As a busy summer of beautiful small weddings draws to an end, we look towards the cosy months, when weddings at Treseren are lit up by autumn colours and candles. We look forward to lighting the fire and cooking hearty meals for lovely guests, and one day recently really felt like a shift towards autumnal times. A real group effort, we harvested apples from the orchard for a very exciting project I have been working on… Treseren apple juice!
Donning waterproofs to dodge the drizzle, we certainly noticed that autumnal cosiness creeping in. The rain didn’t dampen spirits and we were all still keen to get involved with collecting the apples as they fell from the trees, of course tasting a few along the way. Paul and Georgia made a great duo, with Paul shaking the tree with his very technical branch prodder pole and Georgia pointing out the juiciest ones, right at the top… One huge, bright red apple, was quite the prize, and perhaps too perfect to press. W
Treseren’s historic orchard
Our orchard of a few delicious, Cornish apple varieties is nestled at the bottom of our gardens at Treseren, just beyond the walnut tree, which dates back to when mining Captain Middleton resided at Treseren. The apple trees date back 40 to 50 years, and Emma and Paul’s family now make the most of the autumnal crop, an all time favourite of course being apple crumble. This warming, nostalgic pud is a staple of our autumn welcome meal menu, the transition to which we have welcomed just this week. Even so, the glut of apples at the end of summer always somewhat overwhelms us. Charlie is very relieved this year that we have embarked on our apple juice project, which saves her from drowning in apples to peel and chop!
On the breakfast table
We are over the moon to have our first bottles of our very own Treseren apple juice, to be enjoyed by all during breakfasts. It is 100% pure apple juice with a lovely flavour, a perfect balance of tart and sweet we think. You can really taste the different varieties in the mix, from Bramleys to cookers. Every wedding stay at Treseren lasts for two or three nights, and each morning we serve a relaxed and luxurious, long breakfast. Which means at least two chances to enjoy apple juice from our orchard, alongside granola from our oven and jams from the garden at Gary’s: Emma’s dad. Making up our home cooked brekkie menu, we celebrate Cornish produce from some fantastic suppliers, who you can read all about here. From the family butchers just in the village whose crispy back bacon pairs perfectly with free range eggs, to Quay Coffee brews, also just down the road from Treseren.
Pressed and pasteurised
During a hunt for the best apple pressers in Cornwall, who could also pasteurise the juice to keep it fresh for a while to come, Emma came across Pete’s Apple Pressing. At Pete’s traditional Cornish apple press, they use methods passed down for generations, producing top quality fresh juice from your apples. Pete presses apples from trees all over the Southwest. On a bright morning in early September, Emma took a drive up the A30 towards Looe, finding Pete’s farm at the end of wiggly, rural roads. Pete’s tranquil spot in Millbrook had a gorgeous view towards Devon, in contrast to our setting near Cornwall’s North coast.
A sustainable journey
Emma drove her electric Mini and we opted to use Pete’s bottles which we can clean and bring back next September. No more plastic bottles, we can directly recycle these glass bottles in a closed loop system. We are so pleased to minimise the impact of our Treseren apple juice project on the environment. A big focus of our sustainability journey is on the fantastic food and drink we put on the table, which offers the opportunity to cut food miles, carbon emissions, energy use as well as plastics and food waste. We really are proud to add our juice to a breakfast table of wholly local produce, the journey of each ingredient we have thought through before choosing. Made by saving apples in the garden from going to waste, the journey from tree to bottle is as sustainable as can be.
Emma and Max dropped off the five crates of apples we picked: the first of autumn! And we are thrilled to have had back the first bottles of our very own Treseren apple juice. A lush (and sometimes sunny!) summer rewarded us with 120 bottles of juice. We have harvested two batches of apples across September when the apples on different trees were at their ripest. I designed some bottle labels, incorporating our Treseren grey with a gorgeous apple tree drawing, and had these printed. The label on the back of each bottle has some tips for storing and enjoying the juice at its best, which is free It’s such a joy to see the product of this very fun project take pride of place at the breakfast table. We are already getting ideas for other ways to use our apples and juice… and an autumnal cocktail or too.
Wedding breakfasts to come
There are still plenty of windfalls for the mice, and apples to make crumbles to keep us going through winter. However, we are so excited that lovely couples and their guests can now enjoy juice that comes just from the bottom of our garden. A real taste of Cornwall to sweeten your wedding morning. At Treseren, good food is at the heart of our magical small weddings, from the day you arrive when we treat you to our welcome meal. Endeavouring to make everything afresh, from our cocktails syrups in Lovedays bar, to the roasted rosemary nuts we serve as nibbles, it only feels right to serve our own Treseren apple juice throughout your magical stay. With our next harvest of apples in Pete’s hands now, we hope this autumn’s juice will last us until next year. How special that this crop will feature during wedding stays throughout winter, spring and summer, as we look ahead to another year of magical small weddings.
