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)

2015 Awards – Best Filter Coffee

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The Bean & Bud logo: a coffee bean flanked by two tea buds, with the motto "Bean & Bud Real Coffee & Fine Tea since 2010"We continue the second day with the next shortlist for the 2015 Coffee Spot Awards, the “Best Filter Coffee” Award, which was won last year by Bean & Bud. 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 continue to help 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 make the bulk of my coffee with my Aeropress and have a grinder dedicated to 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!

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2015 Awards – Coffee Spot with the Best Lighting

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An espresso, made by my Rancilio Silvia espresso machine, in a classic white cup and saucer from Acme & Co., New Zealand, distributed in the UK by Caravan Roastery.We kick off the second day with shortlist for the 2015 Coffee Spot Award for “Coffee Spot with the Best Lighting”. This is a new Award this year and follows on from the success of the Coffee Spot Lighting Calendar. It replaces the Coffee Spot Most Resembling a Coffee Shop Award.

Lighting in coffee shops has long held a fascination for me, with most of the galleries containing a shot or two of an interesting light-fitting. This Award celebrates those Coffee Spots with particularly outstanding lighting.

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2015 Awards – Best Neighbourhood Coffee Spot

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The Darkhorse Espresso sign, white writing on a red oval.The last of today’s 2015 Coffee Spot Awards shortlists is the “Best Neighbourhood Coffee Spot”. In 2014 this went to Darkhorse Espresso and it 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 the year.

This Award has quite a wide geographical spread, with Coffee Spots from as far afield as Seattle, Philadelphia, Dorset, Lymington, Swindon, Brighton, Sheffield, Newcastle, Esher and Notting Hill.

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2015 Awards – Coffee Spot with the Best Basement

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The cosy basement in Fleet Street Press, stretching out for the length of the shop above.Our third shortlist in the 2015 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Coffee Spot with the Best Basement” Award. As regular readers will know, I have a soft spot for Coffee Spots with good basements, so last year I introduced the “Best Basement” Award which was won by The Fleet Street Press.

To some, a basement is a dark, sometimes dingy, cramped space. However, when they are at their best, basements are cosy, welcoming spaces that provide the perfect spot to curl up with your coffee. This award celebrates those Coffee Spots with outstanding basements, the sort of places you want to go and spend all day in!

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2015 Awards – Best Takeaway Coffee

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An espresso being poured via a single-spout basket at Tamp Culture in ReadingOur second shortlist in the 2015 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Takeaway Coffee” Award, which was won last year by Tamp Culture. It recognises those places which, braving the elements, still produce an excellent cup of coffee. This includes coffee carts, coffee stalls, those Coffee Spots which are so small that they only serve takeaway coffee and those Coffee Spots where I regularly get my takeaway coffee (even if they offer a 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; so these days I always take my own cup with me!). This year, I spent a large amount of my time commuting up to London for work, so this list is overly dominated by places at London stations and around my office in Paddington.

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2015 Awards – Most Unlikely Place to Find a Coffee Spot

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Kaffeine's A-board at Lord's, with apologies to 10CCThe first shortlist for the 2015 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Most Unlikely Place to Find a Coffee Spot” Award, won in 2014 by Kaffeine at Lord’s. Finding Coffee Spots in cities such as New York, Edinburgh or Manchester 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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Coffee Spot Awards 2015

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An espresso, made by my Rancilio Silvia espresso machine, in a classic white cup and saucer from Acme & Co., New Zealand, distributed in the UK by Caravan Roastery.Merry Christmas to all my readers old and new! I hope you’re having a great Christmas. As the year comes to an end, it’s Awards time again. I can’t believe that these are the FOURTH Coffee Spot Awards. How did that happen? It only seems like yesterday that my friend Andrew Rilstone was suggesting the first Coffee Spot Awards. I’ve come a long way since then and 2015’s been a packed year, with more Coffee Spots than ever visited and written about.

With that in mind, it’s time to reflect on 2015 with the fourth Annual Brian’s Coffee Spot Awards. Once again there are 20 Awards, the shortlists for each being publishing between now and New Year’s Eve, the winners being announced on New Year’s Day.

