Transition Espresso Blog
Team Tri
01 Jun 11
The week after the half marathon Kate along with 4 friends took part in the Tri Grand Prix at Emberton Country Park. They were the only girls in the competition which consisted of swimming 750m, cycling 22km and running 5km. It was a huge achievement for all the group who were all raising money for different charities. Kate’s designated charity was Coffee Kids a charity that works coffee farming families to improve their lives and livelihoods.
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Kates Half Marathon
01 Jun 11
A couple of weeks ago Kate (partner/director of TE) completed the Chester Half Marathon in 2hr 17mins. Here she is pre event with her little girl.
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Kates Half Marathon
01 Jun 11
A couple of weeks ago Kate (Partner/Director of Transition Espresso) did the Chester Half Marathon, she completed it in 2hr 17mins. Here she is with her little girl pre event.
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Team Townend Pushbike Challenge
04 May 11
Over the last bank holiday weekend Transition Espresso took to the road and travelled up to Loweswater in Cumbria to serve up coffee for the participants of a cycling event. The event was organised by one of our good friends Dave George. Before Christmas last year two brothers Christian and Niggy Townend were knocked of their bikes whilst out cycling and killed. The event was organised by Dave and the group of friends closest to them. The money raised at the event went to a charity called Road Peace, a national charity for road crash victims, supporting…
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Chef Taz’s Scones
04 May 11
We felt at Transition Espresso that Taz’s scones deserved a blog post all of their own. They did feature heavily in the Team Townend Pushbike Challenge which is a post that will follow this one, but as they were so special they have been given their own post. Taz is a good friend to us here at Transition and has helped us out in many ways over the years. His full time work is in IT but he’s an amazing chef and has recently taken a career change to work with food in some way or another. We’re really excited.…
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The UKBC Finals
04 Apr 11
This is a bit of a belated update from the UKBC. Luke just missed out on getting through to the finals but did a great job in the semis. The final 3 from the finals were:-
1st place - John Gordon from Square Mile roasters in London. He won best espresso & joint best signature drink.
2nd place - Neil le Bihan from Exchange in London he shared best signature drink with John and won best cappuccino.
3rd place - Dale Harris from Has Bean roasters in Stafford (these guys supply Transition Espresso with our wonderful espresso blend)
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Swim, Cycle, Run
21 Mar 11
In May one half of Transition Espresso, Kate will be completing two sporting challenges to raise money for some well deserved charities. On the 15th of May she will be running the Chester half marathon this will be to raise money for Coffee Kids a charity that works with coffee farming families to improve their lives.
On the 22nd of May she will take part in the Tri Grand Prix sprint triathlon in Buckinghamshire, this will be to raise money for Save The Children (Japan Earthquake Appeal) this will help raise funds…
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The Road to the Semis
27 Feb 11
Great news, Luke (pictured) made it through as one of the final 20 to go onto the semi finals at the London Excel Centre on the 15th-16th March. The semi finals will take place on the 15th and the finals on the 16th. Word is he’s been at Bold Street Coffee till all hours practicing his performance so we’ll be eagerly anticipating the semis to see how he does.
Dale Harris from Has Bean (our roasters) made it to the semi finals, along with Howard Barwick who we’ve had the opportunity to work with before. Congratulations…
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UKBC 2011 Update
18 Feb 11
The Scottish heat has been and gone with Stuart Lee Archer from Pumphreys Coffee in 3rd place, Jonathon Sharp from Kilimanjaro Coffee in 2nd and Megan Barker from Artisan Roast in 1st position. I had the pleasure of going to both Kilimanjaro and Artisan Roast in Edinburgh on a recent trip and I really enjoyed both. Although I have to say Artisan Roast stood out as a really original coffee shop. The guy in there serving at the time told us all about the beans they had to offer at that time and sent us away with a great selection…
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UK Barista Championship 2011 UPDATE
10 Feb 11
The Midlands heat took place on the 9th of February in Lincoln. In 1st place was Hayley Draper from The Window coffee shop in Norwich, which is apparently the smallest coffee shop in the world. Hayley took best espresso. In 2nd place a freelance barista called Andrew Carter who took best cappuccino. Finally in 3rd place a barista who we’ve had the pleasure of working with in the past, Howard Barwick from Limini Coffee who took best signature drink. Congratulations Howard!! The next heat takes place in Edinburgh on Valentines day.
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UK Barista Championship 2011
07 Feb 11
The second regional heat for the southwest took place in Exeter last week. Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood of Colonna & Smalls took first place with a clean sweep of best espresso, best cappuccino and best signature drink.
Richard Teasdale from Coffee Aroma came second with Ed Buston of Clinton Coffee coming third. This was out of a total of 11 competing baristas.
The next regionals will be the Midlands taking place in Lincoln on the 9th of February. Good luck to all competing.
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UK Barista Championship 2011
28 Jan 11
The UK Barista Championship got underway this month, starting with the London heat on the 24-25th January. Entrants into the competition have to make three coffee courses; 4 Espresso, 4 Cappuccino and a signature drink. They have to speak to a panel of judges about the tastes and aromas of the coffee and the reasons for their choice of beans used. They are also judged on the method they use. In the first heat out of 19 competitors Will Corby from Mercanta came first with John Gordon (Square Mile) & Callum Thomson (Espresso Incognito) in 2nd and 3rd place.
It’s…
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Shop Opening
26 Oct 10
Bold Street Coffee opened its doors at the start of May 2010.
