Bath, coffee and spas

Rare to see this many grinders at once

Rare to see this many coffee grinders at once

After having experienced old spas the way Romans would never do (3 queues, audio guides and a ‘do not touch the water’ policy) we needed a break before plunging into a real spa.

Collona & Small’s seemed like the place to choose in Bath. As soon as you enter you feel the positive vibe – these guys are dead serious about coffee, except that they are not dead serious at all. They are super friendly and helpful. C&S ticks so many boxes that I feel dizzy. Not what I expected from our short stay in Bath.

blackboard with large selection of different coffee beans

Spoilt for choice

Bright interior, wooden natural feel, amazing coffee selection, lots of cake and pastry options (including gluten free options).

My Bonsoy flat white is good, but not the best I’ve ever had, however the Ethiopian espresso is simple perfection. I feel like I am in coffee heaven – how much do apartments in Bath cost?

View to the outside from the inside of the cafe

Inside of Colonna & Small’s

IN SUMMARY:
C&S really surprised us. Usually it’s hard to find a good coffee in the UK outside of London, but we were proven wrong. This place really knows how to do coffee. They use a La Marzocco Strada and offer ten changing specialty roasters from around the UK.

where to find the best coffee in the world.

Melbourne, Australia. You can stop reading now.

Now I know this title is extremely biased. But then anyone who has been to Melbourne will understand.

There are few, if any, cities as obsessed about coffee as Melbourne. It is quite normal to walk an extra 5 blocks, because your friend or colleague is not happy with the cafe around the corner. There is cafe ditching on a daily basis, because there’s simply no excuse for bad coffee in Melbourne.

Albert Park Lake, Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne at its best: sunny Albert Park Lake

On occasions I have gone as far as ditching entire restaurants for serving Coffex. If they skimp on the coffee, then their food ingredients can’t be of great quality either, right?

Well, having been back in Europe for over two years now has taught me that there’s more to life than just complaining about bad coffee. But hey, have I complained!

Fights with German cafe owners about what a latte is (and I still insist that it is NOT a latte macchiato), lots of returned coffee, lots of unfinished coffee, lots of burned coffee, the list goes on. But it has had its positives, I’ve learned a lot about black coffee in Portugal, I’ve done my best to convince anyone who’s been brave enough to go out for a coffee with me that there are better options out there then burnt milk with coffee flavour and three spoons of sugar.

Monk Bodhi Dharma

Inside of Monk Bodhi Dharma

Since my love for coffee started in Melbourne, I was very excited about being back in April and, not surprisingly, quite a few things had changed in the coffee scene. St Ali has been sold to a foreign investor and lots of new cafés have popped up everywhere.

Now, although I was unable to visit all of the new places, since we spent most of the time on the Mornington Peninsula, I caught up with Paul a friend of mine, who is a Melbourne Barista and who gave me his tips, as to the best cafés in Melbourne 2012.

So here it goes, very personal and biased, make sure to check them out for yourself, but this is Paul’s Top 9, in no order of preference:

  1. monk bodhi dharma
  2. the final step
  3. patricia
  4. auction rooms
  5. proud mary
  6. axil
  7. omar and the marvelous coffee bird
  8. hobba
  9. dead man espresso

After going through that list I decided to start with Monk Bodhi Dharma and this place certainly did not disappoint.

Tucked away on Carlisle Street next to the police station, this small but friendly place oozes with charm and you feel welcome right away. Very nice staff and happy to chat about their coffee.

Soy latte in hand

Monk Bodhi Dharma soy latte

At the time of drinking I was enjoying the house blend of the month, which technically was no blend at all, but a single origin from Papua New Guinea and tasted amazing.

The Synesso produced that fine rounded chocolaty drop I was looking for and the Muffins were great, too. Would I live in Melbourne again, I’d be a regular for sure!

Hopefully this page will keep you caffeinated in Melbourne for a while… If you feel there are other special places in Melbourne that I’ve left out, then feel free to add them in the comments section!

Location: Monk Bodhi Dharma, Carlisle Street, Melbourne, Australia

Visited: April 2012

IN SUMMARY:
Melbourne did not disappoint. Good coffee everywhere and Monk Bodhi Dharma has the right balance between a relaxed friendly atmosphere and simply excellent coffee.

 

pasmarose – a day in lüneburg and the next door cafe

All but the weather looked promising for our Saturday afternoon coffee tour of Lüneburg. Qype and foursquare had some suggestions, as did google. Wikipedia told us that Lüneberg has more bars per square metre than any town in Europe other than Madrid and that fortunately, it had survived World War II completely intact.

We started at Anna’s Cafe and while Anna provided tasty cakes and a homely setting for a dreary afternoon, the coffee fell well short of the mark.  Froth full of bubbles, a coffee bowl not filled to the top and watery coffee.

café pasmarose in Lüneburg

Chandler’s Coffee understood the difference between a cafe latte and a cappuccino and served up espresso made from 100% Arabica seeds. Again however, I was somehow disappointed.  For my taste, the coffee was too bitter and the decor too Starkbucks. As I suspected on arrival, the smallish one-barista-only Elektra machine could not produce the goods.

We then made our way to Pasmarose. A bit out of the way, unless of course you have planned a Saturday afternoon trip to the Salzmuseum which lies directly at the cafe’s rear.  The decor and the layout were inviting. White and black tiles, sturdy tables and coffee and many other coffee accessories to purchase on display from A. Nannini, Beneficio, Santa Rosa and Varesina. Interesting inoffensive music to keep you relaxed.

