I wrote last week about my recent long weekend trip to Canterbury, with several side trips to the Kent coast. I brought my Aeropress with me, as I wasn't sure how much the bank holiday and COVID would combine to affect coffee shop opening hours, but I found several great coffee spots in Canterbury and Whitstable, all but one of which roast their own coffee. Read on to find out more and for a handy map.
Six months after my last mini-break, in Bath, I was craving R & R, and the call of the sea was particularly strong. I wasn't the only one: a quick accommodation search in various English seaside towns for the bank holiday weekend yielded few options. But I was determined to get out of London, especially given the promising weather forecast.
Finally, I booked one of the last hotel rooms left in Canterbury, seven miles from the Kent coast. With Canterbury as my base, I was able to explore the cathedral city and visit three seaside towns. Not bad for a long weekend.
The window seats at the original White Mulberries cafe may have one of the best views of all the coffee shops in London, especially when the yachts in the St Katharine Docks marina glint in the sunshine. London's specialty coffee scene has changed a lot since my 2014 write-up, but the coffee, all-day breakfast and sweet treats at White Mulberries are still great. White Mulberries' second location, in Hay's Galleria in London Bridge, is even closer to my Bermondsey home.
UPDATE (June 2023): Unfortunately, Craving has now permanently closed.
Back in the summer of 2018, which now feels like a lifetime ago, I took the Tube up to Tottenham Hale for the launch party for Daniel's 'Succulent Lover' art exhibition at a coffee shop then called Craving Coffee. It was a great night for art, tacos and cocktails, but I was too late for coffee, and have been meaning to go back ever since. I finally made it last weekend, although it's now called Craving, and has recently moved across the road in the industrial estate where it's located.
Intermission Coffee is a great name for a coffee shop that opened during the coronavirus pandemic: who among us hasn't felt, at some point, as though the whole of the last year has been an extended intermission while we wait to get our lives back?
UPDATE: Unfortunately, Black Swan Yard is now closed permanently.
Most of my Caffeine Chronicles posts are about specialty coffee shops I've discovered recently. Not so with Black Swan Yard Coffee, which is one of the closest coffee shops to my home and one I've visited even more frequently while working from home during lockdown. Somehow, though, writing about the Bermondsey coffee spot has always eluded me, even as it's changed and adapted over the months and years, so I thought it was high time for a post.
I've been quite quiet on the blogging front of late, mainly because as you will have seen if you follow me on Twitter, I'm starting a new job in a new industry this week, and it's been a hectic few weeks handing over and signing off. But I had a few free days this week, which gave me time to visit Good as Gold, a new specialty coffee shop in beautiful Brockley, south-east London.
