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)

London Coffee Festival 2016: Coffee Experiences

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Square Mile's The Canteen from the 2016 London Coffee FestivalWelcome back to my write-ups of this year’s London Coffee Festival. After a couple of weeks off, while I went to the Caffè Culture Show and unexpectedly discovered some specialty coffee shops in Porto, we’re back at the London Coffee Festival with my series looking at the specific aspects of the festival. In previous weeks I’ve written about automatic filter machines, cups and various bits of kit, while there’s also my round-up, which provides an overview of the whole festival. I’ll round things off next week with a look at the coffee itself.

This week it’s the turn of what I call my “coffee experiences”, which proved to be a highlight of last year’s festival, particularly the La Cimbali Sensory Sessions. By coffee experiences, I mean the things that go around the coffee itself. For example, coffee cuppings, roasting demos, coffee/food pairings and latte art lessons, all of which I managed to miss this year!

Instead I went to a couple of fascinating events organised by Square Mile and Union Hand-roasted. Square Mile’s offering, The Canteen, was an exploration of taste through various food-stuffs made from coffee or coffee waste products, while Union offered a variation on the traditional cupping.

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Panna

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A flat white from Panna, Liverpool, in an interestingly-shaped cup and saucer.Panna, located in Liverpool’s business district, just north of the centre, is tucked away in the basement of Silkhouse Court on Tythebarn Street. In a city full of lovely, old Victorian buildings (such as the nearby old Exchange Station), this is a disappointing slice of modern, stark, concrete functionality. The setting notwithstanding, Panna’s a lovely spot and, for somewhere that’s effectively a basement and entirely below street level, it’s surprisingly bright.

Panna opened in 2013, offering baguettes and coffee. However, the offering’s steadily expanded as demand has grown. These days there’s an interesting and innovative breakfast menu (to 11.30) and an equally interesting and innovative all-day brunch/lunch menu, with all the food prepared in the small kitchen behind the counter. Sandwiches are still available, as is a range of cakes and cookies.

The coffee side of Panna has also grown, with Has Bean providing the espresso blend and, since last summer, local roasters Neighbourhood Coffee offering a selection of single-origin filters through the V60. These were introduced to give customers something different from the typical Americanos, Panna being rewarded with a slow migration to pour-over. There’s also an interesting range of alcohol-based coffees and loose-leaf tea, served in individual infusers.

August 2019: Panna has now closed its doors at Silkhouse Court following the sale of the building and relocated to Chester, where you can find it on Watergate Street.

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Hatch Coffee

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The word "Hatch", written in cursive script in white on black, over the word "COFFEE", separated by a horiztonal white line.Hatch Coffee is the latest addition to Newcastle Upon Tyne’s steadily-growing speciality coffee scene and had been open all of ten days when I visited one sunny Monday afternoon. Situated in an old hut which used to belong to the car park attendant at the top of Ellison Place (the car park’s still going strong, but is now pay-and-display, so the attendant and accompanying hut are surplus to requirements).

Given its size, Hatch’s set-up is truly impressive. With less space than you’ll find behind the typical coffee-shop counter, the owner and head (sole for now) barista, Mark, has installed a fully-functioning speciality coffee shop. The espresso’s from local roasters, Colour Coffee, plus decaf from Bath’s Round Hill Roastery on a second grinder. There’s tea from Canton Tea Co, hot chocolate from Kokoa Collection and a range of soft drinks, plus locally-baked cakes and other goodies. All that’s missing is pour-over!

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Five Points Coffee Roasters, Division

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Five Points prepares two Chemex at a time rather than using a bulk-brewer. The coffee is either served immediately or kept warm in flasks.I had two full days in Portland on last year’s coast-to-coast trip; naturally, I spent them visiting coffee shops. The first was Five Points Coffee Roasters on Division Street, in suburban eastern Portland. It was a pleasant stroll from my motel, down leafy, residential streets, so I headed over for breakfast.

