Unlike years ago, when good coffee could only be found in Australia (haha, I know - fighting words), the UK seems to have it's share of good small batch coffee roasters now. Although I've found them more expensive, at least we aren't drinking the inspid rubbish we had to order online back when we were in UK lockdown in 2020.

In Brighton, there were a couple of coffee roasters. This was was really close to our friends house, so we sat and enjoyed a coffee there whilst we waited for his partner to finish work. I had an espresso and Jamie had an oat latte, and both were really delicous. This place had a coffee school (barista school?) as well and you could see and smell the roaster and the people packing up the coffee. Funnily enough, it was CALLED 'Small Batch Coffee'.

If you're wondering what I'm talking about, small batch coffee is when roasters roast their beans in small batches rather than on large scale, sending them out as they're roast. This helps maintain quality instead of having such a huge scale production, and they're often businesses that deeply care about the quality and taste of their coffee.

Online, you can get 2 x 250g bags for 17 pounds which was a little cheaper than Origin coffee (which I'll talk about next).

Shop Small Batch coffee online

Whilst I was tempted, we actually had just ordered coffee from Origin Coffee down in Cornwall, which has won awards. You can even buy on a subscription which makes it cheaper. We bought 'Stronghold' - notes of dark chocolate, fudge and sugar, and have found it delicious. THe only thing I didn't like is that you can't buy a kilo bag of ground coffee, only 250 g, but if you roast it yourself, that's fine.

Our mate gave us his blend too which was delicious. Again by Origin coffee, this blend had apicot, yuzu and . I could really taste those notes and just loved it as an expresso. HOwever, it is 13.90 which is $26 AUD for 250g, which is insanely expensive! PLus, you can only buy this blend in whole beans, and we don't have a grinder, so we were pretty disappinted not to buy this one as well!

Aricha Wubanchi by Origin Coffee

In the end, as much as we love Origin, we'll probably end up getting some cheap Aldi coffee as who can afford such things? At home it'd be about half the price - we're gutted we didn't find room in our luggage for a few kilos.

Oh, and if you're wondering, yes, I'm drinking coffee again - only one cup a day, mind. Our mate in Brighton has EIGHT cups of espresso a day - that's just enough to make me spiral into a stress hole THINKING about it. I'm much better having my second drink of hte day coffee, around 10 am, and none for the rest of day - I really enjoy it, and I don't feel as anxious this way.