Boston Tea Party, Honiton

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Brian Williams

Over the last year, I’ve been to several large branches of the Boston Tea Party (Whiteladies Road, Birmingham and Salisbury spring to mind), so it’s nice to visit a smaller one for a change. Not that the Honiton Tea Party is tiny; it’s not, for example, on the scale of the one in Bath, but at the same time, it’s not a sprawling, multi-floor affair.

Honiton’s Tea Party occupies a beautiful, old house on Honiton High Street (Monkton House, a Grade II listed building). As with every Tea Party, it’s instantly recognisable as a Boston Tea Party, while simultaneously its own place. There’s the usual Boston Tea Party offerings: good quality food, including an all-day breakfast menu, loads of cake, and coffee from Bristol’s Extract Coffee Roasters. This includes the house-blend espresso and single-origin bulk-brew filter.

There’s something about the smaller Tea Parties that promotes a sense of intimacy. It’s not that the staff at the larger branches aren’t friendly (far from it; the Boston Tea Party staff have always struck me as very friendly), it’s just that in the smaller ones, there seems to be more time to interact and chat and, in that respect, Honiton is no exception.

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Daisy Green

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Brian Williams

At last! Normal service has been resumed. After three straight Coffee Spots visiting places in the correct order, the Coffee Spot returns to form…

Regular readers will know that ever since it opened, Beany Green in Paddington has been my local, since it’s on the other side of the square from my office. I’ve also visited the South Bank branch, a quirky little container at the south end of Hungerford Bridge.

However, until last week, I’d never been to where it all began, the wonderful Daisy Green, parent of all the little Beanies spreading around London. So, on Friday, I took the plunge, forsaking lunch at Beany Green, and made the relatively short walk to Seymour Street, where, just a stone’s throw from Marble Arch and two blocks down from The Borough Barista, I visited Daisy Green.

If you’ve never been, you’re missing out. There’s the same Beany Green goodness that I’m used to: coffee from The Roasting Party, a wide range of innovative food and a selection of Aussie-inspired cakes, all in the same quirky surroundings that make the Paddington branch so wonderful. At the same time, Daisy Green is very much its own place, as you will discover…

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Doctor Espresso – Mama V’s

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Brian Williams

What’s going on? For the third Coffee Spot in a row, I’m visiting places in the order in which they opened! Hot on the heels of the original Artisan in Putney and the first Society Café on Bath’s Kingsmead Square, comes Doctor Espresso – Mama V’s in Clapham High Street!

I visited the original Doctor Espresso, Doctor Espresso Caffetteria, opposite Putney Bridge tube station, in the summer of 2013, not long after it had opened. So it seemed fitting that I should pop into Doctor Espresso’s second venture, named Mama V’s (after Vanessa, co-owner of Doctor Espresso) a couple of months after it had opened. Following the precedent set by the Caffetteria, Mama V’s is also right by a station, this time the overground, where it is nestled in an arch under the line by Clapham High Street station.

Mama V’s serves the same basic menu as the Caffetteria: coffee, cake and some lovely Italian food (panini, calzone, pizza, pasta & salad). If ever a place was designed to appeal to me, it’s Doctor Espresso’s. Pride of place, of course, goes to a classic 1957 Gaggia Tipo America lever espresso machine, just one year younger than the one in the Caffetteria!

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Artisan, Putney

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Brian Williams

What’s going on? For the second time in a week I’ve visited a local chain and started with the first branch! This time, instead of going to Bath, I’ve popped up to Putney and the lovely Artisan. And, unlikely rainy Bath, it’s always sunny when I go to Putney. I really should come more often.

My first visit was on a busy Saturday afternoon in March last year, when I didn’t have my camera with me. Back then it was so busy that the queue waiting to order was all the way back to the door! Tables were at a premium and several people were sitting outside in the sun.

I’ve been meaning to return ever since and finally made it back with my camera 11 months later, when I returned on a Tuesday lunchtime, only to find it was almost as popular. Tables being at a premium again, I ended up in exactly the same spot, a little table for two by the door to the toilets!

Artisan serves up Allpress’ Redchurch blend on espresso, and these days has Berlin legends, The Barn, on filter, with regularly-rotating single origins. There’s an impressive range of cake and food too.

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Siempre Bicycle Café

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Brian Williams

Glasgow’s Siempre Bicycle Café continues the long association between cycling and coffee, occupying a multi-facetted space right next to the Kelvinhall Metro station in Glasgow’s West End.

Out front, there’s a cycle shop and sales room, where you can, if you like, sit and take your coffee, while at the back, there’s an equally large room where more typical café seating shares the space with the counter, which itself encloses an open-plan kitchen. If you keep on going, there’s also a large, sheltered garden right at the back. Unless, of course, you’re coming from the station, in which case you reach the garden first, then the café and finally the bike shop. Siempre also has a takeaway window, so you don’t even have to go inside if you don’t want to.

Serving Dear Green Coffee’s Goosedubs blend on espresso, with single origins available as filter from both Dear Green and another local roaster, Charlie Mills, Siempre has got the coffee side of things covered. There’s also an impressive array of tasty-looking cakes, plus a very comprehensive food offering. This being a cycle shop as well as a café, there’s also plenty of secure bicycle storage both inside and out.

