Serious Eats
London Dispatch: Dodging Espresso Machines for the Filter Coffee at Monmouth Coffee Co.
This week, our correspondent Brian Yarvin writes to us from London instead of his normal bureau in New Jersey. Thanks for the transatlantic update, Brian!
As a long-term observer of the British hot drink scene, I've noticed how mechanized the experience has become. Places that used to sell loose tea twenty years ago, now serve it from a bag and get the hot water from an espresso machine. The ubiquity of espresso machines in Britain is disturbing, especially when sheep farmers and pickup cricket players are drinking double mochachinos.
While thinking about this and walking through London's Borough Market, I spotted a jam-packed, tiny shop called Monmouth Coffee making filter coffee. Yes, there was an espresso machine in the back—for those who demanded modernity—but the filter joe was front and center. Handing over two pounds, I got a cup and upon the first sip, felt the flavors explode. It was like sipping your first glass of Barolo ("the king of wines and wine of kings") when, suddenly, tastes and sensations you don't even recognize appear in your mouth.
I sat in silence with my cup at the long, crowded communal table, wedged between two business meetings. While I had constructive suggestions for both firms, I couldn't improve their choice of venue.
Though I was staying on the opposite side of London, I returned to Monmouth Coffee the next morning, prepared for their all-you-can-eat bread, butter, and jam special: a basket of baguettes, a cylinder of butter, and jars of jam set in the middle of the table. You pay two pounds fifty and help yourself. Yeah, yeah. That's almost ten bucks for coffee, bread, butter, and jam, but it's easily one of the most memorable ten-dollar meals in London. (The closest other one I recall was a dosa near Wembley Stadium.)
Sitting behind a photo shoot and surrounded by flirting couples and freelancers begging for jobs, I slathered a piece of baguette with butter and jam, closed my eyes, and bit into the concoction. Talk about romance: me uniting with the bread of my dreams, where a deep yeastiness set off the richness of the butter accented by a touch of intense jam.
Nine baguettes later, the value was clear: I had actually snarfed down five quid worth of bread and paid only half that. Washed down with the perfect beverage—the insanely complex filter coffee—I had spent more than the cost of a full breakfast at a local pub, but the price here also included an education. I now understood how good a mug of coffee and hunk of bread can be—and how disappointing everything else can be.
This was my second day in a row at the Borough Market and almost nothing was open. Standing twenty yards from Monmouth, in the same spot as a zillion food and travel television hosts have raved about marrowbones, homemade sausage, and cheddar cheese (from a place actually called Cheddar)—here I was, and I only cared about the coffee. The filter coffee that wasn't from a mechanized espresso machine.
About the author: Brian Yarvin is an educator, photographer, and author of three cookbooks; "Farms and Foods of the Garden State," "Cucina Piemontese," and "A World of Dumplings." He lives in New Jersey, and every week will share with us another food discovery from the "sixth borough" of New York City.
Monmouth Coffee Company
2 Park Street (at the Borough Market), London SE1 9AL
020 7645 3585
The nearest tube station is London Bridge. Monmouth also has several other locations including one at Covent Garden and the Borough.