Our blog has moved!

Our blog has moved to

http://blog.liminicoffee.co.uk

The Pig!

Our customers Natalie and Kevin have a pig who loves our tea and coffee!

The Limini Coffee PIG! Our first ever. How cool is that!

Oh and real people love the coffee as well

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Buy coffee online with us for at home

Finally we have decided to do it. For all those lovely people who have come on barista courses with you… you can now buy the coffee from us through our website. Nice and easy.

We will only display a small amount of our coffees. Of course we have our main blend on there as well as the Guest Coffee which change all the time.

Have a look here to buy coffee for at home.

Name change – we become Limini Coffee

We have to change our name!

From Monday we will be called Limini Coffee.

Even though we have to change the name we look forward to it. It is a fresh start with a new name. This goes quite well with our brand new barista training centre and of course the joining of Howard as well. We strive to run an even better company with better coffee and better services.

Our new accounting software improves on orders and statements etc and the new phone system will mean improvement as well. All is good!

Limini Coffee will stand for the same principles:

1. Excellent customer service
2. Outstanding coffee
3. First class barista training

Note that the company doesn’t change or anything. We are still the same people with the same coffee. Just a name change.

We are selling our Anfim Caimano

We have an Anfim Caimano timer for sale that we have used for our training room.

List price is over £500 but we are selling this for £310 and we include a barista course with us as well. Pickup only.

It has has some usage and is working brilliantly. Great bargain really.

Please get in touch if you are interested.

New barista training centre is open!!!

Wow! Our training centre has opened. We opened the doors yesterday and Howard has just finished teaching the How to start a coffee shop course.
We have so much space now. So many brewing methods. So many coffees! It is fantastic and we are really enjoying it.
All our machines are now connected to a very good water filtration system and the coffee is tasting even better.
Anybody who wants to come over for a coffee… Drop us a line.

Besides the new training centre we also have a new office. This includes new accounting software which will make life better for everybody and we have improved on our phone system as well.

The training centre is also available for events so if you need a venture for your coffee event please do get in touch.

Hope to see you soon.

What is the hardest?

Running a coffee shop is fun, but it also hard work! Some do it for a life stye and enjoy the socialising, cooking and of course serving great coffee. Others do it to have a vibrant, busy and exciting business. Owning one or multiple coffee shops is a dream of many people…

What is however the hardest thing when you run a coffee shop? Or what would you expect to be the hardest thing?

Please let us know…

Coffee cart APE van for sale

Our friend Paul is selling his coffee van. We know Paul very well and he looks after his stuff so this should be a good one.

You can contact Paul here: www.thelittlecoffeevan.com

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

New Guest Coffee

What a great way to start the morning. Just made a delicious cappuccino with our new Guest Coffee. We mixed Brazil with Ethiopia once again and added a small amount of our new coffee from Rwanda. Roasted medium. Very tasty and certainly a bit different then you normally get from us.

We’ll see how it develops over the next few weeks but the first coffees I have had from it have been very interesting.

The Guest Coffees are flying out. More and more customers are now offering Guest Coffees to entertain their customers and it is becoming a big success. We are roasting lots of them and it is exciting to see this. If you would like some more info on how to go about with this please do get in touch.

Start the morning with a delicious coffee

Barista? Coffee? Machine? What is the deciding factor…

We have just come back from Brugge which is absolutely lovely. There was a coffee shop we went into and they had a £5000 – 2 group espresso machine, a decent grinder and £20 a kg coffee. The kit was definitely there. I am not a big fan of that coffee but it can be good if made correctly…

I ordered a double espresso and a double dose was loaded and the correct button was pressed. All good so far. Then she looked at the cup and got a bit uncomfortable at the amount in the cup. Guess it was too little? So she pressed the double button again! This just totally ruined my £2.50 double espresso. It was so dissapointing. (my fault here is not complaining but that is my weakness!)

She was absolutely lovely and we had a nice chat about Brugge. Certainly not her to blame I think, just the training.If only she knew what she was doing… I probably would have bought another 3 coffees. It was just such a shame.

If you ask me the question about what is most important then the order shoud be:

1) barista/ training

2) coffee

3) equipment

Most of the time though people will look for equipment first! Not last. If you start a coffee shop then please look for decent training first. Then go and search for a coffee that you are happy with and then decide on equipment.

OneGratis – digital loyalty card

Loyalty cards are great for rewarding your customers for being loyal. Buy 6 get 1 free kind of thing. Most coffee shops have been offering loyalty cards for a very long time and it is usually a great success.

Tony, one of our customers from the beautiful lake district, has developed a digital loyalty card for the IPhone and we love it!

The OneGratis app is quick and very easy to use. And of course, no more paper wasting!

Arborart – selling our coffee in a dome – so cool!

Ben had a wonderful weekend selling his coffee that we roasted for him. People seem to love it and we love what he is doing!

Arborart (http://www.arborart.co.uk) use Aeropress and single cup filter brewers to brew coffee. It is going down as a treat and served coffee constantly!

Check out the very cool pictures:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Good vs Bad tamp video

Do you know what is going wrong here?

The only difference between these two shots is the way it was made. The exact same grind, coffee and amount of water were used; but two completely different coffees are the result.

Post your comment if you think you know what is wrong…

Buy, rent or hire purchase?

