Cappuccino in Makushi Coffee House

Half way up Steep Hill can be found Makushi Coffee House. A new coffee shop, it was not there a year ago.

Inside very agreeable environment. A knowledgeable barista.

From the outside, it does not look much. Not so inside.

Whitewashed walls, stonework poking through, wood. At the rear a room with a solid wooden table and seats, further in a stone vaulted room, more upstairs, and upstairs a coffee roaster. Also upstairs a door leading to a terrace, but not open. It will be pleasant to enjoy a coffee in the summer, but please do not allow smoking.

Cappuccino was excellent, but, it had a somewhat unpleasant  taste, which then lingered as an aftertaste.

I doubt lack of skill of the barista or machine. Barista had worked before at Coffee Aroma and talking to him he knew what he was talking about.

I suspect the roasting. Makushi roast their own beans, and roasting requires more skill that brewing coffee.

More inquiries are needed.

On the counter bags of their own roast beans. And had roast date, roasted the day before, 4 January 2017.  I would though disagree with their enjoy by 4 March 2017. I would have put 4 February 2017. One week to let the oils adjust following roasting, then three weeks beans at their optimum. But full marks for roast date and recently roasted beans.  Contrast with Stokes, who somewhat surprising, do not put roast date, but do put best by which is meaningless.

Apart from roast date, also told you something about the beans, their origin.

Every bean has a story to tell. I am surprised rarely seen told. Not only on the bags, but also a chalkboard telling the story of the coffee served.

Chatting to a charming young lady, she said she played the flute. I probably made her late.

I suggested, why not have recitals in the coffee shop? Better still, get hold of some decent recording equipment, someone who knows how to record and master, release on bandcamp. At least release if good. But always record. Can always throw away if not good, but cannot record what has been and gone.

I suggested she checked out Agnes Obel and Berlin Live session of The Curse with looping.

The strange name? Apparently Makushi is the name of a tribe in the Amazon, who the owner, who I did not meet, had spent time with learning survival skills, and with had his first experience of coffee.

Makushi is in a former tea shop, which has been derelict for years, or if not, it always had that appearance as I never found it open.

Makushi Coffee House is next to and below what was Readers Rest, now a tacky beauty parlour. What a pity Readers Rest no more, it was an excellent second hand bookshop and the two would have complimented each other.

Many are opening coffee shops, jumping on the bandwagon. Few have  a clue about coffee.

Lincoln is unusual, for its size it has a lot of indie coffee shops, and few chains serving their disgusting undrinkable coffee. This is mainly due to Stokes, a fourth generation family business.

Now we are a seeing, with Coffee Aroma and Makusihi a new generation of indie coffee shops, where great care is taken over the coffee.

I can see Makushi Coffee House being added to Northern England Independent Coffee Guide when the third edition is published, or an oversight if not. It was a major oversight Stokes never made it into the first edition.

On my way up, I would have looked in the cheese shop in The Strait, only not there, now a deli, and he said he would not be there long, as bad for trade.

Sincil Street would be ideal, create as it was, indie shops, but the local council and Coop seem determined to trash the area with a shopping centre and sky high rents, the area once busy, now blighted with boarded-up shops. .

I was always surprised the cheese shop opened, when they have a shop and restaurant around the corner.

I was going to collect something from the deli on my way back down, but already closed.

Popped into the cheese shop and picked up Cornish yarg.

Then I remembered, a book to collect from Waterstone’s in the High Street.

The Spy marked Just £12-99, implying a reduction. It is not reduced. Order from Amazon at £6-50 (but pay postage unless over £10). Order from Waterstone’s on-line. pay £6-50 and collect in-store. I picked up two copies. In the Cornhill, there is a chalk board, order on line, have a coffee (no thanks Caffe Nero), then collect your order.

Cost of e-books is zero. The Spy, download from Kobo £9-49, Google £9-49, Amazon £9-49. When price of an e-book exceeds that of a hardback, for The Spy nearly 50% more, something is seriously wrong. Readers are being ripped off big time.  To download an e-book should be no more than a pound.

Tags: , , , ,

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s


%d bloggers like this: