Books On The Hill Reading Room Café, St Albans

1 Holywell Hill
St Albans
AL1 1ER
https://www.books-on-the-hill.co.uk
With the first books created around 500 BCE and coffee not being discovered until 800 AD, there is a large portion of human history where, I imagine, people were reading something really good and just going “Damn, this is missing something.”  However, when goat herders in Ethiopia did finally stumble upon the caffeinated properties of wild growing coffee plants, I can only theorise that they were like “This stuff’s good, get me snug as hell with a book and some of whatever this is!”

Since then, the relationship between coffee and books has been intrinsically linked. Get me some a good book and a cosy blanket with some darn fine coffee on a miserable winter’s eve and I am good to go for the rest of the night. Bookshops have undoubtedly picked up on this and many now have their own, in house cafe areas where you can read your latest purchase, beverage in hand, and just enjoy the general atmosphere of being surrounded by books. Many of the big retailers now have their own cafe’s attached to said stores; Waterstones and Foyle’s both having their own. In fact, my very own coffee industry training stems from starting out in a children’s bookshop that’s business model was get the kids in to read and sell the exhausted adults legal stimulants. Physical books having a healing property, maybe not physically but certainly spiritually and I will die on this hill, probably surrounded by bookshelves that I’ve employed to ward off evil spirits.

 The point I’m getting at with all of this, is that, a bookshop with an attached cafe is wonderful thing and an indie bookshop that serves decent coffee just expands on that tenfold. Books On The Hill is a family run bookshop in St Albans that caters to all ages and is a wonderful source to find more eclectic reading material than many of the high street chains will hold. Failing that, if they don’t have it, they can easily get it in for you. But this is not a book blog and so, we are drawn upstairs to their Reading Rooms Café.

A long, corridor-esque setup with mismatched chairs and walls of leather-bound books, and cubby holes for propping yourself up in to take time with your latest literary investment, right at the back, sits a small kitchen with what is, effectively, a home espresso machine. Quaint in surroundings and in operation, the coffee is from Steampunk Roasters, a small-batch roasters from coastal Scotland that lends further weight to my theory that Scotland is roasting the best coffee in the UK right now. The oat latte I order is fudgey and dark, but also sweet and smooth. It’s an entrancing spot and I sort of hunker down in the crooked and characterful, wood-panelled surroundings, slightly aware that the conversation I’m holding can be heard by everyone around me in this tiny setting, where some have come to read. But it’s nice, it feels like it adds weight to my words, and what I am saying is of importance, even if it’s not. You can get vegan brownies here (which I don’t try this time around) and just sort of nibble at the edges of time whilst perusing a novel, just sort of feeling worldly and yet comfortable all in one. I wish I was as sophisticated and as interesting as the venue but alas, the best I can do is arrange to have coffee here.