Category Archives: Saturday Supplement

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

Lost Sheep Coffee

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Detail from the chipboard box next to the Lost Sheep Coffee Pod in Saint George's Lane, Canterbury.Lost Sheep Coffee is a stalwart of Canterbury’s speciality coffee scene, having started with a cart on Canterbury High Street, before moving to its present location, by the bus station, in 2015. It originally occupied a neat black pod, but not long after my initial visit in May 2017, this was upgraded to the larger pod that you see today. There’s also a coffee shop in Ashford Designer Outlet.

There’s not a lot to Lost Sheep, just the pod, with space at the side for a three-person standing bar, additional seating provided by two low, mesh benches and a pair of similar stools in front of the pod. The coffee is the real draw, Lost Sheep offering a concise and comprehensive espresso-based menu, the Get To The Hopper seasonal blend, roasted at Lost Sheep’s roastery in Whitstable, joined by a guest on the second grinder. There’s coffee for sale, both as beans and in capsules, plus a small range of coffee-making equipment. Meanwhile, if you’re hungry, there’s a selection of cake bars and crisps.

December 2019: this is an updated version of the original post which was published in September 2017. You can see what has changed in my Coffee Spot Update.

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Dinner at Timmy Green

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The Timmy Green logo from outside Timmy Green on Sir Simon Milton Square near Victoria Station.Timmy Green, the latest addition to the growing Daisy Green/Beany Green collective, opened at the start of the year. It was, from the beginning, a fully-fledged restaurant as well as a rather splendid coffee shop. When I visited and wrote about Timmy Green in March, it was only as a coffee shop. This Saturday Supplement is going to redress the balance and consider Timmy Green as a restaurant.

Layout-wise, Timmy Green is much the same as ever, although there have been a few changes since I was there in the spring, which has made the downstairs feel even more like a restaurant than a coffee shop. The grand piano in the corner has gone to make way for more tables, while the window-bar and high tables to the left of the door have suffered a similar fate.

When it comes to food, Timmy Green serves breakfast, lunch, brunch and dinner, complete with desserts, wine, beer and cocktails. And, of course, Roasting Party coffee. Not that Daisy/Beany is a stranger to food. The original Daisy Green, plus the Paddington and Liverpool Street Beany Greens, have a reputation for innovative brunch menus, but in Timmy Green this has reached its logical conclusion.

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Idle Hands @ Grub

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The Idle Hands logo, taken from the A-board outside the second pop-up on Dale Street.Idle Hands, run by the very wonderful Dave & Lucy, started life as a pop-up next to Manchester’s Piccadilly Station. With the building due for redevelopment, this was always going to be a short-term arrangement, but the good news was that about a year after leaving the Piccadilly site, Idle Hands found a new and (at the time) permanent home on Dale Street, moving in on a temporary basis while waiting for the space to be refurbished.

However, just before Dave & Lucy started fitting out the new shop, the landlord abruptly terminated the lease, leaving Idle Hands homeless. For a less determined couple, that would have been the end, but Dave & Lucy picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and, with a ground swell of support from the wider coffee/independent sector in Manchester, found a new temporary home at Grub’s Mayfield site, where I visited one rainy Friday afternoon.

October 2017: Idle Hands is temporarily closed while Dave & Lucy have their baby. In other news, Grub itself has moved from Mayfield to Fairfield Social Club on nearby Temperance Street.

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Cartel Coffee Lab, Downtown Phoenix

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The Cartel Coffee Lab logo from the wooden A-board outside the store in downtown Phoenix.The contrast between Cartel Coffee Lab’s downtown location in the centre of Phoenix, and its flagship roastery/coffee shop in Tempe, which I visited the day before, couldn’t be starker. While the former’s a large, sprawling set of interconnected spaces, downtown is in an alcove off the lobby of 1 North 1st Street. It’s a very pleasant alcove, and, as alcoves go, it’s spacious enough, but it’s an alcove nonetheless. You can sit at the window-bar, out in the (echo-chamber like) lobby, or on the street at another window-bar.

Despite any perceived shortcomings in size, Cartel doesn’t compromise on the coffee, with the same full offering that’s out in Tempe. There are six single-origins, including decaf, all are available through Aeropress, V60, Clever Dripper or Chemex. Meanwhile, one (plus decaf) is available as espresso. There’s also bulk-brew filter and cold brew, a small tea selection, plus cakes and prepared salads in the fridge opposite the counter.

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My Travelling Coffee Kit

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Improving hotel coffee one Aeropress at a time with a little help from my Knock feldfarb hand grinder.A little while ago, a reader, Linda, got in touch to ask me how I managed when travelling to places where there was no good coffee. This made me realise what a very good question that was. While I’ve written on several occasions about my penchant for making my own coffee on long-haul flights and overnight trains, as well as hinting on other occasions about making my own coffee in hotels, I realise that I’ve never really addressed the issue in a comprehensive matter.

Over the five years I’ve been writing the Coffee Spot, I’ve gone from drinking whatever I’m given to being quite obsessive above bringing my own coffee and coffee-making equipment. I’m not quite sure when this started, but it’s become increasingly important with the amount of travelling I’m doing. As an example, tomorrow I’m off to Manchester for a week for work, then the weekend after that, I’ll be in Leeds, before flying to Chicago for three weeks (work + play). I can’t imagine being away for all that time without decent coffee, so I’ve assembled a basic travelling kit which, give or take a few items, comes with me wherever I go.

