The man who makes the greatest coffee in the world operates from two unmarked stalls in the East End of London.
“We can’t be accused of being exclusive because we’re a scruffy little stall in a market,” said Gwilym Davies, 42, as he swirls the milk into a heart on top of a cappuccino. “There’s a lot of snob value in coffee.”
Davies should know. He talks about coffee the way sommeliers talk about wine — not surprising for a man who in April was crowned the 2009 World Barista champion in Atlanta. He beat out national champions from 51 other nations, many of them from large coffee shops and family businesses. An online audience of thousands saw Davies wow judges with his signature espresso drink — a rich blend of El Salvadoran and Nicaraguan beans combined with no less than 16 different flavors. (Watch him in action!)
And he did it on borrowed equipment.
“I didn’t have an expense account or anything,” Davies said. “I was borrowing the grinders for the competition from the trade show next door. Those guys were so nice!”
His prize: a $12,000 Victoria Arduion Athena espresso machine and and Mahlkonig K30 grinder. Though, ever the populist, he sticks with his 10-year-old La Marzocco machine at his stall on London’s Whitecross Street. “We take good care of it,” he said of the machine.
Once upon a time Davies managed exclusive gyms, but at age 29, he said, “I was like, ‘stuff this.’” He went traveling and landed in New Zealand with no money.
“The guy I was lodging with used to play music in cafés,” Davies remembered. “He’d get free coffees.” So Davies persuaded one café — Atomic Café in Auckland, New Zealand — to employ him to take coffees to the tables. It was after hours that his coffee obsession took root. “When the café closed they’d start roasting the coffee inside the shop,” he said. “I was fascinated by it.”
After a year in New Zealand, he returned to London, but he couldn’t settle in his previous career. He tried to find people who were making coffee the way it was made in New Zealand, but couldn’t. “New Zealand is a good 10 years ahead of us — there is this whole coffee culture — the way they prepare it, and how much they care, and there’s a good independent coffee scene there,” he said. “They go out for breakfast. And even if you go to someone’s house for dinner you’ll go out for coffee and dessert.”
He ended up working for Coffee Republic, then a tiny chain, but “got disillusioned with coffee in London,” he said. Then he came across a small roastery called Monmouth Coffee that was doing espresso, and managed to get a job with them. He worked there for five years, then used his knowledge to help set up a coffee house connected with a homeless charity in Reading.
He soon discovered Square Mile Coffee Roasters, a scrappy roastery set up under a railway arch in London’s Bethnal Green neighborhood. “I became one of their first customers. I’d go down on my bicycle and pick up coffee for my stall.”
Davies was impressed with their beans, and later, with their skills. The previous two world champions have also been trained by the Square Mile Coffee Roasters. He discovered he had a lot to learn.
“For so long, I hadn’t poured into proper cups — only takeaway paper cups,” he said. “So I had to re-learn how to pour. And then there was choosing the coffee blend that we use — trying to get the best flavor out of a shot of espresso. It’s easy to meet and beat expectations of my customers because they’re not used to coffee of incredible quality. But these guys [the Square Mile Coffee Roasters, and also his competitors in the barista events] know what coffee is meant to taste like.”
Which is what? Davies paused for a moment and said: “Fresh.”
Currently, Davies has no plans to expand — or even to hang up anything that marks his stall, or himself, as world famous. When he’s not at the market, he’s visiting the roastery, or looking after his 4-year-old son Percy.
Incidentally, he met Percy’s mother — and Davies’ partner of eight years — at a Coffee Republic. “She was the first person doing latte in London,” he remembered.
Percy doesn’t drink coffee yet, but he does know how to tamp it down — which he did once, to his father’s surprise.
“I couldn’t find my tamper and then these little hands came out,” Davies said. “Clearly he’d learned by watching me.”
Front photo of Davies courtesy of confusedbee via flickr.