London Coffee Festival 2025 Round Up

Small Batch Coffee Hits London Coffee Festival 2025

London Coffee Festival 2025 proved to be every bit as chaotic, delicious and inspiring as ever. With the worlds of specialty coffee, cafe culture and more being celebrated at The Truman Brewery in London’s Brick Lane. Small Batch Coffee joined the best UK Coffee Roasters by serving up our signature blend, Goldstone and new Coffee Pods to the thirsty attendees. Huge thanks to Espresso Solutions for hosting us.

As always it was great for the Small Batch team to catch up with the great and the good of UK Coffee Roasters and to immerse ourselves in all things coffee. This year, there were some strong trends pulling through. With the London Coffee Festival hitting today’s talking points, here’s what the Small Batch Team predicts will be happening in coffee in the near future.

Matcha Madness

Known as the champagne of green tea, matcha’s popularity in the UK is now undeniable. With a new Matcha trend being launched on socials every other week, Matcha Tonic anyone? Matcha’s presence at LCF this year was almost akin to UK Coffee Roasters, reflecting its infiltration into coffee house culture. But what does this mean for the UK specialty coffee roasters community? At Small Batch we feel this wide-spread interest into a new and different tasting beverage is a great sign that the average consumer is willing to try new tastes. Working alongside high-grade Matcha suppliers who are as passionate about the quality of their Matcha and welfare of their farmers as specialty coffee roasters, we can work together to educate the importance of quality, taste and sustainability to the UK beverage consumer. 

AI Comes to Home Brewing

You can’t move on social media these days without someone shouting about how AI is ‘changing everything’, and specialty coffee is no different. With a new wave of impressive machines taking the stress out of home brewing, it’s never been easier to achieve the perfect cup at home. At London Coffee Festival, we saw many UK Coffee Roasters using automatic milk steamers to create quick and perfectly silky milk. These are a great option for smaller cafes or to use at home, they use state of the art technology to turn the milk of your choice into the smoothest and creamiest milk that rivals barista quality. 

At the Espresso Solutions Stand, the Small Batch team were introduced to the Fellow Aiden Precision Coffee Maker. Using the Aiden to brew our limited edition, Showcase Coffee, Guava Banana, the team commented on its ease of use and innovation. The machine allows roasteries to create accessible brew guides on a Aiden app, ensuring the perfect brew every time. Making it the perfect choice for home brewers who love a pour over, but don’t always have the time to dedicate to a lengthy brewing method. 

Co-Fermentation Coffee

Co-fermentation was another buzzword at this years London Coffee Festival. Referring to the process of fermenting coffee beans with additional ingredients such as fruits, spices or botanicals, co-fermentation when done correctly can enhance flavour complexity or introduce new notes of fruit, florals or chocolate. This can be a really exciting tool for specialty coffee roasters who are looking for new innovative ways to tweak their coffee’s flavour profile. However, it also raises concerns around the purity and transparency of the coffee. Specialty coffee has already introduced coffee lovers to many wonderfully funky and different flavours, do we need co-fermentation as well? Answers on a postcard please!

Sail-Shipped Coffee

With sustainability being top of mind for many UK Roasters, another hot topic at LCF was sail-shipped coffee. Sail-shipped coffee is a sustainable alternative to conventional coffee transport, using wind powered vessels instead of fossil-fueled cargo ships to transport green coffee across the ocean. With Origin launching their Sail Ship coffee earlier this year, they’ve helped in highlighting the impact of coffee transportation within to the UK. However, with the price of green coffee fluctuating, is sail-shipped coffee a realistic option for smaller roasteries? 

The Price of Green

Last, but certainly not least, the topic discussed most away from the stands and the talks was the ever fluctuating price of green coffee. Rising costs due to environmental factors and increased production costs mean that specialty coffee roasters and coffee houses are struggling to keep their prices down for their customers. However, the demand for coffee is an at all time high, and the coffee farmers can utilise this to create better working conditions for their employees and negotiate better prices for themselves. 

That’s our London Coffee Festival 2025 round up done! As always, the team had a fantastic time catching up with the latest trends and our friends in the industry. Want a slice of the coffee festival action? Why not visit our home town in August for the Brighton Coffee Festival 2025