What with all the fuss about the London Coffee Festival, it’s all too easy to forget about the Caffé Culture Show, a trade-only show all about cafés. It’s held in May every year in the soaring halls of the Kensington Olympia Exhibition Centre. It features suppliers to the café trade, from coffee machine manufacturers and roasters through bakers all the way to furniture suppliers.

I attended for the first time last year and liked it sufficiently to go back this year. It has a much more relaxed pace and feel than the London Coffee Festival, although for various reasons, I didn’t have very long at Caffé Culture this year, so ended up doing a lot of rushing around. The biggest difference I noticed this year is that there seemed to be more a lot more coffee roasters than I remember from my previous visit.

Due to my lack of time I was quite focused in my approach this year, catching up with some old friends (Doctor Espresso, Aeropress, Matthew Algie, Terrone) and making some new ones (Sanremo, Black Sheep). I also took KeepCup #1 along to make some new friends.

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Okay, here it is, the one you’ve been waiting for: the sixth and final instalment in my Saturday Supplement series from the 2014 London Coffee Festival, which took place last month at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. If you’ve been with me since the start, you’ll know that I’ve already written a general round-up, and reports on Cups, Kit, Food and Competitions. I have, of course, saved the best until last, so today, I present the coffee itself!

There are two parts to this Saturday Supplement. The first covers the coffee I enjoyed at the Festival, while the second part is all about the coffee I took home with me.

Of the coffee I had at the Festival, most of it was (by my choice) new to me, with the Australia’s St Ali, Winchester’s Aussie transplant, The Roasting Party, Bath’s Round Hill Roastery and the Colour Coffee Company, the roasting off-shoot of Newcastle’s Pink Lane Coffee, plus old favourites, Terrone. The coffee I took home was also mostly new to me, with the Wales/Cumbria collaboration that is Carvetii, Glasgow’s Dear Green Coffee, fellow Glaswegians Matthew Algie’s hand-roasted single-origins and new kids (lambs?) on the block, Black Sheep Coffee.

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Welcome to the fourth instalment of my Saturday Supplements covering the 2014 London Coffee Festival, which took place last month at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. So far there’s been a general round-up, and reports on Cups and Kit. Today it’s the turn of the food.

You’re actually well catered for in terms of food at the London Coffee Festival, with the Street Food Market. This year things got even better with the addition of the St Ali pop-up café in the Milk and Sugar zone downstairs. Since I was there for three of the four days, I spent a lot of time in the Street Food Market and, judging by how busy it was, I get the feeling lots of other people did too.

However, if you were there for just one session, you might not have wanted to spend too much of your precious time eating, which is where the St Ali pop-up came into its own. Milk and Sugar was open to all attendees once each session had closed, allowing you to pop down for something to eat, as well as another coffee (as if you needed one) before you hit the road.

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