Category Archives: Saturday Supplement

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

Cup North 2015 Part III

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A lovely flat white in one of Carvetii's cups, showcasing Carvetii's latest seasonal espresso blend at Cup North.Welcome to Part III of what’s become my annual visit to Manchester for self-styled two-day Northern Coffee Party, Cup North which took place at the start of November. In Part I, I looked at Cup North’s new venue, the Victoria Warehouse, as well as running my eye over some of the exciting kit on display and watching some of the competitions: the Tasters Cup, my favourite barista competition, and the (in)famous coffee-throwing championships!

Last week, in Part II, I focused exclusively on the coffee. I started with a demo of The Dragon, a manual syphon method, then I got to play on a pair of espresso machines, a Victoria Arduino Black Eagle and a La Marzocco Strada. Finally, I set myself a challenge to convert some friends to the wonders of not putting milk or sugar in their coffee with some help from Grumpy Mule.

This week, in Part III, I’ll have a look at all the wonderful food on offer, whiz round the rest of the roasters (there were an awful lot of roasters at Cup North this year), including an important but often overlooked aspect of the coffee industry: milk. Finally, there’s brief mention of everyone I missed.

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Jika Jika, Euston Square

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A flat white in the sun, seen from directly above, at Jika Jika on Euston Square.Jika Jika started life in Bath about five years ago. It’s recently moved premises there, downsizing to a smaller outlet by the station. About a year ago it also opened a second branch. In London. As you do.

Close enough to Euston station to be worth visiting if you’re en route to catch a train, it’s just around the corner from the northern exit of Euston Square tube station (turn right, away from Euston itself, and ignore the branch of Costa). It’s somewhere I kept going past, thinking, “Is that the same Jika Jika as in Bath?” and “I must go in there one day”. So, eventually, I did. Twice.

There’s not a lot to Jika Jika, which occupies a corner of the Euston Square hotel (which, ironically, also houses the aforementioned Costa). However, it packs a lot in, including decent breakfast and lunch offerings. There’s a solid espresso menu, based around a bespoke espresso blend (plus decaf) from Cornwall’s Origin, using a two-group La Marzocco which dominates the counter at the back of the small space. If you have time to linger, the décor is interesting, including plenty of pictures and amusing coffee-related quotations.

January 2017: Jika Jika is now closed. As far as I know, the branch in Bath has also closed.

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Cup North 2015 Part II

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The label on Grumpy Mule's Costa Rica Las Lajas Semi Washed: Epic. Seasonal. Crafted.Welcome to Part II of what’s become my annual visit to Manchester for self-styled two-day Northern Coffee Party, Cup North. Last year, the inaugural Cup North was my favourite coffee festival: small, friendly and intimate. This year, having moved to a new venue, it felt more like a mini-London Coffee Festival, with multiple spaces and more buzz.

In Part I, I looked at the new venue, some of the exciting kit on display (including new manual coffee maker, Oomph, which launched its Kickstarter yesterday) and the competitions: the Tasters Cup, my favourite barista competition, and the (in)famous coffee-throwing championships! This week, in Part II, I’ll be focusing exclusively on coffee, while Part III will look at the rest of the coffee & food.

We start with a long-overdue catch up with Coopers Coffee, when I got a demo of The Dragon, a manual syphon method. I also got to play on a Victoria Arduino Black Eagle, while the wonderful folks at Origin let me have a go on a La Marzocco Strada. Finally, I set myself a challenge to convert some friends to the wonders of not putting milk or sugar in their coffee with some help from Grumpy Mule.

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Lemana Café Update

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A Has Bean coffee sack hanging from the counter at Lemana Coffee & Kitchen.Lemana, in Lymington, just outside the New Forest, has been a favourite of mine since my first visit in November 2013. A friendly, family-run, community-based café in a small town, it had excellent food and outstanding cakes, plus one of the warmest welcomes you’ll find. The only thing I didn’t rave about was the coffee.