First, let’s clear up the issue around the name. Five Points started off life as Coffee Division six years ago, when it was acquired by the current owner, Chris. Initially Coffee Division used Stumptown, but four years ago, Chris started roasting on nearby Powell and 21st, using the name Five Points Coffee Roasters. By the time I arrived almost exactly a year ago, Five Points was in the middle of moving to have both coffee shop and roaster under the single brand

Five Points offers its house-blend on espresso, plus decaf, although by the time you read this, there should also be a single-origin on the third grinder. However, where Five Points really scores is on its filter coffee. There are four single-origins available as an individual hand-pour Chemex and, eschewing the normal batch-brew, Five Points makes up two Chemex at a time using its filter of the day.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Porto

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A view of Porto from across the Douro, with the Ribeira in the foreground at the river's edge and the Torre dos Clérigos at the top of the hill.Today’s Travel Spot is something of a surprise feature, certainly to me. I went to Porto last weekend with my friends Dave, Ian and Lev (I like friends with short, concise names: makes life so much easier). It was basically a weekend away with a chance to catch up and buy some port. They were flying back on Monday, but I’d decided to tack on a couple of days in Lisbon at the end, partly because I’d not been there for over 10 years, and partly to check out a couple of speciality coffee shops I’d heard about.

However, when it came to Porto, I really wasn’t expecting to find much in the way of good coffee. I had fond memories from previous trips of stylish European cafés with lots of excellent cakes, but when I asked around before the trip, my Porto friends said there wasn’t anything that I would recognise as speciality coffee. Not to worry, I thought, as I packed my beans, cafetiere, grinder, Aeropress and scales. After all, coffee wasn’t the primary purpose of the trip.

As it turned out, I was in for a surprise. Porto does, after all, have speciality coffee…

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Jaunty Goat, Bridge Street

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The Jaunty Goat logo, painted on the wall to the left as you enter the store in Chester.Jaunty Goat is one of Chester‘s speciality coffee stalwarts, having relocated from a few doors along Bridge Street to its current location in 2015. I first visited in 2016, back when it really only had The Barista’s for company. Since then there’s been an explosion of speciality coffee in Chester, particularly in the centre, along Bridge and Watergate Streets. Jaunty Goat was set up by twins, Patrick and Ed, with Ed leaving in 2018 to help fuel that explosion, setting up Chalk Coffee on Watergate Street.

Jaunty Goat occupies a lovely, basement-like interior that extends from the window-bars at the front a long way back under the Rows. There are even the remnants of a stone staircase in the wall at the back that might date back to the middle-ages. These days it serves a vegetarian and vegan-friendly brunch menu until 4 o’clock (there’s also a second, plant-based Jaunty Goat on Northgate Street), backed up by a large selection of cakes. When it comes to coffee, this is all roasted in a new, dedicated, off-site roastery, with seasonal single-origin offerings on espresso (house, guest and decaf), plus another on pour-over (AeroPress/V60/Chemex). Naturally, all the coffee is available in retail bags.

July 2020: Jaunty Goat is back after the enforced COVID-19 closures. You can see what I made of it when I visited in September and October.

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Upstairs Coffee

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An old-fashioned, heraldic shield, in white, with a black diagonal line running through it, bottom left to top right, with a handle added on the left to turn it into a coffee cupThe latest addition to Birmingham’s growing speciality coffee scene opened in April, excellent timing considering that I was passing through at the start of May. A few weeks later, there I was on Water Street, home to Upstairs Coffee, where I had my first (temporary) disappointment: it’s on the ground floor! However, my profound disappointment was short-lived as I discovered that it was indeed correctly named, being upstairs from a (soon-to-be-opened) basement cocktail bar.

That little misunderstanding successfully resolved, I quickly fell in love with Upstairs Coffee. It’s a tiny, corridor-shaped space, about as wide as London’s Goodge St Espresso, but not quite as long, making it one of the smallest places I’ve been. Lovingly decked out in reclaimed materials, it’s also one of the best looking! The counter’s at the back and there’s space for a couple of seats at a bar on the left, but other than the bench outside, that’s it as far as seating goes.

