On one of my research trolls through the internet I came across something that will be a real boon to those who enjoy a coffee at the station each day while commuting to work. While it is not new to some of you it is to me and I think it’s brilliant. This big revelation is the Bite Discount Card which gives 20% off food and drink at a lot of UK railway stations (plus vouchers as well, to get stuff such as buy one get one frees and meal deals) – what’s even better is it is absolutely free! All you have to do is apply on the internet and one will be sent out to you within 14 days.

The card can be used at major food and drink outlets at stations such as Millies Cookies, Burger King, The Pasty Shop, Pumpkin Café, Upper Crust, Sloe Bar, Camden Food Co, Cafe Ritazza, Delice de France, Bonapartes, A Piece of Cake, Ixxys and Taste.

Just do a search on ‘Bite Card’ on the internet or go to: http://www.bitecard.co.uk/

There’s nothing better than a cut price coffee in the morning, so go for it!

Maybe one of the most misunderstood drinks has to be hot chocolate. Although it is associated with being a bedtime drink it is a remarkable comfort while reading a good novel on a cold afternoon in May or June (have had lots of those lately). The problem is that an acceptable hot chocolate substitute is usually obtained from a packet mix – this is perfectly good, but is no substitute for the real thing made with good quality cocoa and good quality chocolate. I will share with you my favourite hot chocolate recipe (a secret recipe handed down from my great aunt Betty). This is not a recipe for dieters …

BestCuppa’s Luxurious Hot Chocolate (courtesy of Great Aunt Betty)

Ingredients

1 pint of full cream milk

3 ounces of 72% cocoa solids chocolate

4 tablespoons of cocoa powder

4 tablespoons of brown sugar (or to taste)

1 glug of brandy or rum (omit if abstaining)

Optional additions: a little pinch of cinnamon or chilli (the chilli was added to great aunty Bets recipe as chilli hadn’t been invented in her day) and 2 fl oz of single cream

Serves 2

Gently heat the milk and then break up the chocolate into the heated milk (small pieces). Add the cocoa powder and then whisk while still gently heating until all solids have been incorporated. While still simmering, but not boiling, add the sugar and alcohol and then any additional flavourings.

Finally pour the mixture carefully into two tall mugs. Stir with a long spoon (add marshmallows if you like – I like blue marshmallows, but they are difficult to find) and then enjoy piping hot. For an even more luxurious treat, dip a Caprice praline filled biscuit or Cigarette Russes biscuit.

Do you like this recipe? Do you have a better recipe for hot chocolate? Bestcuppaintown has just added a ‘Recipes’ page to our website. If you would like us to include your recipes for cakes, beverages, recipes that include tea and coffee as ingredients, and any other recipe for an item that would conceivably be served in a café (even your favourite sandwich or baguette), then please email us. We’ll include your name and email address with every recipe we list.

Last week, while on holiday in Devon I took time out to visit the Caffé Culture 2009 exhibition in London Olympia. It was a long day with a 6:10am train from Newton Abbot Station, but bolstered with a strong latte and a Cornish pasty I braved my journey up to the Smoke, looking forward to finding new products and some new friends.

I was not disappointed as the day proved to be great with some good coffee and interesting items. As an overall impression I noticed that there were a great number of tea companies at the show and I was told that indeed many of these are giving tea a new image and it is becoming trendy again. Some examples of small contemporary tea brands include Tea Pigs, Pure Tea, Canton Tea Co, Solaris Botanicals and the Pure Tea Company. All of these have a trendy image with modern names for their tea blends (including herbal and fruit varieties) which are a million miles from the traditional tea image. In addition the majority of the tea bags were in a PLA (polylactic acid) or nylon material and pyramid shaped, presumably to give superior infusion of the leaves. I would say tea is definitely looking to be a refreshing alternative.

A new experience for me was my first Chai, which is a kind of sweetened tea that is brewed with spices and steamed milk; this is definitely worth trying as an alternative to your normal latte as it is a much lighter drink and gives a whole new dimension to tea (I have come across an increasing number of coffee shops in the UK offering Chai).

Of course items that never escape my attention at an exhibition are cakes and biscuits and there were a great number of new ones to sample. Some highlights were the new cookie range from Honeybuns, including the triple chocolate tinker, the honeyed apple cookie and the almond and salted pistachio cookie (yummy and also gluten free), the limited edition strawberry and clotted cream cookie from Byron Bay, the Cakes-to-Go new cake square flavours (passion cake, chocolate, ginger and lemon and rustic apple), the Honeyrose Bakery’s organic handbaked kids cakes and the Artisan Biscuits’ ‘My Favourite Bear’ range in chocolate, banana and raspberry and also their ‘Two by Two’ organic biscuits, again for children. Loaded down with cake and biscuit samples I went in search of quirky products and the elusive Gwilym Davies (the winner of the 2009 World Barista Champion title).

