Coaltown CoffeeRoasters

Coaltown is named for what Ammanford used to be — an anthracite mining town in the Amman valley, thriving and full of itself until the pits closed. Scott James, whose great-grandfather was a miner, started the roastery in 2013 with his father Gordon, partly as a coffee business and partly as an argument that a post-industrial Welsh town could grow something new worth having. It worked. Coaltown roasts serious speciality coffee, became the first speciality roaster in the UK to certify as a B Corp, and runs a roastery and canteen on Foundry Road where you can drink the results and watch the beans go through the machine. The mining imagery — the black gold, the community — could be laid on thick, but the coffee is good enough to carry it, and the point underneath is sincere: bring skilled work back to a town that lost it. A genuinely good roaster, and a small act of faith in Ammanford.