However, when I heard on twitter that Lemana had started serving coffee from Staffordshire legends, Has Bean, my ears perked up. A return visit was quickly pencilled in as part of my annual trip to Naish, just along the coast from Lymington (which, contrary to my initial belief, is in Hampshire, not Dorset).

The switch to Has Bean is the most obvious of the changes, which have included taking a range of loose-leaf tea from Dorchester’s Gilded Teapot. Fortunately the warm welcome, excellent food and outstanding cakes remain, while other changes have been more subtle.

November 2018: since I wrote this update, Lemana has changed hands and now uses local roaster, Coffee Monger’s Roasting Company. To see what else has changed, see my latest Coffee Spot Update.

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Beyond the Bean Barista Bursary

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The Beyond the Bean Barista Bursary logoI have a confession to make. I don’t like (watching) barista competitions. The UKBC, Latte Art Championships, Brewers Cup, Coffee in Good Spirits… I just don’t enjoy watching them, although I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really enjoyed the Tasters Cup at Cup North. I think this was because, unlike all the other competitions, there’s no subjective element, no judging. The contestants either got it right or wrong. End of story.

It’s not just coffee, by the way. I’m the same with everything else. Dancing? I’m a tango dancer, I love it. Strictly Come Dancing? No thanks. I love to bake, particularly cakes. Watching the Great British Bake Off? Never seen a single episode. It just doesn’t appeal.

That said, I enjoy watching baristas at work in coffee shops. I’ve learnt so much just by standing behind or in front of a counter, observing, asking questions, interacting. Unfortunately, I find I don’t get that much enjoyment from watching the competitions.

So, bearing all this in mind, when Gary from Beyond the Bean asked me to take part in judging a barista bursary, with the view of finding a competitor for the UKBCs, I… jumped at the chance!

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Cup North 2015 Part I

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Sonali Tailor, who finished third in this year's Tasters Cup, in action at the final in Cup North.Last weekend saw my annual visit to Manchester for self-styled two-day Northern Coffee Party, Cup North. Regular readers will be pleased to learn that, true to form, it rained almost constantly, stopping for brief intervals so that I could pop outside to visit the excellent food stalls. The rain also obligingly held off for the first-ever UK Coffee Throwing Championships (more of which later).

Last year, Cup North was my favourite coffee festival, small, friendly and intimate. This year, it’s taken things up a notch, with a new venue and a significant increase in size. While retaining its friendly nature, it felt, with its multiple spaces, more like a mini-London Coffee Festival. Having come from the smaller, more intimate Glasgow Coffee Festival just a few weeks earlier, it took a while to get my head around the change of scale.

There was, of course, that much more to see and, sadly, I didn’t make it to everyone, so please accept my apologies if I didn’t catch up with you. For now, let’s kick-off with this, Part I of my round-up, with a look at the venue, kit and competitions. Parts II and III will focus on the coffee & food.

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Glasgow Coffee Festival 2015 Part II

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The poster for the 2015 Glasgow Coffee FestivalLast week, I brought you Part I of my round-up of this year’s Glasgow Coffee Festival. Although the Glasgow Coffee Festival by name (it’s held in Glasgow, after all), it’s more a celebration of Scotland’s growing specialty coffee scene, with plenty of contributions from further afield. It’s a lovely, one-day festival, held this year on 17th October. Small, laidback and friendly, there was plenty of time to talk and socialise, an opportunity to catch up with old friends and make some new ones.

In the imaginatively entitled Part I, I talked about the venue itself, the magnificent Briggait, looked at the vintage espresso machines and up-to-date hand-grinders that were on display, ran through all the coffee that I drank and reported back on my attempts to pull a shot on a Slayer.

