Category Archives: Saturday Supplement

A Saturday Supplement is any post that’s not a Coffee Spot

Brian’s Travel Spot: Returning from Tokyo Haneda

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The nose of one British Airways Boeing 777-300 looks very like another. This one is taking me back from Tokyo Haneda to London Heathrow, seen here on the stand at Haneda.Last week I wrote about my flight from Manchester to Tokyo’s Haneda airport via Heathrow. This week it’s the turn of my flight back, on Friday, 27th July, two weeks to the day after I flew out. As I mentioned in the previous Travel Spot, Tokyo has two international airports, Haneda and Narita, with British Airways having one flight per day to each. It’s perfectly possible, by the way, to fly into one airport and out of the other, but, as with my flights over, price dictated that I flew both into and out of Haneda.

This left me on the 08:50 flight from Haneda, an entirely unreasonable time to be at an airport, let alone to be taking off from one. Since we were heading west, this was a daytime flight, scheduled to arrive at Heathrow at 13:10 local time on the same day, 12 hours and 20 minutes later. From there I had a connecting flight to Manchester at 16:00, touching down in at 17:05, a mere 16 hours after I set off.

However, before any of that could happen, I had to get to the airport from my hotel in Nishi Azabu.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Flying to Tokyo Haneda

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My British Airways Boeing 777-300 on the stand at Heathrow Terminal 5, ready to take me to Tokyo Haneda.This is my second trip to Tokyo, the first one being in April last year when I made a rather hastily cobbled together visit. This year, despite having had less notice (I only found out I was going at the start of June and only had confirmation four weeks before I flew on July 13th), I managed to do a little bit more planning, although the end result was a much less ambitious trip, where I stayed in Tokyo for the two weeks I was there.

Both times I flew with British Airways, last time in economy (World Traveller) and this time, since I had the money in the travel budget, in business class (Club World). As I’ve been doing the last few times I’ve travelled, I flew to and from Manchester so that I could visit my 85 year old Dad before/after the trip. This meant taking the short hop down to Heathrow and catching a direct flight to Tokyo from there.

It was also the first time I’d flown with British Airways since it started serving Union Hand-roasted coffee in its lounges and in Club World and First Class cabins, giving me the chance to try it out.

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Kaido Books & Coffee Update

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A single-origin Yirgacheffe from And Coffee Roasters, served in a classic black cup by Kaido Books & CoffeeOn my first visit to Tokyo back in 2017, the final part of my stay was spent in a lovely, quiet residential area just south of Shinagawa Station, where I made the chance discovery of Kaido Books & Coffee, which was a couple of minutes’ walk down the street from my hotel of my trip. Much as Nem Coffee & Espresso became my “local” for the first part of my stay (and filled the same role during the second half of my return to Tokyo in 2018), so Kaido became my “local” for the final week of my stay.

Kaido Books & Coffee does what it says on the tin: a book shop combined with a coffee shop, spread over two delightful floors, with more of a coffee shop feel downstairs and a bookshop/library vibe upstairs. I liked Kaido so much that I immediately wrote it up, posting my original piece while I was still in Tokyo.

However, due to various technical reasons, I never managed to create a gallery to go with the original post, so on my return to Tokyo last week, I popped down to Shinagawa to pay Kaido a visit and to finally complete the gallery.

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Switch Coffee Tokyo, Yoyogi-Hachiman

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The front of Switch Coffee Tokyo's tiny branch at Yoyogi-Hachiman.During my two visits to Tokyo, I’ve enjoyed Switch Coffee Tokyo’s coffee in both About Life Coffee Brewers, where you’ll find a pair of single-origins available as either espresso or pour-over, and Nem Coffee & Espresso, whose bespoke house-blend is roasted by Switch. However, since I’ve not yet made it down to Switch’s coffee shop/roastery in Meguro, I was delighted when the baristas at Little Nap Coffee Stand told me that Switch had opened a second branch opposite Yoyogi-Hachiman station, a mere five minutes’ walk away.

There’s not a lot to the new branch of Switch, with just the stool outside providing the only seat. Inside, it is standing-room only, with a choice of drinks from a concise espresso menu (espresso, latte or cappuccino) using Switch’s seasonal espresso blend, or batch-brew with a regularly-changing single-origin. You can also buy retail bags of beans to take home with you.

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Six Single-origins in a Week

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Making a V60 pour-over at About Life Coffee Brewers in Shibuya, Tokyo, one of six single origins I tried in a week.Yesterday, I wrote about About Life Coffee Brewers, a lovely coffee stand in Shibuya, next door to both my office and my hotel for the week I was working in the area. Using the rear entrance to Shibuya’s Mark City (my hotel was on top of this long, thin shopping mall) and turning right, the office was a two minute walk down the hill. However, left, if I turned left, About Life was two minutes up the hill. So, naturally, I started my day by going to About Life for coffee…

One of the frustrations of being a coffee blogger is that I rarely go back to places on a regular basis, nor do I get to sample the full range of coffee on offer, particularly somewhere like About Life, which has six single-origins available as either pour-over or espresso. However, it struck me as I ordered my two-shot latte on the first morning that there were no other decent coffee options near the office and, with two or three long breaks each day, there was every chance I could actually sample all the coffee.

