The apps bringing you the best coffee in London
Decent coffee isn’t hard to come by in London.
All the same, it’s nice to know where it is, and easily – without the fun of appealing to a group of colleagues for an answer, and still be standing there 10 minutes later, as the debate rages on.
London’s Best Coffee app maps over 150 cafes, stalls and artisan roasters across the city. It also allows you to rank favourite places and share with friends. It’s out of the same stable as Craft Beer London, created by Blue Crow Media, which recently raised well over a target of £50,000 investment used Seedrs, the London-based equity crowdfunding service.
Other coffee-specific apps include London Coffee Map and The London Coffee Guide, both of which offer similar, helpful features.
The London Coffee Network describes itself as "a digital loyalty card for drinking better coffee". Although still in nascent stages of growth, becoming a member means earning one points for every pound spent in an on-board establishment. The app lists over 200 cafes.
Then there’s London Thru Cafes, which focuses on finding the good independent cafes dotted across the capital and, indeed, further afield. There’s an emphasis on coffee, though, and its website includes an imaginative “Coffee Life” section.
London Coffee Stops Tube Map offers an even more novel approach to guiding people round the best coffee hidey holes. It was created by Chris Ward, the author of Out of Office, a book that encourages readers to work outside the conventional office space.
The popular map, which looks exactly as you might expect, has led to the creation of the 2014 London Coffopoly Board. It does the same thing, changing familiar monopoly locations for the nearest (best) coffee shop. The idea is that it's both informative and fun – a game to play over a nice cup of joe, once you've found the right place.