The menu differentiated between filter coffee, espresso and espresso mit milch (with milk).  Under the ‘espresso mit milch’ section we were given the choice of ordering an espresso macchiato, a pingo, a cappuccino, cappuccino doppio, grosser cappuccino, flat white or latte macchiato.

nice latte art at café pasmarose

Here again we see another example of confusion over the flat white reigning in Europe.  While in Berlin we saw it described as a ‘small Australian coffee’, at Pasmarose it is bylined with the words ‘große tasse sanfter cappuccino.’ Hmmm… In any case, I ordered one and it came with minimal froth as hoped for.

The coffee turned to be gentle and buttery in taste.  Attention was paid to latte art and the service was very good.  The owners appear to be very customer conscious, and were seen lighting candles on tables, offering free slices of strawberry cake whilst being careful not to get in your way.  Happy to have a chat about the coffee also, if you are up for it.

IN SUMMARY

As Julia commented, we would be happy if this café opened up next door to our apartment!

bonanza coffee heroes – one coffee to try before you die

‘There’s this place in Prenzlauer Berg, that has one of these special coffee machines of which just a few exist in Europe.’ explains our friend excited when she hears that we like coffee.

I am straight away interested, since up until that day I had not seen a Synesso coffee machine anywhere in Germany. Only in Australia. So, when I hear this I am hoping this might be the place.

So, on a hot Sunday afternoon just before we are due to leave back for Hamburg we decide to try this place out. Strange name: bonanza coffee heroes, but then it’s also cute. I used to like to watch Bonanza when I was seven. I am intrigued.

When we get to Oderberger Str. 35, Berlin is at its best. Loads of people hanging out in the park, it’s hot and everyone is enjoying a beautiful summer day in June. We get to the place and we can hear a few English speaking tourists sitting outside. The coffee in their hands looks promising and you are welcomed by a large coffee heaven sign saying: ‘Don’t die before trying’.

smooth café latte

But then it’s just after six and we haven’t eaten yet and this place only does cake, so in an attempt to not die before trying, we need to eat something rather substantial, rather soon. Having quite a few options on the same street, we end up having some Indian from across the road (quite nice as well) and then run back to the coffee shop to make sure we make it before it’s closed for the day.

The inside is quite small and has a cool mix of industrial concrete cosyness that you expect from funky café. And voilá – I  feel like hugging the barista when I see the beautiful Synesso machine!

We order our coffees but we are amused to see again that flat whites are a special small size and cost more than a regular latté.

I stick to latté and Luke goes for a cappucino. The first sip is like heaven. It has its own rich chocolate like interesting flavour and texture with a lot of depth to it.

I am in love and since the office I work at has a decent ECM machine named Don Vito (check out his FB fan page) and our entire office is in a coffee fever, I decide to buy a whole kg of coffee beans.

That’s when the trouble starts – there are no 1 kg bag, only 2 kg and the barista starts to fill it up in 250g steps…. when it comes to paying the EC machine is not working and all of this takes half an hour to work out.  But the staff is very nice and the owner tries to convince me to walk a mile to a cash machine, so that he can get his 25€ for a kg of coffee beans before he closes for the night. But I am wearing heels, so I don’t think so. So, unfortunately no extra nice coffee beans for our office.

But then I am sure I will be back and now I have something new to look forward to my next time in Berlin.

IN SUMMARY

Great roast of coffee, well trained baristas and the perfect machine. Lacks a bit of inside seating space and warmth but all in all this place is about great coffee and it shows.

flat white – an australian coffee becomes famous

There’s this funny thing about flat whites which Luke and I have recently noticed. It’s like the latest in coffee codes for ‘I know something about coffee’. In Europe some cafés even charge extra for a flat white. A bit like paying to go to the toilet. Real nuisance.

flat white, 17 berwick street, soho, london

And some cafés are also letting us know that flat whites come only in a particular size. Real funny that.

In reality flat whites are nothing but a café latte with a little bit less froth (approx. 2-3mm) and really nothing special, except if you are into very little froth. In Australia, where the flat white comes from (or New Zealand, who knows, doesn’t matter, we get along), it is nothing cool, not more expensive, not a special size and not a trendy code for knowing more about coffee. It’s an ongoing mystery to me why less froth is more expensive. But then, hey, Australia (& NZ, too, of course!) are far away and exotic, and Australian travellers are so desperate for good coffee and willing to pay for it. So, why not make some money out of it?? 🙂

a real cafe latte!

Anyway, this post is actually about a café called ‘flat white’. The term is so famous these days that a cool Soho café in 17 Berwick Street, London (their website account was suspended at time of writing, hence no link) deemed it worthy to name itself ‘flat white’. You cannot imagine how excited I was to find a place bold enough to associate itself with Australian coffee and so we visited it on our last trip to London in May. And yes, the coffee IS excellent. Smooth and tangy, after being deprived of good coffee for a year, I could have had 3 lattes at once. The place itself is quite small, some graffiti artwork on the walls and tight seating which lets you know that you are not supposed to stay there for too long. But drink your coffee, enjoy it and come back. I certainly will!

IN SUMMARY

These guys know their stuff. Although the smooth taste of the coffee is not everyone’s cup of coffee, I really enjoyed it. Good friendly barristas and nice latte art. The place is a bit squeezy for my liking. Wouldn’t hang out there for hours, but then which café owner really wants you to, especially if you have to pay London rent?