% Arabica, Covent Garden

5 King St, London WC2E 8HN

https://arabicacoffee.uk

​% Arabica also is immensely popular as is evidenced by the fact it doesn’t have seating but just a long-standing area for a queue to shuffle forward, order and get out of the door as quickly and efficiently as possible. Block white, with pristine modern machinery and branded items for sale, it’s almost as if its design ethos was based entirely around the interior shots of the spaceship in the iconic Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The coffee is an incredibly dark roast, I can tell that just by seeing the beans in the hoppers, but the smoothness of it is a revelation. I can’t quite believe how brilliant my latte tastes, with no roughness it is almost a sweet hot chocolate but with that smooth caramel finish and immensely pleasurable lift that only comes from a coffee. I must head back here sometime…if I remember.