Just a very quick post to let you know that if you are coming to London for the WBC and want suggestions of somewhere to go then I’d recommend checking out the WBC/Coffee Kids London Coffee Map.

Not only will you get delicious coffee, but the participating shops are also raising money for Coffee Kids, which is two good things for the price of one!

London Coffee Map

When it comes to coffee I think many places that want to improve service tend to take inspiration from restaurant service, but people come to a cafe for different reasons, expecting a different experience and if we just crowbar restaurant service into a cafe setting then it is going to be very awkward.

Success, from a commercial point of view, requires selling coffee to a great many people every day. It also requires selling coffee to a lot of people who really just want the nicest way possible to get caffeine into their system. They want little more than to exchange money for a cup of something both caffeinated and enjoyable, and to go about their day. Outside of coffee we are just like them when we buy lots of different things.

When it comes to interaction, one key idea for me I would call the “opt-in” moment. When you go to a high end restaurant you (knowingly or not) agree to a number of conditions, from how you are expected to act to how you are expected to interact.  You understand that the portions may not be very large, and they may be hesitant if you ask for ketchup.  For the server to detail ingredients in great length is acceptable (if interesting!) where it may not be in a small neighbourhood place.  Through a series of cues (both verbal and non-verbal) we have an expectation of the experience before we commit to it.¹

With a cafe we will struggle to really interact with consumers, to talk to them about the coffees, the producers and nuance until they agree to let us. If I am working a bar I can’t just start talking to someone excessively about the coffee without their consent. The problem for many cafes that want to push service forward is that they don’t have an “opt-in” moment or space.

Whether we like it or not, a lot of the public’s expectation comes from their experiences with larger coffee chains.  The process of queuing, ordering and collecting is a familiar one – it is routine.  Many cafes choose to model the experience of buying coffee on the same process.  Very rarely, in a branded outlet, will anyone say anything other than the bare minimum to you – you know what the barista will say, and when they will say it.  If they didn’t know what was going to happen, it is unlikely they’d be brashly yabbering into a mobile phone as they queued.

A question from a customer is a great opt-in moment, but without that it is a very dangerous assumption that the customer wants to know anything. By choosing to start talking about the coffee you are assuming a great deal about their mood, their needs and their level of comfort interacting with strangers. I wish I was always in that mood where everything is fascinating, but sometimes I just don’t care. I want that piece of steak/usb memory stick/that shirt without needing to know any more than I do about it.  Getting more information than you want, especially without asking for it, can be an irritating, incredibly annoying experience and can permanently damage a relationship between a customer and a business.

One of the best pieces on coffee service was by David Schomer. It was wonderfully practical and demonstrated a great sympathy for how his customers felt when they walked in the door. He has doubtless served more cups of coffee to customers over the years than just about anyone writing about coffee today and I think it shows through.

I think there are many opportunities to create other opt-in moments. We can create areas in a cafe where customers can clearly see that they are going to get a different experience, and by sitting there they agree to us doing something a little different. If you walk into Tea Smith in Spitalfields and sit down at the long bar, read the menu and chat to the staff then it is pretty clear that it is not going to be builder’s tea with 2 sugars, but a more involved tea experience. You understand that it is absolutely fine to ask your server anything about the tea, you can ask for guidance without feeling stupid and that as they brew the tea they may tell you more about it, pass you lids to smell after the brew and throw out little bits of info about what you are drinking. Watching them prepare the tea right in front of you, dialling in brewing temperatures, carefully monitoring time, almost invites you to question the process.

Giving people a little taster is another good opportunity to get their permission to talk to them a little more.  You could argue that this kind of persuasion is a little manipulative (I’m sure you’ve all read Robert Cialdini‘s book), but if you are asking for nothing more than their attention for a few seconds then I think that is fair.

As an industry we are desperate to inform our customers.  Their increased understanding is essential to the success of our businesses.  We must, however, give them opportunities to give their consent for us to do this.

