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Ahead of a week in Seattle for a conference, I got to spend a few days in New York. I was staying in the Financial District, close to my company's office, where I was working for most of my trip (happily, I'll be back again in May). I did, however, have a free day-and-a-half in the city at the weekend. I was very lucky with the weather too: although it was cold, it was beautifully sunny on Saturday and Sunday, the rain coming out in time for my return to the office. As well as visiting a few speciality coffee shops, old and new , here's what else I got up to. WANDERINGS After reading about the impacts of the novel coronavirus outbreak on restaurants in New York's Chinatown, I wasn't sure whether the  Lunar New Year parade  would go ahead, but Mott Street and the surrounding streets were not short of festivities, with firecrackers , lion dances  and other performances. Sadly, the coronavirus does seem to be having an impact on restaurants and shops in the neighbourh...

I spent five days in New York at the beginning of my recent US trip. I was there for work and only had Saturday afternoon and Sunday free in the city, but managed to squeeze in visits to four new-to-me speciality coffee shops. One of these — Yafa Cafe — is all the way down in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, but the wonderfully welcoming Yemeni coffee shop and eatery was well worth the visit even on a short trip. Citizens of SoHo (SoHo) I stumbled upon Aussie coffee shop and brunch spot Citizens of SoHo while I was wandering up Lafayette Street. They have several other 'Citizens of' locations, and the SoHo branch had only been open a few days when I visited. I had already eaten brunch but I was very much in the market for coffee. The coffee is from  Partners , a smooth Central and South American espresso blend in the hopper. I ordered a piccolo, which was very well prepared and appropriately petite. The Seasons espresso had a very nice caramel taste with a little milk. It will come as ...

I was quick off the mark with my first London coffee shop visit of the year, on 2 January, although as Formative Coffee  first opened its doors in Victoria almost a year ago, I wasn't as prompt as I would have liked. The small shop is a short walk from St James's Park Tube station (and St James's Park itself, for that matter), and is only open on weekdays and only until 5 pm, which is why I'd struggled to visit previously. On the first working day of the year, I found Formative fairly quiet, although there were also bursts of customers seeking coffee to take away. From the outside, Formative is very sleek, located in a pleasingly curved flatiron-shaped building on the corner of the pedestrianised Butler Place. The curvature is echoed inside, with a large black coffee bar that occupies most of one wall. White tiling, black tables and olive green chairs complete the look. The coffee menu is simple, offering just espresso, filter coffee, flat whites and lattes. And the cof...

I've been writing about coffee since I started this blog in 2007, but it wasn't until the start of the last decade when speciality coffee shop reviews took on a more central role among my posts. In January 2010, I was living in Marylebone and had just taken a new job in King's Cross, which brought my commuting back to Cambridge to an end. As I've discussed before , back then I had to walk 20 minutes on my lunch breaks to get to the nearest speciality coffee shop, the original Espresso Room on Great Ormond Street. And now...well, the speciality coffee scene in King's Cross, London and many other cities throughout the world has changed dramatically. My tastes have changed too: I used to drink macchiatos almost exclusively (hence the name of this blog), and I still enjoy them (and their slightly larger siblings, the piccolo and the cortado), but these days, I drink a lot more hand-brewed filter coffee, usually light roasts from single origins. I've taken the occas...