Author Archives: Brian Williams

About Brian Williams

Author of Brian's Coffee Spot, you can read all about me in the "About Me" section of the blog (www.brian-coffee-spot)

Root Coffee

Posted on by
2

The words "Root Coffee" written in an arch in black capitals on white, tiled wall. "EST / 20 / 15" is written in red in a box below.On December 19th, 2015, Liverpool got an early Christmas present in the shape of Root Coffee. In speciality coffee shop terms, Root is huge, with a generous outdoor seating area, and a spacious, uncluttered interior. The fun doesn’t stop there, with much of the furniture made by the owner, Dennis, using recycled pallets (for the bench seating and coffee tables) and naturally-weathered, reclaimed wood from the docks (wall cladding, counter and table-tops).

The coffee, however, is anything but recycled, and this includes the equipment, which features a state-of-the-art three-group Black Eagle espresso machine and a Mythos 1 grinder, while there’s an EK43 for filter and decaf. The coffee itself comes from a rotating cast of roasters, Dennis’ aim being to champion some of the less well-known roasters, raising their brand awareness in Liverpool.

While I was there, Root had gone all West Country, with Bristol’s Extract Coffee Roasters on espresso and Bath’s Round Hill Roastery on filter, with local roasters, Neighbourhood Coffee, providing the decaf. There’s a wide selection of loose-leaf teas, and, in a further West Country link, the cakes are from Bristol’s Cakesmiths. There’s also a toast-based menu (now upgraded to a full brunch menu) for those who want something a little more savoury.

July 2020: Root Coffee has reopened following the enforced closure due to COVID-19. The kitchen has also been upgraded since my initial visit. You can see what I made of it when I visited in early September.

Continue reading →

Prolog Coffee Bar

Posted on by
4

Detail taken from a bag of Prolog's Nano Chala beans from Ethiopia.Outside of the Lisbon branch of the Copenhagen Coffee Lab, my first ever visit to a Danish coffee shop (and indeed, to a Scandinavian one) was to Prolog Coffee Bar, Copenhagen’s newest speciality coffee shop, which opened just over three months ago. This was more convenience than anything else: I’d just arrived from Dublin and of all the places I’d been recommended, it was the closest (a 15-minute walk) to my hotel where I’d be staying for work for the rest of the week. However, with last Sunday afternoon free, I was determined to explore!

Prolog isn’t a huge place, occupying what was an old bookshop and retaining something of its character, as well as still selling magazines. The owners, Jonas and Sebastian, work at the shop and I met both of them. Jonas, who used to roast at Democratic Coffee, now does the roasting for Prolog, while Sebastian’s also learning the trade. At the moment, things are small-scale, with just an Ethiopian Nano Chala on espresso, joined on filter by a Kenyan, both through the V60. There’s also a range of iced-coffee, plus an innovative selection of food and food products. In that respect, Prolog’s no ordinary coffee shop!

Continue reading →

World of Coffee 2016: Round-up

Posted on by
11

A beautiful flat white, with latte art by Dhan Tamang, the reigning UK Latte Art Champion, made at the World of Coffee 2016 using the Conti Espresso 60th Anniversary espresso machine.This time last week, I was at the final day of three at the World of Coffee Event in Dublin. I’d never been to World of Coffee before, although I’d toyed with going in previous years.  In 2014 it was in Rimini and last year, Gothenburg was the host. In both cases, they fell in the middle of busy summers: last year, for example, I was in Portland on the final leg of my coast-to-coast trans-USA trip. This year, it at least fell on dates that I could attend.

With my new, flexible job (I don’t need to been in an office on a day-to-day basis) going was a distinct possibility, so I took the World of Coffee being (practically) on my doorstep as a sign. I booked my ticket, my Ryan Air flight, and an Airbnb (I managed to find one 10 minutes’ walk from the venue) and off I went.

Although I was there for all three days, for various reasons, including work commitments, and a desire to see something of Dublin’s coffee scene, I only managed three half-days at World of Coffee itself. However, that was enough to get a feel for what was going on.

