Category Archives: Saturday Supplement

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

Coffee Stops Awards 2015

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Daniel, winner of the Coffee Stops Awards "Best London Coffee Blogger", flanked by the two bloggers he pipped for the award, yours truly, and Jonny of London Cafe Review. If you cast your mind back to this time last year, you will remember the inaugural Coffee Stops Awards, set up by Chris Ward to promote all that’s good about the independent coffee sector. Back then, the Awards just covered London, but fast-forward to this year, and Chris has rolled them out to cover the entire UK, more than enough reason to get behind the Awards and give them some support!

However, those with good memories will also realise that I have a vested interest, since in 2014, I was in the running for the Best London Coffee Blog Award, eventually finishing second behind the winner, Daniel of Cups of London Coffee. This year Daniel and I are back, this time in the expanded category of Best Media for Coffee, where we’re up against some seriously stiff competition, including professional publications such as Caffeine Magazine and Time Out, plus apps such as London’s Best Coffee.

There are 10 categories in this year’s awards and you can vote once per day in each category.  Voting closes at 4pm on Wednesday, May 13th, so if you want to have your say, you’ve got a whole week to get your voting done.

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Made by Knock: Hausgrind and Feldgrind

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Two sets of wooden cylinders for Knock's feldgrind hand-grinders.I first came across Made by Knock (technically the company is Knock, but goes by “Made By Knock” on the web) and its fabulous hand-grinders at last year’s London Coffee Festival. Several people told me about these wonderful wooden grinders that I had to see. So, on the final day of the festival, I made my way to Knock’s stand and spent a happy hour with Peter, Knock’s co-owner, playing with the grinder, the hausgrind, and watching various demonstrations. From my enthusiastic write-up, you could tell that I had already fallen in love with the hausgrind.

My next encounter came later that year at Cup North, where I ran into Peter and Knock on the Dear Green Coffee stand. Here I discovered that Knock had a smaller, lighter (and cheaper) version of the hausgrind, the feldgrind. I fear that in a moment of madness, I may have agreed to buy one.

Fast forward a few weeks and I was on a train to Edinburgh and, before long, was making my way down to Portobello, the home of Knock, where I had an appointment with Peter and, unknown to me, a very endearing little chap called Woody…

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Barista Training at Department of Coffee and Social Affairs: Part II

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Yours truly holding a portafilter up to check if I've got my tamping level.A fortnight ago, I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend a two-hour barista course run by the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs in Broadgate. It was part of a week-long event called Savour Broadgate, designed to highlight the growing number of restaurants and cafés in the Broadgate area.

One thing I really appreciated about the course was just how much the two trainers, Chris and John, enjoyed themselves. These weren’t two guys going through the motions at the end of the long day. They were loving every minute of it, even my annoyingly technical questions. It was clear that they both revelled in sharing their knowledge and love of coffee and their enthusiasm was infectious.

In Part I of this Saturday Supplement, I talked about the theory aspect of the course, which was mixed with practical, hands-on examples. If you want a quick recap, we started by tasting (and understanding the taste of) espresso, before going on to learn about espresso extraction and the importance of tamping. Then, armed with all this knowledge, we were let loose on the espresso machines, first to pull some shots, then to make some flat whites.

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Barista Training at Department of Coffee and Social Affairs: Part I

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Yours truly holding a portafilter up to check if I've got my tamping level.A fortnight ago, I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend a two-hour barista course run by the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs in Broadgate, that slightly overlooked part of London just to the north of Liverpool Street Station. The course, one of the Department’s weekly evening barista courses, was part of a week-long event called Savour Broadgate, designed to highlight the growing number of restaurants and cafés in the area, timed to coincide with the opening of Broadgate Circle, home, amongst others, of the latest branch of Beany Green.

The location was the Department’s Liberty of Norton Folgate branch. If that sounds familiar, that’s because until very recently it was known as Liberty of Norton Folgate. The Department of Coffee has always been an interesting chain, each branches having its own name and distinct character.  In fact, you’d often struggle to realise that some of the branches were part of the same chain. Until now, that is. The Department of Coffee has decided to brand all nine of its branches “Department of Coffee and Social Affairs”, the name coming from the Department’s very first store on Leather Lane.

Anyway, enough of the background. What about the course?

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Caffè Culture Awards 2015

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The Caffe Culture Show logoWith the London Coffee Festival fast approaching, it’s easy to forget that hot on its heels comes the Caffè Culture Show, now in its 10th year. This year it’s on Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th May at London’s Olympia and is bigger and better than ever. Amongst other things, it will be hosting the second Coffee Stop Awards (more on which in another post, although you can find out what I made of the first Coffee Stop Awards if you like) and the SCAE Coffee in Good Spirits and Tasters Cup Competitions (previously held at the London Coffee Festival).

However, the big news (for me, at least) is that I’ve been asked to judge the Caffè Culture Exhibitor Best Drink Award. This has involved me whittling a list of 25 entries down to a shortlist of five. I’ll be visiting all five stands on the Wednesday of the show and trying all the shortlisted drinks before selecting the winner.