I have always loved barista/coffee/latte art and Coffee Treats are marketing a wonderful device that integrates the stencil and the chocolate into a single device that can put a design on the top of frothy coffee with no waste of chocolate at all (very neat). But one of the main highlights of the show for me had to be Vietnamese Weasel Coffee (ca phe cu’t chon) produced from robusta beans consumed by weasels, collected from their faeces and then roasted plain mixed with the fat from a particular small chicken and finally treated with a special herb wine – apparently this coffee once tasted is never forgotten … unfortunately there were no samples on offer (!) A neat little product which I thought would be a boon to the drinks stations available in hotel rooms across the UK and Europe was the coffee cube from Shelton Imports; these are individual servings of flavoured instant coffee (amaretto, brandy, sambuca, lemon, vanilla, original and cinnamon) wrapped in a vacuum sealed foil (they also did very good chocolate coated coffee beans). Finally I came across an old coffee shop favourite, the Lotus caramelised biscuit (known up and down the country as a single serve coffee give away). Lotus are now keen to extend the brand and are about to release a purchaseable biscuit twin pack (larger than the single serving) and also a spreadable version similar to peanut butter called Speculoos (already released in Belgium).

All in all the day was wonderful and I look forward to visiting the show next year which will be hosting the World Barista Championships. Our next coffee highlight will be the Coffeena exhibition in Cologne in June 2009.

Heading down to Littlehampton on the beautiful English south coast, you might be surprised to find a little jewel on the edge of the beach called East Beach Café, which is not only an architectural delight but also provides superb locally-roasted coffee and fantastic locally-sourced seasonal fresh food (supporting local businesses and the local economy).

The café has won several awards for architecture, business (Sussex New Business of the Year 2008-2009) and is also listed as one of the UK’s top 30 seaside restaurants. The latest honour is a ‘Global Gourmet’ award from British Airways in-flight magazine. The café has been so successful that the West Beach Café was recently opened to serve gourmet fish and chips and coffee to visitors and locals, and now there are cafés on both sides of the River Arun estuary.

The cafés are run by Sophie Murray in conjunction with her mother Jane, who bought a holiday apartment in Littlehampton several years ago little realising the affect this would have on her life! Bestcuppa asked Sophie how it all started, “My mother bought a holiday flat in Littlehampton for use at weekends and holidays and we both fell in love with the area… there was a beach kiosk in the South Terrace conservation area near my mother’s flat that had received planning permission to be replaced by a 100-seat burger bar and we thought that this would ruin the area as the architecture was typically utilitarian … in the end we bought the whole business as well as the existing building and ran it ourselves for a season to see if it was feasible”.

What happened next was the stuff dreams are made of. “We commissioned new designs with Thomas Heatherwick’s studio and put in plans for a new café … the Council were very supportive and excited about the high quality of the architecture and so we had a lot of help during the planning process … There was an awful lot of press coverage when we opened in June 2007 because of the architecture and we have been really, really busy ever since – so much so that we now have 30 staff across the two sites in the high season”.

The monocoque building is made of layers of contoured weathered steel, which represents a worn driftwood or seashell shape on the shore. The front of the building, facing the sea, can be opened by virtue of large windows that are protected by roller shutters after closing. The whole building is surrounded by decking that can also support customer tables outside in summer and there is a children’s playground behind it.

The architecture makes a definite visual statement and captures the imagination evoking images of the Great Pink Sea Snail from Dr Dolittle (1967). “The café is still very busy two years after opening and is patronised very much by the locals for coffee and cake but also by visitors who are pleasantly surprised to find us along the seafront”.

The popularity of the new café is a combination of the quirky architecture (the ‘Guggenheim’ effect), the location, and the excellent food and drink (very reasonably priced). Sophie is very particular about the coffee served at the East Beach and has a special blend that is roasted and supplied by Coffee Compass, also based in Littlehampton (delivered everyday by bicycle). The blend contains Sumatran, Brazilian and Ethiopian beans and is sourced from a variety of growers with the emphasis being on quality. If you like the coffee at the East Beach then bags of beans and ground are available to buy and take home so that it can be enjoyed at your leisure. As Sophie says: “I would go anywhere for a good cup of coffee and I knew that the coffee we served at East Beach had to be special”. Asked about plans for the future Sophie smiled and replied “I think as we have just opened the new West Beach Café we now need to consolidate, but who knows in the future … if there is a suitable site we could build another establishment.”

As a parting comment Sophie added “Littlehampton is a very special place. My Mum and I love it.”

Is a cup of our favourite coffee naked without the addition of a slice of cake, a cookie, biscuit or some other delectable nibble?

I’ve got to admit to being fond of something to go with my latte. When push comes to shove at the front of the queue at the coffee shop more often than not I can be seen gazing into the cake display and choosing a slice of lusciousness (I hope). I love a well made carrot cake, particularly with good cream cheese frosting. In Marks and Spencer’s I love their coffee cake and would challenge anyone to find a better one. Costa Coffee and Starbucks have me flummoxed sometimes (Costa have stopped doing their carrot cake) and I find myself going for one of those rock hard Italian biscuits (cantucci or biscotti) that you break a tooth on but that can also suck up half a cup of coffee if you dunk them. Very recently I was drawn to Newmarket and visited a small coffee shop off the main street with a little quiet patio area (I shall review it properly in due course) and they served the most wonderful Malteser-containing chocolate style cheesecake (I might be slightly ashamed of admitting to eating two slices on that particular visit)…

But everyone must have their favourite cake or biscuit to go with coffee when they are feeling just a little indulgent. Tell me about yours by e-mailing me at huw@bestcuppaintown.com.