Chia

8 Market Pl, Hitchin SG5 1DR
Hitchin is a town with a fair few decent indie coffee shops that cater for the discerning drinking, alongside a few of the big chains as well. As such, a business marketing itself outside of the coffee realms really shouldn’t be able to compete against other coffee auteurs, and yet Chia is an equal match for anyone in the caffeine stakes.
Ostensibly a vegan cafe, Chia started out as a tiny vegan cake and coffee shop and moved into larger premises, expanding its vision along with it and now pushes plant based living through food and drink. However, its organic coffee is well worth chirping about on its own accord as their own blend (medium roast Guatemalan beans) holds sway as a good cup of joe. Of course, dairy-free alternative milks are the only option for those who don’t want it black but the blend lends itself to coconut milk, undoubtedly deliberately tailored to its means. There was, however, a specific take on specialist coffee that really caught my eye and, ever the one to try new things, I couldn’t help myself but try it out.

In the 1840s, people like Charles Baudelaire, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo would gather at Paris’s famed Club des Haschins and chug mugs of strong, black coffee mixed with marijuana to start their day. 
In the mid noughties, a hipster craze fuelled by the legalisation of cannabis in certain states of America saw the re-invention of the bulletproof coffee that would involve coffee, butter and cannabis and was marketed for its supposed ability to aid focus and attention in the drinker. Now, whilst THC (the active ingredient in cannabis that gets you high) remains illegal in Britain, its close cousin, CBD, has recently been legalised. This substance imparts a mild feeling of relaxation and calm (as well as pain relief in certain cases) without the same psychoactive effects of THC. As such many health and wellness business have seized upon it. Chia is no exception to this and offers the CBD butter coffee, a latte made with coconut butter, CBD oil and coffee. 
At first sip, the flavour is not what your average coffee drinker would expect with the CBD having quite a large bearing on it. This means you’ll get a mouthful of something quite light and grassy, almost floral in its tones, as the coffee actually takes a backseat in the tasting notes yet is still undeniably there. The mention of ‘butter’ would suggest something quite heavy and creamy but that’s not what you get with the coconut butter actually contributing to the frothiness of it all rather than anything else.
For those that like their coffee to taste like coffee, this is not going to be their first choice but things like this do add another string to the bow of the specialty coffee market and are bound to take off more so in the future. As for Chia, if you like chic, sleek, plant-based food and drink, this is the place to be.