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In the world of Third Wave coffee shops, it often seems the case that the look of a cafe is as important to customers as the quality of the beverages on offer. In London for example, I tend to gravitate towards a certain type of coffee shop: small outlets with micro-roasters and minimalist fit-outs, tucked away in the backstreets of trendy neighbourhoods.\u00a0An elegant, historic food hall inside one of the most luxurious stores in the world isn\u2019t the kind of place I would normally associate with today’s specialty coffee trends\u2014but Harrods<\/a>, the iconic department store in Knightsbridge, is breaking the rules.<\/p>\n Harrods was founded in 1849 as a wholesale grocery and tea merchant and, to this day, the Harrods food halls remain a tantalizing option for fine foods in London. With a legacy spanning over 160 years, providing the best products and maintaining high-quality standards is of utmost importance to the company\u2014and now they’ve raised the stakes in their coffee game.<\/p>\n In November of 2017, Harrods unveiled The Roastery and Bake Hall, as part of a large-scale renovation that will see a total of five new food concepts launched in store by 2020. It is the largest redevelopment of the food halls in more than 20 years, focused on bringing the theatre of food production to the public.<\/p>\n In true Harrods style, the Art-Deco-inspired hall is grand, timelessly glamorous, and all about making a big statement\u2014with paneled ceiling, marble tile floor, black steel light pendants, and decorated pillars. There is an artisanal bakery serving fresh breads every 15 minutes (a brass bell is rung whenever new pastries are ready), a patisserie, gourmet grocery, and a tea counter where customers can get a tailored experience of loose leaf blends made up to their personal tastes.<\/p>\n A round coffee bar stands out in the middle of the hall: marble bar counters with elegant brass rails and leather stools surround a team of trained baristas working behind black\u00a0La Marzocco<\/a>\u00a0FB80 machines.\u00a0Shelves are lined up with coffee bags, metal tins, and coffee pods for customers looking to buy beans. They can choose between Harrods coffee blends or seasonal single origins as well as order a blend made to their personal tastes.<\/p>\n Inside the new hall, there is a state-of-the-art brew bar, boasting a Marco MIX<\/a> Ecoboiler tap and a Modbar<\/a>. And in full sight\u2014albeit within a glass enclosure\u2014is\u00a0an 85k\u00a0Probat<\/a>\u00a0coffee roaster.\u00a0For the first time in Harrods\u2019 history, customers can watch every step of the process\u2014from roasting to brewing\u2014and enjoy the coffee-making process from bean to cup.<\/p>\n As part of the project Harrods is calling \u201cThe Taste Revolution,\u201d the company appointed a new Master Roaster, Polish-born Bartosz Ciepaj. Ciepaj, a 2017 UK Roasting Championship finalist, spent more than a year prior to the launch consulting Harrods on how to design the new roastery and coffee areas, ensuring quality control in every cafe and restaurant inside the store, as well as Roast & Bake<\/a>, a new food-to-go concept shop located outside the store on Basil Street.<\/p>\n A few days after the grand opening, I had the opportunity to attend a cupping session with Ciepaj at the roastery. “Although Harrods is a large company, it is still very much a small-batch artisan coffee roaster,”\u00a0Ciepaj insists. And yet the scale of coffee operations at Harrods is impressive: around 450-500kg of coffee roasted weekly, peaking at more than 700kg \u00a0per week during the Christmas period.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, Ciepaj\u2019s biggest challenge is serving the approximately 15,000,000 customers that walk into Harrods every year, whilst delivering the same standard of quality service to everyone.<\/p>\n The house espresso, named “Knightsbridge” for the posh neighbourhood where Harrods is situated, is a blend of four different types of Arabica beans (Brazilian, Colombian, Sumatran, and Costa Rican). It\u2019s a full-bodied, round, and nutty blend with notes of chocolate, a spicy aftertaste, and red berry sweetness. “We were looking for an ‘easy’ blend that would appeal to the wider general public,” Ciepaj says. Customers curious to taste more unique seasonal offerings can choose from a wide range of single origins.<\/p>\n Bartosz Ciepaj<\/p>\n<\/div>\n “We roast several styles of coffee and regularly tweak our coffee range to offer fresh and seasonal offerings.\u00a0Our ambition is to be very inclusive and accommodate the different taste preferences of our customers,”\u00a0Ciepaj says.<\/p>\n “I am open to all sorts of roasts and coffee,” Ciepaj continues.\u00a0<\/em>“My idea is to serve everything for everyone, everywhere. We don\u2019t have to narrow ourselves down for five percent of customers who are crazy about a certain style of coffee, but instead we can appeal to each individual group.” And in a venue serving as broad a customer base as Harrods, Ciepaj and his team have a unique opportunity to do just that\u2014and in grand London style.<\/p>\n Giulia Mule<\/a>\u00a0is a Sprudge.com contributor based in London. Read more\u00a0Giulia Mule on Sprudge<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The post The Roastery At Harrods: Coffee Elegance In Knightsbridge<\/a> appeared first on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source: Coffee News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the world of Third Wave coffee shops, it often seems the case that the look of a cafe is as important to customers as the quality of the beverages…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,41],"tags":[63,45,65,47,61,49,59,67,55,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":595,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions\/595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"harrods](\"http:\/\/sprudge.com\/file\/2018\/03\/Coffee-Bar-Roastery-Harrods-Knightsbridge-London-2-1170x780.jpg\")
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<\/p>\nThe Roastery and Bake Hall at Harrods is located at\u00a087-135 Brompton Rd, Knightsbridge, London<\/a>. Visit their official site<\/a> and follow them on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n