The next stop on my tour of London’s independent coffee houses was a café called Flat White. It features coffee from SquareMile, a boutique roaster in London. However, having just had a flat white beverage at LJ, I asked what the “long black” coffee on the menu was. Turns out it was espresso and water, commonly known as a Café Americano in the States – a drink I’ve never cared for, since to me it always tastes like very diluted coffee, with none of the interesting subtleties of its brewed counterpart. But I was told that I could get a cup of AeroPress coffee. This sounded more interesting, so I agreed. The AeroPress is a plastic cylinder that resembles an over-sized hypodermic needle. In the bottom a small filter is placed inside a cap with holes for coffee to drip through. Finely ground coffee is placed on the filter, hot water is poured inside the tube and the mixture steeps for about a minute. When the proper amount of time has elapsed, the top of the tube is pressed down, forcing the coffee though the filter and out the bottom of the device into the cup.  It made a good cup of coffee. Far better, I daresay, than a typically uninspired Americano.

After experiencing the AeroPress, on to Valdez and Sons, a few blocks away. The special of the day was an iced latte, so I decided to sample it. The milk was poured cold into the cup with ice and then the espresso was added. The drink was quite tasty, with a natural sweetness of the coffee balanced by the milk. It didn’t need sugar, and it was quite refreshing.

The final stop on my tour: Milkbar. The menu looked suspiciously similar to that of Flat White, and when I asked about it, they told me that the two cafés were indeed owned by the same person.  I decided to try their signature drink, a flat white, and was rewarded with another small ceramic cup (despite the number of times I’ve been there, it always takes a while to get used to the small sizes of cups in the U.K.!) containing the drink with a decorated rosette on top. It too was delicious.

With that, my tour was finished. I consumed four different coffee drinks and enjoyed them all. Each of the locations was in a relatively small area of London, but my map showed about another two dozen to try. My thanks to Coffee Kids for creating the map!  (Have I mentioned lately that they are a great organization and deserve support?) I’m looking forward to my next trip to London to explore the other unique cafés on the map!

(This is the first in a two-post series about a tour I recently took of some of London’s independent coffee houses.)

For a city so long synonymous with tea, London has become increasingly identified with coffee. It boasts three large chains of coffee shops in addition to Starbucks, which entered the London market almost 20 years ago. Caffe Nero, Costa, and Coffee Republic each have hundreds of locations, which is remarkable given the size of the market. (By comparison, the United States has about the same number of large coffee shop chains, yet with about five times the population.) And as the London market has become more sophisticated, smaller independent stores have opened, offering different drinks and more sophisticated coffees.

Jeremy Torz of Union Hand-Roasted has been roasting specialty coffee in the U.K. for almost 20 years and prides himself on offering the finest coffee he can source from around the world. At the recent Caffè Culture show, his stand included a brew bar to allow patrons to sample different coffees prepared in various ways. I selected a Hario pour-over from Japan and then chose among three different coffees from Rwanda. This level of diversity – three coffees from Rwanda! – is remarkable and shows the lengths to which Jeremy goes to procure the best beans possible.

Coffee Kids is a terrific non-profit organization devoted to helping coffee-growing families improve their quality of life. Coffee Kids connects producers with consumers to help educate people about the difficulties of growing coffee and living on that income. (I’ve written about these guys in the past; I encourage you to check out their website. Suffice it to say that they exist on donations alone, and any amount is welcome in helping them improve the lives of others.) Many of Coffee Kids’ donors are large and small coffee companies, and to help encourage the support of indie cafés, they created a map of London with nearly two dozen listed. Not knowing the local indie coffee scene well, I decided to investigate.

Armed with my map, I took the tube to Piccadilly Circus and began walking up Regent Street. The first shop I found was Lj Coffee House, a tiny storefront with a few tables and some overstuffed chairs. The menu proudly proclaimed that they served Union Coffee. I asked for a “flat white,” the Australian import that’s rapidly becoming popular in London. It’s espresso with steamed and foamed milk, like a cappuccino, but quite small.  Served with a latte art rosette on top, it was delicious. The coffee was strong and smooth, and the silky texture of the milk made the entire drink creamy. A perfect start to my tour of some of London’s indie cafés!

I was recently in Chicago for the annual National Restaurant Association trade show, still the biggest restaurant show in the country. It is known in the industry as the NRA, but for butter and not guns.

While there, I stopped in to a new restaurant by well-known food authority and chef Rick Bayless. Called Xoco (and pronounced SHO-koh), it is adjacent to his other restaurants, Topolobampo and Frontera Grill. Xoco is a casual operation, serving food quickly, but not fast food. Everything is fresh, and the attention to detail and care of preparation is evident. I loved the fact that I had chocolate in each part of my meal.

Mole is a wonderful dish, a savory sauce made from chocolate. Most people don’t think of chocolate as anything other than a sweet dessert, but for centuries cacao beans have been used to flavor meats in Mexico and Central America, notably pork and chicken.  My pork mole sandwich consisted of shredded pork and onions flavored with chocolate on a hearty, toasted roll.

Churros are a dessert that is basically fried dough dusted with flavored sugar. The churros were served with a small cup of very thick, rich chocolate. The churros are meant to be dipped in the chocolate, and the combination of the sugary churros combined with the dark, thick, unsweetened chocolate is fantastic.

