Life moves quickly in the coffee world so please drop us a note if you find great coffee we should review or something that's not up to date. Our email - ScotlandCoffeeLovers(at)yahoo.co.uk
All the shops are reviewed independently and none of the coffee shops pay to be included.
Any ratings are based on the coffee, and only the coffee
We live in Edinburgh and have been reviewing coffee since 2008. More recently we're collaborating with other coffee lovers to write reviews to enable us to better stay up to date with shops all over Scotland.
We write our reviews as people-in-the-street who really love their coffee and see our blog and free app as 'community service' bringing together speciality coffee lovers and independent great coffee shops. We have great respect for those we review who often have a lot more technical knowledge than we do. We taste a lot of coffee and want our reviews to be easy to understand.
Our ♥ ratings are based only on the cups of coffee - not the service, how many brew methods are offered, the food or anything else that could be positive or negative to different people.
As the number of high quality shops increase, we're considering whether we should keep or delete the ratings because they are so subjective. Where we do include a rating they mean:
5♥ = The best coffee
4♥ = Cracking coffee
3♥ = Good coffee
We describe other factors so you can make an informed decision. Sometimes you want to chill out over a big breakfast (with a great coffee), other times you might want a good coffee but your friends want a beer. We aim to help you decide which shop suits you best at different times.
Our taste
Taste in coffee, just like most things, is personal. Scotland Coffee Lovers doesn't claim to be the only 'right' opinion about coffee. If your idea of a nice coffee is an extra hot, skinny, large, wet, latte from a major coffee chain, we don't have much in common.
What is good coffee? (in our opinion)
When great flavour, aroma and texture come together you get great coffee. This comes from high quality produce, the right coffee-making equipment and excellent barista skills. The best coffee shops combine all, or most of, the following attributes. They:
- Employ baristas that are superb and very knowledgeable who create beautifully brewed coffee, at the right temperature (not too hot) with perfectly stretched milk (as appropriate) in the right proportions and cup size
- Use speciality coffee, sourced ethically and know all about the origin and processing
- Pay their coffee suppliers better than average wages (and give them better conditions) because they ask more from them and need them to be educated and totally committed to every detail from soil to cup
- Roast the beans themselves, or source them from a local small batch roaster, and serve them to customers within the optimum number of days
- Change the beans they offer customers on daily/weekly/monthly basis, offering seasonal variety as well as super high quality
- Use the appropriate beans for each brew method (espresso, pour-over, aeropress etc.)
- Offer personalised brews and creative coffee concoctions they've come up with
- Take the time talk to customers about what they want and how they want it
- Offer tastings and other education sessions
- Are equally passionate about everything else they sell in their shops - organic, locally sourced, high quality food, drinks, products
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