The London Coffee Festival was held at the Truman Brewery on Brick Lane this weekend – a whole three days dedicated to all things coffee. Great British Chefs blogger Urvashi Roe aka @BotanicalBaker is fascinated by this amazing botanical so despite the awful, wet and blustery weather, she headed into town to see what it was all about.
Photography and blog post by Urvashi Roe
There was a great warm welcome with free coffee and chocolate samples from the smiling staff. A brilliant start
With over ten different areas offering coffee tastings, demonstrations, artisan stalls, music stages, street food and talks from the many coffee experts, there was a lot to do.
I walked through the True Artisan area where I discovered these wonderful coffee pouches from Grower’s Cup. You simply open the pouch, pour the hot water in and voila! Great tasting fresh coffee!
I also discovered coffee cola,
tinned coffee,
coffee beer,
unusual coffee carriers,
and coffee that wasn’t really coffee!
There were all sorts of weird and wonderful coffee makers. My favourite was this retro and highly sophisticated machine from Victoria Arduino.
I also loved this Chemex from the Make Decent Coffee guys who also taught me how to brew properly using an Aeropress and a Cafetiere.
It was quite an inspiring day and I picked up The London Coffee Guide to continue my coffee adventures around London now that I was full of knowledge (or maybe I was just buzzing from all the free coffee tastings!).
I came home enthused and armed with a freshly roasted takeaway from Union Coffee – the perfect ingredient for these little Coffee and Nut Semolina Squares from Great British Chefs’ Vineet Bhatia. Simple and quick to make and just the thing to accompany an after dinner coffee!
Blog post for Great British Chefs by Urvashi Roe aka @BotanicalBaker
What are your favourite brands of coffee? What are some of your favourite things to serve with after dinner coffee? We're discussing this over on Great British Chefs Facebook page.
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