recognised by the great and the good within speciality food and drink is hugely humbling.
“We don’t take success for granted, but we do put huge amounts of passion and hard work into all that we do, so when we’re recognised on a national stage with these awards it makes all that hard work worth it. We find out how we’ve fared at the Great British Food Awards at the end of October.”