Dr Matt Green takes us back in time to the 1690s, when the coffee bean was a recent arrival from Turkey, and the boisterous noisy atmosphere of Wills', and Button's, was filled with discussions of politics and business. In the salubrious Covent Garden a cup of coffee from Moll's coffee stand came with a tempting wink from one of the many local prostitutes.
The next big coffee fad came in Soho, in the 1950s, and poet Hylda Sims relives those bohemian days in Bar Italia, the first of Soho's hundreds of coffee bars to spring up as the new place for teenage hipsters to talk fashion and music. We drop into surely the longest standing coffee shop of all; the Algerian Coffee Store, which has sold coffee beans and paraphenalia since 1897. Musicians Wee Willie Harris and Clem Cattini tell us about their sessions in the famous 2is coffee house where the sound of Skiffle rang out across Soho, and rock and roll was emerging as a massive hit with teenagers.
The present day 3rd Wave coffee bars take the science of an espresso to a new level, and Cameron McClure at Flat White brews up a cup perfect on a molecular level, whilst Blake Pudding, from the London Review Of Breakfasts sips on brew and predicts where the coffee house goes next.
You can enjoy this documentary at home by listening here or you can download it on to your phone or mp3 player and take it out as a walking tour through Covent Garden and Soho. Click here for the chapterised enhanced version.
And there is a map to go with the audio too.
Many thanks to:
Visit London for sponsoring the series
Actors Tom Micklem, Chris Moran and Jonathan Brittan
Smith & Co for their use of the Skiffle music in the programme
Decca for their use of the track Rockin' at the 2is
