The Hertford Coffee Lab

6 Bull Plain, Hertford SG14 1DT
Hertford is hardly a town crying out for coffee shops. Most of the major chains are there as well as a healthy handful of independents too, and if it weren’t for an ongoing redevelopment project in the town centre right now that had forced some businesses out during construction work, then there would undoubtedly be more. It is somewhere to go if you ever need a coffee or a haircut, much else though and you may be in trouble (hence the redevelopment).
I was actually trained in one of these independents and for years always considered it the best coffee spot in the town due to it being the only one that had any sort of proper approach to the third wave coffee movement but that time passed with the arrival of The Hertford Coffee Lab. An offshoot of The Hitchin Coffee Lab, it was almost an overnight success, such was the desire for proper coffee expertise in the commuter town that serves as the homestead of many London workers and middle class, middle management types and their hipster offspring that think they know a thing or two about coffee, and the Lab filled that void down to a tee.
The distressed, up-cycled school desks, graffiti style art on the walls and excessive use of plant life almost fits the hipster coffee shop stereotype perfectly but it is not all image that has made it the place to be in the otherwise ailing and nondescript town. The Coffee Lab roasts its own blends with its large, fully functional roaster sitting in the corner as you sip your cappuccino. On some days you may even be privy to the roasting process but most really just attend for the fact they do things well and have an atmosphere as welcoming to small children and dogs, as it is to bearded millennials and business suits. 
It offers up all varieties of milk, including dairy alternatives, alongside an array of cakes and snacks with the odd vegan option sometimes available (although not consistently). The fact that this place could be comfortably supplanted into a more metropolitan area like London, Brighton or Bristol says a lot about the work that has been done to make it such a roaring success and it seems a little odd to find it in the middle of the county town of Hertfordshire, although I’m sure the coffee aficionados of the area are grateful that it is there.