While stereotypically us Brits are drinking tea out of delicate, floral, fine, china cups with our pinky fingers extended and the crumbs of our generous slice of Victoria sponge cake still lingering on our upper lip, it seems that an alternative beverage may have stolen the hearts of our drink obsessed nation.
It is the era of the flat white. Evidence of the coffee culture revolution can be seen from espresso dregs being inhaled by bleary-eyed London commuters to photos of strange black charcoal lattes frequenting our Instagram feeds. In total, the UK coffee shop market added 1,215 stores over the last 12 months to reach 24,061, representing a 5.3% growth. This rapid increase is far from over with 32,000 coffee shops predicted to be operating in the UK by 2025, according to a new report from Allegra World Coffee Portal.
But the world of coffee is far from just your basic lattes, cappuccinos and espressos and we are entering an age of hot drink innovation and changing trends like we have never seen before. It is time to update your caffeine lingo dictionary because this is getting exciting.
With London Coffee Festival just around the corner in April, here are a few new trends to watch out for.
Cold Brew is hot!
Cold Brew coffee is making the transition from hipster to mainstream and may be the secret to supercharge your summer. British coffee connoisseurs have been going mad for this (caffeine) hit and even Starbucks has started to serve it.
Not to be confused with iced-coffee, cold brew is coffee infused with cold water for up to 24 hours to produce a smoother flavor with less acidity and bitterness than regular black coffee. The process is long, but it’s worth the results.
The company at the forefront of London’s cold brew frenzy, Sandows, is the love child of best friends Hugh Duffie and Luke Suddards. From humble beginnings in a North London basement in 2014, the pair are now launching new products in their Hackney Wick workshop and making cold brew accessible to the masses.
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Funded by investment from a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign on ‘Crowdcube’, the duo has pioneered the UK cold brew movement. They named the company after Victorian strongman, Eugen Sandow, who is known as an icon for his determination and strength, values clearly reflected in their brand.
“I guess where it all comes from is that when you work in a coffee shop you end up drinking a lot of coffee and after a while, you end up drinking an awful lot of milk and you start to expand. You sort of go towards black coffee almost out of necessity. We were learning a lot about coffee and roasting coffee and it was interesting to be able to try it in its most blank canvas form,” says Hugh.
It’s not just cold brew, Sandows also produce something called Nitro Cold Brew which is cold brew coffee infused with Nitrogen on draught to produce a creamy texture. It almost looks like Guinness. “In terms of how it differs from carbonation, carbonation is big bubbles and nitrogen is much smaller bubbles that clump together and give the drink texture and make it thicker,” Hugh explains.
“I think that cold brew really sits right at the convergence of loads of different trends like health and wellness, premiumisation and now people more and more are taking an interest in drinks that have a process they can understand,” he says.
You can try Sandows at London Coffee Festival where they will be giving out 20,000 cans and all the cocktails across the event are made with their cold brew.
Coffee isn’t just for the morning
Coffee and alcohol have always been an iconic duo and dashes of whiskey have been turning post dinner-party coffees Irish for years. But as café and cocktail culture are on the rise, things are about to reach a whole new level. Innovation in this area has been vast and for those of you who like a caffeine hit with your spirits, it’s time to reach for the liqueur.
The mastermind behind one of London’s new, smallest and coolest cold brew coffee liqueur companies is Tem Mellese who started ‘Cold and Blac’ two years ago with an aim to introduce people to new ways to experience coffee.
Tem’s process has been experimental. “We created all our own production equipment and developed our techniques to integrate ingredients that are quite unique into the product and preserve the specialty coffee taste,” he says.
“I think that people like to have a relationship with the product and really experience it which is why it’s important to celebrate the fact that it’s not mass produced. Cold and Blac is very artisanal and made by hand and the experimental flavours really come from my cultural appreciation of coffee from growing up in Ethiopia where coffee was invented,” Tem added.
A hipster’s new favourite sport: The Latte Art Throw Down
Latte Art on coffee is increasingly become the norm. But never before have we seen the competition so fierce with challenging throw downs popping up all over the country, it is clear that appearance is everything in the current coffee climate.
Dhan Tamang is the 6-year consecutive winner of the UK Latte Art Championship and owner of the growing coffee shop chain, ‘Coffee Lab’. “Latte art is important because it’s all about presentation nowadays. When you have a cup of coffee in front of you the first taste is from the eyes and it gives you a positive vibe about the coffee and makes you really happy,” says Dhan.
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The competition is fierce and is taken very seriously. “I normally give myself around 3 months to prepare for latte art competitions. Near the time I work 5 or 6 days a week and stay after work at least 2 or 3 hours to give time for practice.” Dhan tells me.
But why have latte art throw downs suddenly become so popular? “It is like a get together of baristas. It is a great way to meet people and that’s what I love to do,” says Dhan.
Soy out, Oat in.
With more people choosing a vegan lifestyle in the UK than ever before, alternative milks have never been more popular. But in the rapidly changing world of coffee, it is time to say goodbye Soy and Almond milk and hello to barista’s new best friend, Oat Milk.
In only the past year, Swedish company Oatly has led the way in making Oat Milk the best dairy free companion for your coffee and London’s top specialty coffee shops are going crazy for it.
“When I joined Oatly just over a year ago, most coffee shops in London hadn’t even heard of oat milk,” says Toby Weedon, Barista Market Developer at Oatly.
“Traditionally, dairy alternatives have been seen as being very inferior to cow’s milk. Cow’s milk has its own natural sweetness and is quite a neutral flavour so when you pour it into an espresso or a latte you get a smooth, balanced drink whereas with soy milk and almond milk they have their own flavor and aren’t that neutral. The acidity of the espresso also makes them curdle when you pour them into coffee but Oatly Barista is designed for coffee so it has an acidity regulator in it and a much more neutral flavour,” Toby says.
So, what’s next?
With all these new coffee innovations landing in Britain, we are definitely not short of options when it comes to our drinking habits. But despite how it might seem we still haven’t completely forgotten about the one drink that is an integral part of our Great British culture, the humble cup of tea. According to the UK Tea and Infusions Association, we drink 60 billion cups of it every year, which is even more than coffee.
London Coffee Festival may be fast approaching but it is not alone. National Tea Day is on the 21st April and this year it may be time to celebrate tea a little differently. Get ready for a new wave of specialty, craft tea to hit the UK and millennials thirst for loose-leaf, herbal and fruit teas is on the rise.
Marco Geraghty, one of the directors of the National Tea Day celebrations, believes that a new wave of tea appreciation is about to hit London.
“Tea has so much more natural variation compared to coffee and is so much better for you that many London venues are making it an integral part of their menus. ‘Tea pairing’ menus are popping up all over London where the flavour profile of tea is matched to a food much like wine,” Marco tells me.
He adds: “Ultimately tea isn’t about ‘Milk and two sugars’ anymore at all, but is undergoing a revolution of its own much like coffee has. The trend is towards premium teas, which are healthier, tastier and an all-round better experience.”
Who knows, the next trend in café culture may just be the Great British cuppa revolution.