The distinctive aroma of the sharp and toasted fragrance of good coffee is as vanishingly rare to this country’s drivers as the sight of a clean toilet cubicle in Watford Gap services or a petrol-station sandwich for under a fiver. Could it be that I’ve found somewhere that serves such a thing without my having to drive into a town centre, find a parking spot and take a walk?
I’m not a coffee snob in any way, shape or form. But even I, with my notably underdeveloped taste buds, find chain coffee on the UK’s roads to be uniformly revolting – not only for the caffeinated content but for the surroundings in which you’re usually forced to drink the stuff.
Simply the best
So I began to inquire whether there existed any outliers that didn’t treat the combination of coffee and drivers with contempt. It took a while before I found Simon Fraser and Hot Numbers near Shepreth, 10 miles to the south-west of Cambridge and only seven miles from the M1 at Duxford. Not just a coffee shop, but a full-blown roastery, it wins my entirely subjective and trophyless award for the best independent coffee stop for motorists in the country.
I ask Fraser why drivers tolerate such abysmal coffee from the mega-chains. “You pull off the motorway and that’s the only place there is, so you have what’s there. There is no alternative, and that’s always been my frustration.”
Named after a long-disappeared vinyl record shop in Cambridge that Fraser adored, Hot Numbers started 15 years ago as an extension of what he calls an “out-of-control hobby involving coffee, engineering and music”.
“The idea was that this roastery would be a production site for our two coffee shops in Cambridge. We’d roast coffee here, sell wholesale coffee and have a bakery. Everyone thought I was mad, but I thought I could build a coffee shop around it as well and perhaps people would come in. It wasn’t guaranteed, but the site wasn’t too expensive and it just felt right.”
The space, a former lawnmower warehouse, has steel beams and a paint-scuffed concrete floor, softened by large, oak-toned communal tables, a jumble of vintage red vinyl chairs and soft sofas. The walls are patched with hessian coffee sacks from Rwanda, Brazil and Costa Rica.
A beautifully preserved vintage Raleigh motorcycle perches above the counter, while the view includes an expanse of sycamore trees and open fields beyond. There are shelves full of loaves, pastries and cakes, while the coffee menu runs from espresso, Americano, flat white and mocha to filter brews, batch coffee, iced drinks, tea and matcha.
Fraser now employs about 100 people across the three sites, with the roastery capable of hosting DJ nights and live bands, helped by the fact that they have a licence to sell alcohol as well as coffee.
But why does chain coffee remain so stubbornly poor? Fraser points the blame at robusta coffee, a commodity-grade whose bitter flavour and high caffeine strength make it the preferred choice of the coffee giants. Low in price and produced largely in Vietnam, it wins out over arabica, which costs considerably more, is grown at higher altitude and tends to have more complex, slightly sweeter flavours.
Six other coffee hot spots
Ralia Café
This Highland outpost of Cairngorm Coffee has been run by the same family for more than 20 years. Cairngorm’s house espresso, Guilty Pleasure, is a blend of Honduran and Colombian beans that you can pair with a sandwich made with bread from Harry Gow’s nearby bakery while reclining in the modish café space, watching the windows that frame trees swaying in the Highland breeze.
The Gate Café
A mile off the motorway, The Gate occupies Cumwhinton’s renovated former village shop and post office. A retired cookery teacher, Erica Wellings, pours Carvetii’s Cumbrian-roasted Lakeland blend and cooks pretty much everything on-site: Cumbrian sausage and bacon, sausage rolls, daily scones with homemade chilli jam, plus a shifting specials board.
Peaberry Coffee Shop
It’s easy to zoom past this tiny, family-run speciality shop tucked inside Andover’s Basepoint Business Park near the A303. Expect two house blends and rotating single origins, served in a cosy little room with music and artisan goods. The opening hours are a little restrictive, however: it closes at 3.30pm on weekdays and doesn’t open at weekends.
Teals
South Cadbury, Somerset (A303)
The coffee outlier that motorists are most likely to have heard of is a light, airy restaurant looking out over an apple orchard and courtyard. The coffee comes from the Cornish roaster Origin, with organic milk sourced from the nearby Holy Cow. The current lunch menu runs to hand-rolled gnocchi with West Country oyster mushrooms, or smoked Dorset ‘nduja and Somerset-cheese pizzetta.
Darts Farm
One of the largest quality independents on this list remains very much a family farm. Ronald Dart started selling produce from a small roadside hut in 1971, and the third generation is now joining the business. The Exe Estuary setting makes the place visually gorgeous and, if you can’t linger for a while, its Shack takeaway hatch serves coffee from the specialist West Country roaster Roastworks.
Forage Farm Shop & Kitchen
The coffee is from the Welsh roaster Coaltown, and the kitchen uses the best of produce from the surrounding Penllyn Estate, including a full Welsh breakfast, home-smoked chicken club sandwiches or a full Sunday roast. The timber-clad restaurant feels like a blinged-up barn, although the views of the rolling Thaw valley are lovely.