Thank you to everyone who’s visited the Coffee Spot, followed me on Twitter, liked my Facebook page, +1ed me on Google+ (not many of you in that category!) and liked my pictures on Instagram. While I do this for the love of coffee, it means a lot to me that so many of you take the time to read and comment on my writing. Without you, it really would be pointless.

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Slipstream

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The A-board outside Slipstream in Washington DC, which poses the question: "How do we take our Coffee?". The answer, of course: "seriously, very seriously".I went to Washington DC with no great coffee expectations, but then found the amazing Peregrine Espresso, a lovely little coffee shop that would grace any city. That, honestly, would have sent me home happy, but just six blocks further along 14th Street is the amazing Slipstream.

It’s not just that the coffee here, from Michigan’s Madcap, is excellent (which it is). Slipstream is also, by speciality coffee shop standards, huge. With a good range of loose-leaf tea. And with decent breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, all the food being prepared on-site in the kitchen behind the counter. And, as befits a place that’s open well into the night, there are cocktails from a fully-stocked bar.

However, I’d been drawn by the coffee, which Slipstream amusingly (and accurately) splits into “Quick Coffee” (espresso and bulk brew) and “Worth the Wait”, hand-filtered single-origins using the Modbar. There’s a choice of four of these, plus decaf, and they change on a weekly basis. They’re also all available as espresso, where they’re joined by the house-blend, Madcap’s Third Coast. If that wasn’t enough, there’s another blend, Six-One-Six, on bulk-brew filter, plus a rotating seasonal coffee.

And the service was exceptional: coffee-heaven in an amazing setting.

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Notes, Canary Wharf

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Amazing latte art in my JOCO Cup at Notes, Canary Wharf.It took a while, but speciality coffee has reached Canary Wharf, and, having got here, it’s not going away. There are now two branches of both Taylor Street Baristas (Canary Wharf and South Quay) and coffee shop/roaster, Notes. Although I’ve already written about Notes in Crossrail Place, today’s Coffee Spot, on the concourse of Canary Wharf tube station, was the first I came across when, back in September, I innocently wandered through the ticket barriers and thought “ooh, look, a Notes”.

Sadly I only had my phone, which wasn’t up to adequately photographing somewhere which is entirely underground. It was only last week that I was able to return, proper camera in hand, at a time when there weren’t customers queuing out of the door!

Although small (and with no seats), the Canary Wharf Notes thinks it’s just as big and important as its much larger siblings. While there’s no wine or beer, there are impressive breakfast and lunch menus, a good selection of cake and coffee-kit/beans for sale. The coffee’s what it’s all about though: serving only single-origins, all roasted in-house, there’s espresso plus bulk-brew, and, surprisingly, Canary Wharf consistently serves the best coffee that I’ve had at Notes.

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Peregrine Espresso, 14th Street

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A large, mirror-image, lower-case e in green over the word "(perergrine)", with the brackets and middle 'e' (which is also a mirror-image) in blue. Finally, the word "espresso" is in blue in the bottom-right corner.I visited Washington DC in March this year with no great expectations about the coffee. I’d heard of some good places, but I really wasn’t expecting them to be THIS good! Peregrine Espresso, on 14th Street in the northwest quarter, was my second stop of a day which started at Filter Coffeehouse & Espresso Bar and was to end at Slipstream. A tiny place from the outside, like any good TARDIS, Peregrine’s bigger on the inside, but still pretty small, with seating limited to a window bench and some small tables and bar stools along the left-hand wall.

The coffee, however, is awesome, Peregrine serving me perhaps the best espresso and filter I’d had on my entire trip. Since this had included New York and Philadelphia, as well as DC, there was some pretty serious competition! I also had a cinnamon bun with a hat on, which pretty much made my day. Does it get any better than this?

The coffee, by the way, is from Counter Culture, with Peregrine offering a number of single-origins on pour-over, one of which is also available as batch brew from 8 to 11 each morning. Another, along with the decaf, is also available as espresso.

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