Dee Light Bakery

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Looking down the length of the cafe area of Dee Light Bakery towards the bakery at the back.Last week I visited Tooting Bec to explore its speciality coffee scene, so it’s slightly annoying that today’s Coffee Spot, the delightful Dee Light Bakery, is actually in Balham, even though it’s closer to Tooting Bec station than it is to Balham station. Located in a parade of shops with flats above, it’s on the northern side of Ritherdon Road, just off the A24 which links Balham station (north) with Tooting Bec station (south).

Geography woes aside, Dee Light Bakery is very much a part of the neighbourhood and will be celebrating its 10th birthday in November. First and foremost, it’s a bakery, with everything (except the bread) baked by hand on site. There’s a wide range of goodies on offer, from breakfast through to lunch and afternoon tea, plus lots of cakes and pastries on the side. This is all backed up by an espresso-based menu using the Allpress espresso blend, along with a wide range of teas from Canton Tea Co in Bristol. You can sit inside at a short row of tables opposite the counter, or outside, where you’ll find a spacious, sunny terrace in front of the bakery, which is well set back from the road.

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Green Monkey London

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The Green Monkey London logo from the menu, showing the silhouette of a green monkey in a tree.Continuing my exploration of those bits of South West London which historically I’ve sped through/past on the train brings us to Tooting Bec, which I visited last week. And where better to start than around the corner from Tooting Bec tube station, where you’ll find today’s Coffee Spot, Green Monkey London? Green Monkey is something of local institution, having opened in 2015, occupying the last in a row of five single-storey units east of the station on the south side of Tooting Bec Road. There are a couple of tables outside on the pavement, with much more seating inside, although if you’re ordering takeaway, there’s a handy to-go window to the right of the door.

Styling itself “coffee and brunch”, Green Monkey lives up to both these tags, serving Nude Coffee Roasters’ East Blend from a standard espresso-based menu, along with a range of loose-leaf tea (served by the pot), various fresh juices and a selection of smoothies. When it comes to food, there’s an extensive breakfast and brunch menu with various vegetarian and vegan options alongside meat-filled classics such as the bacon, sausage and fried egg brioche bun, all backed up with a selection of cakes and pastries.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Amsterdam to London by Thalys/Eurostar

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The front power car, No 4538, of a Thalys TGV-R waiting at Amsterdam Centraal before the start of its journey to Lille-Europe in June 2018. Last week I wrote about my first (and, so far, only) trip to Amsterdam by Eurostar, which I took in June 2018 to attend that year’s World of Coffee event. Sadly, it was only a short trip, with just enough time for a day at World of Coffee, 2½ days exploring Amsterdam’s speciality coffee scene and the annual off-season gathering of the Surrey Scorchers’ TV Commentators’ club. Then, the following Tuesday afternoon, having spent the morning visiting more coffee shops, I was back at Amsterdam Centraal Station to catch my train home.

At the time of writing, Eurostar runs two direct services a day (afternoon and evening) from Amsterdam to St Pancras International, but three years ago, with the service only having just started, you had to take a Thalys high-speed train from Amsterdam to Brussels-Midi, where you changed onto a London-bound Eurostar service. This is because on Eurostar, you clear passport control and customs for both countries when you board the train. At the time, Amsterdam Centraal didn’t have the necessary facilities, so Eurostar allowed you to book a through ticket, combining the Thalys and Eurostar services, an option which is (slightly disappointingly) no longer available.

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The Eclectic Collection

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A classic flat white with some lovely latte art, served in a classic black cup at The Eclectic Collection.Earlsfield is blessed when it comes to speciality coffee shops. Last week I wrote about Bean & Hop and, while some places would be satisfied with that, it’s not enough for Earlsfield which has today’s Coffee Spot, The Eclectic Collection, literally across the road. Opening in March 2018 with the aim of providing something different from the typical speciality coffee shop, The Eclectic Collection was initially just a café. However, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 saw the front part of The Eclectic Collection morph into a high quality delicatessen, something which has proved so popular that it’s here to stay.