1. As a fun exercise – next time you visit a cafe, try to take note of what it is that gives you an impression of what they do: bottles of syrups, syphon bar, sugar on every table, baristas yelling out drinks, a display fridge full of cans of soft drink etc. etc.

One of the questions he asked was about the influence of Italian populations on coffee cultures.  In Australia a good chunk of credit for the early rise of coffee culture there stems from the high standards of the Italian communities that quickly spread to a relatively small population and increased expectation.

He asked why this hadn’t happen in London/the UK.  Was it just that we have a larger population so it took time for a higher standard to spread?  My thoughts on this, and I’d welcome yours, is that in London certainly there doesn’t seem to be a dense pocket of Italian culture and whilst there are many Italian bars, cafes, restaurants and delis spread throughout the city, the are relatively dilute.  Coffee served in these places isn’t much better than any other coffee served in London and, while I’ve never been hopelessly in love with the actual coffee served in Italy, it is certainly worse than what one would typically find in an Italian city.

For me this dilution is key – without being surrounded by higher expectations many businesses just met the expectations of the locals (pretty low in this case).  Essentially we dragged them down to our level.  Perhaps places like Bar Italia lasted longer than others but certainly their coffee is nothing to shout about any more.

This got me think about London, and the changes in our coffee cultlure that I would love to see.  Is there a tipping point in all of this?  Could we work on one small area (let’s take East London for example) and build up a pocket of great coffee.  Once this pocket got dense enough would it then be able to spread and have impact on a larger scale?  If we want coffee in London to improve do we hope that all the outposts scattered across the city have an overall effect or is concentrating on one small pocket a better way to go?

This morning I got up early to fly over to Dublin, to the CatEx show there.  Apart from catching up with Stephen, and lots of other lovely coffee people, and catching a little of the Irish Barista Championship, I was really there to see the guys at Marco and the new machine they had on their stand.

I am not going to be able to get very far in all this without talking about the Clover first.  The reason that the Clover got me excited initially was that it was going to be a potential way to keep promises¹ made when serving coffee.  Some people hated the amount of control it offered (deeming it soulless automation), while others got excited about dialling in coffees.  No doubt the profiling it offered really appealed to the people who bought the company.

After the Clover disappeared from the market the industry seemed to take a step back and then dig out all its old coffee brewers and start playing with them again.  More French Pressing, Vac Pots popping up everywhere, and every self respecting coffee nerd having a Chemex in cupboard.

While researching different bits and pieces for a potential cafe Anette unearthed the Quooker Tap. Nice idea, but some problems when it came to coffee!  I began to wonder if it was possible to add a mix tap to add cold water, maybe drill a little hole in the end of the spout and put a probe in and live mix a desired water temp.  Stephen, Anette and I hammered the idea out a bit more but didn’t really know what to do with it.

At the Caffe Culture show last year we got chatting to Paul Stack from Marco about how possible the idea was.  His proposal was awesome – they would take on the project and build us one.  For them it was a great research project, and they are a bunch of wonderful coffee obsessed people who immediately understood where we were coming from.

Paul came over to the roastery in August last year and we went into greater detail about what we wanted.  I demanded typically ludicrous things:  I wanted a built in scale, a live temperature display, I wanted to be able to jump between temperatures for different coffees quite quickly.

During development Paul sent across piles of data and I was extremely impressed in the consistency of water temperature delivered – a swing of around 0.2°C with their testing kit once the boiler had stabilised.

What I worked with today is still very much a prototype – it will be developed a little more before it is shipped over to us for further testing.  Hopefully a drip tray, a built in timer unit and a few other bits and pieces will be added soon.  I am not going to go into great detail about how it works operationally because it is likely that that will change to something a little more intuitive.  Before use it requires switching to ‘BOOST’ mode that cycles water right up around the font to heat and stabilise the water lines for consistent delivery.  We’re going to work on more intuitive movement between brew temperatures and I probably don’t need to explain how to use a scale.

