London's best coffee: In-house roasts

Workshop Coffee's in-house roastery is leading the way for the capital's finest bean counters, says Susannah Butter
In the pour house: Workshop Coffee founder James Dickson shows off the company’s new Bethnal Green roastery
Patrick Marks

Food miles are a familiar measurement — you want your lunch to have travelled as little as possible to reach your plate. But what about drinks?

At Workshop Coffee everything is angled towards the perfect cup of Joe. It has recently opened a new mega roastery in Bethnal Green where you can see your beans being prepared and drink the results under one roof. It’s the roast of the town. If it leaves you planning your own home brew you can buy some to take home, and Workshop is launching a subscription service so you can have it delivered through your letterbox.

“It’s been an enormous project to get it ready,” says Workshop Coffee’s founder James Dickson. It has been kitted out with the latest equipment for coffee connoisseurs — something called Cropster, which allows you to track the coffee’s progress in the 25kg roaster, a climate-controlled area and a cupping table where you can track the colour pre- and post-roast. “We are looking at the nuances,” says Dickson, who plans to train baristas in the space too. “You buy in dense green and you don’t want the bean to be over-roasted.”

Over in King’s Cross, Caravan has an in-house roastery where you can see the journey of your coffee beans, while there’s a sign at Ozone in Old Street saying “to the beans”. The Kiwi-owned café does its own roasting downstairs because if you want a job done well you should do it yourself.

Beans aren’t used straight away, Dickson explains. “We believe the optimum time to leave most coffee after roasting is three to four days. You want to let it de-gas and let off carbon dioxide. It can be quite bright at this stage.”

Nude Espresso hosts regular events at its Hanbury Street Roastery, including home espresso masterclasses and open cuppings to taste its latest single-origin beans. At the moment varieties from Colombia and Rwanda are a hit. The homemade onion brioche and poached eggs are pretty good too, and it does a good line in peanut butter cookies.

Nude is full of beans too — its Instagram has lots of pictures of them arranged in beautiful patterns and harvesters picking them off plants in Guatemala. Some are processed with honey for an unusual sugary flavour.

Back at Workshop, everyone is talking about the Probat 25 roasting machine, with regular coffee tastings. It’s time to go in-house.

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