Nude Espresso

So as promised, we visited the second coffee bar on our list. This is the Nude Espresso close to Liverpool Street, London. The name I must say was quite intriguing, and hence the curiosity was more. But unfortunately the coffee experience in Nude wasn't as heavenly as it was in Flat White. I took the same Cafe mocha, so as to be a fair judge of quality, and this one was no where near as creamy as the one I had in Flat White. This time Punit took Macchiato, and he did mention that his was quite full bodied, which I take was a good thing. Apart from coffee, I also took a toasted pesto sandwich, which was quite tasty, but then again, nothing to die for. All in all to be completely honest Nude was a bit of a let down, especially because it's quite some distance from where I live as well. It's a good thing that we also clubbed our Spitalfield market and Upmarket survey with this same trip.


Observations:

• Extremely busy, again hardly a place to sit and relax or even chit chat
• Not really spacious but slightly bigger than Flat White
• Personally the quality of coffee I had was not out of the world
• Ambiance was not that great
• It's run by a NZealanders, and possibly one of the plus points of this place was that he was quite cute and had a cool accent.

-Sell Coffee, not your soul

Flat white

So yesterday we were out in the freezing weather with a single purpose in mind. (Actually that is not entirely true, since Sushi Hiro occupied half our mind space for the first 2 hours of our outing, but then again, sushi is no coffee and so will not go into that story here). Anyways after our sushi craving was put to rest, we decided to start with our visits to London Cafes in search of the right coffee, right environment...or our 'market research' you could say. After walking for a few minutes in the snow, we finally found the first one on our list, 'Flat White', a cafe in Soho.

Facts:

• Flat white is run by a NZ guy, or someone from 'down under' as they say it. 
• They sell coffee, cakes, muffins, salads, sandwiches and such other snack
• Located on Berwick St, Soho, London
• Relatively small cafe

Observations:

• Get their coffee beans from Square Mile coffee roasters
• Extremely busy, even though not all other cafes in the area were full
• Not a place to sit and relax, or think
• Great tasting coffee and hot chocolate
  
• Served in glasses or cups, no real rule which one for what
• Decor and furniture - basic
• Promote art mainly from Australian and NZ artists
  
• Service was not the greatest, in fact I  even suspect the guys sitting next to us was served our order, who didn't even pay for it and just quietly left once they had finished. Ofcourse we eventually got what we ordered, but the waitress was a bit confused.

Inferences:

• Central London cafes are small busy places and may be difficult to open a slightly bigger space with a workshop.
• If the coffee tastes good, people do not even care much about the environment (we still need to see if the vice versa is true)
  

-Sell Coffee, not your soul

In search of my roots

Coffee House Kolkata has always lured me. Except for being born in kolkata, I don't really have much connection to the city. I haven't grown up here to see the city change or fall in love with its people. But there has always been some part of me searching for a place to belong. While I cannot identify with any place in particular in this city, the Coffee House in my fantasies represents the concept of an organisation I would like to be part of.

To me The Coffee House has always been a symbol of the brewing change in the air. It's a place where people who think beyond their own time and generation meet up and weave their seemingly impossible dreams.
It's a place where no name sounds too big, and the unknowns sit next to famous personalities without fear and swap thoughts and ideas.
It's the place where change is treated with reverence and every idea small or big is dicussed, debated and fought over.
It's a place where you don't have to bring a friend to have a nice time, because there is no way you can feel left out in a place filled with like minded people.

I don't really know in what condition this place is these days, since I have only visited it once and that too about 15 years back, holding my dad's hand... yet what it stands for in my head is why I have been so fascinated with it. And in my mind I have a greatness, which I have visualised and want to implement at some point.
 
 
 
Sell Coffee, not your soul

New bean on the block

We are at a stage where 'Spread your beans' is only an idea and a whole lot of impending hardwork and research. Through this blog we would like to make a progress report of sorts of how things are shaping up at our end. (And how soon we can invite you all over for a hot cup of refreshing coffee). We hope that this blog will be our white board of thoughts, ideas and learnings through out this journey of becoming the 'SYB'. There are only two things we care about at present, one is the Coffee and the other is You.
Any kind of feedback, questions, ideas, criticism, friendly opinions, relevant remarks and even irrelevant gossips are most welcome!



Sell Coffee, not your soul