UNITED [COFFEE] KINGDOM a Brief Overview of Coffee in England and Scotland
a Brief Overview of Coffee in England and Scotland
After some wild coffee adventures and amazing encounters in Iceland, I took a short flight back towards the continent, making a brief stop in the UK to join my family on a nine-day road trip from the south of England, up to Scotland, and back again. In realizing The UK is pretty well-documented in terms of its coffee scene, I captured fewer ‘stories’, but this didn’t prevent me from popping into various cafes along the way that I thought were doing cool things and connect with as many great people as I could.
THE GIRL IN THE CAFÉ | CELESTE WONG
While killing time in London before our roadtrip, I decided to try my luck again at connecting with YouTube personality and coffee entrepreneur, Celeste Wong aka The Girl in the Café. By good fortune, she was pulling some shifts at Soho Bikes the day I was around and told me I should swing by for a chat. When I rolled up, she was on a lunch run for the café staff, but after picking up a few burgers from the corner, I finally got to grill the girl on all of her coffee successes.
As the story goes, Celeste is originally from New Zealand, but spent a few years living and working in Australia as well. Landing in London, she started working in the industry, behind the coffee bar, and now has around a decade of experience under her belt, based mostly in Soho. She eventually became quite known in the hood, often stopped in the street… ‘hey, aren’t you that girl in the café’. This escalated into her starting her own web series and blog, under her newly acquired alias, The Girl in the Café. At one point, she was working 10-12 hour days at Australian café bistro place as the head of coffee, but decided to give that up for her own projects full-time.
As of now she does a wonderful mix of a coffee things including writing, product reviews, event planning, consulting, and even vending her own signature bean roast (isn’t that all of our dreams?). To give you an example, the first time I popped up in London, late 2016, she was busy doing her own espresso pop-up at an event for La Marzocco, I couldn’t make it down to say hi, but promised it would happen one day. In this case, promise kept and I got to meet a huge inspiration!
Story Update: Fast-forward about a month while I’m living in Berlin, I swing by Bonanza Coffee for some more research and who do I run into, straight outta Soho, this girl, in the café – lives up to her name.
The next day I caught up with my family arriving from Canada in Gatwick Airport, we piled in the rental car, and set off northward on the wrong side of the road. At least I think it was north, after a few hours of musical chairs trying out the driver seat, we weren’t even sure what was left and right.
OXFORD | SOCIETY CAFÉ
If you’ve read Issue 5 of our beloved Standart Mag, you’ll know all about the booming coffee scene in Oxford amidst Hogwartesque university buildings, cobblestone streets, and beautifully legendary pubs graced by Tolkien and Lewis (which we happily explored as well, pint by pint). But it’s true, all ales aside, Oxford is a must-visit for the latest on local English coffee scene as we stopped several times to try different espressos before hitting the road again the following day. Here’s some snaps of Society Café, currently brewing from Origin and Round Hill roasters.
YORK | GATEHOUSE COFFEE
Growing up, mom would sometimes surprise us with a batch of freshly-baked Yorkshire Puddings, so we knew more or less what we were getting into. If you have no clue what I’m talking about, it’s actually not pudding at all, and these Yorkie-Puds were gigantic. Fortunately, York has a super cool fortress wall surrounding most of the town centre that you can walk on top of so we used the jaunt to shed our newly-gained pounds (and I don’t mean currency).
Encountering one of the major gates of the wall, we found that there was actually a tri-level café inside the gate itself fittingly called Gatehouse Coffee that was serving several different coffees from Allpress roasters, their batch brew being a Myanmar which I was ecstatic about given last year’s research visit (full story coming soon, I swear). Great vibes and chats and we were off, caffeinated and ready to cross into Scotland.
EDINBURGH | ARTISAN ROAST + WILLIAMS & JOHNSON
I had tried a roast from Artisan once in Barcelona, thanks Monika for bringing back the sample, but showing up in the shop itself was really great vibes. I particularly liked the open-concept of the espresso machine and brew bar as it puts the client right in the mix. Coincidentally, we ran into a couple from Waterloo, Ontario (very close to where we’re from), and shared a few stories and got fuelled-up before our next adventure, climbing the local Scottish ‘mountain’, Arthur’s Seat.
The next morning, before a short drive to Glasgow, we took a pitstop in the collective design space on Custom Lane to check out a new spot, Williams & Johnson. As it turns out, one of the owners was actually born in my hometown, Hamilton, Ontario, and his cousin works in Durand Coffee – small world! They had recently moved their roaster from another location in town into the café space, and were still putting the final touches in place, and it was beautiful. I was inspired to see that in essentially the same space, just a doorway away, local fashion designer, Kestin Hare, had set up his bi-level boutique whose architectural design matched seamlessly with the clothes themselves. Arrie and I did a quick shoot on their quintessential yellow stairwell, and we were all on our way.
GLASGOW | AVENUE COFFEE
I had some extended family to visit in Glasgow, and they gave us the grand tour. From the elevated graveyard for essential views of the city, to a saunter around the old university grounds, it was like traveling back in time. I knew there was a lot this city had to offer that we would have to skip on this first trip, but on our way to breakfast in the hip Hillhead neighbourhood the next morning, I stumbled across Avenue Coffee where I picked up a bag and a double shot – the perfect combo.
We were soon on our way to explore the Lochs of Scotland before eventually turning around for our long journey back towards Gatwick.
WINDERMERE | HOMEGROUND COFFEE + KITCHEN
Back in England, after what seemed like hours of long windy roads in the mid-october afternoon darkness, we finally arrived at our hostel deep in the heart of Lake District, just outside of Windermere. Exploring the small but quaint town for a bite and a sip between light showers, we spotted a perfect suspect for tomorrow’s coffee + breakfast investigations. The next morning, rain now coming down in buckets, we returned to Homeground and were pleasantly surprised.
We ordered coffees and various wholesome breakfast items to set us on the right foot before continuing our travels, and I took the time to chat a bit with Rich, café owner and today’s barista. He shared about his fellow passion for specialty coffee, collaborating with a local roaster, and their dream to set something up here in the region.
The coffee scene in The UK has so much to offer, and I know we just barely scratched the surface. As usual, I had some great interactions with other passionate people in the industry, although brief, and had an incredible time exploring new territory with my family, which is always a dream on its own. It was finally time for me to catch a short flight to Berlin, where I was planning to settle down for a while and make any coffee connections I could, so we all said our goodbyes, and I was off to the mainland.
FOOTNOTES
Another big thanks to Original Grain Watches for partnering with The Nomad Barista!