These days, The Eclectic Collection is a delicatessen, a coffee shop serving an all-day brunch menu and, for two nights a week (Thursday, Friday), a restaurant with a blind menu. Serving coffee from Berlin’s The Barn certainly helps it stand out from the crowd, but perhaps the most notable thing about The Eclectic Collection are the multiple seating areas at the back, decorated in perhaps the most eclectic fashion that I’ve ever seen in a coffee shop, with colourful wallpaper, various statues, chairs which stubbornly refuse to match each other and a whole lot more besides!

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Saucer & Cup

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A double shot of espresso in a classic, oversized blue cup, served at Saucer & Cup.Saucer & Cup is one of those places which has been on my radar since it opened in 2014. However, I’ve never quite been in the right place at the right time for a visit (or, possibly, never made the time/place…). Until last week, that is, when I was in Earlsfield, a mere 20-minute walk away. It was too good an opportunity to miss!

Saucer & Cup is on the other side of Wimbledon Park from the famous All England Law Tennis and Croquet Club, located on Arthur Road, just down the hill from Wimbledon Park tube station on the District Line. From the street, it’s a fairly modest space, but inside, it goes quite a way back, plus there’s a spacious basement.

The focus is on the coffee, which Saucer & Cup backs up with a concise and innovative brunch menu, all the food being prepared in the kitchen, which shares downstairs with the basement seating. Saucer & Cup only offers single-origins, with a seasonal house espresso from Workshop, plus a regularly changing guest espresso (currently Tim Wendelboe). There’s also batch brew filter and, depending on the time of day/how busy things are, you can always ask (nicely) about pour-over.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: London to Amsterdam by Eurostar

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Eurostar e320 No. 4025 sitting at the sunny end of the platform of St Pancras International in June 2018, waiting to take me to Amsterdam.Today’s Travel Spot takes us back three years to the summer of 2018, when I caught the Eurostar to Amsterdam to attend the World of Coffee. In all, I spent 3½ days in Amsterdam, mostly exploring its speciality coffee scene, before catching the Thalys/ Eurostar back to the UK. This Travel Spot covers my journey there, when I took advantage of the (then) newly introduced direct London to Amsterdam service (which started running in April that year), although my journey had actually started that morning in Newcastle, with the leg of the journey to Amsterdam only an hour longer than it took me to get down from Newcastle.

Although my journey out was direct, my return was a two-stage affair, taking the Thalys service from Amsterdam to Brussels-Midi before transferring to the Eurostar back to London St Pancras. The good news is that as of this time last year, Eurostar runs direct services from Amsterdam as well. At the time of writing, Eurostar is offering two direct outbound services a day, with another two services involving a change of trains at Brussels-Midi, while there are just two direct return services (afternoon and evening), with no indirect services, which is slightly disappointing.

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Bean and Hop

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A cortado, served in a glass on a blue saucer, made with an exclusive coffee from Santa Ana in El Salvador and roasted by Nude Espresso for Bean and Hop.For as long as I’ve lived in Guildford, Earlsfield’s been one of those stations that I’ve sped through on my way to London Waterloo (unless on the slow train to Clapham Junction, when it’s been the signal to get ready since Clapham Junction is the next stop). That is, until Tuesday, when I decided to get off at Earlsfield Station and see what the area has to offer, starting with today’s Coffee Spot, Bean and Hop, a three-minute walk south of the station.

Bean and Hop styles itself craft beer, coffee and brunch, although I’d be inclined to reverse that order (and add wine and cocktails to the list).  Occupying a sunny spot on Garratt Lane, it’s a bustling, friendly (and dog-friendly) place with plenty of seating, plus more tables outside. There’s an extensive brunch menu, with the kitchen open until three, while the coffee comes from Nude Espresso, which roasts an exclusive single-origin from Santa Ana in El Salvador (the home of Coffeeland) which is used at Bean and Hop and its two siblings, Café Tamra and Café Fleur. This is available via a standard espresso-based menu, backed up with tea, smoothies and a small range of cocktails.

