While I love living in North London, one of the big downsides is the severe lack of decent coffee shops. Beyond Vagabond in Finsbury Park and Fred and Fran in Stoke Newington there isn’t much to choose from. In my little corner of the city we have a Starbucks, a Costa and a Cafe Nero but nowhere serving anything decent. So I’m always on the look out for new spots to try, hoping the coffee trends in Soho and Shoreditch will spread a little North. Well it might be starting to happen.

Down in Kentish Town (right by Kentish Town West overground station) a tiny little place called Fields Beneath has recently opened up. Alerted by a few tweets I popped down a couple of weeks ago to see what the fuss was about. The first thing to note is this place is tiny, there’s just one table so it’s not really a place to sit and drink. But the coffee is great, so who cares. They rotate the beans they use regularly, with the flat white I ordered using Federation coffee.

It’s also worth mentioning their baking offering, all of which are made by the owners mum. Persuaded to visit by a tweeted photo of their doughnuts, they’d unfortunately run out by the time I arrived, so I ordered an Eccles cake. And I can happily say this was one of the best Eccles cakes I’ve had in a while. Fields Beneath has all the signs of becoming a great community coffee shop and would be well worth a stop on the Overground.

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The second new coffee spot isn’t in North London but in the heart of coffee land – Old Street to be precise. In fact it’s just two doors up from Look Mum No Hands. Timber Yard claims to want to re-invent and modernise the coffee experience. Not too sure what that means, but they have a great looking shop that feels really relaxed and happily someone you could while away a few hours.

The coffee on offer comes from Has Bean with their Jaberwocky blend (a mix of Costa Rican, Guatamalen and Kenyan) available when I visited. My flat white was deliciously smooth with a lovely fruity flavour that was perfect with my triple chocolate brownie. Like a lot of the good independent coffee places in London there’s a great range of cakes and pastries offer and Timber Yard is no different getting theirs from Bittersweet Bakers.

One of the things I really liked about this place was their attention to detail. As well as my coffee I also ordered a cup of tea (a Tangerine Ginger tea from Waterloo Tea). So often tea is over looked and treated as an after thought. Here it feels like its given equal billing. Your given a timer with your tea pot so you know the perfect brewing time and when to remove the tea. It’s a really small thing, but it makes a world of difference.

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