Ahead of this weekend's CUP NORTH coffee event (1-2 Nov), Clare Wiley takes a look at the rise of independent coffee culture.
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MANCHESTER is home to 49 Costa coffee shops.
“Undercooked coffee has a sharp taste, and overcooked is very dark and bitter. In between there’s this amazing sweet spot, that’s what we’re aiming for."
That’s good news if you’re into stale muffins, beige furniture and decaf soya skinny caramel lattes. But if you’re after a better cuppa, Manchester is now punching well above its weight when it comes to artisan coffee.
Independent cafés peddling great-tasting coffee are springing up right across the city.
Grindsmith (main image), Takk, Caffeine & Co. and Fig & Sparrow are just a few of the new kids on the scene, while North Tea Power and Coffee Fix in Gatley are seasoned pros.
This new breed of coffee (what coffee geeks call ‘third wave’, not to be confused with feminism) took off in places like Melbourne and Scandinavia. It uses single-origin beans, and new roasting and brewing techniques to create a taste that’s completely different to what you get at the chains.
Takk
Philip Hannaway opened Takk in January 2013. He says the taste is so different because most speciality coffee is given a lighter roast so all sorts of flavours come out, like fruit or chocolate.
“The chains want the same taste if you go into a Starbucks in Glasgow and one in London,” he tells me over a cappucino. “The only way to really do that is over-roast the beans, almost burning them, so all you get is bitterness.
"The independent shops here are all using lighter roasts so you get more flavour. You don’t get that if you roast a bean to within an inch of its life.”
Making this kind of coffee means mastering high-tech kit, pour-over brewing methods, and even something called latte art (yes, really). And that requires serious skills. Takk initially struggled to find fully trained baristas in Manchester so they invested in a training programme to plug the skills gap.
“We’ve also taken staff from Costa, who wanted to do more with their talent," says Hannaway. "They knew the basics, but wanted to come to a place where they take pride in every cup that goes out. It’s easy to open a coffee shop and serve bad coffee. But it’s hard to serve great coffee, you need passionate people with a skill set.”
Takk, Tariff Street, Northern Quarter
Sure, the prices are slightly higher at places like Takk but they’ve put a great deal of time and effort into a high-quality cuppa. They’re also part of an emerging economy that’s supporting local businesses like roasters.
Ryan Hayes of Passion Fruit Coffee is a Manchester roaster who supplies Takk, Soup Kitchen, Grindsmith and Tea Hive in Chorlton:
“Undercooked coffee has a sharp taste, and overcooked is very dark and bitter. In between there’s this amazing sweet spot, that’s what we’re aiming for.
"The skill of roasting is that every bean changes so you can’t apply the same approach to the whole stock, they all need to be profiled and adjusted, tasted and trialled.”
That’s putting it mildly. I visit roaster Jamie Boland of Ancoats Coffee Company in a warehouse in the 'former wild west' of Ancoats. It’s clear that roasting is a hugely complicated, scientific process (graphs and charts are involved). Boland uses a massive Dutch roasting machine, trying out methods and timings, aiming for particular flavours depending on the bean.
He even has to account for Manchester’s fickle weather – too cold and the taste will change. The company’s ‘Warehouse City’ coffee is a nod to our city’s heritage, and uses seasonal beans so the blend changes throughout the year.
Ancoats Coffee Company Roaster
Boland wants to get good coffee into the city’s restaurants. “They focus so much on seasonality and local produce but rarely do they carry that through to coffee, and that’s the parting shot for a lot of their customers.”
Manchester’s indie coffee scene has taken off to such an extent that this autumn there’ll be a dedicated coffee event, Cup North promises to be a 'two day northern coffee party' in the Artwork building on Greengate.
“There’s a vibrant coffee culture up here,” says founder Hannah Davies. “London’s coffee scene is very influenced by Australians and Kiwis, so they’re all similar. The nice thing about northern shops is they’re all individual. I wanted to celebrate that.”
Four local roasters: ManCoCo, Passion Fruit, Ancoats and Coffee Circle – are working together on a special blend for Cup North. “That’s not been done anywhere else,” says Davies. “It demonstrates the close-knit community we’ve got here.”
Cup North | Sat 1 to Sun 2 November | Artwork Building | Greensgate | M3 7NG
