About Me

Welcome to Double Skinny Macchiato. I'm Bex, a London-based coffee lover and travel addict. Since I started this blog in 2007, soon after beginning my career in science publishing, I've written regularly about coffee, London life and my international travels. In April 2021, I changed careers and now work as a coffee marketing and communications professional by day.

I love to explore new cities and hunt out the best speciality coffee shops. My friends and family like to joke that I have a spreadsheet and/or Google Map in every port. This is not quite true but as I work full time, I obsessively research every trip so I can make the most of the limited time I have in each city or country.


Outside of my coffee travels, I love running, eating out, reading, quizzes and cryptic crosswords, learning languages (I studied linguistics at university) and listening to Suede and The National. I also love watching football — I'm a lifelong fan of Wolverhampton Wanderers FC (for my sins) and enjoy playing Fantasy Premier League (my highest rank is 23K).

Photography
I take all of the photos on this blog unless otherwise stated; photos of me are taken by friends, family or self-timer. If you would like to use any of my photos, please contact me first to ask permission. 

Currently, my primary camera is the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III, whose picture quality belies its compact size, and which I mainly use with a 12-45 mm F4 PRO compact zoom lens and a 20 mm F1.4 PRO prime lens. I also still take many photos on my excellent compact Canon G7 X Mark II and my iPhone 12 Pro. 

My photography has featured in numerous national and international online and print publications, including Time Out London, Time Out New York, Time Out AmsterdamNew York Magazine (and here), Business Insider, Londonist, BoingBoing, NME, Rolling Stone, Daily Coffee News, B-EAT Magazin (Germany) and Le Nouvel Obs. One of my photos also currently appears as the lead image on the Wikipedia page for coffee (and no, I didn't add it!). Check out my Flickr portfolio for more of my photography!

Coffee
I have acquired a lot of coffee-making kit over the years but at present, I mainly use an Aeropress, a Kōno Meimon dripper, a Hario V60 and a Sage Barista Express espresso machine to brew, a Made by Knock Aergrind and a Wilfa Svart grinder to grind, and a Fellow Stagg EKG kettle to pour.

My blog header currently features (L) Five Elephant in Kreuzberg, Berlin, and (R) Jacob the Angel in Covent Garden, London.

Work with me
If you are interested in collaborating with me or work with a brand that you think would be a good fit with the content of my blog and would be of interest to my readers, please email me on doubleskinnymacchiato [at] gmail [dot] com.

Disclaimer
I occasionally receive free products and services for review purposes, in which case, I will always disclose this. My decisions to write reviews or feature products, and the opinions in any reviews I do write, are always purely my own.