Tropea

out would in turn be passed on again to many different “well deserving” people by the original recipients. He explained that the feeling of gifting this card and acknowledging someone’s “good deed” was better than walking into their store and claiming the free coffee for themselves. Giving is of course better than receiving! What a wonderful world we live in, where the majority of people are still good eggs!!!

What does the future hold for TGB? To start with a bigger roasting plant with a new Loring Roaster! They are keeping their current 12kg Probat too, which will be used for the more special single origins on offer. Henry is like an excited child on the eve of Christmas, speaking animatedly about how the Loring will allow the business to roast the same amount of coffee in a day that the Probat roasts in a whole week! So, the investment goes hand in hand with a bigger push for new and more wholesale clients, spreading their two mainstay coffee blends, two single origins and a number of filters in even more locations.

They are also continuing to work on many more sustainable processes including the adoption of a new approach to decaf which will allow for onsite decaffeination, thus reducing the carbon footprint which Swiss water process can typically increase. Keeping their coffee as locally produced as possible is of the utmost importance to TGB.

To finish I asked Henry how they see themselves? In typical Henry style he replied…

“We don’t take ourselves seriously, but we take our coffee structure very seriously, we have chosen to sit somewhere in the middle”. With a contented smile.

Henry... “This has been beautiful, who wants a hug?”

So, we hugged... a great hug.

BIRMINGHAM

By Simon Carlo

I arrive at Tropea at ten on the dot, take a seat on one of the stools in the window and look to the menu for carbs to soak up the previous evening’s work. Is it too early for a Negroni? Probably. I order a double espresso. Then another. Then a Negroni: it is my day off, after all. The espresso is excellent, I could almost be in Italy were it not for the views of the swimming baths or the strong Brummie accents repeating the order back to me. The Negroni is even better: a trusty blend of Cocchi vermouth, Campari, and Navy strength gin. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the best Negroni is in Italy. I once spent a night touring the bars of Florence trying the OG’s only to learn that most still find it acceptable to use Martini Rosso whilst charging 20 euros apiece. It’s like the English and cricket. We may have invented it but most of the world does it far better.

And now to the food which, in keeping with the theme of this issue, all appears on bread in various guises, skipping from the very Italian to the more familiar but with Italian produce at the centre. There are various types of piadina – a street food dish originally from Northeast Italy – where the larded flatbread is neatly folded up like unused bed sheets, its quilted interior a colourful blend of goat’s cheese, beetroot, and walnut, as sweet and as nutty as grandma herself. Scrambled eggs call on the finest Burford Browns which have their bright orange yolks tempered down with mascarpone. The eggs are impeccably worked: light and properly seasoned, served with Italian sausages which are punchy with fennel. There are roasted tomatoes for those who want to pretend it’s healthy and fat wedges of toasted ciabatta for those who know and accept it is not. The whole thing comes together beautifully as if the best of British and Italian produce were always meant to be together.

Perhaps the best dish is the focaccia, a mammoth cut of oily bread filled with generosity and a strong sense of hospitality. Its contents are an ode to the Southern regions, where the stiletto heel of the boot joins the elegant leg which makes up the rest of Italy: smoked Scamorza cheese, blistered red peppers, the gutsy, fatty ‘Nduja sausage, and some notional rocket. It’s a brooding sandwich the size of a baby’s forearm. There is a side salad dressed to cut through it all which is more hope than attainment. You won’t reach it: the sandwich will defeat you and you should be happy accepting that.