With the move away from the individual seasonal names we wanted to look at where we thought we had succeeded with label and where we wanted to improve it.

The core of the idea was to try and increase the transparency behind the creation of the blend. Rather than filling the label with lots of data we wanted to show the breakdown of the components visually, and then explain why we had chosen each component and what it brings to the espresso.

Blending has long been marketed as a dark hidden art, full of proprietary recipes. Our approach has been different but we thought it would be fun and interesting to break down what goes into our espresso a little more.

We’re always open to feedback, and while there is a little less data on the label itself there is still lots available on the full information sheets.

We hope you like the label, and that you love the espresso too!

In an effort to better reflect the diversity of coffee, and to better match the blend changes to the arrival of newly harvested coffees, we’re dropping the individual season names.  The new name is Red Brick, which was chosen to reflect the changes in our own company – we recently moved our location to a red brick building.

The philosophy behind each new blend remains the same, and it is likely those changes will follow a similar time frame to the old Seasonal pattern, but not quite as regimented.  We still plan to enjoy the full spectrum of what great Seasonal espresso blends can be throughout the year.

We’ve also changed the labeling to better reflect what is most important to us about the blend – the transparency of the components and to better explain why each is present in the blend and what flavours and qualities it contributes.  We look forward to your feedback and we hope you enjoy the first incarnation of Red Brick.

Red Brick Seasonal Espresso – £7.50 per 350g

Due to the bank holiday on Mon May 30th, this webshop day will roast/ship Tues May 31st instead. June subscriptions will go out a couple of days earlier than normal, either May 31st or June 1st.

Due to the upcoming WBC in Bogota, webshop will be CLOSED Thurs Jun 2nd and Mon Jun 6th, then resume as normal Thurs Jun 9th.

We apologize for any inconvenience, and wish our John Gordon best of luck at the WBC!

The webshop will roast and ship on the following days:

Monday December 20th – OPEN – WEBSHOP AS USUAL

Thursday December 23rd – OPEN – WEBSHOP AS USUAL Please note that while Royal Mail are delivering on the 24th, only Special Delivery orders are guaranteed to be delivered before Christmas.

Monday December 27th – CLOSED – NO WEBSHOP

Thursday December 30th – CLOSED – NO WEBSHOP

Monday 3rd January – CLOSED – NO WEBSHOP (Public Holiday)

Tuesday 4th January – OPEN – We will be roasting and shipping what would have been processed the day before.

Thursday 6th January – OPEN – Webshop resumes normal scheduled service.

We’ll try to keep on top of any enquiries between Christmas and New Year so if you have any questions just drop us a line at webshop@squaremilecoffee.com

Have a great Christmas!  We’ve some very exciting coffees coming up in the New Year that we’re really looking forward to sharing with you!

Indie Coffee are located outside on Church Street, near Edgeware Road and has quietly being serving oustanding coffee, and getting nothing but great reviews.

He also has one of the best carts in London – a repurposed Indonesia Jewellery cart!  If you’re in the neighbourhood we’d strongly recommend stopping by – open Tuesday to Saturday.

Forsaking espresso entirely, we set about bringing to Londoners a side of coffee that had until now been tremendously underrepresented in a commercial environment, despite its near fanatical following amongst coffee professionals and devotees alike. Through Penny University, we brought filter coffee to the forefront, and aimed to portray it as accessible, lingering, constantly evolving, and most importantly, delicious.

Since opening our doors, the positive responses from our guests has been truly overwhelming. Similarly, the number of home brewers and grinders that have made their way into people’s homes through our store is truly wonderful and very encouraging. We have learned a tremendous amount about our coffees, the brewers that we stock, and most importantly about just how receptive to new ideas and the nuance of great coffee the London public are.

But now, in mid-July, that three month period is coming to a close. Despite having the opportunity to continue Penny University for a longer period, we’ve had a tremendously difficult decision to make. After a great deal of debate, and careful, considered deliberation, it’s with slightly mixed emotions that we announce that Penny University will be closing for business at 4:00pm Friday 30 July.

We genuinely feel that Penny University has burned very brightly, and served a great purpose in the London coffee community. We also feel that there are opportunities now for us to expand upon what we have started, tested, and learned from at Penny University. When and where those opportunities are likely to arise and be deployed is still largely unknown, but we eagerly look forward to the opportunities that await us in future retail endeavours.

It would be remiss of us not to deeply and sincerely thank the following people:

Tobias Cockerill, for diligently and tirelessly working one of the most demanding and exhausting coffee bars in the world, and for representing both our company and the craft of coffee brewing in the most professional, yet approachable way possible. Alex Goforth and Gwilym Davies, for also working the bar despite their already busy schedules, and doing so with great competence and affability. Anette Moldvaer, Jessica MacDonald and John Gordon, for providing the essential, yet often thankless and overlooked support of sourcing, roasting, production and build-out. Paul Stack of Marco Systems, for unwavering technological generosity and support, and everyone at Aesop for being such wonderful hosts.

And finally our deepest thanks to each and every guest who took a seat at our bar, placing their trust in us as both baristas and hosts, accepting and embracing our limited range and policy of no condiments. We hope that we managed to show you just how easy it can be to produce simply wonderful and delicious coffee at home, and we hope that your time in our store was rewarding, informative, but most importantly, enjoyable.
In months to come we will be exploring future retail opportunities, and fully expect that our Penny University bar will be featured prominently in the next project we undertake. For now, however, we’d like to say concisely and succinctly, thank you.

Tim Williams & James Hoffmann
Square Mile Coffee Roasters

We hope to see some of you there!  (Though please bear in mind that there are only 6 seats at the bar)

The Penny University
5 Redchurch Street
London
E2 7DJ

map

info@pennyuniversity.co.uk

If you have any questions then just leave a comment!

Opening Hours:

Weekdays – 9 til 5

Weekends – 10 til 4

You can see the full Hario range here.

Expect some videocasts soon covering a few of the brewing methods, and if you’ve got any questions do please let us know!

Photo courtesy of salxhart

Huge congratulations to John Gordon on winning the UK Barista Championship this year.  (We know the competition was over a week ago, and we’re a bit behind!)

Having joined the team at Square Mile around six weeks ago we’ve seen first hand the huge amount of effort and work that John put in, with great support from his fiancee Jess.

John had already started working on his UKBC blend with Steve at HasBean before he joined us, and knowing how hard Steve works and how good he is we had no intention of getting in the way of that relationship.

We’d also like to congratulate James Phillips of Dose on placing 5th – impressive considering he wasn’t going to compete until a couple of weeks before and this was his first time at the UKBC.

We were also extremely grateful to Jon Sharp of Kilimanjaro, Carl Fleischer of Opposite and Gary Whiteley who did an incredible job with our coffee in the semi finals.