Coffee Spots come in all shapes and sizes, but for some reason I have a real soft spot for small Coffee Spots. Last year the Award was won, somewhat controversially, by Exeter’s Exploding Bakery (controversial since I went by the floor area dedicated to coffee rather than the size of the whole place, which included an open-plan kitchen).
This year I have once again been blessed by some very small Coffee Spots serving some very fine coffee. As in 2012, this Award is entirely subjective: no Coffee Spots were measured during the judging process!
Another new Award for this year is the “Best Saturday Supplement” Award. This might have something to do with there not being any Saturday Supplements last year on account of my not having had the idea yet… The Saturday Supplement is a place where I can write about coffee, coffee-related events and places which I liked but which didn’t really fit into the category of a Coffee Spot. This Award recognises the best of this year’s Saturday Supplements.
Just so we’re clear on this, the Award is not about my writing (that would be far too self-serving). It’s about the actual subjects that I’m writing about, which include coffee festivals, magazines and coffee roasters, which makes the comparison a little tricky, but that’s my problem!
I present the shortlist for one of my favourite Coffee Spot Awards, that of “Happiest Staff”. Last year it was won by Café Boscanova and this year’s shortlist is particular strong. I was blessed as I visited numerous places with some very happy staff this year. This is the one award where I could have filled the shortlist multiple times over.
In my opinion, staff are probably the most over-looked part of any Coffee Spot. Good staff can make a place and bad staff, no matter how great the coffee and wonderful the location, can kill a place. Everywhere that features in the Coffee Spot has great staff, but these were exceptional, with some infectiously happy staff.
There are six Coffee Spots on the shortlist this year, listed in order of publication, although there were so many great places that I’ve included another five “special mentions” at the end.
Despite the name, Manchester’s North Tea Power serves some excellent coffee as well as having some of the happiest staff I’ve come across. The tone is set by the owners, Jane and Wayne, but seems infectious across all of the staff, one of who I spied dancing behind the counter in a quieter moment. This all rubs off on the overall atmosphere in North Tea Power, helping to make it a wonderful place.
I was predisposed to like Café Olimpico in Montréal for a host of reasons, including the excellent coffee and neighbourhood bar feel. However, when the two baristas started singing along to classics such as ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down” I was sold. The highlight was their accompanying Sister Sledge singing “Good Times”.
Four Corners opened its doors on Lower Marsh behind London’s Waterloo Station earlier this year. It’s a lovely place, but one of the things that made it stand out for me was the happiness of the staff, something that’s all the more impressive given how little time they’d been open when I visited.
The staff at The Fields Beneath underneath Kentish Town West station made me feel right at home. Nothing was too much trouble for Jess, the barista, and Vanessa, chief cake tester, and that was before they knew who I was 🙂
The Shrewsbury Coffeehouse is another of those Coffee Spots that could have been shortlisted for any number of awards. As it is, it’s also in the running for the “Best Espresso” Award. However, the thing that struck me the most was just how happy the staff were. I’d only meant to stop for a bite of lunch and ended up staying for more coffee and a slice of most excellent cake.
White Mulberries in St Katherine Dock is generally-speaking one of the happiest places I have been. Owners Peyman and Rana rival North Tea Power’s Wayne and Jane in the happiest owners stakes. White Mulberries is also on the shortlist for the Coffee Spot’s Special Award.
You can find all 20 of the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards here.
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First up today, the 2013 Coffee Spot Award shortlist for “Best Coffee Bean Retailer”. Although the Coffee Spot is mostly about places to have coffee, I drink the majority of my coffee at home, so those wonderful people who provide me with my coffee beans need a mention. The problem is, I’m very loyal when it comes to my coffee beans, so I have a tendency to stick with the tried and trusted few, which is in complete contrast to my café visiting habits. I used to be loyal there too, but since starting the Coffee Spot I hardly ever go back to places, even if I love them!
Anyway, since I’m still getting most of my beans from the same two places I got them last year, I’m going to cheat just this once and put them on the shortlist as well!
