Welcome to the penultimate Coffee Spot Awards Shortlist for 2022, the Brian’s Coffee Spot Special Award, which was won last year by The Hideaway. This is a special award for those Coffee Spots which don’t quite fit into the other categories, but which nonetheless I absolutely love… It’s also a chance for me to recognise and reward those wonderful Coffee Spots that I come across during the year and which mean something special to me.
Category Archives: Saturday Supplement
2022 Awards – Most Passionate About Coffee
Welcome to the next Coffee Spot Awards Shortlist for 2022, the “Most Passionate About Coffee” Award, which was won in 2021 by Sam’s Coffee. For me, this is one of the most important awards, and also one of the hardest to judge, which is why I’ve left it to the last day.
It’s not just about the coffee, it’s also about people who love and care about coffee. Everyone who I’ve covered in the Coffee Spot is passionate about coffee and one of the great things is how much love there is out there, both for the coffee and for those who make it. However, those shortlisted for this award stand out from the crowd.
2022 Awards – Best Breakfast
We enter the final day of the 2022 Coffee Spot Awards shortlists with the “Best Breakfast” Award, which in 2021 went to Little Yellow Pig, Nantwich. Along with cake, breakfast has a special place in my heart. It used to be that I rarely got up and out of the house early enough to get to places before they stop serving breakfast.
However, I’ve been doing so much travelling over the last two years that I’m now able to generate a healthy shortlist this year, 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”…
2022 Awards – Happiest Staff
The final shortlist of the day is for another of my favourite Coffee Spot Awards, that of “Coffee Spot with the Happiest Staff”, won last year by Coffee Notes. 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.
2022 Awards – Best Physical Space
Next up today, the 2022 Coffee Spot Award shortlist for “Best Physical Space”, which was won last year by Medicine New Street. 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 filled the shortlist many times over, all with worthy winners. However, I have managed to whittle it down to just a single list for this year’s Award.
2022 Awards – Best Flat White
The second of today’s 2022 Coffee Spot Awards shortlists is for the “Best Flat White” Award, which was won last year by Speckled Ax, Thames.
Although I love black coffee, espresso with milk is very much its own thing. This award recognises those who have produced the perfect blend of coffee and milk with the smoothest, silkiest flat white (although awesome cortados, etc, also qualify).
2022 Awards – Best Roaster/Retailer
First up today is the 2022 Coffee Spot Award shortlist for “Best Roaster/Retailer”, which was won last year by Hundred House Coffee. 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 are cafe/roasters which I’ve 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 (actually, with the amount of travelling I now do, I’m not so sure this is true…), so those wonderful people who provide me with my coffee beans need a mention. The problem, as with all these awards, is knowing where to draw the line for the shortlist. 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.
2022 Awards – Best Cake
Welcome to the shortlist for the 2022 “Best Cake” Award, won in 2021 by Kookaburra Bakehouse. 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 don’t visit that many dedicated cake spots, I was nonetheless treated to some absolutely fantastic cake this year, proving that, like good coffee, the more you look, the more good cake you find.
2022 Awards – Smallest Coffee Spot
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 Tintico, Greek Street.
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 the few Awards where I could have filled the shortlist over again: the world seems full of lots of really lovely, small, Coffee Spots.
2022 Awards – Best Espresso
We’re halfway through the 2022 Coffee Spot Awards, so it’s time for the shortlist for the “Best Espresso” Award, which was won in 2021 by Nostos Coffee. 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 with my palette evolving and expanding 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.