COFFEE.
Oh the joy of a good coffee. The kick in the brain it delivers.
Problem is finding a good coffee.
Stand next to it and it's so small you think you're looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. Bus stops are bigger, but what really induces a smile is the entrance canopy, which uniquely I reckon, is bigger than the place itself.
I confess I go to Starbucks regularly, this isn't because I particularly want to, it's just the chain is ubiquitous. Starbucks is right there on every street corner.
The problem is that their scorched and bitter beans deliver a rancorous and wrong, vicious and persistent, back taste that requires a full pack of Extra Strong Mints to dissipate.
Awful really.
But awfully convenient too, and when the vultures of addiction gather squawking in the brain then a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
Caffe Nero is no better, nor Costa: bitterness purveyors all.
If I had time to deviate I would always seek out Salvi's in the Corn Exchange. Confidential discovered Salvi's (click here) and we reckon it's Manchester's best small food and drink establishment by about a factor of ten.
The coffee is perfect there, Italian rich, with a smooth finish. It's a million miles better than the incinerated chocolate of the world's biggest coffee chains.
Happily Salvi's has got a coffee cranking partner at last. And it's closer to my office.
Flat white and sophisticated
Outdoor..er..terrace
This is Caffeine & Co in the curiously named St James' Square off John Dalton Street. St James' Square is not a square at all, it's barely even a ginnel. But then again Caffeine & Co is barely even a coffee-shop. It's the only food and drink venue I can fit in my shoe.
Stand next to it and it's so small you think you're looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. Bus stops are bigger, but what really induces a smile is the entrance canopy, which uniquely I reckon, is bigger than the place itself.
Canopy vastness
There is room for about seven coffee swiggers inside and a couple of sets of benches and stools outside, one of which tumbles down a steep slope.
But the coffee.
Wow.
This comes from Square Mile Coffee Roasters in London. This is one of those indie, funky companies that are so good you fear they might, within a year or two, be taken over by Diageo or Coca Cola and - that dreaded phrase - 'rolled out' as a coffee chain across the country. No doubt with an avalanche of marketeers talking about 'maximising the concept potential'.
Square Mile Coffee High Club
Let's hope that doesn't happen. Square Mile are very good and wine-serious about coffee.
This is how they describe their Yirgacheffe roast from Ethiopia: 'This is a classic Yirgacheffe with fresh juicy peaches in the front, homemade apricot jam sweetness that is rounded out by a delicate bergamot finish and a tea like body.'
Bit far, maybe.
Yet, no matter how good the coffee they roast, it still has to be turned into proper java.
Caffeine & Co, a local company, have supplied me with a cappuccino and a flat white so far. These were both smooth yet rich glories. As shown in the Square Mile description above you can go deep into the complexities of coffee flavour and you can do that with the coffee here, or you can just sigh and swig. Coffee lovers give it a go. Soon.
Below the box that is Caffeine & Co there is another box with a kitchen where home-baking by the lady on the picture here takes place. She had some lovely kids and help mates by the way on this school holiday shift.
School holiday staff
Both the banana cake and the lemon cake cup cake were cracking accompaniments for the coffee. Moist the pair of them. The lemon curd blast in the cup cake for some reason threw me back to being a small boy at home on the hills in Rochdale munching on home-made jam tarts. Very Proustian but probably down to the non-processed food factor on each occasion.
Caffeine & Co hardly seems feasible as a business given its Lilliputian dimensions.
But it's a charmer, a sweet little addition to the city scene and one that brings the gift of glorious coffee.
I'm off there now. Salvi's probably still shades it in quality, but for me Caffeine & Co is much nearer.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter here @JonathSchofield
ALL SCORED CONFIDENTIAL REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY THE MAGAZINE.
Caffeine & Co, St James' Square, City.
Coffee Rating: 8.5/10 (Can't really mark this place the usual way because it's so small, so here's an overall rating out of ten based on the main selling point.)
The best book about coffee ever written....
Food and drink books are usually the most tedious of reads, mostly back-up for a celebrity chef's TV series.
Best coffee yarn everSome are excellent though. One of the best is 'The Devil's Cup' by Stewart Lee Allen. Subtitled 'Coffee, The Driving Force In History', it's about Allen's quest for the perfect cup of coffee and is part travelogue, part history and part action caper.
The opening paragraphs of the book read like this and begin in Nairobi in 1988.
"Ethiopia is the best," Bill's eyes brightened. "Finest grub in Africa, mate. And those Ethiopian girls...
"No girls," I said. Bill, a Cockney plumber/Buddhist monk was obsessed with finding me a girl but lacked discretion; his last bit of matchmaking had me fending off a Kenyan hooker, twice my size, who'd kept shouting, "I am just ready for love!"
"No girls," I repeated, shuddering at the memory. "Don't even think about it."
"You don't have to bonk them." He gave me his most charming leer. "But you'll want to."
"I sincerely doubt it."
"And the buna, ahhh! Best buna in the world."
"Buna? What's that?"
"Coffee," he said. "Ethiopia's where it came from.
So it was settled. We were off to Ethiopia for lunch. We were off for a coffee.
Homemade sandwiches
Opening times
Lunch offer
Mr Cappuccino
