Coffee Appreciation

The big coffee shop in Borough Market is an off shoot of The Monmouth Coffee House in Monmouth Street, who’ve been producing the best coffee I’ve been able to find in London over the last 20 years (now I feel old). Their espresso blend is great, but I'd also suggest you check out some of their other coffees as well, but don't espresso these, drip filter them instead, my personal favourites are the organic Guatemalan and Ethiopian Yirgacheffe.
Espresso is great for a thick treacly hit of coffeeness, but a decent filter coffee will be just as strong but with a rounder and more aromatic taste. If you go to the Monmouth Coffee House, they’ll happily offer advice and you can taste before you buy. They’re busier than they used to be so I haven’t actually stopped there for a cup of coffee for ages but it used to be that if you bought a cup to taste and bought coffee afterwards they didn’t charge you for the cup you’d tasted. Monmouth are expensive, there’s no denying it, but they’re coffee is the best, they’re every bit as serious about their coffee as we are about our bikes.
I've never had a espresso machine that was plumbed into the mains but over the years I've had a Kenwood and a couple of Krups and neither were any better than the stove stops I've used, so I now stick with stove tops. At work I have a Russell Hobbs "stove top" that like a kettle has an electric element in the base so you just boil it like a kettle. It works okay, but has a trough around the bottom of the jug, which seems to layer the coffee if you don't stir it before pouring. Bialetti now make a similar pot, but the jug has a flat bottom and I think this probably works better. If you're looking at filter machines, the Siemens Porche is both very pretty, breaks down easily to clean, has a timer if you want to set it up the night before so when you wake up your coffee ready and waiting and has a decent thermos jug that keeps the coffee hot. The only Porche I'm ever likely to own :)