The Café Dispatch #7
Why it’s easier to work from a café in London than Paris, a disappointing visit to Cotti Coffee, and my honest reviews of 6 London Shoreditch cafés
Welcome to the Café Dispatch, a weekly letter about interesting café trends across the globe. If you enjoy it, please feel free to share it, and don’t forget to grab your favourite cup of coffee ☕️
The major difference between cafés in London vs Paris is this: if you want to work for a few hours, you can happily do so in London, whereas it has become more and more challenging to find any café in Paris offering their space as a work-from-home space. Even if only for a few hours.
Though I did welcome the idea after visiting Origin on Charlotte Street and really liking the vibe, I was there to be with the Perfect Daily Grind team and I thus headed towards the Work.Life Office in the city which, to be fair, is the first coworking space I’ve ever drunk (a LOT) of coffee from. They had a fancy Eversys machine with flat white “on tap” with normal and plant-based milk, and coffee from Redemption Roasters. Incredibly tasty and detrimental to my 8-hour sleep schedule..
This also meant that my wish to go out for coffee throughout the day was obviously cut short due to the fantastic coffee I got access to daily. However, the list of visited spaces in this weekly Dispatch will be longer (and juicier) than usual!
It’s been happening in London, Paris and across the US. Asian chains are flocking to the west, and I was in London just a week after Cotti Coffee’s opening launch at Liverpool Street. And it was… a sad space to see.
The baristas were both scrolling on their phones, the room was completely empty, and I didn’t understand one word of what was required of me to order a coffee. I somehow had to go through an app registration to benefit from loyalty points which I mentioned I didn’t need since I wasn’t living here. Anyways…. Cotti Coffee, I’ll be back and hopefully we’ll have more fun next time.
Though this was a brief visit, I find it interesting to see so many Chinese companies expanding into Europe and the US. Yes, we’ve done the same—I can think of the fantastic Fuglen from Oslo who opened a café in Tokyo back in 2012. Blending cultures is always fascinating, and guessing how one will respond to the offer of another culture is even more interesting to me.
Luckin Coffee, China’s answer to a smarter Starbucks, opened its first U.S. stores in Manhattan last summer and recently launched its first high-end flagship. With nearly 48% year-over-year revenue growth and thousands of locations across China, they’re betting big on Western expansion. Cotti, their biggest competitor (let’s remember that the founders were cofounders of Luckin Coffee first!) is testing European demand after moves into Australia, the Middle East, and North America in 2024.
These aren’t coffee shops in the way we specialty coffee lovers understand them. From scouring the internet and seeing pictures of what people consume at these spots, I haven’t yet seen an espresso, batch brew, or V60 coffee being enjoyed. That, to me, screams that while they might have some coffee-based drinks, coffee isn’t their primary offer. It’s the Instagram-worthy matcha latte with boba, the elaborate fruit teas, the aesthetic experience… you name it, that’s what these chains are after.
If you’ve visited Cotti Coffee or Luckin, what did you think? Are we too precious about our pour-overs, or is there something genuinely lost in translation?
On another note; I was recently tagged on a LinkedIn post about the Cursor AI pop-up coffee shop in Madrid. Not major news, they did it last year too, but it got me thinking, because it’s part of a bigger pattern: Anthropic (Claude) did it in San Francisco, and before all of them, Perplexity quietly opened a real coffee shop in Korea.
Last year, over 5,000 people visited Anthropic’s Claude Café pop-up in New York’s West Village over a single weekend, generating 10 million social impressions. They transformed the Air Mail newsstand into a space serving coffee, books, and literal “thinking caps.” Their mission all along was to create real human interactions and show that their AI helps humans be more human.
Clever.
Mostly, though, they proved something far simpler, and far older: (free) coffee = community.
I’m still figuring out how I feel about this trend but the learning is clear, and it goes well beyond tech. Writer Jen Roberts captures it perfectly in one of her recent notes; cafés are now appearing inside hairdressers, grooming parlours, libraries, bookshops across Mexico City. Just as companies can no longer function without technology, it seems they soon won’t be able to connect without offering a great cup of coffee either.
Loyalty has become a rare trait in the coffee industry. I saw it firsthand when I moved to Paris, hopping from one place to the next with the insatiable need to try all specialty coffee in a radius of 1km. No loyalty there!
Yet, coffee shops with active loyalty programs see 2.3x visit frequency and 19% higher average tickets. But only 34% of independent shops have digital loyalty, most still use punch cards or nothing at all. I’m not saying loyalty will save your café but surely, it will help- especially if you keep it creative and fun.
In an industry built on ritual and routine, we’re not capitalising on the one thing that keeps people coming back. Chains figured this out years ago. Starbucks just revamped its rewards program with three tiers and personalised perks for its 35.5 million members, even integrating AI into their ordering process.
Meanwhile, the best independent cafés I visit don’t need an app; they remember my name, my order, the fact that I was traveling last week. That’s loyalty too.
I’m curious, what keeps you loyal to your favorite café? Is it the tech, the people, or something else entirely?
Currently obsessed with: La Cabra in Copenhagen. I thought if I could fall in love with their website, and the videos they publish such as this beautiful interview with Lim Taehee, then surely I’ll fall in love with their café. I already love their coffee so that’s covered. Anyhow, Copenhagen is on my list and it is likely that I’ll spend many mornings at La Cabra.
Recently visited with my honest POV:
Nagare Coffee in Shoreditch. It felt very much like a sanctuary, a small and simple café yet so quiet even if packed. I felt like the space forced us all to shush while waiting for our daily espresso and taking it the gorgeous sunshine coming through the windows.
Kiss the Hippo Coffee in Shoreditch. Another very small space with large windows, but wood cladded walls and floors, and what I really enjoyed was the choice given between their house blend and single origin espresso. Baristas really cared about explaining the difference and recommend their best depending on your drink of choice.
Origin Coffee on Charlotte Road in Shoreditch. I loved their window decoration (horses for the Lunar New Year) - it made me think of an art gallery. A second time where I could choose my coffee beans and was told their flavours. Also the ideal work from home nook!
High Grade Coffee in Brick Lane. A hole in a wall really located in the Truman Brewery. One of the best coffees I got that week - pure bliss! I just can’t say why but it was delight.
FWD Coffee in Shoreditch. Former Fix Coffee. A place where everything worked together. The design and playlist were punk rock, and so was the looks of the barista. Automatically given their house blend which was OK.
Redemption Roasters in the City. My colleague is obsessed with their filter coffee and I really enjoyed the flat white daily. A very acidic yet nutty flavour. I rarely tasted that kind of flavours before, but I loved it. Besides their barista was just the nicest guy ever. Incredibly kind and always funny. A great way to start the day if you ask me.
Julie Hanell works for Perfect Daily Grind, and writes The Coffee Dispatch from Paris and Málaga. Want to see more? Check out her LinkedIn.
I can't believe it took me 2 days to read ittttt
Brilliant insights on coffee culture and interesting coffee haunts 💜