Another new award this year, the 2013 Coffee Spot Award for “Best Takeaway Coffee” recognises those places which, braving the elements, still produce an excellent cup of coffee. This includes coffee carts, coffee stalls and those Coffee Spots which are so small that they only serve takeaway coffee. It doesn’t include those Coffee Spots which offer takeaway coffee along with the regular sit-in option.
In fairness, I don’t feature a lot of takeaway places on the Coffee Spot, partly because, for me, a lot of what makes a good Coffee Spot is the atmosphere. This can be hard to achieve at a stall when you’re serving your coffee in a paper cup (another bugbear of mine; if I know I’m going to be visiting a takeaway place, I try to take my own cup with me!). However, there are plenty of great places out there, serving excellent coffee, so one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to try to cover more takeaway Coffee Spots in 2014.
Following on from the Best Espresso Award, the next shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Filter” Award, new this year. A major revelation since starting the Coffee Spot is that filter coffee isn’t that over-brewed, stewed muck that bad coffee chains serve out of urns. It’s actually an amazing, delicate drink that has opened my eyes to a whole new world of coffee.
This award celebrates those Coffee Spots which helped me on my journey of discovery. To give you an idea of how far I have come since starting the Coffee Spot, I initially owned a cafetiere and an espresso machine and either drank my coffee at home with milk (cafetiere) or as espresso. Now I have two pour-over filters and an Aeropress, all of which I use on a regular basis, and a grinder dedicated to grinding for filter coffee. I always drink my filter coffee black and increasingly think that if I have to put milk in my coffee to make it drinkable, I’m drinking the wrong coffee!
The next shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Espresso” Award which was won in 2012 by Soho’s Bar Italia. When it comes down to it, I tend to judge a Coffee Spot by the quality of its espresso. Of course, this is entirely subjective and down to taste. I would never knock a place that made a good espresso just because it wasn’t to my taste.
This award is for those Coffee Spots which served me the best and most memorable espressos of 2013 and there were certainly some surprises in there. I started the Coffee Spot as a confirmed Italian espresso drinker. While I still like something full-bodied and robust, my palette has definitely evolved and I even found myself liking Has Bean espressos (for those not in the know, Has Bean is a UK roaster which made its name with light, fruity blends: exactly the sort of thing I really didn’t like but now find myself warming to!).
Three of the six Coffee Spots on this year’s shortlist got there by serving me Has Bean espressos!
The next shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Overseas Coffee Spot” Award. The Coffee Spot spread its wings in 2013 and ventured outside of mainland Britain for the first time. There were trips to North America (Boston, New York City and Montréal) and Paris and great Coffee Spots were found along the way.
Now, I should say that “Best Overseas Coffee Spot” is perhaps a slight misnomer since I have deliberately only included Coffee Spots which weren’t included in shortlists elsewhere. This is perhaps a little arbitrary, but it allows me to spread the love more widely, which, after all, is the whole point of these Awards (and of the Coffee Spot itself).
The next shortlist for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Best Coffee Spot near a Railway Station” Award. This Award is new for 2013 and rewards those Coffee Spots serving great coffee to desperate travellers on Britain’s rail network.
When you’re desperate for good coffee, railway stations are rarely the best places to be. But what if there was a great Coffee Spot just outside the station or a few minutes’ walk away and you didn’t know about it? Then this award is for you…
The last shortlist for today for the 2013 Coffee Spot Awards is the “Coffee Spot Most Resembling a Coffee Shop” Award. This Award was won in 2012 by Plymouth’s Coffee Bean Central and celebrates those archetypal Coffee Spots that look just how they should look…
Of course, coffee shops come in all shapes and sizes, and there’s more than one archetype, so this award reflects the wide range of coffee shops and all the different styles they represent, with entries from around the UK (Exeter, Coventry, Brighton and London).
Coffee Spots come in all shapes and sizes, but for some reason I have a real soft spot for small Coffee Spots. Last year the Award was won, somewhat controversially, by Exeter’s Exploding Bakery (controversial since I went by the floor area dedicated to coffee rather than the size of the whole place, which included an open-plan kitchen).
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