Commentary
Summer home barista training dates
Thank you to everyone who booked their home barista training with us in July. Our home coffee training diary for July filled up pretty quickly, and we are now taking bookings for August, September and beyond. It was such a joy introducing people to the art of extraction and seeing the expressions of family members [...]
WBC2010 from a volunteers perspective
The World Barista Championship has rolled out of town for another year, next stop Bogota, Columbia (June 2-5 2011) Whilst the WBC is an annual event, the friendships created are timeless. Many of the competitors have attended numerous coffee competitions and grasped the opportunity to reunite with friends and regale them with stories of their [...]
Bath Coffee Festival
The first ever Bath Coffee Festival started yesterday at the Recreation Ground in Bath. This two day event is the first of its kind in the UK. The advance publicity had been taken care of by festival organisers Geometry PR, a Bristol based PR Consultancy, ably assisted by the exhibitors, local businesses displaying blackboards referring [...]
A night at Grindsmith
I’ve just got back home from Manchester where I had the pleasure of spending a few hours last night with Ben and Neil from Grindsmith, a new Syphon Coffee Bar and Art Gallery at 6 Hilton St, in the Northern Quarter (check out the review on Beanhunter) I took along the refractometer and the recently [...]
48 hours until the 2010 UK Barista Champion is announced
Last weekend saw the UKBC South East Heat held in London (at Rich Mix in Shoreditch / Bethnal Green) 22 of the top Baristas from London and surrounding areas were competing for a chance to progress to the UKBC Semi Finals & Final this Sunday/Monday (28Feb/01Mar) at Hotelympia in London Some photos from the event [...]
So many beans, and not enough hours in the day in which to drink them
2010 has got off to a roaring start and our diary has been pretty full so far, and there is still a lot to look forward to. Since the New Year we have conducted a number of training sessions for new cafes and home baristas, giving them an insight into the exacting processes of making [...]
Footfall (can you rely on this alone to turn a profit?)
“Location, location, location”, a phrase we are all familiar with. Many cafe owners would have spent countless hours searching for just the right location, near a bus stop, opposite a pedestrian crossing, at a junction, opposite a hospital (and the list goes on), but not everyone seems to have that mindset. I have visited a small [...]
Surrounded by coffee porn…
Yesterday I paid Paul at CoffeeHit a visit at his new premises in Brockley. The showroom was larger than I expected and it was great to see so many products and parts in one place. Most of us are familiar with coffee suppliers websites, with nice images of the products, but many of us never [...]
An opportunity missed
Whilst out shopping today (loitering around the coffee machines section of a major department store, checking out new features and familiarising myself with new domestic models on the market) I watched a transaction take place for the sale of a brand new Gaggia Classic. The elimination process of which machine to buy had begun before [...]
Introducing people to new coffee and brewing methods
This weekend I went fly fishing with the members of a UK fly fishing forum. We camped overnight at a fishery in Leicestershire and spent 2 days trying to outwit the residents of the lake (Rainbow Trout). My boat partner on each day both had an interest in coffee so I purchased a number of [...]