So, I set myself a challenge: to try all six single-origin coffees in a week…

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About Life Coffee Brewers

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Detail taken from the menu board outside About Life Coffee Brewers in ShibuyaAbout Life Coffee Brewers is part of the small Onibus Coffee group which has its own roastery in Yakumo, although it also serves coffee from two other Tokyo roasters, Switch Coffee Tokyo and Amameria Espresso. No more than a coffee stand at the top (western) end of Dōgenzaka in Shibuya, it’s something of an institution and a favourite of many visitors to the city. Serving mostly takeaway customers (so don’t forget to bring your own cup), you can stand at the counter or sit on one of two benches down the side. There’s also a semi-secret sheltered standing-room only area inside, which is handy if it’s raining.

For such a small spot, About Life has a large output. There’s a concise with/without milk espresso menu, with the Onibus house-blend used for milk drinks and blends from the other two roasters available as espresso/Americano. However, what’s really impressive is the selection of six single-origins, two from each roaster. These can be had as an espresso (no milk) or as a pour-over through the V60. All the coffee, espresso and pour-over, can be had hot, or with ice. The selection of single-origins is seasonal, changing every two to three months.

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Improving Airline Coffee: British Airways & Union Hand-roasted

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An espresso at the British Airways lounge in Heathrow Terminal 5, made with Union Hand-roasted coffee.Regular readers of my Brian’s Travel Spot posts will know that I have a poor opinion of airline coffee, and, as a result, I’ve taken to making my own coffee on long-haul flights over the last few years. However, to its credit, British Airways has also recognised this short-coming and has recently partnered with Union Hand-roasted to up its coffee game. Union is supplying coffee to the British Airways lounges and, in the first instance, to the First Class add Club World cabins on long-haul flights, although there are no immediate plans to roll it out to World Traveller cabins or to serve it on short-haul flights (I had originally thought that this would be the case, but I since learnt that I was wrong!).

As luck would have it, on Friday I flew with British Airways from Manchester to Tokyo, via Heathrow, not long after Union’s coffee was introduced, giving me the chance to experience it first-hand. Normally I would write this up as part of my longer Travel Spot covering the flight. However, these take me absolutely ages to write and, since there’s quite a bit of interest in this, I thought I would put it on its own, self-contained post, rather than burying it in a longer post.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Flying from Bangkok (With a Bad Back)

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My ride back to the UK, another British Airways Boeing 777-200, on the stand at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport.If you’ve been following the latest series on Brian’s Travel Spot, you’ll know that I spent the last two weeks of April in Thailand, departing on the Sunday of the London Coffee Festival. The first instalment of this Travel Spot covered my flight over with British Airways. I spent a week in Bangkok, before catching the sleeper to Chiang Mai, where I spent another week exploring its awesome speciality coffee scene. I returned on the sleeper to spend three days in Bangkok, with the two train trips forming the second and third instalments (written and published while I was out in Thailand). Meanwhile, today’s Travel Spot, the fourth and final instalment in the series, covers my return flight on Tuesday 1st May.

What I’ve underplayed in all the posts so far is the state of my back. When I flew out, my back was cranky, but basically okay. It got worse during my time in Bangkok, but was still basically okay. However, while I was in Chiang Mai, it got really bad, forcing me to take the sleeper back. By the time I was due to fly home, I could hardly sit down, leaving me dreading the 13 hour flight…

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Flying to Bangkok

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My ride to Bangkok, a British Airways 777-200, sitting at the gate at Heathrow Terminal 5.My travel schedule for the first four months of the year has been pretty hectic, verging on the brutal, although it was partly self-inflicted. This kicked off with two month-long visits to the USA, starting with a trip to Miami and Phoenix and followed by another that saw me travel from New England to Arizona by train.

Since then it’s calmed down a bit, so I thought that before I jet off on my next adventure (a week today I should have just arrived in Japan) I really ought to finish writing up the previous one. This saw me spend three days at the London Coffee Festival, head home on the Saturday evening and then turn around on Sunday to fly out to Thailand for the first time.

This instalment of Brian’s Travel Spot covers my flight over with British Airways. I then spent a week in Bangkok, before catching the sleeper up to Chiang Mai, where I spent another week exploring the awesome speciality coffee scene there. I returned to Bangkok, again on the sleeper, spent three days in the capital, then flew back, again with British Airways, which forms the fourth and final part of this Travel Spot.

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Gấu Coffee Roasters

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The front of Gau Coffee Roasters in the Old City, Hanoi.I didn’t spend long in Hanoi, at the end of my Vietnam trip, so didn’t have much time to explore. I also didn’t have a long list of coffee shops to visit when I arrived. That I found Gấu Coffee Roasters was entirely down to The Caffinet, which in turn I only found following a recommendation from Oriberry Coffee. Sometimes all you need is a list of one…

On a busy road in the northeast of Hanoi’s old city, you really need to know where Gấu Coffee Roasters is, although if you look in the window, you’ll probably be drawn in, particularly if you see the roaster all the way at the back of the long, thin store. All the coffee’s roasted here, with a range of origins, plus home-grown Vietnamese Arabica. There’s a blend on espresso, with multiple single-origins on pour-over through a variety of methods, plus traditional Vietnamese coffee.

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