Check out http://www.boldstreetcoffee.co.uk for up to date information.
Better still, pay them a visit @ 89 Bold Street, Liverpool, L14HF
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Autumn Update
24 Oct 10
After what has been a mammoth summer for Transition Espresso we are now preparing for 6 weeks of the Liverpool City Centre Christmas Market starting on the 26th November. As well as our usual full coffee menu we’ll be selling bags of single origin coffees and various types of brewing methods so there’ll be plenty of ideas for Christmas presents!
It’d only be right to give a little run down of our festival work this summer. It all started with Download Festival where we served a busy backstage area for 4 days at the start of June, the main highlight…
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Good News!
26 Mar 10
It has been a while since I have posted but we have been very busy. We have just been out to MIPIM the international property event in Cannes with Liverpool for the 3rd year. I will do a separate post on this though.
The other reason I have been busy is because we are opening a shop in Liverpool. It will be called Bold Street Coffee and will be Liverpool’s only real specialty coffee shop. We hope to open at the end of April and everything will documented on the website, so be sure to check…
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Pour Over Filter Instructions
08 Feb 10
Here are some instructions for making a nice pour over brew at home.
As always, if possible FRESHLY GROUND COFFEE IS BEST. And check out the awesome Brew Methods website for all sorts of coffee making knowledge.
Here are some guidelines to help you get the most from this brewing technique.
GETTING READY
HOW MUCH COFFEE?
FOR 1 lARGE MUG: 20 - 25g (2 tablespoons)
1/2 LITRE: 30g (3 tablespoons)
1 LITRE: 60g (6 tablespoons)
WHAT GRIND?
This coffee is ground for this brewing method, which is medium or filter, finer…
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Liverpool Chrismas Market Coffee Bar
08 Feb 10
In December we had a chalet on the Christmas market, it was a really good, if not cold two weeks.
We sold our usual espresso menu but also did pour over single origin filters. We also sold these as gift sets with bags of coffee, ceramic filter cones and the papers with instructions on how to use them. I will post the instructions here for anyone that is interested. This is my favorite way of having coffee at home as it is so easy to get a really clean taste from single origin coffees.
We also had some awesome strictly…
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London coffee visit
19 Oct 09
After the Sanctum special Events party a couple of weeks ago we had a day in London so we visited a couple of good independent coffee bars. One new one that I had never been to before was the ‘Espresso Room’ on Great Ormand street. It is run by Ben Townsend who is pretty well known in the coffee community. We went on an advanced barista course with him last year at the London School Of Coffee and he is a really nice guy. They serve Square Mile espresso and also has Bean Coffee, he also sells some brewing equipment. …
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Transition End of Summer Jam
19 Oct 09
A couple of weeks ago we threw a party in Kate’s garden in Chester for Transition family and friends. We had a great session and the weather was lovely. The picture here shows Russell and his dad having a pour off. Everyone got involved bringing garden games and activities. the highlight of these was Taz’s ‘Human Fruit Machine’ with plenty of prizes to be won. It was good to get everyone together to say thankyou for their work and support over the summer. I have produced a yearbook which I will try and figure out how to get online.
September update
18 Sep 09
So we have come to the end of another festival season and it finished really well. Both bars at Reading and Leeds festivals were really busy and our staff put in some seriously long hours! It was great to see Radiohead again after about 10 years and also got to meet and have my photo taken with Ian Brown, which I was very happy about.
We are going to have a big get-together with all the people who have worked with us over the course of the year so far to say thanks. Good times!
It is currently Liverpool food…
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Summer Festivals 2009
20 Aug 09
Well, this summer has been a whirlwind for us, a blur of coffee, driving, mud, cider and good times!
We have provided coffee backstage and for VIP’s at Glastonbury, Download, Sonisphere and Lattitude amongst many others. i think the highlight for me was providing a bar in the artist area at Lattitude. The people there were so friendly and appreciative that we were giving them great coffee, and it was really busy which is a bonus.
I have taken loads of photos but need to get them in order and get them uploaded, I have already exceeded my Flikr limit…
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London Coffee Shops
21 May 09
I had a nice visit to London last month and we had our customary visit to a few coffee shops there. We usually go into flat white which I first visited a few years ago. It really inspired me at the time, I hadn’t really seen anyone do latte art before and after that I had to learn it. The taste of the first cappuccino that I had there really opened my eyes to how good coffee can be. This time though we went to the Milk Bar which is assosiated with them, I’m not sure how exactly but it…
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Easter Coffee Tasting
21 Apr 09
Over the easter weekend we took advantage of having a few friends over at my sisters house and did some cupping and created a new espresso blend tat we will be using this summer. It was fun to show our friends how we go about tasting coffee and interesting to see what they thought about the coffees and get another perspective on things.
The blend we came up with was equal quantitites of Brazil Cachoeira, Sumatra Lingtong Batak and Rwanda Murambi Bourbon, it had great depth, smooth body and sweetness. We will get our roaster Steve from Has Bean to…
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Barista Tests
03 Apr 09
As some of you will know we are doing coffee the guest areas of a lot of festivals this summer. We did five last year and they were really busy. The coffee was good last year but we were short staffed on good baristas for a few of them which led to some of us doing insane hours! Driving home was a danger, no amount of coffee would keep me awake.
So, this year we have more really good baristas and I want to do some intensive training with the other guys to make sure that the coffee is second…
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