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Doubloons, in the British seaside town of Margate, looks a lot like it belongs in a 1980s kids’ TV programme. With a bright, white and red facade and a window decorated with cartoonish lettering that reads “drinks”, “cocktails” and “coffees”, the interior is also bedecked with primary colours. One would not be surprised to find Elmo queueing for a signature brew from its equally playful menu.
The menu is designed to cheer you up, says Michaela Christofi, Doubloons’ co-founder, who says these drinks are a grown-up version of the “fun drinks we’d have as a child in the summer, like a Coca-Cola ice cream float”. Doubloons’ innovative menu was, she says, a way of drawing crowds. For customers, these spirited coffees are a cheerful switch-up. “Speciality coffee as we know it has been a bit samey for a while,” says Christofi. “There’s a huge group of coffee lovers who want something else.”
Doubloons is not alone in broadening out the caffeine offering. The latest batch of new-gen coffee fixes boasts extensive ingredients and innovative flavour combinations – think cold brew with hazelnut and cardamom (the Marylebone location of London’s Abuelo), a latte with pear syrup and brown sugar (Rhythm Zero in Brooklyn), a spiced cold brew with cinnamon, chilli and sweetened cream (Maru in Los Angeles), and a honeybun latte (Neighbourhood in Belfast), made using a local Irish honey. Meanwhile, Established, also in Belfast, offers a toffee apple pie coffee that is a borderline dessert – it comes with a spiced crumb topping.
They’re anything but mainstream. “Basic” is how Ivana Somorai, co-founder of the super-chic Rhythm Zero in Brooklyn, describes a pumpkin spice latte (PSL). Starbucks has poured 20mn PSLs every year since it introduced them in 2003, but despite their commercial appeal, the PSL is “not allowed in Rhythm Zero and it never will be”. Somorai wants to create “something far more unique than that”. She serves her signature coconut-water espresso in a tall glass over ice In her chic chrome-, marble- and metal-fitted café reminiscent of a gallery.
Cloe de la Vega, co-founder of Abuelo in London, claims her drinks are “not comparable” to what coffee chains offer. They “use flavouring . . . like 10 pumps of a store-bought vanilla or pumpkin syrup . . . to cover a lower-quality product”, she says. Abuelo’s syrups are handmade, and the flavour combinations are “approached with a cheffy perspective and focus”. At Doubloons, the syrups are also made in-house, and by hand: the cherry one takes three hours to make. It takes time and care to perfect these drinks: Somorai spent hours perfecting the ratio for Rhythm Zero’s maple sea-salt latte. “It was too salty, then too sweet . . . [every] drink needs to follow the exact formula,” she says. For customers, they tap into a reward mindset.
Speciality coffee has long been seen as a serious affair. It’s one where top notes must not only be tasted but respected. A few years ago, most aficionados wouldn’t have been caught dead with a mug topped with whipped cream. But many batch-brew types are willing to try these new-age drinks, says de la Vega. “The coffee in our cocktails is still speciality coffee . . . It’s [still] quality beans and proper brewing techniques.” And the flavour profiles, natural acidity and richness of coffee can “pair really well with different flavours”, says Ryan Crown, co-founder of Neighbourhood in Belfast. Some beans are rich and chocolatey, which are complemented by notes of orange; others are as “bright and fresh as a fruit tea”, says Crown. For baristas, it’s a playground for experimentation.
The trend has also coincided with the rise in low- or non-alcoholic drinking. “People are using a coffee shop as a third space now; it’s more relaxed than a bar or a restaurant,” says Crown, of Neighbourhood, which also has a branch in Austin, Texas. Design-led interiors, like those found at Abuelo and Maru, also lend themselves well to an after-dark sensibility. Rhythm Zero, with its black marble accents and angular armchairs, has the slick gloss of a bar, but with its soft lighting it feels intimate enough for a first date. “Daytime hospitality is having a moment,” says de la Vega.