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Flying Coffee Bean, Guildford

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Brian Williams

The Flying Coffee Bean (these days FCB Coffee) is a chain of coffee kiosks on stations in London and the South East. The Guildford one’s been a fixture for several years, but, until recently, I never gave it a second thought. I distinctly remember when, a couple of years before I started the Coffee Spot, I took my coffee (a two-shot latte) back to get an extra shot because all I could taste was milk. The barista didn’t look best pleased, explaining that this was how the customers liked it, at which point I decided to take my custom elsewhere.

Fast forward to six months ago and, for various reasons, I revisited the Flying Coffee Bean. Expecting disappointment, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only could I taste the coffee, it was really nice-tasting coffee too! 12-second extractions were a thing of the past and the milk was steamed so it held decent latte-art.

Consider me converted!

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Moon Beer & Coffee

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Brian Williams

I first came across what was then the Harvest-Moon Espresso Bar a couple of years ago, not long after it had opened in Chester and it’s been on my radar ever since. I popped by in 2013, but it was unexpectedly closed that day and I hadn’t had another chance until now.

In that time, Harvest-Moon has undergone some changes, not least a name change to Moon Beer & Coffee after getting a licence in November last year (although the signage and some of the social media hasn’t caught up yet). While the focus is still on coffee, with an old-school espresso menu based around a house-blend from Merseyside roasters Coffee 1652, plus regularly-rotating guests, Moon now offers bottled craft beer from around the world. There’s also food with an American slant. For breakfast: toast, porridge or bagels, with more bagels and sandwiches for lunch. Finally nacho or chilli bowls, plus hummus and Bavarian meat platters, are on offer.

Just around the corner from the Cathedral with the library across the street, Moon is a cosy spot. There’s not much seating, which spread across two inter-connected spaces, while the staff are friendly and engaging with both regulars and visitors alike.

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Café Lomi

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Brian Williams

I don’t know what the French for “hipster” is, but “Café Lomi” might be a fairly good stab. It’s the closest I’ve come in Paris to what I think of as a hipster café, right down to the undecorated walls, exposed air-conditioning conduits and bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The clientele was pretty hipster too; for example, I wasn’t the only one taking pictures of his coffee and every other person was on a laptop, Macs outnumbering Windows two-to-one. The clinching argument? It carries Caffeine Magazine. I rest my case…

Putting pointless classification to one side, Café Lomi is a café/roaster in the northern reaches of Paris. Café-roasters seem to be much more common in Paris than they are in the UK; of the limited number of third-wave Parisian cafés I’ve visited, Lomi is the third, joining La Caféothèque and Coutume when it opened in 2012. In Lomi’s case, it is a café at the front, and a roaster at the back, where the chunky Giesen turns out espresso blends and single origins both for use in Lomi and to supply other cafés and restaurants. Sadly you can’t wander into the back and see the roaster in action though…

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Finca

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Brian Williams

Finca is Dorchester’s second speciality coffee shop, coming after the outstanding Number 35 Coffee House & Kitchen. One might think it a little unfair that Dorchester has two such places, when many struggle to have even one, but this is how it is.

Finca opened last summer and joins the select breed of coffee-shop-cum-roaster. While the majority are quite big operations, with 10-15 kg roasters, with their own dedicated area of a large building (North Berwick’s Steampunk Coffee springs to mind), Finca has more in common with Glasgow’s Papercup Coffee Company. Both are small coffee shops which roast on-site and, while in the case of Papercup, the roasting is done at the back, at Finca, the roaster, a bright-red, 1 kg Genesis CBR-1200, sits proudly on the counter-top for all to see.

Finca has a stock of three green beans, two standard and one guest, and it roasts after hours, one or two evenings a week. Roaster aside, Finca is a friendly, neighbourhood coffee shop, although it boasts a decent food offering for such a small place, including cake, soup and toasted sandwiches, all prepared in the small kitchen at the back. It’s even got a dedicated toast menu!

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La Bottega Milanese, The Light

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Brian Williams

One of two outlets for La Bottega Milanese in Leeds, the branch in the Light pre-dates the recently-opened branch in Bond Court. Naturally, this being the Coffee Spot, I visited them in reverse order, first calling into Bond Court before venturing to The Light (which is a shopping and retail centre built around the old headquarters building of the Leeds Permanent Building Society).

The Light itself is a wonderful structure, of soaring brick facades and glass ceilings. La Bottega Milanese occupies a corner spot on the ground floor, just by the escalators up to the cinema. You can sit “outside” on the street without having to worry about being rained on, since it’s all enclosed by a glass ceiling.

If you’ve read my piece on Bond Court, you’ll already be familiar with La Bottega Milanese’s offering. If not, La Bottega Milanese expertly blends Italian espresso tradition with modern, third-wave roasting know-how from Dark Woods (having previously used Grumpy Mule until the start of 2016). The food’s pretty decent too: in the morning, pastries and other breakfast goodies, replaced at lunch by sandwiches and salads, which in turn give way to cake in the afternoon. Finally, come evening, there are small plates, tapas and beer/wine. Truly a café for all occasions!

June 2020: I heard the sad news that La Bottega Milanese has had to close its espresso bar at The Light, although Bond Court is still going strong.

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Category Archives: Breakfast

Boston Tea Party, Honiton

Daisy Green

Doctor Espresso – Mama V’s

Artisan, Putney

Siempre Bicycle Café

Flying Coffee Bean, Guildford

Moon Beer & Coffee

Café Lomi

Finca

La Bottega Milanese, The Light