In the even more imaginatively entitled Part II, I’ll run through all the Scottish roasters that I met, round up all the other roasters that I chatted to, and round-up everything else I found at the festival. However, before that, let me introduce you to Wil Freeborn…

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Glasgow Coffee Festival 2015 Part I

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The poster for the 2015 Glasgow Coffee FestivalTwo weeks ago I was in Glasgow for the second Glasgow Coffee Festival. Although called the Glasgow Coffee Festival (it’s held in Glasgow, after all), it’s more a celebration of Scotland’s growing specialty coffee scene, with lots of contributors from further afield as well.

Both in scale and atmosphere, it felt more like Cup North than the London Coffee Festival, laidback and friendly. There was plenty of time to talk and socialise, an opportunity to catch up with old friends and make some new ones. I was there for eight hours and still didn’t manage to get around all the stalls (as well as missing all bar one of the talks/workshops/masterclasses/ cuppings).

Some of that was deliberate, because I knew that I would be catching up with people either later that week (I’d set aside a day each to visit new coffee shops in Glasgow and Edinburgh) or a few weeks later at Cup North. Some however, I missed simply because I ran out of time… Despite this, I had a wonderful Glasgow Coffee Festival and will be back next year!

There was enough going on that I’m splitting my report into multiple parts, starting with this, imaginatively entitled Part I (and continuing with the equally imaginative Part II next week)…

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The 2016 Coffee Spot Calendar

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Toby, the owner of Box Office Coffee, Bridport, behind the counter, seen through a mirror hanging on the wall. The counter contains a yellow Sanremo espresso machine and a cream EK-43 grinder.The Coffee Spot calendar has become something of a fixture, with this, the third year I’ve produced one. As before, the calendars will be professionally-printed, A4 in size and on glossy paper. Each month has a landscape, A4 picture from one of my favourite Coffee Spots of the last 12 months.

Just as in previous years, I’ll also be printing a very limited number of desktop calendars (I did 10 last year). However, as an added bonus this year, I’m also producing a limited edition Coffee Spot Lighting Calendar, with the help of my friend Sharon Reed, who has chosen most of the pictures (she let me pick three…).

Each calendar costs £12.00 (£15.00 for the lighting calendar), with a flat £2.00 postage and packing charge, regardless of how many you order. There are also discounts for multiple purchases. If you think we’re likely to meet up in the near future, I’ll even waive the postage and hand your calendar over in person!

If you’re ordering from outside of the UK, then I’m afraid I have to charge more for postage and I can’t offer any discounts for multiple purchases (unfortunately the charges increase rapidly with the weight of the package, unlike postage within the UK). For orders for Europe, postage and packing is £4.00 for one or two calendars, while for the rest of the world, it’s £6.00. If you want more than two, please get in touch regarding postage.

December 2015: I’ve now sold out of everything except the normal Coffee Spot wall calendars. Check out my Calendar Update for the latest news.

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Cup North 2015 Preview

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An espresso being pulled on Foundry's Londinium lever espresso machine at Cup North 2014.Two weeks from now (Saturday/Sunday, 7th/8th November), Cup North, the self-styled two-day Northern Coffee Party, will be back. Once again gracing the fair city of Manchester, Cup North’s moved slightly west to the Victoria Warehouse in Stretford. Cup North was one of last year’s highlights. I had an amazing time and am delighted that Cup North is returning for a second year. If you missed last year’s event and are wondering what it’s like, then this preview is for you.

As a veteran of the London Coffee Festival, I find that Cup North, while having a similar focus on speciality coffee, is on a very different, much more manageable and, dare I say it, friendly, scale. Not that the London Coffee Festival’s unfriendly, but its sheer size and the number of visitors crammed in, make it a very hectic affair.

In contrast, much like the Glasgow Coffee Festival, Cup North is more laidback, with time to talk and socialise, an opportunity to really get to know the various exhibitors. With weekend tickets for under £20 (including booking fee), or just over £10 if you only want to do a single day, it really is a bargain. Get your tickets now!

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