Water delivery speed was relatively slow – good for Chemex, and not too slow to be frustrating when making a press.

Some pics (remember this is a prototype!):

Marco Boiler

Scale control and water delivery

Live brew temp

Built to fit a large Chemex underneath!

All credit to Marco for working towards a very creative, versatile boiler that would suit people who want to embrace all brewing methods yet still want control and repeatability.

Initially the plan was just to build one for us but I think the reaction it has recieved at the one tradeshow alone means that they will be looking to produce more units if the demand is there.

For those interested I’d recommend e-mailing Marco, and they will keep those interested up to date on the boiler.

Oh, and it doesn’t have a name yet – suggestions welcome!

If people have thoughts or questions then please post a comment and I will do my best to answer.

1. there is a big long post coming baout making and keeping promises with brewed coffee – soon!

You, the consumers, are to blame.¹

Now you certainly can’t take all the blame but consumers have an enormous power over the people making the coffee.  After all – you’re paying for it.  You are staggeringly tolerant of incredibly poor product.  You can do something very simple that would have a huge effect on the quality of coffee served:  when it is bad – take it back.

I’ve spoken to a rich mixture of cafe owners in my few years in the coffee industry, and if we look just at those who serve terrible coffee they all had one thing in common:  they didn’t know.

Worse still they thought that they did a great job, not because they tasted it and found it delicious but because (and to quote them) “not one of my customers has ever complained.”

This is probably true, most people don’t complain.  But what would happen if they did?  Initially not that much.  I’ve sent coffee back, they’ve remade it and it was just as awful.  I sent it back again.  If just one person does it then a business can shrug it off.  Now imagine if a dozen people a day complained.  The business would have their coffee supplier out very quickly – they’d re-examine what their raw materials, their machinery, their production skills.  The might change supplier, they might get some more training.  They’d be worried and they’d turn their energies and their focus onto serving drinks that made their customers genuinely happy.

I am not suggesting that you begin to bully your local cafe into doing exactly what you want, but sending back a terrible coffee is never a waste of time.  Businesses are listening very carefully right now and it may turn out to be in both of your interests.

My final point in all this is that you only earn the right to criticism when you take the time and effort to compliment good work and great drinks.  Let those businesses know – it really does make one’s day!

1. I ought to make it clear at this point that obviously consumers are not really to blame, but to start a discussion about the power of the consumer and also – heaven forbid – have a little fun with this topic!

I have been extremely lucky in the last few years when it comes to travel. I’ve sat in many different cafes and coffee houses around the world and had a varied set of experiences therein.

By and large the cafe experience in England is disappointing. I am not talking about the small number of quality focused cafes in and out of London, and I am not picking on anyone in particular, but there is something a bit depressing about sitting down in the average independent cafe.

First and foremost amongst my gripes is the lack of personality in many independent businesses. It seems that in an effort to compete with the chains and to please everyone many cafe owners consider injecting a little personality a bad thing. So much samey furniture, the same old display fridges, and a clear fawning devotion to all the worst bits of the chain cafes.

Forgive a brief tangent here but I also have to vent my frustration at how independent cafes refuse to take the good bits from the chains. We see the same absurd drink sizes, slavish pricematching (or just 10p cheaper!) but we don’t see the adoption of the clever things the chains do. Starbucks know how to move people. They know how to move a lot of people through a queue, how to quietly upsell them every step of the way, how to use that queue to get the most exposure to their merchandising.

Sadly most architects and designers don’t know how to move a queue. They design aesthetically pleasing bars, that are awful to work behind or to patronise. The amount of machines sat cosily in recessed spaces depress me, because I know at some point someone is going to need to get access into those side panels and that engineer is going to have an irritating day.