I was completely satiated when I left. But I’m thinking I’ll return soon and try the house-made vanilla ice cream with homemade chocolate sauce…

What is with Phoenix? I arrived yesterday to speak at a conference of Research Chefs and, as I usually do when traveling, inquired about local independent coffee shops I could visit. A block from my downtown hotel was the Cartel Coffee Lab. This is Cartel’s second retail store, and it had opened just months earlier. I was delighted to see a Clover machine and ordered two different coffees, one from Brazil and the other from Guatemala. What I really appreciated was that each coffee was paired with something to taste to help accentuate the unique flavors of each. The Brazil was paired with dark chocolate and the Guatemala with dried currants. The chocolate had notes of licorice and cherries and helped emphasize the balance and flavor of the coffee. The currants really brought out the spicy and earthy notes of the Guatemalan. It was a surprising, unique twist and one I really enjoyed. The coffee is roasted at Cartel’s off-site plant and sold in both stores as well as some wholesale locations.

The Fair Trade Café was recommended as another place to check out. Located near Arizona State University, it lived up to its name, offering a Costa Rican and Dark Blend that both were 100% Fair Trade. In addition, some of the flavored syrups used in drinks are also fair trade and are made in the café. One of the more unusual and popular flavors is clove, which imparts a unique taste to a latte.

The next stop was Urban Market, a specialty market that had opened about four months earlier. Against the back wall of the building is a sign saying “Coffee,” under which is the door into the tiny café. As I got closer, I smelled the distinctive aroma of roasting coffee. Just outside the back door, propped against the building was a small 2-kilogram roaster, and they had just dumped a batch into the cooling tray. Every day, the coffee is freshly roasted. I was made a very nice macchiato, adorned with a tiny heart. I have to admit it was a bit unusual seeing the tiny roaster in the parking lot, but the results were certainly worth it.

Continuing up Central Avenue, the next stop was Lola, a local outpost with two locations.  Inside, in a back room, was their small 5-kilogram roaster. It was a neat little place, with the baristas paying attention to the drinks. And the fresh-squeezed lemonade was a nice change from all the coffee I had drunk. While we were sitting at Lola, friends called and told us we had to head to Lux to sample the coffee and green-frosting Guinness chocolate cake created for St. Patrick’s Day.

Off to the light rail we went, continuing further uptown. Lux is a crowded, hip place, with all the seats taken and half the clientele typing away on Macintosh laptops. In the back corner, in a tiny room, was their coffee roaster, which they too use daily to supply their store and wholesale accounts in Phoenix and elsewhere around the United States. I ordered a drink and received the most amazing latte art design I have ever gotten in a café. The scorpion on the top was terrific. I just wonder how he knew my astrological sign….

I was five-for-five. Five cafés, all of which roast their own coffee and three of which do so on site. I haven’t seen that many in-store roasting operations in a long time. And each café put its unique spin on drinks. Interesting food pairings with single-origin coffees, unusual syrup flavors, fantastic latte art, attention to hand-crafting drinks and fresh-squeezed beverages made for a fun, memorable day of touring the local scene. And all of it makes me wonder if Phoenix is currently the most coffee-crazed city in the country.

We take information for granted. It has become so easy to find things with Internet access that it is hard to remember when it was difficult to locate things. I was in Dallas for meetings and decided to check out some local cafés. I logged on and went to indiecoffeeshops.com, where I was rewarded with a list of several dozen places to visit. Staying downtown, I narrowed my search to Deep Ellum and decided to visit three different ones.

Mokah Café is a neat indy café, with amps, speakers and musical equipment stacked in the corner. Comfy sofas and mismatched tables and chairs that all fit together complete the space. Funky lamps illuminate the large room but don’t shed a lot of light. It was quiet on my visit, with only one other customer working quietly in the corner. That suited me fine since I needed to catch up on some work. I enjoyed the quiet, with no inane cell conversations next to me from people with Bluetooth headsets yelling into the air, mothers chugging nonfat lattes and pushing oversized strollers with screaming kids. This was a coffee shop as they used to be, with good coffee, a dark room and a soothing feel. It was a delightful change of pace and peace, and I enjoyed the vibe.

Murray Street Coffee has a very different feel. A two-story space that is light and airy, it also has the eclectic look of an independent café with an assortment of chairs, tables, stools and seats, but with a more contemporary feeling. It is a comfortable place to work and relax. With its split levels, there are three areas to sit, so it is quieter than cafés that are a large single room. The Sumatran coffee was strong, the cookie was fresh, and with music in the background, lots of power plugs, free Wi-Fi and a great sandwich, I could see making this a place to hang out and work on future trips to Dallas.

Café Brazil popped up in my search, so I decided to check it out. It is a loud, colorful restaurant, with a self-serve coffee bar with airpots and seven kinds of coffee, regular and flavored. Of course, I tried the namesake Brazil. Can’t say it was overwhelming, so I wouldn’t come rushing back only for the coffee. But the guacamole, chips and salsa were fantastic! And the food everyone else around me was enjoying looked equally tempting. Having a real snack was a good way to end my morning of coffee-shop visits.