Specialty coffee in United Kingdom

Specialty coffee in the United Kingdom took off when Flat White opened in Soho in 2005, bringing Australian and New Zealand café culture to London. London had an earlier outlier: Monmouth Coffee Company, founded by Anita Le Roy in 1978, sold whole beans and single origins decades before the wave arrived. After 2005 things moved quickly. James Hoffmann, the 2007 World Barista Champion, co-founded Square Mile Coffee Roasters with Anette Moldvaer in 2008, and its monthly cuppings became a meeting point for the city's baristas. Gwilym Davies won the world title in 2009 and later worked with Prufrock Coffee.

London still holds the large majority of the country's cafés and roasters, spread across neighbourhoods from Clerkenwell to Dalston and Portobello. Outside the capital the scene is spread thinly but widely: Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland, Belfast, Bristol, Brighton and Hove, Manchester, Leeds, Oxford and Cardiff all support their own independents, and Bristol stands out for its number of roasters.

The roasters behind the bar range from national operations such as 200 Degrees Coffee Roastery and Allpress Coffee Roasters in Dalston to regional names like Artisan Roast in Edinburgh, Bailies Coffee Roasters in Belfast, Atkinsons Coffee Roasters and Campbell & Syme. Expect the flat white as a default, batch brew and pour-over at most independents, and brunch menus that reflect the scene's Antipodean roots.