There are two more awards: Best Food (judge: Maria Bracken, Editor of Lunch Business Magazine) and Best Innovative Product (judge: Helen Marriott, Editor of Caffè Culture Connect). Details of the Awards, including the shortlists, are on the Caffè Culture website.

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Jolliffes (Nest Update)

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A tray full of cupcakes, freshly delivered to Jolliffes in BrightonWhen I first went to Brighton, I came across Nest, a lovely, cosy spot in Brighton’s North Laines. Back then I wrote that Nest was the “sort of place that put the lounge into coffee lounge: a relaxed, chilled-out space where you could easily end up spending all day without quite meaning to”. On my return last month, I was wandering the Laines, as you do, when I thought to myself, “ooh, Nest should be down there”. So down I went, only to discover that Nest was no more and, in its place, was Jolliffes.

The good news, for those of you who liked the original Nest, is that not much has changed from the original concept. It’s still a great place to come and spend time, lounging around with your coffee and cake. The roaster has been changed, from Has Bean to the local Redroaster, but the cakes are still both locally-sourced and excellent.

I was there only three weeks after the new owners took charge, so expect a few more changes to the décor as they spruce things up, but as far as I’m aware, there are no plans for any radical changes.

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London Coffee Festival 2015: Preview

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The London Coffee Festival LogoIt’s that time of year again! How quickly it comes around… Three weeks from now I’ll be back at the London Coffee Festival for the third year running. Once again, the Festival will grace the Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane this time from Thursday, 30th April to Sunday, 1st May.

For those who don’t know, the London Coffee Festival is the launch event of UK Coffee Week and is the UK’s leading coffee festival. Spread across a number of festival zones and with 18 areas of activity, there’s food, music, art and, of course, coffee! If you’ve been before, it should all be very familiar, with industry days on Thursday and Friday and three-hour consumer sessions on Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday. If you haven’t been, take a look at my round up of last year’s festival, where you’ll also find links to five themed posts I made on my experience with cups, kit, food, competitions and, finally, the coffee.

My first piece of advice is that if you want to go, get your ticket now since they are selling fast. With that caveat in mind, I present my preview of the London Coffee Festival 2015!

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Espressno C+

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The Espressno logo: a smiling, yellow cup of coffeeSharp-eared readers will remember that this time last month, I appeared on Episode C of the wonderful Espressno podcast. At the end of Episode C, the lovely Paul, the man behind Espressno, mentioned that there was a second part, which would be known as Episode C+ (if you don’t get it, don’t worry, it’s a rather geeky computer in-joke).

The good news (or bad news, depending on what you thought of Episode C) is that Episode C+ is out on Easter Monday. If you heard Episode C, you should know roughly what to expect since this is very much more of the same, only covering slightly different topics.

On the other hand, if you didn’t listen to Episode C, then it’s basically me and Paul (okay, mostly me) blathering on for half an hour about coffee, with the occasional diversion into social media. It’s probably akin to going to your favourite coffee shop and getting stuck next to two blokes having a long conversation about coffee. But without the benefit of being in a coffee shop. Unless, of course, you’re listening to it in a coffee shop…

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Small Batch Cupping at Finisterre

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The front cover of a bag of Rwanda Kinyaga Coffee from Small Batch.On Thursday last week, I was fortunate enough to be invited to a cupping being held by Brighton roaster, Small Batch, although rather than having to go all the way down to the south coast, I just had to pop along to Seven Dials and surf shop, Finisterre. While this may seem a strange location for a coffee cupping, it makes more sense than you think, since Finisterre, as well as being a surf shop, also has a lovely little coffee shop, serving Small Batch (although you’d probably already guessed that at this point).

The guys from Small Batch (head-roaster, Al; barista trainer, Laura; and Dan) were joined by Cory from green-bean importers, Falcon. Cory was there due to his experience in Africa, where he’s been working on building links with local farmers, helping them grow sustainable coffee businesses. Cory’s presence was important because this was no ordinary cupping. Instead, Small Batch was showing-casing its range of coffee from Rwanda, with six coffees in all, each from a different washing station (all the coffees are named after the washing station which processed them). There was also a seventh coffee, a Shembati Buziraguindwa from neighbouring Burundi, to provide some contrast.

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Espressno C

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The Espressno logo: a smiling, yellow cup of coffeeToday’s Saturday Supplement is a blatant piece of self-publicity if ever there was one. As some of you may know, my friend Paul, wearer of many hats, possessor of too many first names (and, consequentially, too few surnames) and all-round-good-egg, has a podcast called Espressno (and no, I don’t know why he called it that either).

What you may not realise is that last month, while I was in Sheffield on Coffee Spot business, I made a sneaky day-trip to Leeds where I met Paul, who, somewhat foolishly, sat me down, handed me a microphone and then pressed record. The result is Episode C of Espressno, half-an-hour of me talking and occasionally letting Paul get a word in edgeways (It’s only fair, it is his podcast after all).

I would encourage you to listen to it, not least because Paul needs another listener…

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