We enter the final day of the 2018 Coffee Spot Awards shortlists with the “Best Breakfast” Award, which in 2017 went to Homeground Coffee + Kitchen. 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 this year, although it surprises me how many places on this list are from the UK given how little time I’ve spent in the country this year! This has probably been 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 Westmoreland Speciality Coffee. 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 2018 Coffee Spot Award shortlist for “Best Physical Space”, which was won last year by Society Café, Bristol. 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 with worthy winners. However, I have managed to whittle it down to just a single list for this year’s Award.

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Next up in the 2018 Coffee Spot Awards with the shortlist for the “Best Overseas Coffee Spot”, which was won in 2017 by Panther Coffee, Wynwood. The Award celebrates all those wonderful Coffee Spots that I’ve visited outside of the UK, although this year will be its last.

When I set up the Award in 2013, I made two or three trips a year outside of the UK. In 2018, I spent less than half my time in the UK, which was reflected in my posts this year, with fewer than half of the Coffee Spots coming from this country.

As a result, many of this year’s shortlists are full of non-UK entries, with the Best Roaster/Retailer Award (for example) having just two UK Coffee Spots in the shortlist. I therefore think that it’s time to retire this Award: Overseas Coffee Spots don’t need a special award category of their own any more.

If you want to read more of my travel exploits, check out Brian’s Travel Spot.

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Next up is the 2018 Coffee Spot Award shortlist for “Best Roaster/Retailer”, which was won last year by Carvetii Coffee Roasters. 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 (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.

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Welcome to what was meant to be the final 2018 Coffee Spot Awards shortlist of yesterday. Instead it’s today’s first shortlist (delayed by the huge shortlists for the Best Espresso and Smallest Coffee Spot Awards). It’s the “Best Cake” Award, won in 2017 by Coffee Lab, Salisbury.

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 Root & Branch.

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! To keep things manageable, I have excluded Coffee Spots that are no more than counters/carts/kiosks.

Even so, this is one of several Awards that I could have filled many times over, so much so that there are a total of 18 entries on this year’s shortlist and another 17 special mentions! And yes, I appreciate the irony that the Smallest Coffee Spot Award has the longest shortlist…

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We’re halfway through the 2018 Coffee Spot Awards with the shortlist for the “Best Espresso” Award, which was won in 2017 by Federation 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. While I still like something full-bodied and robust, my palette has definitely evolved and expanded over time. When I started the Coffee Spot Awards, I tried to cap the shortlists at 12, to keep them manageable. Over time, I expanded them to 15. This year, I’ve had so much outstanding espresso that the shortlist now has 18 entries, making 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 2018 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 St Martin’s.

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 award I could have filled many times over!

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The last of today’s 2018 Coffee Spot Awards shortlists is the “Best Saturday Supplement” Award, won in 2017 by Goodbye Ridley Place. 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 reusable cups, coffee festivals, an espresso machine, a magazine, a podcast, a day at the cricket, airline coffee and a pour-over experience in Rome, all of which makes the comparison a little tricky, but that’s my problem!

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