How we dial in the espresso every single morning

Order a flat white before nine and there's a decent chance you're drinking a test shot. Not because we're cutting corners — because coffee is a moving target, and the first half hour of every day is spent chasing it.

Beans don't sit still

Coffee changes constantly. As beans rest in the days after roasting they release gas and shift in flavour, and the weather plays its part too — humidity and temperature both nudge how the grind behaves. What was perfect yesterday is very rarely perfect today.

So every morning Theo runs the same ritual: weigh the dose, pull a shot, taste it, and adjust the grinder a hair finer or coarser. We're aiming for a shot that runs in roughly twenty-eight seconds and tastes round and sweet rather than thin or biting.

Nothing goes to waste

It usually takes three or four goes to land it. Those shots aren't poured down the drain — they're the staff's first coffee of the day, and quietly the best perk of the job. By the time the doors open, the machine is singing and your flat white is the one we'd happily drink ourselves.

If you're curious, ask whoever's on the machine what we're pouring that week. They'll almost certainly tell you more than you wanted to know, and probably pull you a little taster too.