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MONIES

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A V60 of the Worka Chelchelie, a natural yeast process coffee from Ethiopia, roasted by Yallah Coffee and served in a glass cup at MONIES in Putney.Last weekend saw me in South West London, where I visited three speciality coffee shops, all of which opened during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Two of these, Lockdown Bakehouse (2020) and Another Brother (June this year) are in Wandsworth, but today’s Coffee Spot, MONIES, is a hop, skip and jump away in Putney.

MONIES, which opened in May this year, is a Cornish-inspired spot, located on Upper Richmond Road between Putney train station and East Putney tube station. It’s a sizeable place, with a generous outdoor terrace at the front, allowing the shop to be set back from the busy road. Inside, the front is largely the preserve of the counter, but there’s plenty of seating at the back.

There’s a seasonal single-origin espresso from Cornwall’s Yallah Coffee, with another single-origin from a guest roaster on pour-over via the V60. There’s Cornish tea (Tregothnan), wine, cocktails, beer and cider, both to drink in and takeaway, plus retail bags of Yallah Coffee, joined by local roaster, Curious Roo. If you’re hungry, there’s Cornish ice cream (from the Monies family farm, no less), plus pre-made sandwiches, cakes and pastries from The Bread Factory, and brownies from The Post Box Bakery.

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Making Coffee at Home: AeroPress (Revisited)

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The view from above: an AeroPress, used in the conventional configuration, with 15 grams of ground coffee in the chamber, waiting for the hot water to be added.When I started my Coffee at Home series at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, the aim was to present some simple ways of improving your home coffee making. My post on the AeroPress was part of my Coffee Preparation Methods series, simple guides on how I use various coffee brewing methods. In it, I wrote about my early struggles with the AeroPress, how I came to fall in love with it, finishing with my preferred way of using the AeroPress, the inverted method.

Fast forward six months, and, as the pandemic dragged on, I took to binge-watching James Hoffmann’s excellent You Tube channel (if you haven’t discovered it yet, I thoroughly recommend it). Since then, I’ve become an avid watcher and, along the way, I’ve learnt an awful lot. Just one example is the Clever Dripper, a method I liked but sometimes struggled with. Then along came James with his Ultimate Clever Dripper Guide and it completely changed the way I brewed with the Clever Dripper.

So, when James released his much anticipated five-part AeroPress Guide, I was intrigued. Would it confirm everything I’d been doing with my AeroPress, or turn everything on its head again?

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Another Brother

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The A-board outside Another Brother in Wandsworth, proclaiming: "Coffee | Brunch | another brother"Another Brother is another chance discovery in Wandsworth, and, like Monday’s Coffee Spot, Lockdown Bakehouse, it opened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Located just across the busy Putney Bridge Road from Wandsworth Park, it’s occupied a sunny corner at the park’s western end since opening in June 2021. There’s a handful of tables outside, split evenly between the busy Putney Bridge Road and around the corner on the quieter Brandlehow Road. Alternatively, you can sit inside, where it’s bright and sunny, with a choice of window-bar, a couple of larger tables and several smaller ones.

Another Brother tags itself as coffee and brunch. It achieves the former with the Daily Blend from Caravan on espresso, backed up with a weekly single-origin guest espresso which is also available as a batch brew filter. The guest is sometimes from Caravan (as was the case during my visit) or from a guest roaster (this week, it’s a Peruvian coffee, Andres Vasquez Burga, from Modern Standard). Brunch is provided from the kitchen at the back, with a menu featuring classic dishes such as eggs on sourdough and avocado toast, along with pancakes and corn fritters, all backed up by a selection of cakes and pastries.

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