I think many businesses feel very accountable to “the consumer” – a mythical everyman customer. I feel quite strongly that you can’t have every customer, so you should go after the ones you want and the ones that appreciate what you do. When visiting Ritual last year we were sat down in the middle of cafe, Girl Talk was playing on the sound system pretty loud, the place was noisy and crowded and there are lots of people wouldn’t enjoy that experience but it was clear that I was one of many who did. It is very hard to feel possessive and loyal to a place without personality. When people find somewhere they connect with they get attached and fiercely loyal – it comes through quite clearly in Tim Styles’ short review of Leila’s.

The coffee served is always going to matter a great deal to me, but if I am going to go out and to sit somewhere to drink it then there has to be more. I want honest, interesting detail. I love the cups hanging on the copper tubing that weight the door closed at Flat White, or the little record player (and splendid choice of records) at Taste of Bitter Love, or the strange and unusual crayon markings adorning the cups takeout cups at Gwilym’s on Sundays at Columbia road. Genuine little touches that give away a little bit about the people behind the business or behind the bar.

I am not saying the coffee doesn’t matter – or that the coffee isn’t enough to be successful, but in my ideal future London is full of interesting, fun places to go and be that just happen to serve awesome cups of coffee.

Since then the same idea has been done in a bigger and better way in the US by EspressoMap but I wouldn’t mind too much if people wanted to add a few more things to the UK one which can be found here:

UK Coffee Map

So on Friday night Anette and I flew into Copenhagen. Its the third time I’ve been there in the past couple of years and I’ve probably already said that I really love this city. I was looking forward to a little time to explore because on previous occasions I haven’t had the chance. Was pretty late by the time we got in so had to wait til Saturday to start exploring.

Met Stephen Morrissey for pastries and coffee at Europa just as it was opening. Interesting to see they are still using the Teflon portafilters for their coffee service there.

Wandered from there straight to the competition. The venue building was lovely, though the exhibition on there seemed a little contrasting to coffee – I think it was called Female Vision. It was also a little frustrating to have to pay KR95 each day to get in. Regardless of this it was still very well attended. On the Saturday it was the semi-final for the region and oddly the six entrants had dropped to only four. With three going through it meant only one person competing wasn’t going to go through to Sunday. You had to feel a little sorry for Daniel who competed first but didn’t make it through.

(I’ll go through the other competitors in further down).

It was nice to see lots of coffee people at the event. It was great to see Klaus and Sigga Dora again, as well as Bjorg, Troels and Morten from Kontra. The Danish competition is fairly unusual. I can’t imagine barista coming in from other countries to meet up and watch the competition in the UK (yet). I met Silvia who is the Brazilian champion – she was also in Denmark to train for Tokyo – as well as Lukasz who is the Polish champion (he was there with Asia who all you Barista Magazine subscribers will know). On the Sunday Einar (the Norwegian Champion) also appeared – I think it’s great

In between the end of the heats and the announcements Klaus, Stephen and I snuck out to Estate for a mini tasting from his Clover (I took some of the Counter Culture Rwandan coffee – it was great), as well as some espressos pulled by him and Caspar (another Estate barista). Interestingly both had different styles of pulling shots and whilst the shots had obvious similarities they were also distinctly different in body, sweetness and balance – whilst both being excellent.

After the heat a bunch of us got in a few taxis and headed four lakes over to see Kontra Coffee. The shop has everything you could ever want to make coffee. The retail coffee occupies one side whilst on the other is a wall of machinery and other toys. I struggled to keep the wallet in the pocket as there were so many things I wanted.

The Probat L12 and a three barrel sample roaster left me jealous of Morten, though he is insanely busy at the moment. Popped next door for a late lunch and then headed across to a newly opened cafe called Coffee Plantation. Weirdly I bumped into a barista called Trine who I had last seen when I was in Trondheim at her leaving party at the Dromedar. They had a problem with their machine so Klaus and Casper jumped behind the bar to try and fix it.

Casper seems hopeful!

Klaus hiding behind the grinders.

