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The reasonably safe premise behind my CoffeeSaturday pop-up series was that there would be a correlation between the quality of the coffee and that of the conversation. Nothing new there: For centuries coffee shops have cultivated an open exchange of ideas, knowledge and opinions both meaningful and meaningless. I nevertheless chose to sweeten the equation with a third element: the cookie.

 For the first CoffeeSaturday pop-up at Prufrock in May I organised a speculoos bake-off and tasting. For the 3 September pop-up at the enchanting new location of the London coffee shop Tapped & Packed I invited my talented friends Thomas Bonasera and Ian James to join me in a biscotti bake-off.  Tapped & Packed managing director Richard Lilley made it a four-way competition: Richard’s cranberry almond honey biscotti vs Tom’s spelt almond biscotti vs Ian’s pistachio cranberry almond biscotti vs my chocolate hazelnut biscotti.

To complement the cookies T&P baristas Sang Ho Park and Rob Dunne brewed El Salvador San Rafael Bourbon beans from the outstanding UK roaster Has Bean for cups of filter coffee, espressos or flat whites. The San Rafael’s chocolate and hazelnut notes seemed a good match for nutty biscotti and a perfect one for my chocolate hazelnut variety.

Or maybe not. My #ChocHazel biscotti finished last in the bake-off. Ian’s #PistCranOrange biscotti won the competition and Tom’s #SpeltAlmond biscotti were a close second. From these results it seems clear that CoffeeSaturday voters drew one of two conclusions: Either harmonious flavours work better than matching ones when pairing coffee and cookies or Ian, Tom and Richard’s biscotti were just better the mine.