First up today, the 2013 Coffee Spot Award shortlist for “Best Coffee Bean Retailer”. Although the Coffee Spot is mostly about places to have coffee, I drink the majority of my coffee at home, so those wonderful people who provide me with my coffee beans need a mention. The problem is, I’m very loyal when it comes to my coffee beans, so I have a tendency to stick with the tried and trusted few, which is in complete contrast to my café visiting habits. I used to be loyal there too, but since starting the Coffee Spot I hardly ever go back to places, even if I love them!

Anyway, since I’m still getting most of my beans from the same two places I got them last year, I’m going to cheat just this once and put them on the shortlist as well!

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Another new award this year, the 2013 Coffee Spot Award for “Best Takeaway Coffee” recognises those places which, braving the elements, still produce an excellent cup of coffee. This includes coffee carts, coffee stalls and those Coffee Spots which are so small that they only serve takeaway coffee. It doesn’t include those Coffee Spots which offer takeaway coffee along with the regular sit-in option.

In fairness, I don’t feature a lot of takeaway places on the Coffee Spot, partly because, for me, a lot of what makes a good Coffee Spot is the atmosphere. This can be hard to achieve at a stall when you’re serving your coffee in a paper cup (another bugbear of mine; if I know I’m going to be visiting a takeaway place, I try to take my own cup with me!). However, there are plenty of great places out there, serving excellent coffee, so one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to try to cover more takeaway Coffee Spots in 2014.

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Following on from the Best Espresso Award, the next shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Filter” Award, new this year. A major revelation since starting the Coffee Spot is that filter coffee isn’t that over-brewed, stewed muck that bad coffee chains serve out of urns. It’s actually an amazing, delicate drink that has opened my eyes to a whole new world of coffee.

This award celebrates those Coffee Spots which helped me on my journey of discovery. To give you an idea of how far I have come since starting the Coffee Spot, I initially owned a cafetiere and an espresso machine and either drank my coffee at home with milk (cafetiere) or as espresso. Now I have two pour-over filters and an Aeropress, all of which I use on a regular basis, and a grinder dedicated to grinding for filter coffee. I always drink my filter coffee black and increasingly think that if I have to put milk in my coffee to make it drinkable, I’m drinking the wrong coffee!

The next shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Espresso” Award which was won in 2012 by Soho’s Bar Italia. When it comes down to it, I tend to judge a Coffee Spot by the quality of its espresso. Of course, this is entirely subjective and down to taste. I would never knock a place that made a good espresso just because it wasn’t to my taste.

This award is for those Coffee Spots which served me the best and most memorable espressos of 2013 and there were certainly some surprises in there. I started the Coffee Spot as a confirmed Italian espresso drinker. While I still like something full-bodied and robust, my palette has definitely evolved and I even found myself liking Has Bean espressos (for those not in the know, Has Bean is a UK roaster which made its name with light, fruity blends: exactly the sort of thing I really didn’t like but now find myself warming to!).

Three of the six Coffee Spots on this year’s shortlist got there by serving me Has Bean espressos!

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The next shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Overseas Coffee Spot” Award. The Coffee Spot spread its wings in 2013 and ventured outside of mainland Britain for the first time. There were trips to North America (Boston, New York City and Montréal) and Paris and great Coffee Spots were found along the way.

Now, I should say that “Best Overseas Coffee Spot” is perhaps a slight misnomer since I have deliberately only included Coffee Spots which weren’t included in shortlists elsewhere. This is perhaps a little arbitrary, but it allows me to spread the love more widely, which, after all, is the whole point of these Awards (and of the Coffee Spot itself).

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The next shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Coffee Spot near a Railway Station” Award. This Award is new for 2013 and rewards those Coffee Spots serving great coffee to desperate travellers on Britain’s rail network.

When you’re desperate for good coffee, railway stations are rarely the best places to be. But what if there was a great Coffee Spot just outside the station or a few minutes’ walk away and you didn’t know about it? Then this award is for you…

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The last shortlist for today for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Coffee Spot Most Resembling a Coffee Shop” Award. This Award was won in 2012 by Plymouth’s Coffee Bean Central and celebrates those archetypal Coffee Spots that look just how they should look…

Of course, coffee shops come in all shapes and sizes, and there’s more than one archetype, so this award reflects the wide range of coffee shops and all the different styles they represent, with entries from around the UK (Exeter, Coventry, Brighton and London).

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The third shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Neighbourhood Coffee Spot” Award. The Award is new for 2013 and celebrates those Coffee Spots which are firmly rooted in, and which serve, their local communities. Unsurprisingly, the shortlist contains some of my favourite Coffee Spots of 2013.

This Award has quite a wide spread, with Coffee Spots from Boston, New York City, Montréal, Newcastle, Gateshead, Gatley (Manchester), London and just down the road from me in Godalming.

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The second shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Most Unlikely Place to Find a Coffee Spot” Award. This was won in 2012 by Abriachan Campsite and Café. Finding Coffee Spots in cities such as London, Edinburgh and Bristol is to be expected. However, good Coffee Spots are everywhere, some of them are in very unexpected places, both geographically and in terms of setting.

This Award is very much defined by the nominees on the shortlist. Some of these are geographical, a reward for bringing great coffee to unexpected places. Others are a recognition of a great or unusual setting for a Coffee Spot.

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The first shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Where It All Began” Award. This was won in 2012 by Boston Tea Party (Park Street). This award recognises those special places which played a big part in my personal coffee journey, Coffee Spots which inspired me or in some other way defined my coffee experiences.

This might be the last year I run this award since I’ve now visited/written about most of the formative places from my past. I might run it again for 2014 if I make it to Rome! However, this year it’s an interesting collection, with the majority of the shortlist coming from my trip to the USA in March this year.

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