Continue reading →

Copenhagen Coffee Lab, Lisbon

Posted on by
4

The bright, yellow front of the Copenhagen Coffee La, with a green awning shading the windows either side of the door.If you’re looking for a slice of traditional Lisbon café culture with a dose of third-wave coffee attached, Copenhagen Coffee Lab is probably not the place to come. Unlike Porto, where the speciality coffee scene seems to be largely home-grown, led by the likes of Mesa 325, this is a slice of Scandinavian coffee culture transported from Copenhagen to Lisbon. Even the cakes have a distinctly Scandi-feel to them, with not a single nata in sight, rather ruining my pet theory that Portuguese cafés were obliged to sell them by law…

Owned by a pair of Danish twins, the Copenhagen Coffee Lab imports all its coffee from the micro-roastery of the same name in Copenhagen. While it might not be home-grown, the coffee offering is certainly impressive. There’s a pair of single-origins on espresso, tailored to specific drinks, with three more on filter, through V60, Aeropress or cafetiere.

The coffee shop itself occupies a lovely, cool, low-ceilinged spot, ideal for Lisbon’s warm, southern climate. The atmosphere’s relaxed, with plenty of seating options, including in the windows flanking the door, ideal for people-watching. Finally, a small, windowless room right at the back lets you get away from it all if you want.

Continue reading →

Roasted Brown

Posted on by
7

Light bulbs, hanging in glass lampshades, above the counter at Roasted Brown, Dublin.Roasted Brown is a relatively established player in Dublin’s speciality coffee scene, roasting its own coffee and serving it from a bright, spacious spot on the first floor of the Filmbase building in the heart of Dublin. It’s fairly easy to find once you know it’s there, although, being on the first floor, there’s no street-level presence other than the name on the door.

The space itself is amazing, effectively a light well in the centre of the building, reaching all the way to the top of the third floor, where a glass ceiling thankfully keeps the rain off. There’s plenty of seating, although Roasted Brown has sensibly not tried to pack too much in, retaining the sense of space afforded by the high ceiling and aided by one of the walls being almost entirely glass!

Roasted Brown only roasts single-origins, with one option on espresso and three on filter. These are changed every week or so and are all available through the Kalita Wave filter. There are also cold coffee options. This backed up with an interesting selection of sandwiches and cakes, while if you fancy something else, there’s loose leaf tea or, for the sweet(ish) tooth, hot chocolate.

December 2016: Roasted Brown left the Filmbase Building to concentrate on roasting, where it’s still going strong (I briefly called into the roastery in Delgany on my return to Ireland in 2019). The cafe carried on, taken over by First Draft Coffee & Wine, which subsequently moved to Lennox Road in Portobello, south of the centre, when the Filmbase Building closed in 2018.

Continue reading →

Caffè Culture 2016: Meet the Roasters

Posted on by
3

The Caffe Culture Show logo from this yearIt’s very much the season for shows/festivals. April saw the London Coffee Festival, while I’m writing this during the World of Coffee in Dublin. However, today’s Saturday Supplement is all about last month’s Caffè Culture show. I’ve already covered the Caffè Culture Awards, where I was judging the Best Drink Award. However, in between my judging duties, I did have time for a (brief) look around the show.

Caffè Culture’s a different beast from the London Coffee Festival: for starters, it’s trade only, so tends to have a more relaxed atmosphere, particularly compared to the Saturday/Sunday at the Festival, where people are in and out within three hours. Of course, the exhibitors are also different, with an emphasis on the café trade as a whole, not just speciality coffee.

That said, Caffè Culture has made a definite effort in the last two years to embrace the speciality end of the market, providing a platform for small roasters to exhibit their wares. This, it turned out, was the ideal opportunity to catch up with some people I’d missed at the London Coffee Festival, as well as meeting a few that I’d not come across before. And, of course, there was cake.

Continue reading →

Mesa 325

Posted on by
5

Mesa 325, written in white stencil on the grey concrete wall of Mesa 325.I went to Porto last month in search of Port and in the expectation of the excellent company of my friends, Dave, Ian and Lev. I did not expect to find any speciality coffee, except that which I had brought with me. However, Porto, it turns out, has a lot more speciality coffee than I had bargained for, led by the very excellent Mesa 325. The scene is still very new, though, with Mesa, in many ways the trailblazer, only having been open for just over two years.

Mesa uses a local roaster, Vernazza, offering a fairly standard espresso menu, plus “slow coffee” (which, it turns out, is filter coffee, a single-origin through the Chemex). There’s also Vietnamese coffee (with condensed milk) and affogato (espresso over ice cream). However, this is Portugal, so there’s not just coffee: Mesa has a wide range of cakes/pastries (some Portuguese and some less so) and there’s locally-brewed craft beer, whiskey, port (obviously) and loose-leaf tea.