The coffee is from Oxfordshire’s Ue Coffee Roasters, plus there’s loose-leaf tea and croissants/brownies from the local Peel & Stone Bakery, but that’s it. A word of warning: Upstairs Coffee only has takeaway cups, so don’t forget to bring your own!

February 2018: Upstairs Coffee closed in 2017, but the site has been taken over by SHOTS Espresso Bar, an off-shoot of the nearby Saint Kitchen.

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Case Study Coffee Roasters, Downtown

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The words Case Study Coffee in gold on black written in an oval around a line-drawing of a coffee bean.Case Study Coffee Roasters is the first coffee shop I visited in Portland. Located in the heart of downtown, on the intersection of SW 10th Avenue/Yamhill Street, it is one three branches of this local chain, which roasts all its own coffee in a separate roastery.

The downtown branch is glorious. Rectangular in shape, there’s an amazing, copper-topped island counter and floor-to-ceiling windows on both sides, the natural light supplemented by multiple, interesting light-fittings for the odd gloomy day. The seating follows the windows, with the trees lining the streets providing plenty of shade, plus you can sit at the counter, or right at the back whether there are four more tables. The right-hand wall is taken up by a large set of retail shelves.

The focus, of course, is firmly on the coffee, all roasted in-house. There is a choice of the house-blend on espresso, joined by a single-origin and decaf. For filter, there’s the obligatory bulk brew, plus a choice of four single-origins through the Kalita Wave filter, which you can watch being made. Finally, Case Study has cold brew, made on the counter using some impressive kit that could have come straight out of a chemistry lab.

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Caffè Culture Awards 2016

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The Caffe Culture Show logo from this yearOn Tuesday (10th May) I made my annual pilgrimage to London’s Olympia for the Caffè Culture show the four year running that I’ve been to Caffè Culture and the second time that I’d been asked to judge the Caffè Culture Exhibitor Best Drink Award.  Prior to the show, this involved me whittling a list of 13 entries down to a shortlist of five. Then, on the first day of the show, I visited the stands of the five shortlisted exhibitors to try each of the drinks before selecting the winner. Just as I did last year, I had a fantastic time at meeting all the exhibitors, discovering the stories behind their products and trying the drinks themselves. Then, of course, came the tricky part: deciding on the actual winner.

I also had a chance to have a quick look around the show, which was an opportunity to catch up with some of the roasters I’d missed at this year’s London Coffee Festival, plus to catch up with a few that I’d not come across before. These feature in their very own Caffè Culture Meet the Roasters instalment of the Saturday Supplement. For now, however, let’s get back to the Awards.

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Surrey Hills Coffee

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The Surrey Hills Coffee logo from the back wall of the coffee shop on Chapel Street, Guildford.Guildford has long been crying out for an independent, speciality coffee shop and finally, one has arrived! Surrey Hills Coffee, which has been roasting its own range of espresso & filter blends, plus a growing selection of single-origin coffees in the North Downs, has now opened its own coffee shop, taking over the lease on what was the Turn Fit Deli on Chapel Street.

It’s not a huge space, just a couple of tables, a window-bar and another bar at the back, but it’s bright and welcoming. The main draw is the coffee, although there is tea, soft drinks, plus a range of locally-baked cakes and made-to-order sandwiches, with ingredients from a range of local suppliers.

For somewhere so small, the range of coffee on offer is impressive: there are no fewer than three espresso blends, although if you don’t ask, you’ll get the default, the Holmbury Hill blend, which (in my opinion) is the best of the bunch. If you’re in a hurry, there’s the Cottage filter blend, available from a flask on the counter and made in small batches using the Moccamaster. Finally, if you don’t mind waiting, you can have a single-origin filter hand-made through the Chemex.

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