Wake up and smell the (Aussie) coffee

Australian athletes are complaining about our coffee — but Londoners are getting their daily fix from down under. Jasmine Gardner gives us the skinny
Jasmine Gardner1 August 2012

The Australian athletes are in town. No doubt ready to spark up their age-old sporting rivalries with the Brits — their favourite joke being that we’re best at sports that involve sitting down.

But since Aussie 3,000m steeplechase athlete Youcef Abdi arrived he has been busy trying to start up some new beef between London and his home town of Sydney — not over sport, but over coffee.

“London update: beautiful weather, shit coffee,” he tweeted on Monday. Then a day later: “London update: weather still beautiful and the coffee is still shit.”

Well, Youcef, you’re clearly not getting out of the Olympic Park enough. Although McDonald’s may rule there, all the independent coffee houses a short trip away in east London are ready for your challenge. And many of them are run by Australians and New Zealanders.

“Oh, that’s rubbish,” said one New Zealand-born London roastery founder when he heard Abdi’s comments. “He’s Australian and they’re easy to prove wrong.”

So here we go. First up Caravan in Exmouth Market, EC1, brought to you, Abdi, by two New Zealanders.

Next is Allpress Espresso — set up by an Aussie and a Kiwi. It’s five miles from the Olympic Park (Abdi could run that) in Redchurch Street, E2. These guys know how to serve a latte (short, and in a glass), and a long black (an espresso with a tiny jug of hot water). Allpress, like Nude Espresso (on Brick Lane, 4.5 miles from Stratford, also founded by two New Zealanders) and Ozone Coffee (on Leonard Street, near Old Street, an Australian/New Zealand collaboration) is a roastery as well as a café. All three supply other London cafés with their beans.

The director of coffee at Workshop in Clerkenwell, a Brit-owned London gem, is also an Aussie, while Shoreditch Grind is owned by an Australian too. “Coffee is definitely a lot better in London than just five years ago,” says the Grind’s Australian manager Lucy Mavlian. “Every area has something, and it’s usually run by Australians and New Zealanders. Abdi obviously went to the wrong places. “I think the first place that opened six years ago was run by an Australian and everywhere I have worked since has been owned or run by Australians and New Zealanders, because it’s just a completely different style of coffee.”

Abdi’s dedication to the dark stuff may make you wonder whether health-conscious athletes should be imbibing high levels of caffeine. But there is evidence to show that it can improve performance, particularly in endurance events like Abdi’s sport, the steeplechase, because it increases alertness and provides a heightened sense of energy.

Of course, this hasn’t gone unnoticed by the anti-doping chiefs. Up until 2004 caffeine was on the International Olympic Committee’s list of banned substances. This has now been changed, although the amount of caffeine in athletes’ systems is still monitored.

Either way, there’s no harm in Abdi enjoying his favourite drink, so we hope we’ve helped him find the London coffee love.

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