What of coffee on campus?

So, there are to my reckoning three types of coffee drinking within the not so little insular world of UoM. The first isn’t really proper coffee; I refer to the quite repugnantly sweet and syrupy and artificially flavoured buckets of lukewarm swill. Of course this is a verbal assault on the likes of gingerbread lattes, double ‘mochachino’ latte with vanilla, cream and choco-flakes. It is necessary to dig a small grave in the mountainous terrain of over whipped cream to find the liquid; the reward of all that strenuous effort is not worth it.

Though these drinks are nasty, I am not sending these drinks on the long march to the beverage gulag. There is a place, though ever so slight, for them—just don’t call it coffee or really associate with coffee.

Number two is a drink consumed out of habit and necessity. An early morning pick-me-up macchiato, a mid morning recharge cappuccino before clawing towards the luncheon hour, or that last-ditch afternoon latte to drag oneself to home time. Here I believe the consumer is looking for the effects of coffee more than the taste, and this is what indeed Food on Campus rely on, and with a steady customer base, F on C sit happily on the coffee monopoly.

Then there is the third type, the discerning drinker, in search of that elusive nectar; body, aroma, and taste. Now it may seem out of the question to expect Oxford Road to sprout a North Tea Power, but why? There is definitely a market in the campus area for a truly elite coffee house, serving a variety of brilliant coffee drinks from elegant flat whites to powerful ristrettos. For now however I can suggest looking out for Eros coffee in University Place, Café Nero—the high street’s best chain and to its credit pretty good coffee, and finally The Anchor, over looking Whitworth Park, as the areas entry as best independent and most enjoyable place to sit and savour.

The Anchor. Ben Walker