One shortcut to following the global coffee scene is to track the movements of Tim Styles, such is the Australian barista’s knack for turning up at seminal shops at the right time. He’s worked stints at Ray Cafe in Melbourne, Joe the Art of Coffee in New York, Flat White in London, Intelligentsia in Venice (California) and Penny University, the pop-up brew bar in London’s Shoreditch which popped down on the 30th of July. [Read more...]
Goodbye to Penny University, Hello to Tim Styles
29 July 2010 By 1 Comment
The New Trainee Barista at Penny University
Early this morning, Gwilym Davies was about to board a flight home from Malta to London when he received a urgent call from Tim Styles of the coffee shop Penny University.
Penny U was a man down for the day and Styles wanted to know if Davies, the 2009 World Barista Champion, could fly in as a late substitution. Davis landed at Heathrow, rushed directly to Shoreditch, stopped only long enough to open the door of the men’s boutique where he has his own coffee trolley and then slid behind the bar at Penny U.
So how did Davies, the espresso champ, do on his first day as a barista preparing only pour-over and syphon brews at Penny University? I would give him a 9 out of 10 for the quality of the unplugged filter coffee and a 2 out of 10 for wardrobe. Apparently Davies did not get the company memo about the baristas wearing traditional men’s cotton shirts.
16 June 2010 By Leave a Comment
Penny University a London shrine to filter coffee
If you want to see a Londoner famous for his temperature control get a little hot and bothered, just tell James Hoffmann in the most noncommittal tone you can muster you thought one of his featured brews from Square Mile Coffee Roasters was “fine” or “okay”. Better still, tell the 2007 World Barista Champion that, upon reflection, you suppose his coffee shop in London’s Shoreditch, Penny University, “fills a hole”.
“Ambivalence,” says Hoffmann, “is a terrible thing”.
Conversely, saying you positively hate his prized Blackburn Estate coffee from Tanzania is likelier than not to make him smile and get his attention. A puritanical shrine to brewed coffee that deprives its would-be disciples of espresso, milk and sugar, Penny University is meant to provoke. And so Hoffmann will take a “definitely hate” over a “sort of like” any day, even if devotion and love are the rightful responses to this groundbreaking, unplugged, pop-up coffee shop. [Read more...]
3 June 2010 By 9 Comments
