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?

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.

Square Mile Coffee Roasters takes its name in part from a time when London had a coffee culture – one of the strongest in the world, and in what is now the financial heart of London there were hundreds upon hundreds of coffee houses that would morph and evolve into different businesses and exert many and varied effects on a cross section of culture and commerce.

What is English coffee culture now? Sadly it is one of two things:

1). A semi apologetic, continued embrace of instant coffee. We managed to move past most freeze dried food (though I know some people have a weird fondness for Smash!) The thing is we all know it is bad, as a nation we joke about it and then get away with it by playing the anti-snobbery card.

2). An embrace of Americanised Italian coffee retail – chains dominate our high street (in all areas of retail) and we are served faux-Italian coffee drinks in convenient (for the retailer) portions.

All of this is very negative, and this isn’t a negative post. It really is a post with a hypothetical question:

What would I wish English coffee culture to be like ten years from now? What would be its defining qualities that distinguish it from other strong coffee cultures?

This is a wish list remember, and we can discuss how to get there afterwards. If I were treat English coffee culture as a blank canvas then I think there are a few priorities:

Traceability – people understand what they are drinking, and understand the factors influencing their choice. I really have no issue with labels like Fair Trade as long as the consumer understandings what the label means. More than that I wish people would want to know exactly where and how the coffee was grown.

Preference – people making concious and informed choices about their coffee, based on an understanding of the range of tastes, flavours and possibilities within the spectrum of coffee. This is just a long way of saying: death to the phrase “coffee is just coffee.”

Seasonality – this is a growing movement in food, and I hope coffee gets the opportunity to be included and swept along with other seasonal products. There is no downside to people understanding and embracing seasonality, enjoying fresh crops for those months where they really do taste fresh.

A strong base of brewed coffee – right now espresso drinks are the launching pad to getting people into coffee. Brewed coffee just isn’t as sexy as espresso, but I think a little coffee grinder and a french press in every home doesn’t involve a huge spend but would re-ignite people’s fondness for ritual and make coffee more accessable (more on this very important topic in a paragraph or two). Right now a lot of espresso machines are going into people’s home and the resentment of the process and the spend is just another reason to justify digging out the Nescafe. I don’t want to get rid of espresso, I just want it to be another weapon in the arsenal of coffee brewing. Espresso shouldn’t be the only method associated with quality.

These are all fine ideas but where is the roadmap to get there. It all comes down to one word: accessability. Right now the hardest thing to overcome isn’t monetary – we aren’t very precise spenders, despite the credit crunch and all – but we are terrified of appearing to be snobbish about anything. Snobbery has a terrible name. How the idea of not wanting to accept something below standard, something simply not good enough got a bad reputation I don’t know, but it certainly did. I am a snob. I don’t want to drink something that tastes bad. I don’t want to eat something that tastes bad and will probably hasten my demise (I am looking at you Ronald McD.). Yes, anti-snobbery is also linked in to anti-intelluctualism which dogs many cultures (but not all). I don’t really understand how knowledge and understanding aren’t desirable but many aspects of our cultures do really tell us this is the case. Maybe this is just the little bullied geek in me talking, but ironically it just seems a very stupid way to go about things.

Essentially we need to make it ok to love coffee, the way it is sort of ok to love wine, or beer (but not real Ale, we are still suspicious of them), or great food or cinema. I don’t think the super premium stuff is the way to do that, though it could certainly be a tool. The problem with the super premium lots of coffee is that because of the price it gets special treatment, exclusive treatment and it is very easy to dismiss as coffee for odd-ball enthusiasts. Exlusive by its very definition is not where I want to go.

That doesn’t mean we don’t need quality coffee – we need coffees that show distinct characteristics, often (but not always) indicicative of their geography and process and we need to roast and serve them as transparently as possible. We need to get people to fall in love with the product and not just the business that serve retails/serves it because if that business closes it must leave behind coffee aware and coffee thirsty consumers who still want to drink coffee, not just brand-x coffee. (though that doesn’t make that much sense for those of us starting up brand-x coffee!)

I really wanted to write this article as a roadmap for us, as well as (hopefully) a jumping off point for debate. Thoughts are welcome in the comments.