Square Mile Coffee Roasters
10.09.10
For a city so vast and cosmopolitan, there is an awful lot of bad coffee being served in London.
OK, there are pockets of hope, but for every Bar Italia or Monmouth Coffee Company offering great coffee, there are a dozen branches of Costa and Starbucks offering the usual bland high street alternative.
But things are changing for the better and a lot of this is down to two people who have made it their goal to bring fantastic coffee to London.
James Hoffmann and Anette Moldvaer run Square Mile Coffee Roasters, a small roastery in Bethnal Green.
At Square Mile Coffee Roasters, they specialise in finding only the best coffee beans from around the world, which they roast on site and sell via their online shop. They have also started to supply their coffee to a few select small cafes in London.
The coffees change all the time. At the moment, they include Santa Rita Natural from El Salvador, Muchoki Peaberry from Kenya and San Jose Jinotega from Nicaragua, and there are new ones arriving all the time.
James and Anette have gained something of a cult following and their blog (www.squaremileblog.com) is increasingly popular and a magnet for coffee geeks from all over the world.
James fell into coffee by accident. He originally worked in wine but got a part time job selling domestic espresso machines in a department store. At the time he didn't like coffee, had no interest in it and was “as coffee ignorant as it is possible to be“. But suddenly, he realised he had found his vocation.
“I didn't expect to find an industry and a subject so rich and fascinating and little by little I fell into the bottomless abyss of coffee obsession,“ he says.
James had been competing in barista competitions for a few years and not long after winning the UK championship for the second time he decided to leave his job at the same time as his partner Anette left hers, and they decided to start a cafe/roastery. In June 2008 they began wholesaling.
So what's the essential difference between Square Mile and other similar businesses?
Says James: “Both Anette and I had worked in the industry for quite a while before starting (10 years and 5 years respectively) and we had seen companies around the world that had inspired us.
“We had seen the problems with coffee in the UK and we set out with a very clear goal of being a roastery that does everything it can to help create a great experience for the end consumer.
Sourcing and roasting great coffees is a large part of that, and that is where Anette's skills come in - her experience with an importer of coffees has helped us source interesting and unique coffees, and she does an incredible job roasting them to bring out what is intrinsically great about each individual lot.
“From a philosophy point of view we also have a stronger focus on seasonality that most coffee roasters. We openly change our espresso each season to incorporate new crop coffees that are tasting fresh and delicious and we don't offer a single lot all year around.”
We have a big coffee culture in the UK but very few quality roasters or cafes. Why is it so difficult to find a seriously good cup of coffee in this country?
James says: “The coffee culture that we have in the UK isn't really our own. We've chosen to bolt on an Americanised version of Italian coffee culture, sold on the romance but with no real understanding of how and why a coffee culture is created.
“Simply put, quality is difficult - it requires work, care and attention from a very large number of people along a very long chain which makes it elusive and prevents it really taking root. I think consumers want better but are so rarely exposed to it.”
So, what makes a great cup of coffee? What should we be looking for?
“Lots of factors make up a great cup of coffee but the true quality of the cup is created by picking a well grown and perfectly ripe coffee cherry. After this, everyone's job is really preserving what is great about that coffee - whether it is a coffee roaster creating a balanced cup, or the barista not making a mistake and creating a bad tasting coffee. When it comes to cafes, a quick look at the state of the machine - especially the steam wand - will tell you a lot about their attitude to quality.
“As for what a great cup tastes like, that is a tricky one. A lot of words that I would use to describe a great cup - ‘crisp acidity‘, ‘strong sweetness‘, ‘notes of red fruit or tropical fruits, caramel or sugar cane’ - are very alien to people who haven't been exposed to how interesting, unusual and delicious coffee can be. I'd always advise people to seek out their local roaster - go and talk to them, find opportunities to taste with them and then you can begin to understand the spectrum of wonderful flavours that coffee is capable of.”
www.squaremilecoffee.com
Tel: 0207 729 3744
