It has come to my attention that if you find yourself lucky enough to be shortlisted for a blog award you really ought to make the effort to justify why you are on the shortlist in amongst some far more worthy candidates.
I am up for a TRAVEL award. Which suggests that I travel. Which at the moment, I don’t or rather I can’t. Being a single parent makes it difficult to get away – especially when your children are working towards some very important exams.
SO.
In the meantime, my brother came up with a suggestion for an interesting post – to ask you to share your experiences here so that when I can finally get away I will have a lovely long list of places to visit. I don’t want it to be complicated though. At this stage I’d rather have something that is subjective and personal.
So I’m starting with coffee. Because coffee is a favourite drink all over the world and whether you are drinking it whilst sitting in a piazza or lying on a beach or on a ski slope or camping, or trekking in Chiang Mai (like my son) many of us have specific memories of where we were and why it was so good. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive, or even the most delicious – it just has to be the best cup of coffee you’ve ever had or your favourite Barista…..for whatever reason:-
I’m going to cheat and start off with two.
A cappuccino at The Wolseley bought for me by my daughter last year for Mother’s Day:-
and then a cappuccino at the Pembroke Lodge cafe in Richmond Park with my girlfriends:-
Obviously you don’t have to include a photo of the actual coffee or even the place but it would be great if you did. Love to hear about your favourite coffee please….
Updated photo from this morning in a lovely cafe in Putney called Artisan which has delicious coffee and this fabulous sign:-
So far we have:
The Wolseley – London
Pembroke Lodge – Richmond Park
Loco Cafe – Melbourne
Istanbul
Beirut
Zaza Cafe – Toronto
The Tantivy – Dulverton
Eleanor’s Byre – Embleton
Louvre – Paris (cheating? Hot chocolate…but still – Paris needed a mention)
Restinga Beach Bar – Alvor, Portugal
Rhythm Cafe, Mairangi bay North Shore NZ
Club Nautica – Menorca
Los Buccaneros – Menorca
Lange Erlen Restaurant, Basel, Switzerland.
3fe – Dublin
Here is one my friend from Melbourne emailed in from Loco, Elsternwick, Melbourne – literally a work of art:-
Family Affairs “Where In The World” update
I’d love to hear from you in the comments section, but I’d also ABSOLUTELY LOVE to see a photo and read a few words here about your choice so that then I can add your photo to the very posh slideshow my lovely web man Andy has put together for me at the bottom (if I can work out how to do it!):-
(*Please ensure you fill out all the fields below – max image size 750 x 750 px)
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21 Comments
You’ve sent my mind wandering round the world with this post… 🙂 So many coffees, so many good times. Very hard to pick one particular cup – could it be Italy, or France, or the US…or then again the sweet thick sludge of Greece, Turkey, Egypt?
I’m going to plump however for that rare beauty – a decent cup of cappuccino in the UK – OUTSIDE a major city! My local town of Dulverton has a lovely little cafe attached to the papershop, The Tantivy – there are tables in a courtyard outside as well as cosy ones indoors. The staff are divine and the coffee is DAMN good.
Though, hang about…now I’m thinking about another tiny cafe, attached to a DIVINE shop on the coast in Northumberland. Eleanor’s Byre in Embleton. Now THAT is coffee heaven. Sigh.
Thank you – will need to start compiling a list! Lx
Friend emailed to say that Loco in Melbourne did incredible artwork on their coffees. Need to keep all the places together so adding it myself!
Arriving in Beirut for the first time in mid-summer 1993, newly married and overwhelmed by the sounds, scents and constant jangling noise of the middle-east, my husband and I had to visit the notaire to have our marraige certificate endorsed. We entered a pock-marked building and climbed the dark stone staircase which carried its own war wounds and opened onto a large room packed with people waiting, like us, to see the notaire. Two large desks stood in opposite corners of the room and each desk was piled high with dishevelled files and loose papers behind which sat 40 year old identical twins. Between the desks hung a cage holding a brightly coloured and very vocal parrot. On the corner of each desk was piled, improbably high, a precarious tower of tiny arabic coffee cups, each teetering slightly under its own weight. As my husband and I entered, one of the twins looked up from his paperwork and poured each of us a cup of rich dark sludgy coffee, hot and flavoured with sweet cardomen – a flavour that will always evoke the sweet chaos of that first visit to Beirut.
How gorgeous – your words completely painted a visual picture for me Lx
Not a photo of a cup of coffee but…..this time last year I was on a long weekend in Istanbul. After a heady all-nighter drinking and dancing at a bar down on the waterfront of the Bosphorus, we sat in cafe and drank cups of very strong, sludgy sweet, black coffee. I took this photo of The Blue Mosque jst across the water, in the blue light of dawn. It was about 5am and the Muezzin had just started the first call to prayer and the ferries were firing up to ply across the river between Europe and Asia. All very Midnight Express. Maybe not ‘the best’ cup of coffee in the world, but certainly most welcome! and hugely memorable. x
Thanks – gorgeous photo – will upload now x
OK, it’s not actually coffee, but I will always remember an incredible cup of hot chocoate served at the cafe in the middle of the Louvre – right there in the gallery. There was a pitcher of milk (foamed, I think) and a pitcher of chocolate. It’s possible that my thrill at finally being in Paris, at the Louvre, has endowed this cup of hot chocolate with more than its inherent beauty, but I believe that it was truly beautiful in its own rite.