We were taken out for dinner that night with all of the judges by Fritz Storm. Really enjoyed chatting to him, though I was forced to relive the spilling story yet again. I fear I have become a cautionary tale you tell competing baristas if you want them to practise hard and be good.

The rest of the evening was spent drinking and talking about things that aren’t coffee over at Bjorg’s place, which was really lovely.

Sunday started extremely well. I met Stephen at Estate, and Klaus and Sigga Dora met us there a little later. One small capp, a Clover of Las Nubes (I really liked this coffee) and two more espressos set me up nicely for the day (you never get to taste any coffee whilst watching competition so it made sense to me to get caffieinated in advance!).

I had high expectations for the competition, not only because Denmark produces an absurd amount of WBC winners but also because I had seen the heats the day before. The competition was really well attended and there was no real seating so every just crowded around the workstations. This meant I got muscled out of getting some pictures of a few of the contestants (luckily I got a few from the three in the heats). This was especially annoying when the results became clear – I have no good pictures of Lene competing.

I think there were three baristas who really stood out in different ways. Søren won the heats on the Saturday and his set-up was really beautiful. All his equipment looked great and he had some great custom made stuff – especially for the signature drink.

He was the only one of the finalists not using Estate Coffee, instead using a blend created with Kontra Coffee. His signature drink involved brewing a small amount of tea, then espresso went on top of that and then a foamed syrup of blueberries, orange juice, vanilla and coffee beans (he prepared a syrup onstage to show the process and to share the aromas with the judges, though used a preprepared syrup for the actual drink that was already in a charged whipper – you can see it in the jacket above). He brewed the tea in little metals balls, and then poured it through a custom tea strainer and then the foamed syrup dripped through that.

At the front of the sig drink tray you can see a selection of the ingredients. His latte art was also the best I saw on the day:

Lene also stood out from the others in her presentation. The setup wasn’t as lavish as Søren’s but it was very nicely put together. I had been relegated to watching her performance on the tv screens but I enjoyed listening to her talk. I didn’t catch all of her signature drink though I recall it had passion fruit, chocolate, cane sugar, ginger (I think!?) in it. Speaking to the judges afterwards it was clearly a hit on the taste front. In the end her performance put her her 50 points clear.

The other barista who really made an impression was Mikkel Otto. I had enjoyed his performance on the Saturday and I was pleased I had hyped him up to Einar who I was talking to as he came on. He was just a lot of fun to watch. He whistled and sang along to his music (which was very funny stuff, though I am told that if I spoke Danish it was even more amusing). He claimed he was using milk that he had milked from a cow called Ophelia the night before, whilst also giving up a wealth of information about the cow and her pastures, and how they keep the horns as they are part of the digestive system apparently. All was done with a sense of fun, not with a lecturing tone. His signature drink was a cube of gelatin flavoured with rhubarb and rosemary stirred into the espresso – but for his signature drink the espresso blend had been cold smoked for three hours over juniper. Awesome, very funny and a welcome contrast to most performances.

There was quite a spread of points on the day, and I was surprised that Lene was so far ahead but there is only so much you can tell from watching. I think everyone knew who would be the top two but weren’t sure which way round they would be.

Full results here.

After the event the coffee people that were hanging around got some food and then headed up to Estate. Childishly a few of us ended up behind the bar in game of latte art one-up-manship. Klaus, Stephen, Lukasz, Einar and I all had to step up and pour something. I am rubbish when it comes to this sort of thing. I really liked Klaus’ pour:

Wisely Anette, Sigga Dora, Asia and Morten looked on and remained dignified. It was great to be able to mess around in Estate for a bit though, until the real baristas moved us along so they could get on with serving proper customers. A clover of La Minita kept me going for the rest of the evening.

I really do like Copenhagen and look forward to coming back (I am sure we’ll find a legitimate reason).

Massive thank yous to Bjorg, Morten, Fritz, Sigga Dora and especially Klaus and everyone else.