When I last visited Angel Coffee House a year or so ago, it was grim, a dreadful place, noisy, sofas black with ingrained dirt, cushions with stuffing falling out, and the coffee awful, the bags of coffee stacked on the shelves well past its best.
Not a place I would recommend to anyone. I had been in better squats.
Shortly thereafter it closed, the place gutted.
I was told following refurbishment it had improved.
I would not usually return to somewhere this bad, but as I was passing by, I thought with much trepidation I would try.
The interior much improved, clean, very light and airy due to whitewashed walls.
The walls provide an excellent back drop to use as an art gallery, and many coffee shops are now doubling as art galleries.
I do not know for how long, an excellent exhibition of art by Charlotte Jane Kessler.
My eye was caught by kaffee form coffee cups. It looked like an exhibition of pottery. I knew what it was, the first time though I have seen, let alone held and examined. Nor did smell of coffee as I expected. Nor as I expected a rough surface. No, smooth. The cups surprisingly light.
Kaffee form coffee cups are made of recycled coffee grounds. They are used for serving coffee. I asked could I have a coffee in one, was told no. If used, and if break, can be composted.
These coffee cups though are very expensive, espresso cup and saucer 15 euros, cappuccino cup and saucer 20 euros, which is why not likely to find in use in a coffee shop any time soon. There is also a takeaway cup 15 euros, which puts in the same ballpark as KeepCup.
A coffee shop. How was the coffee?
It was better than before. It would have had to have been very bad to have been worse than before. OK, not great, not undrinkable, weak and insipid. And they did at least ask, did I wish for chocolate dumped on top. As mentioned in the current issue of Caffeine, chocolate is dumped on cappuccino to hide a multiplicity of barista sins. They need to examine their extraction and weigh the coffee not guess. If I was to give a ballpark, I would say not quite as good as 200 Degrees house blend, and it is not great.
The coffee is sourced from Forge in Sheffield.
Forge have committed the cardinal sin of what no reputable roastery would do, try to poach business from other coffee shops, not when they are sourcing from one of the best coffee roasteries in the country.
Angel Coffee House still has a fair way to go, but at least is heading in the right direction.
If compare with coffee shops in Lincoln, not in the same league as Coffee Aroma, Madame Waffle or Makushi aka Base Camp on Steep Hill, but better than Coffee Bobbins which was recently awarded best tea or coffee shop in Lincolnshire by Good Taste Lincolnshire (which makes a farce of awards) and of course far better than any of the corporate chains, Costa, tax-dodging Caffé Nero or Starbucks.
Tags: Angel Coffee House, Angel Coffee House revisited, art, cappuccino, coffee, Forge Coffee Roasters, Lincoln
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