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The summer's dry spell in Britain has fueled a surge in iced coffee popularity, with Cold Brew Coffee emerging as a favorite among aficionados. This method involves brewing coffee slowly in cold water for up to 24 hours, resulting in a smooth and flavorful drink. Unlike traditional iced coffee, which is brewed hot and then cooled, Cold Brew is known for its mild and sweet taste, making it a popular choice year-round. Making Cold Brew at home is easy, with tools like a cafetière yielding good results. For a stylish and practical option, the Kinto Capsule Cold Brew Carafe offers a sleek design and easy cleanup, now available in two colors on the Spiller & Tait website at a special launch price with free shipping.

Devon-based coffee roaster, Spiller & Tait, has released the results of its first annual survey of coffee drinking habits in UK households, which shows an increasing sophistication in the way people are making coffee as they strive to recreate at home the high quality coffee they experience at High Street coffee shops and cafes.

We are often asked to explain the difference between supermarket coffee beans and the freshly roasted coffee, now widely available from small independent roasters across the UK.  What’s often behind these enquiries is a question about price - “why is posh coffee more expensive and what makes it posh?” and “are supermarket coffee beans really that bad?”.  With a price differential often in the region of 100% (supermarket coffees can be as low as £2.50 for 250g, whereas our own coffees start at £5.95 for 250g), we understand why the question is asked.  Particularly when it’s so convenient to add a pack of coffee beans, or ground coffee, during your weekly shop.

Despite the increasing take-up of domestic bean-to-cup and capsule coffee machines, plus the wide range of cool coffee brewing devices available for those making coffee at home, the humble Cafetière is still the most popular way of making fresh coffee at home in the UK.  The Cafetière is popular because of its ease of use.  For simplicity, there's no better method of making coffee than the Cafetière, or French Press, and it is also favoured for the clear and true taste it creates.

In 2017 our Signature Blend was awarded one Gold Star in the prestigious Guild of Fine Food’s Great Taste awards.  Signature Blend was our first coffee, so the award felt like a major endorsement of the focus we’ve had from the beginning on roasting coffee that tastes great.  In this blog we’ve invited our resident coffee expert, Jonny, to tell you about the Great Taste awards and what the judges liked about our Signature Blend.  Jonny is one of only two Q Grade qualified coffee graders in the UK, the highest qualification achievable for professional coffee tasters.

For many caffeine lovers, coffee drinking is less of a habit and more of a sacred ritual. This is certainly true for Spiller & Tait customers, who tell us they savour the daily ritual of making and drinking coffee as an antidote to the stresses and strains of their busy lives. This year, we want you to tell us about your coffee rituals so we can share them with others and celebrate our evolving UK home coffee culture. Scroll to the bottom and take action!

Simon Spiller and David Tait decided to create Spiller & Tait in January 2014.  Four years on, and Spiller & Tait has become one of the best-selling brands of fresh coffee online in the UK.  In this blog, Simon talks to Spiller & Tait Digital Marketing Manager, Ben, about how it all started.

We recently conducted a survey with some of our regular customers to find out why they keep returning to our coffee.  The message back was loud and clear - the primary reason is flavour!   There were other reasons including: value for money; coffee freshness; good customer service and reliability.  But, by far the top reason was “consistently great flavour”.  And we were delighted to hear this, because, when we set-up Spiller & Tait, we wanted to focus on offering a small range of great tasting coffees which all offer a consistent flavour experience.  That is, coffees which are smooth and rich in flavour, but lacking in bitterness.  The specific flavours of each of our coffees vary significantly, but they all share these general traits, because we know from experience that it’s what most UK consumers are looking for in their fresh coffee.