How delicious that sounds Lx
I’m very much an occasional coffee drinker, so I have relatively few to choose from! Ask me for my best cup of tea and I’d be here for months debating it.
The perfect cup of coffee appeared on a cold, windy April morning when I’d been left in our holiday cottage to revise. After a couple of hours work I was bored and lonely, so dashed across the road to the village shop. Initially I was going to get some chocolate and something fizzy, but the temperature was telling me to lean towards a warmer beverage. Forsaking my usual tea, for fear of it being horribly stewed, I bought my coffee and wandered down to the beach. It may have been freezing, and I may have been totally under-dressed, but the sun was shining and the coffee was gorgeous, like nectar, and a wonderful surprise.
You see? It’s all about the experience x
Best cofee in the world is made by the staff at Restinga beach bar, Alvor beach on the Algarve. Enjoyed while watching the atlantic rollers crashing onto the sand.
I agree. I love it there Lx
Email entry from Auckland friend:-
Rhythm Cafe
Mairangi bay
North Shore
NZ
Here is another email response –
Now i’m not quite sure this fits exactly in your ‘best cup of coffee’ header i suppose its all in the interpretation. But one of the most enjoyable coffee moments I had was in a Starbucks in Ghent, Norfolk, USA. I went in around nine after dropping my dogs off to get groomed, double espresso. When to have a seat outside and have a read when i noticed one of my favorite dogs a Great Dane. This beautiful dog was grey and white and was loyally standing next to its owners side. It’s very rare to see Great Danes so it was quite a shock to see not just one but three more heading to our direction and someone setting up a table. I walked over to the table and they ladies were setting up a table for a organization that rescues Great Danes and everyone in the area was getting together today to promote Great Danes by bring them out for show. By the time i had to leave there were a good 10 Greats Danes. That’s probably the most memorable cup of coffee i’ve ever had.
I’ve just suddenly thought of another, but any Cuban coffee shop in the Cuban area of Miami. Been there once had great coffee but cannot for the life of me remember the name, but walking around in the morning you had wonderful coffee and baked bread smells all over!
oh man Another one, Sticky Fingers in Maastrict, Netherlands. Great place, loved hanging out there, its more of a bar but they always made a great espresso, don’t know what coffee they used but i’ve never had another one like it
Barry
Another email response:-
Title: Basel, Switzerland
Best cup of coffee has to be hot. Nothing worse than a lukewarm coffee. My best cup has to be at Lange Erlen Restaurant, Basel, Switzerland. Every Wednesday, I meet friends to walk Robbie the Cocker Spaniel. Through the animal park past monkeys, deer and farm animals; past the empty childrens playground (they’re all at school), along the banks of the river Birs as far as Germany, and then back. Through the seasons, through rain and shine, falling leaves, snow and sleet. Outside on the terrace in summer and with dogs welcome inside in winter. I sit under this tree sipping, because its hot, consistently hot coffee, from that coffee machine you can see in the background.
(still awaiting the photo!)
Most memorable coffee? In 1990 I was skiing in Obergurgl in Austria with a soon-to-be ex-boyfriend;we had a big row and I skiied off on my own. Bit scared but once you have flounced off on a pair of skis it is quite hard to flounce back so I got on the nearest lift, went to the top of the mountain and sat and watched the sun go down with a short, strong black coffee, a glass of pear schnapps and a cigarette. It was practically perfect and apart from the caffeine, alcohol and nicotine, very calming.
Brilliant – practically perfect & without the boyfriend and yes you’re right – flouncing backwards on skis virtually impossible! ha ha Lx
Email update from my friend S:-
My only coffee moment probably doesn’t count. My husband bid (without me even noticing – how much had I had to drink??) for a super dooper coffee machine plus a barista to come and show you how to use it. Having had one too many, I commented loudly that I expected him to be covered in baby oil (why???) which my friends found hilarious, but wasn’t quite so funny when I was dragged to repeat it to the man who had donated the item – an uptight executive with no sense of humour!!! Needless to say, a lovely barista turned up (no oil) and we had a class ‘do’ raising money for charity.
My favourite coffee shop IN THE WORLD happens to be in Dublin (there are 2 now), run by Ireland’s top barista (and inspirational speaker on all things artisinal and entrepreneurial) Colin Harmon. He sold his car to buy his first good coffee machine, and the business has gone from strength to strength ever since. Exquisitely smooth and flavoursome coffee, delicious home-made pastries, everything done really well, with the apparent ease and simplicity that comes from scientific-style preparation. A must-visit if you’re ever in Dublin. http://www.coolhunting.com/food-drink/colin-harmon-of-3fe.php
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