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 Alex 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!
We’re halfway through the 2020 Coffee Spot Awards with the shortlist for the “Best Espresso” Award, which was won in 2019 by Blueprint Coffee & Books. 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. Over the last few years, I’ve had some truly sublime espresso, which has led to this being one of the most hotly contested Awards. This year is no different, with a host of excellent espressos, mostly naturally-processed ones, leading the way.
We kick off the third day of the 2020 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 Pavilion Café.
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!).
This is one shortlist which hasn’t been diminished by the COVID-19 pandemic. At first I thought that this was because lots of places had added outdoor seating, but actually all bar one of the Coffee Spots on the shortlist came into 2020 with some great outdoor seating!
The last of today’s 2020 Coffee Spot Awards shortlists is the “Best Saturday Supplement” Award, won in 2019 by Coffee & Science with Bean Thinking. 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 Saturday Supplements in 2020.
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 a cat cafe, trying a new coffee species, a coffee festival, a YouTube Channel, and several other things besides, all of which makes the comparison a little tricky, but that’s my problem!
Our third shortlist today is the shortlist for the “Best Coffee Spot near a Railway Station”, although it should really be called “Best Coffee Spot at or near a Railway Station”, except that was a bit of a mouthful, even for me. And this year, since I’ve not been travelling much, I’ve expanded the criteria to include airports. Now that really would be a mouthful. Next year I will have to come up with a better, more concise name!
Whatever I call it, this was won last year by Espresso Station, Moor Street Station and rewards those Coffee Spots serving great coffee to travellers around the world. When you’re desperate for good coffee, railway stations, airports and other transport hubs are rarely the best places to be. But what if there was a great Coffee Spot just outside the station (or even in the concourse!) or a few minutes’ walk away and you didn’t know about it? Then this award is for you…
We continue the second day with the next shortlist for the 2020 Coffee Spot Awards, the “Best Filter Coffee” Award, which was won last year by Tasting Flights at Glitch Coffee. One of the great journeys that I’ve taken with the Coffee Spot is realising the amazing range of flavours in a good pour-over or batch brew, which has opened my eyes to a whole new world of coffee.
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 have two pour-over filters, a Clever Dripper, an Aeropress, dedicated grinder for filter coffee and a gooseneck kettle. I drink my filter coffee black and I have to put milk in my coffee to make it drinkable, then I’m drinking the wrong coffee! This award celebrates those Coffee Spots which continue to help me on my journey of discovery.
We kick off the second day with shortlist for the 2020 Coffee Spot Award for “Coffee Spot with the Best Lighting”, won last year by Coffee Addict.
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. Note that I was back writing about Coffee Addict again this year, but I decided to keep Coffee Addict off the shortlist so that someone else would have a chance of winning.
The last of today’s 2020 Coffee Spot Awards shortlists is the “Best Neighbourhood Coffee Spot”. In 2019 this went to Lost Sheep Coffee 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, which are often slightly off the beaten track.
This year the shortlist is a fairly concise affair due to my lack of travelling, but nevertheless it manages a wide geographical spread, with Coffee Spots from around the UK as well as from both coasts of the USA and with a pair of entries from Phoenix and the surrounding area.
Our third shortlist in the 2020 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. In 2019 this Award went to Society Café, The Corridor.
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! It also includes those Coffee Spots which, while not technically basements, have that basement-like feel to them.
Our second shortlist in the 2020 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Takeaway Coffee” Award, which was won last year by Workshop Coffee at The Pilgrm. 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).
Although many coffee shops were only offering takeaway for a large part of the year, I wasn’t travelling very much, limiting myself to visiting my local coffee shops in Guildford, all of whom were serving takeaway and happy to accept my reusable cups. As a result, this year’s shortlist is fairly concise affair.