The setting’s a lovely, cool, stone-lined room, firmly placing Mesa in third-wave coffee territory, rather than Portuguese café territory. Long and thin, Mesa is surprisingly bright, with windows at the front, counter at the back and seating in between.

Continue reading →

Jake’s Coffee Box

Posted on by
9

Jake's Coffee Box, occupying the left-hand of the two red telephone boxes, with a table out front, acting as a counter. Jake himself stands in the door, waiting his next customer.Once upon a time, in the summer of last year, I read an interesting article in the Birmingham Mail about a coffee shop that had opened in a phone box. It was the end of July and, as luck would have it, I was passing through Birmingham that week, so I took a wander along Colmore Row, where I found said telephone box. But no coffee shop. Somewhat dispirited, I wandered off again and the whole coffee-shop-in-phone-box thing rather slipped my mind. Unknown to me, the article had jumped the gun and the coffee-shop-in-phone-box, Jake’s Coffee Box, actually opened the following week…

Fast-forward to this summer and I was once again wandering along Colmore Row, looking for another coffee shop that hadn’t actually opened yet (the Birmingham branch of 200 Degrees). Glancing down Eden Place, I suddenly remembered the phone box, so I wandered down to see what was there…

July 2017: Sadly Jake’s Coffee Box is no more. I believe that Jake has realised his long-term amibition to go travelling in Brazil and was unable to find anyone to take the Coffee Box on, but I’ve not been able to confirm that. Thanks to Nick for the initial heads-up about the Coffee Box closing.

Continue reading →

Coffee Under Pressure, St Mary’s Butts

Posted on by
9

A saucer, seen above, with the outline of a cup drawn on the base of the saucer. The words "Coffee Under Pressure" are written around the circumference of the outline. In the centre is a black circle with "C.U.P." written in white in the very centre.Reading’s Coffee Under Pressure is better known by the acronym, C.U.P. A recent addition to the local scene, it opened in August last year, tucked away in a lovely setting behind the Reading Minster. It’s a sun-drenched, south-facing place, with sheltered outdoor seating and a warm welcome inside, which flows from C.U.P.’s Greek owners, Maria & Nasos.

The coffee is from Winchester’s The Roasting Party. Unusually, there are two blends on espresso, plus decaf, as well as several single-origins available as individual filter coffees through the V60. As well as the usual offerings, there are some Greek specials, the Freddo Espresso & Freddo Cappuccino.

Not content with that, there’s also an impressive range of 16 different loose-leaf teas of various types, as befits C.U.P’s full name, Coffee Under Pressure, Speciality Coffee and Tea. All the tea is from Edinburgh’s Pekoe Tea and every bit as much care and attention goes into making it as goes into the coffee.

Finally, the small kitchen to the left of the counter turns out an impressive range food, mixing traditional(ish) British sandwiches, cookies and pastries with some interesting Greek dishes, such as the bougatsa, flaky pasties that can be either sweet or savoury.

Continue reading →

Flat Caps Coffee Kickstarter

Posted on by
5

An espresso in a classic white cup, plus a glass of water, on an oval wooden platter, separated by a tea spoon.I was in Newcastle a few weeks ago, visiting the likes of Hatch and Bunker, as well as catching up with some friends (such as Alison at BLK Coffee). Also on my list was Flat Caps Coffee, which I’d first visited over three years ago, immediately falling in love with it. My policy on the Coffee Spot is not to rank places or give them numerical ratings, but there’s no denying that Flat Caps is an all-time favourite, while I count its coffee as some of the best I’ve drunk (Flat Caps won the Coffee Spot’s Best Filter Coffee Award in 2013 and Best Espresso in 2015). However, I received a call from Joe Meagher, Flat Caps’ owner, who said he had a surprise for me, one that involved being somewhere (not the shop) at nine o’clock the following morning…

Those that know me will realise that 9 am rarely features in my vocabulary, much less in my consciousness. On the other hand, Joe’s as much a morning person as I am, so, reasoning it must be something special, I arranged for Joe to collect me at 8:40 the following day (a Monday morning!). This had better be good, Joe!

Continue reading →