Halfway through the first month of 2026, I’m just about waking up. For me January started in a different country, then on my return home I got the ol’ man-flu. Various dislocations from the norm. Now, though, I’ve managed to get a paper diary, which means the year has permission to actually begin. Still, the pages of the diary are stuck with little music recommendations from Drift Records’ round-up of their albums of 2025 – I’m aware there’s good stuff I missed in the year just gone. On which subject, something that piqued my aesthetic interest in the past year was coffee. Decided to expedite my mid-life crisis and centre it around filter coffee (there are worse options). Coffee was also the main reason I was awake at all in 2025.
3. Everything from Taith
So we seem to be doing a run-down of the year’s best coffee experiences in the Republic of Dornan. January 2025 saw me playing with my new Christmas toy – a v60, filters and a selection of single-origin coffees from Pact. An absolute gift to the olfactory sense, at every stage. Pop the bag open: have a sniff. First tentative bloom of boiled water over the grounds: have a sniff. Slosh it round the mug before even drinking anything: ohhh get a noseful of that, I’m ready for the day
And Pact gave us many flavours over the year, but the source of the first coffee on our list was Taith. They’re a roastery (and ceramic studio and bookshop) based in Lewes, East Sussex, to which we’re yet to make the pilgrimage – this one was discovered via Instagram. Look over their profile, and you can maybe see why they got my attention – they surely win the packaging game. Having a riso printer on site means they can make gorgeous labels for their gorgeous bags, but crucially the quality control is at its highest when you get to the beans themselves.
My top Taith pick from 2025 is their Bourbon grown by Modesto Chinguel Alberca in Peru. I probably didn’t experience a more syrupy texture than this, which is really nice for savouring; I could definitely detect the taste of baked fruits, but trying this was a bit like when I tried port for the first time – there were too many flavours to compute! The port had made my brain search hard, do its process of chromatography to try and separate out the flavours, and when I couldn’t, I just had to give in and enjoy the harmony of it. Similar deal with this coffee – enjoy the harmony, and the big, juicy taste.
Juicier coffees are on offer from Taith (you can still get a hold of some El Jaragual J-01, from Colombia’s Jorge Mira. Really stridently mango-ey, bright and punchy – I ended up mixing it with a darker-roast brownie decaf and found something wonderful, if verboten), as are some for those with an adventurer’s palate (Chapela by Mió, in Brazil. Do I know what the fruits of a “mixed-varietal yeast fermentation” should taste like? No. But to describe the result, I can only find the word ‘funky’). But this Bourbon was the most straight-up enjoyable while being dense and unique.
2. The whole variety of Geisha, I suppose
OK what’s next? This box, right here.
We went on a few holidays in 2025 – one of our UK-based jaunts took us to the windy, windy Kent coast. Margate offers a heck of a lot, inc. art gallery, breezy beach, book and indie-shops, and certifiably the best sunset-and-fish-&-chips combo of the year, full stop. And while we’re in the business of making wild pronouncements, I also discovered the best toastie in the world.
The best toastie in the world has now been eaten. But similar toasties await if you visit Forts cafe – they have a branch in Margate, and another a sunlit, windblown walk away in Broadstairs, on the opposite side of that peninsula. The bracing walk left us vibrating for sustenance, so this quieter branch of Forts was the ideal place to perch. What was in this toastie? Definitely kimchi, and if memory serves, vegan cheese. Which is also supposed to be awful, isn’t it, but things have changed! Novelty occurs while reactionary assumptions ferment! And speaking of ferments, the kimchi gave it a nice tang while being pleasantly substantial. I have no further details because hey, I was on holiday. The coffee that accompanied this toastie may even have outshone it. Clang goes the metaphor.
La Divina Anaerobic Geisha by La Cabra – Roberto Ulloa in El Salvador grows the fruits, La Cabra roast the beans in Denmark, and then ageing hipsters like myself drink the result in ageing hipster joints by the seaside (“Oily and trying to be something it’s not” is how Forts was reviewed by Anitta from Deal. Tripadvisor is a gift). I had to ask what a Geisha was, and the barista didn’t know much more than useful tbh. (But if you’re interested…) This cup was fruity, light, and… I don’t know, elevated? It’s supposed to have a ‘floral aromatic character‘, which sounds like a herbal tea. And while Geishas are lighter and have less body than most coffees, this was not as insubstantial as that might suggest. Fruity richness, but really clear. Was it the best choice to combine this refined brew with vegan cheese? I don’t know. I got into this midlife crisis interest for the sake of enjoyment, not to become a snob (that ship sailed long ago). And La Divina is really enjoyable. My wife got me some for my birthday, so I can verify that the coffee tastes phenomenal even when you’re not starving from a walk!
1. Bluebell – Kirunga
And finally – one so good it needs to have glitter thrown over it.
Aforementioned wife and I are unanimous in naming this our coffee of the year. Though our tastes are a bit divergent, this one gave us plenty to agree on. Mainly because it had enough tasting notes that we couldn’t quite put our finger on it…
Valencia’s a great city to visit. Stay in town like us, walk through the park established on a reworked riverbed, and you’re at a remove from shops and busyness, almost until you reach the coast. OK, the sand was too hot to walk on, and we did quite enjoy the trappings of urbanity, having made a coffee shop shortlist before travelling. The lovely Fav Coffee was so close to our digs that we returned a few times; we sat outside Cafeinomanos with a cold brew, and the owner Ivan was so friendly. We decided we wanted a bag of something to take home, and looking at the Kirunga label above, thought we’d found a likely candidate. “That’s my favourite coffee at the moment. I have it pretty much every day,” he told us, and ground it for v60 for quick consumption.
The roaster it had come from, Bluebell Coffee Roasters, had yet to be ticked off our list. So on our final day in Valencia we headed there, where the Sunday buzz was palpable, the all-female staff were great, the brunch was an absolute cracker (I’m pretty sure we ordered something egg-based, but also. If you’re going to ask another human to bring you granola, it had better come slathered in ‘tahini, miso and honey, pears infused in red wine, Greek yogurt and peanuts butter’. Oh my) and the filter coffee was nice. But we noticed the Kirunga had slipped off the menu – I think the batch had run out for the year. So only once we got home did the taste explosion happen
What, at the end of the day, d’you want your coffee to be?* The end result of a fair process; something lovingly made; maybe even to come from a roaster with an identity. All three of the roasters here have that. What do you want your coffee to taste like? My wife prefers medium or medium-dark roasts, some body and a hint of spice; the lighter the better for me, to let those fruity flavours burst through. This red bourbon managed to satisfy both preferences. Medium roast, earthed by the caramel; the other advertised tasting notes of blackberry jam and green apple give you a ballpark of what Kirunga had in store for us each day. Maybe we should say it was a fruit bowl, from which you’d detect a different note depending on how you brewed it that morning. Taste the rainbow! Even once we’d let our grounds age for slightly too long, the coffee changed in a great way – the caramel flavour was now more akin to Coca-cola. Making the whole thing tend towards ‘candy’, that other translation of caramelo.
Cafeinomanos translates roughly to ‘coffeeholics’, by the way. Which I suppose we are now. Still experiencing it as a joy rather than dependency. I notice that distance above sea level is important for growing coffee – however that may manifest from soil to plant to bean, once we get around to grinding (sniff) and brewing (sniff), I am given an away-from-everything moment, as if from the vantage of a mountain. The air’s different there.
Culture Me Up 