Heart and Graft Coffee: Giving It Beans
In the first of our new 'Pioneers' series – championing the doers, thinkers and makers behind the Northwest's food and drink scene – we meet James Guard and Sean Fowler, the roasting duo behind Heart and Graft.
Today, coffee is no longer ‘a means to an end’ but rather an all-encompassing part of a city’s day-to-day running. While many save reverence for baristas and the winsome way in which they serve it, it’s important to remember that it’s roasters that founded and continue to drive the Northwest's bustling coffee culture.
James Guard and Sean Fowler, despite their age difference, dovetailed neatly from their respective roles to form the coffee-roasting duo that is Manchester's Heart and Graft. Guard’s first job was working in a high-street cafe in the mid-90s, back when it was 'let’s go somewhere like Friends and drink coffee on a big sofa.' Having worked in hospitality for some years with the likes of Selfridges, his lightbulb moment came when sampling Monmouth Coffee at Borough Market, which in turn led to the creation in 2012 of Coffee Circle, a humble setup comprising himself, small quantities of great coffee and a roaster in his garage.
Heart and Graft Coffee's guide to making great coffee at home
Elsewhere, Fowler was immersing himself in the technical aspects of the industry. “I started out at Lincoln and York five years ago, tasting low-grade arabicas/robustas and buying for big commercial operations – I designed a blend for Pret that they still use today,” Fowler says. “I trained there for 18 months to do the Q examination, and coincidentally I met James on my third day at Lincoln and York.” It was a work trip to the Nordic Barista Championships where he first tried an Ethiopian natural that he credits as his ‘wow’ moment. Once irreversibly enlightened by how good coffee could be, Fowler left his commercial role to pursue his love of speciality coffee in Manchester, and upon reconvening with Guard, they set out to become “Manchester’s local coffee roaster.”
The Manchester coffee scene
The two had been inspired by London’s coffee explosion, but Guard points out that they had to recalibrate for Manchester’s relatively undeveloped scene, which at the time only had the likes of North Tea Power and Coffee Fix pushing boundaries. “It was hard to ignore the Shoreditch trends with bright, fruit-driven espressos, but I had to build a business and Manchester just wasn't in that space.
"A lovely sweet, caramel-type espresso was an easier transition from a commercial blend for most people – basically something similar to what they were used to, but nicer; that was the idea behind Barnraiser [an espresso blend Guard initially developed for Coffee Circle]. After that I could say: now that you trust me, try something more bonkers and fruity.”
”The progression in the industry has gone through the roof,” Fowler explains. “When I started it was almost like an arms race as to who could make the most undeveloped, sour coffee, but now it's about the roast development and how to get that velvety, warm, heavy coffeeness. Coffeeness isn’t a word, but you know what I mean,” he laughs. “That’s the new strap line. Heart and Graft: Coffeeness.”
Buying the right coffee
Buying and sourcing beans is incredibly important, but Guard believes that simply following trends won’t necessarily give you a decent coffee. “The Ethiopian Yirgacheffe is one of the cool coffees to have at the moment and I had thought ‘I’m not doing it, I’m not following the crowd,’ but when we tried some Ethiopian naturals at an importers they were just heartbreakingly good and you couldn't not buy them. It’s a tricky roast to nail, that’s where there's that element of how long you rest it for, how you roast it and at what temperature; that’s still a dark art.”
Having made connections through Guard’s Coffee Circle days, Heart and Graft still had to develop a community that embraced such a niche business. “Roasters have a role to play in developing a coffee culture in a town or city; the vast majority of businesses need to work on the 95% of people using crap, passionless, tasteless coffee. For us it was a breakthrough to get in places like Gorilla, Trof and Black Dog Ballroom because they’re people who don't have coffee as their main business but they’re taking it more seriously and that’s the area to grow into.”
“But bad coffee will never go away,” Fowler adds. “It’s the same with beer; some people will still want crap beer for a quid. But there’s a real pride in Manchester about people who live and work locally, building things from the ground up.”
Despite the UK’s tendency to swing from boom to bust, the resurgence of independent businesses in Manchester has ensured that local roasters can exist amicably and come together to make events like coffee festival Cup North a success. “You just have to be a good, local roaster who’s available," Guard concludes. "You have to keep showing people that you’re there if they’re willing to try better coffee.”