Over the last 20 years London has emerged from relative obscurity as one of the world’s most prestigious destinations for specialty coffee and café culture. Today, the UK capital is a melting pot of specialty independents consistently raising the bar for quality and attracting global acclaim. Tobias Pearce caught up with some of the influential operators writing the next chapter of London’s epic coffee story
With a population of nine million, more than 300 languages spoken and over 200 nationalities present, London is frequently lauded as the cultural capital of the world.
Coffee has long been a part of London’s rich cultural heritage. The city’s first coffee house was opened in 1652 by Pasqua Rosée, a former servant variously recorded as Sicilian or Armenian, at a long-lost site still marked at St Michael’s Alley off Cornhill.
That venue was a precursor to Lloyd’s Coffee House on Tower Street, which became a popular haunt for merchants in the late 1600s and kick-started coffee’s ascent as the beverage of choice among London’s financial and intellectual elite during the 17th and 18th centuries.
