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C Story / Yiping

A Constant Rejuvenation

London’s coffee history can be traced back to the mid 17th century. Known for a rich
tea culture, many are not aware that though both coffee and tea were introduced to London-
ers around the same time, coffee became a key drink much earlier than tea. Coffee houses
were known as “Penny Universities”, in which poets, traders, academics, and many more
professional men would pay a penny for a cup of coffee and exchange thoughts and news.
Tea took the upper-hand from the mid 19th century, and formed a solid part of English
culture ever since. It was only after the Italians invented espresso machines that coffee returned.
COFFEE IN
Nowadays, London is one of the most exciting cities for coffee, and holds some of the
best coffee events, such as the London Coffee Festival. When the specialty coffee wave hit
London in the early 2000s, the city quickly became a great place to nurture such a culture,
which once again grew to be a defining part of it.
In London, we see the Flat White cafe in Soho, an Australian shop that introduced
the concept of specialty coffee to Londoners; we see the rise of UK baristas in World
Barista Championship, such as the author of The World Atlas of Coffee and the founder
LONDON
of Square Mile Roasters, James Hoffman; we see an explosion of independent and quirky
coffee houses opening; and we see the settlement of leading foreign coffee brands, includ-
ing Omotesando Koffee.
It’s welcoming, it’s inspiring, it’s exciting, it’s forward-thinking. It is London, it is what
you can taste through a cup of great coffee.
Here, we have chosen 5 UK born and based coffee houses. They all have their own roast-
ery, and they all have survived the test of time. The youngest has been around for over eight
years while the oldest for twenty. They source, they roast, they serve, and together they devote
themselves to pushing the overall quality of the industry they love to the next level.

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