We enter the final day of the 2017 Coffee Spot Awards shortlists with the “Best Breakfast” Award, which in 2016 went to Flat Caps Carliol Square. Along with cake, breakfast has a special place in my heart. The only slight snag is that I rarely get up and out of the house early enough to get to places before they stop serving breakfast!

That said, I’ve been doing so much travelling this last year that I’m now able to generate a healthy shortlist, helped by those wonderful places that serve all-day breakfasts! In fact, given how often I have things from the breakfast menu for lunch, I wonder if I should rename this award “Best Brunch”…

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I present the final shortlist of the day, which is for another of my favourite Coffee Spot Awards, that of “Coffee Spot with the Happiest Staff”. Last year it was won by The Speciality Coffee Shop. In my opinion, staff are probably the most over-looked part of any Coffee Spot. Good staff can make a place and bad staff, no matter how great the coffee and wonderful the location, can kill a place.

Everywhere that features in the Coffee Spot has great staff, but these were exceptional, with some infectiously happy staff. However, this award isn’t just for happy staff; it’s for any staff who go that extra mile to make their coffee shop a special place.

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Next up today, the 2017 Coffee Spot Award shortlist for “Best Physical Space”, which was won last year by Filter + Fox. One of the most important things for me is how a Coffee Spot looks and feels. This, to me, is just as important as the coffee.

This award celebrates those Coffee Spots in which there’s a pure joy in just sitting there, soaking it all in. It’s not just about physical beauty and elegance. Instead, it’s as much about atmosphere, layout and overall feel. It’s another where I could have made two or three different shortlists, all of whom would be worthy winners. However, I have managed to whittle it down to just a single list for this year’s Award, although I broke my own rules and included 16 Coffee Spots this time around.

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Next up in the 2017 Coffee Spot Awards with the shortlist for the “Best Overseas Coffee Spot”. This was won in 2016 by The Cupping Room Central and celebrates all those wonderful Coffee Spots that I’ve visited outside of the UK. I’d love to travel more, since I keep hearing about great coffee all over the world.

This year has been the best yet for overseas Coffee Spots, with first ever trips to Vietnam and Japan, plus a return trip to China. I also managed to make it all over the US from California to Miami. If you want to read more of my travel exploits, check out Brian’s Travel Spot.

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First up today, the 2017 Coffee Spot Award shortlist for “Best Roaster/Retailer”, which was won last year by The Roasting Party. Initially, this award was only open to retailers, but in 2014, I expanded it to include roasters, who now dominate the award. Contenders have either appeared in the Meet the Roaster series or they are cafe/roasters who I have visited during the year.

Although the Coffee Spot is mostly about places to have coffee, I still drink the majority of my coffee at home, so those wonderful people who provide me with my coffee beans need a mention. The problem, with all these awards, is knowing where to draw the line for the shortlist and this Award is no exception. I’ve visited lots of coffee shops/roasters this year, but I’ve made a decision, by-and-large, to stick to either roasters I’ve written about as roasters or coffee shops where the beans are roasted on site.

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Welcome to the final 2017 Coffee Spot Awards shortlist of the day, the “Best Cake” Award, won in 2016 by The Espresso Library. Despite what it says on the tag line, the Coffee Spot’s not all about the coffee. After all, what would a cup of coffee be without a decent slice of cake to go with it? So, cake plays a major part in the Coffee Spot and this Award celebrates the Coffee Spots which excel in the cake department.

This is another of my favourite Awards and while I didn’t visit that many dedicated cake spots, I was nonetheless treated to some absolutely fantastic cake along the way, proving that, like good coffee, the more you look, the more good cake you find.

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Coffee Spots come in all shapes and sizes, but for some reason I have a real soft spot for small Coffee Spots. Last year the “Smallest Coffee Spot” Award was won by Upstairs Coffee.

This year I have once again been blessed by some very small Coffee Spots serving some very fine coffee. As in previous years, this Award is entirely subjective: no Coffee Spots were measured during the judging process! This is one of several Awards where it really was tough to whittle things down to a shortlist of 15: the world seems full of lots of really lovely, small, Coffee Spots.

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We’re halfway through the 2017 Coffee Spot Awards with the shortlist for the “Best Espresso” Award, which was won in 2016 by Coleman Coffee Roasters. When it comes down to it, I still 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 the year. 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 expanded over time. This year I had some truly sublime espresso, leading to this being one of the most hotly contested of this year’s Awards.

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We kick off the third day of the 2017 Coffee Spot Awards with the shortlist for the “Coffee Spot with the Best Outdoor Seating” Award, celebrating all those wonderful Coffee Spots with excellent outdoor seating. This was won last year by Expresso Base.

To qualify for this award, it’s not just a case of sticking a couple of tables or chairs on the pavement outside your coffee shop. Too often, what could be a lovely spot is marred by traffic noise, or cramped conditions, or just being in the wrong place. The best outside seating is often away from the road and passing pedestrians and offers shelter from the wind, rain and/or sun (although rarely all three at once!). Fortunately, there are plenty of Coffee Spots which do exactly that and this is one of the award shortlists that I could have filled many times over!

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The last of today’s 2017 Coffee Spot Awards shortlists is the “Best Saturday Supplement” Award, won in 2016 by Beyond the Bean Barista Bursary. The Saturday Supplement is a place where I can write about coffee, coffee-related events, places which I liked but which didn’t really fit into the category of a Coffee Spot and frankly, anything else that takes my fancy! This Award recognises the best of this year’s Saturday Supplements.

Just so we’re clear on this, the Award is not about my writing (that would be far too self-serving). It’s about the actual subjects that I’m writing about, which this year included coffee kit, coffee festivals, books, and going for dinner, all of which makes the comparison a little tricky, but that’s my problem!

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