If you are starting a coffee shop and you are looking to buy equipment, what would you prefer to do?

Please do let us know, these surveys help us a lot!

Rancilio Epoca

Market for great coffee?

We get asked quite often if there is a market for coffee shops. Aren’t there enough coffee shops already? Sure, there are indeed a lot of coffee shops in the UK. I am here standing at Leeds train station at 7am and I could really do with a delicious coffee…

The reason I wanted to write this is because I have just walked for 15 minutes around the station and there is not one single coffee outlet offering speciality coffee. So I will wait another hour or so until I am Absolute Coffee HQ. With quality coffee I mean high quality beans made correctly. All shots here at the station are running very quick, coffee is not ground fresh, cups are huge, milk is not fresh but re-used etc etc. I don’t want this to be a moan as I don’t like doing that. Instead this should be motivating anyone who is about to open up a coffee outlet.
If you focus on serving quality WITH good service then I am sure you will do great!
I am confident that customers know the difference! People like freshly ground coffee that was ground fresh for each cup. People like it when milk is steamed once and correctly. People like it when they get friendly service and a smile.

Focus on these things and I am sure you will do great! Open up at a busy station and take the challenge. If other people can do it and serve low quality coffee then sure you will be successful!

Plus you would have had at least one happy customer this morning 🙂

New guest coffee

The latest one is once again a winner if you ask me. Lots and lots of body, nice and sweet and sort of like caramel. Beautiful mix of Brazil and Honduras, some of our best coffees this year. Roasted once again medium and great for espresso based drinks as well as brewed coffee. We tried it through the syphon on Friday and it was beautiful.

This is from Rob who has been practising at home a lot 🙂 Thanks for the pic Rob!

Big news!!

In November a lot is going to happen.

We will be revealing to you all who will work with us. We are extremely excited to have found someone who is as passionate about service and coffee as we are. And not to forget teaching!

In November we will announce who this is…

Also we will move to a new premises which will be absolutely amazing. New training centre, new office etc. Our address will also change but we will notify everybody when the time is right.

November is going to be very, very exciting….

Oh, almost forgot. There will be a massive opening party!!! in November and we are inviting all our customers to come over. Please get in touch and we will tell you more about it 🙂

The bear lives in take out….

Big or small?

New Guest Coffee

Just tried our latest Guest Coffee today that we roasted a couple of days ago and it is tasting very good. Beautiful mix of Brazil and Ethiopia and a small amount of Java. Roasted just into the second crack, sort of medium. Really good body and very well balanced.It is a similar blend that we did a couple of months back but now we are roasting it about 5 degrees lighter. Not so much dark chocolate but more milk chocolate.

It is available now so with your next order please add a bag of the Guest Coffee and enjoy it!

La Spaziale S1 Vivaldi II for sale

We are selling our La Spaziale S1 Vivaldi II that we have in our training room at the roastery.

It has hardly been used and retails normally at £1,640.00 + VAT.

This is the plumped in version and the latest model. Dual boiler machine. Absolutely brilliant.

We are selling it to replace it with a small compact 2 group.

Make us an offer we can’t resist and it is yours. You will also get a full barista course with it. Email us at coffee@absolutecoffee.co.uk

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Roasting coffee with a breadmaker!

Ben came in to see us yesterday. He has been looking for a while for a good coffee roaster to work with and luckily we like each other 🙂

We gave him some coffee to roast on his home-made coffee roaster…. 🙂

Train your nose

We got these small bottles which contain aromas that can be found in coffees. Can you figure out what they are? We might test your nose and knowledge when you visit us…

Coffee aromas training kit

There are over 30 aromas in that box ranging from roasted hazelnuts to lemon. And even a few unpleasant ones like rubber! Great fun.

Best sink ever? Toilets are important!

Very cool sink

Latest Blend & Roast: sweet & fruity

Our latest blend is of the new Brazil that just arrived, Ethiopia and monsoon coffee from India. We have decided to roast this a lot lighter than our previous blends and it worked brilliantly!

The coffee is really sweet and still works really well in milk. We are getting some great comments about it.

For those who are now using our Blend & Roast as guest coffees… you are in for a treat!

Siphon / vac pot for training courses

We are now starting courses by brewing a coffee with the siphon. What a cool way to start the day!

Today we were brewing our Honduras which is one of the best coffees of the year for me. The siphon gives similar results as the Aeropress but an even better presentation.

Counter for espresso machine for sale

We have a counter for sale that we used in our old training room. The counter is in good condition and has two holes for cables and hoses.

We are selling it for £300 Inc vat and is pickup only from Halifax. This is perfect for a coffee shop. The counter is 4 meters long. The top is one piece so you need a van to move it.
Please email us for more info.

What is your budget for the espresso machine + grinder package?

Aeropress coffee

We have been using the Aeropress for a long time now and I am starting to like it more and more every day. It is quick and produces a fantastic cup.

The Aeropress is a certain way of brewing coffee. It is not a cafetiere/french press, it is not a single cup pourover, it is not an espresso. Just its own way of brewing and we like it!

The beauty is that they only cost £22!

There are many different ways of brewing with an Aeropress. On this video I am trying to show that you can do it very quickly this way. You can brew a bit longer but I find it works really well like this and it could work extremely well for coffee shops like this because it is so quick!

How to serve a latte

How do you think a latte should be served? What is your preference?