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Yorks Coffee Roasters

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Detail from the front of the packaging of one of the bags of Yorks Coffee Roasters coffee.The subject of today’s Meet the Roaster has a long history. I visited the original Yorks Bakery Café on Newhall Street during my first trip to Birmingham exactly four years ago today, when I met a knowledgeable, engaging young barista called Richard. Since then Yorks has expanded, both in size and ambition. First came the new Yorks Espresso Bar at the Colmore Row end of the Great Western Arcade. Then, at the end of 2015, Newhall Street closed, the site undergoing a major redevelopment, with Yorks moving the Bakery Café to new premises on Stephenson Street, next to Birmingham New Street Station. Now there’s a third Yorks, with a new branch at the Ikon Gallery.

However, that’s not the half of it. Soon after moving into Stephenson Street, Yorks acquired the adjacent unit, effectively tripling its size. While it was still a building site, I was given a behind-the-scenes tour by a very excited Richard, who pointed out a small, awkward area at the back, cut-off from the rest of the space by stairs giving access to the basement. That, he told me, was where the new Probat was going. Yorks, it seemed, was going to become a coffee roaster…

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London Coffee Festival 2017: Coffee

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An espresso from Outpost Coffee's Kilimbi from Rwanda in my Kaffeeform recycled cup at the London Coffee Festival.Welcome to this, the final one of my detailed write-ups from this year’s London Coffee Festival. So far I’ve written about sustainability, kit & cups, and my coffee experiences, as well as kicking things off with my traditional festival round-up. Today I’ll end as I normally do, with a discussion of the actual coffee. Plus a few other random items.

I’ve never yet been to a coffee festival where I’ve managed to visit all the roasters I’ve wanted to and this year was no different, so apologies to everyone I missed. This year was a bumper one for smaller roasters, with the London Coffee Festival building on the introduction last year of the Roasters Village, with an expanded version this year. Indeed, it was so big that it had to be split into two: north (which was upstairs) and south (which was downstairs).

As before, I’ll start with introducing you to some old friends, roasters who are well known to the Coffee Spot, before moving onto all the new roasting friends that I made at the festival, then some of my coffee highlights. I’ll end with a round-up of all the food on offer, including the excellent White Label Kitchen.

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Glasgow Coffee Festival 2017 Part III

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The Glasgow Coffee Festival LogoWelcome to the third and final part of my detailed write-ups from the third Glasgow Coffee Festival, which took place earlier this year. In Part I, I looked at the venue itself, the wonderful, soaring hall that is the Briggait, before continuing with a round-up of those exhibitors who had travelled from outside of Scotland to attend. I followed that in Part II with arguably the person who’d travelled the furthest to attend the festival: me! I’d just come back from Japan and brought loads of coffee with me. Using the coffee, we held a Japanese coffee cupping on the last day of the festival.

In Part III, I’m looking at everything else that I got up to at the festival. This includes a round-up of Scottish coffee shops and roasters at the festival, including plenty of old friends and several new ones. There’s also a look at various bits of kit, including tampers, grinders and a shiny espresso machine. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a coffee festival without lots of glorious food!

As usual, there was never enough time to see everyone and visit all the stands, so if I have missed anyone out, I apologise.

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Vietnamese Coffee Part III

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My traditional Vietnamese cup-top filter from The Espresso Station in action at my friend's house in the USA.Welcome to the third and final part of my exploration of traditional Vietnamese coffee following my recent visit to Vietnam. Part I covered my introduction to Vietnamese coffee and the traditional cà phê phin, a cup-top metal filter. I explained how, after a few false starts, I discovered a taste for speciality coffee made with the cà phê phin when I tried it at Shin Coffee in Ho Chi Minh City.

In Part II, I continued my exploration, trying traditional Vietnamese coffee, both speciality and non-speciality, over ice, and with condensed milk, with mixed results. I also tried the (in)famous egg coffee, traditional Vietnamese coffee with a layer of whipped egg yolk and condensed milk. Think of it as a liquid pudding rather than coffee and you’ll be fine.

In this, Part III, you can see how I got on making traditional Vietnamese coffee in various hotels and back at home using my own cà phê phin which I bought at The Espresso Station in Hoi Ann. I’ve tried a number of different beans, and used a couple of recipes which I picked up simply by observing baristas making coffee at the likes of Shin Coffee and Hanoi’s The Caffinet.

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La Gelatiera, New Row

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A shot of the eponymous espresso blend from Terrone & Co, served at La Gelatiera on New Row in London.As much as I like ice cream, ice cream parlours normally don’t appear on the Coffee Spot (Philadelphia’s iconic Franklin Fountain being, until now, the only exception). However, while wandering along New Row to check on New Row Coffee (which, following its change of ownership last year, has rebranded as The Espresso Room) something caught my eye in the window of La Gelatiera: a coffee menu offering two espresso blends from none other than Terrone & Co! Well, that was my choice made for me: who doesn’t love coffee and ice cream? Especially on a hot day…

Although ice cream’s the main reason to visit La Gelatiera, it’s great to see non-coffee places (like Crosstown Doughnuts) serving speciality coffee and doing it well. La Gelatiera’s pretty small, with most customers grabbing their ice cream to go, but there are some tables and a small bar if you want to stay.

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