The café-bar trade may not after all be entirely isolated in its position on outside tables, chairs, awnings and barriers. For many years, the trade has fought a constant battle against local authority planning departments and county highways departments – often both at the same time.  Even many of the councils who have spoken of [Read more]

One of the world’s greatest (and most expensive) coffees is now available in a decaffeinated version.  For the first time, Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee has been processed with the Swiss Water decaffeination technique, and will be distributed by Sea Island Coffees of London, the authorized distributors for Europe. According to a report in the Daily [Read more]

The UK’s best teas and coffees, as judged by the Guild of Fine Food, can now be promoted through the beverage trade with the gold star ratings they received in this year’s Great Taste Awards. There has, however, been a slight murmur of enquiry over the judging of the coffees in this year’s awards as [Read more]

The coffee trade has made a considerable impression at one of the world’s biggest think-tank conferences.  At the TED conference in Edinburgh in July, the Coffee Common organisation drew together a collection of the UK’s top baristas, using a selection of top coffees and state-of-the-art equipment to promote the coffee trade. Coffee Common is an [Read more]

The next new ‘origin’ to appear in the world coffee market is likely to be China, with Starbucks having made a decision to invest in coffee growing and processing in the country.  It is probably not a coincidence that Starbucks has already identified China as its biggest potential growth market. There is already a history [Read more]

Galleria illy, the coffee brand’s exhibition of coffee and art, will be in London for a month from 12th September. It is a temporary exhibition space hosted by lighting and furnishings designers FLOS and Moroso, and will include art, literature, science, design and food and wine events presented by famous designers. The artist Francesco Clemente [Read more]

Murmurs have begun to spread through the British beverage trade about the possibility of a new contest for tea, along the lines of the well-known coffee barista championships, following the holding of a ‘world’ event in America in which no British contestants appeared… indeed, in which only one European country was represented. The snappily-titled Tea [Read more]

The Costa café at Great Portand Street, London, has won the ‘café and fast food’ section of the Restaurant and Bar Design Awards.  The café, designed by Stiff & Trevillion, was shortlisted against several sites known for their espresso, including Beas of Bloomsbury, Tinderbox and Peggy Porschen and Moo:baa of Birmingham. Meanwhile, Costa surprised the [Read more]

The two biggest competitors to independent café bars are both planning to develop their interest in the ‘drive-thru’ coffee bar concept. Costa opened its latest bar in mid-June at Lydiard Fields, a busy motorway site at junction 16 of the M4, just by Swindon.  A couple of weeks previously it opened a drive-thru site at [Read more]

It turned out to be an extremely busy time for tennis-themed cafés at this year’s Wimbledon tournament.  The coffee service was dominated by one brand – in a remarkably large sponsorship deal, Lavazza served speciality coffee at sixty different points. Six hundred staff were trained in the use of 200 coffee machines. The brand had [Read more]