Cafe Review
Cafe Review: Monmouth Coffee
Monmouth Street, London, Covent Garden, WC2H 9EU
Monmouth Coffee is a very small space divided in two. The lower level retail whole beans, whilst there is some seating as well as the brewing equipment further up. The seating is very limited, and they have a sharing policy so you often end up sat at a table of strangers, which I guess is something of a tradition in the coffee house. Monmouth have a stellar reputation in London for their coffee, and they go to great lengths to source the best coffee they can.
I chose not to have an espresso based drink, instead to have a cup of one their single origin coffees - the Guatemala Las Nubes. It was a lovely cup, clean, fresh and some nice fruit. I can heartily recommend any of the cups brewed to order. Usually they deliver it with the single cup filter still on top of the cup, and I like the ritual of letting it finish dripping before removing it and leaving it in a little saucer they give. Sadly they didn’t do that today. Only a tiny, pedantic gripe. The coffee menu is extensive, to some extent intimidating and a little confusing, with most coffees traceable right down to the farm and the farmer. They also have trip reports from their visits to origin.
I struggle to whole heartedly recommend their espresso drinks, even though their espresso blend is excellent. Watching the shots today they were running quite quick, close to 40 seconds with quite a lot of blonding. Their milk texture looked great though and there was a little latte art on some of the drinks.
One of London’s better cafes.
Espresso machine and coffee brewing space
Some of the whole beans available
[tags]coffee, cafe review, london cafes, espresso, barista, monmouth coffee[/tags]
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How does it work leaving whole beans to air that way?
Tonx asked that over at Flickr and I have to say I don\’t really know how they handle freshness. But I will find out!
Hi, have you had espressos at Monmouth recently? I go by almost every week..actually FW and Monmouth is my usual round..and last couple of times I got espresso that didn’t taste quite good…. One time there was a girl who seemed kind of new and that espresso I swear (on my not yet developped coffe-brain) was underextracted…. and the other one was from this blond tall guy that tasted crap too - flat……. After them both I went on to FW and had a rehabilitating espresso….. and the world seemed quite a lot nicer again….
…didn’t really want to put it on TMC as a question, because I love the Monmouth….
I think I say in the review above that I dont reallzy recommend the espresso drinks at monmouth and often the grind and the baristas, despite prettz good efforts, are a little bit off.
Shame, they roast a lovely coffee and Flat White just put a bit more effort and expertise into it.
what do you mean by “running quite quick at 40 secs?”
I was picked up on a forum about this, as it does seem contradictory.
The pour was a little fast to me, and would have been about 1 fl oz in just under 20s, but appeared to keep running for another 18s more. God knows how big the shot was.
I have noticed that the espresso drinks can be inconsistent depending on who made the espresso. Some of the guys there are really particular about the whole process of making espresso based drinks, from the coffee grind to the length of time the shot run to the pouring of the milk.
Did you try the espresso drink when you were there?
I prefer their store on Monmouth St in Covent Garden. They sell lots of beans, so presumably they’re not on open-air display for that long. Sometimes they’ll show you their roasting process downstairs if they’re not busy.
They’ve got a store in Borough near Neals Yard Dairy and also a stall in the new section of Borough Market - both of those are rushed on market days and seem more expensive.
Free Coffee Samples…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…