Businesses from across south east Wales came together at the first Newport Coffee Festival as baristas made their flat whites, lattes and cappuccinos using milk from Monmouthshire.

The coffee festival was held at Newport Indoor Market and was organised by the city’s Horton’s Coffee House.

Rogue Fox, another coffee house in the city centre, was there to show off its coffee and roasters including Clifton Coffee, Welsh Coffee, Manumit and Uncommon Ground were also at the event.

Food producers from across the region also had stalls at the festival, which attracted hundreds of people to the gallery space at the market. They included Abergavenny’s Angel Bakery, Newport’s Carrot Top bakery and Ebbw Vale’s Clams Handmade Cakes.

Privately-owned Mead Farm Foods, which has its dairy at Redwick, near Magor, provided all the milk for the festival free of charge.

The dairy is run by husband and wife dairy farmers Lawrence and Izabela Hembrow. It provided some 600 litres of fresh milk straight from the 190-acre farm.

Izabela said: “The festival was great fun and useful for Mead Farm Foods as an independent business to get to know cafe owners, coffee roasters and baristas and customers.

“It was very well attended throughout the day. It’s certainly something we’ll be looking to build on going forward.”

Izabela said Mead Farm Foods provided the equivalent of 20 cows worth of free milk to the festival for baristas to use as they please during the day.

“Milk is one of three main ingredients in white coffees apart from water and good coffee beans but it’s forgotten sometimes. The ‘fair trade coffee beans’ term is used a lot as a marketing point in coffee industry but not necessarily ‘fair trade milk’.

Festival organiser Gavin Horton, owner of Horton’s Coffee House, at Millennium Walk, Newport, compered the event and was in charge for the fiercely contested flat white time challenge.

Gavin said: “Newport has become a hub for independent coffee shop with each one offering something different, from specialty coffee to home roasted beans in store."

The festival sponsors included: Mead Farm Foods, Global Brands, Project Waterfall, Experience Bar, Hortons Coffee House, Clifton Coffee, Newport Now and Best Water Technology.

All proceeds from the festival will be going to Project Waterfall which supplies clean water to coffee growing communities.