# Whittards...



## profspudhed (Mar 18, 2011)

i popped up to green and brown at trentham again this afternoon to pick up some has bean, while there i grabbed 2 shot glasses with measurements on and also spotted whittards, so i thought id pop in and have a look, i spotted that they had "old brown java" and that was the first ever whole bean coffee i ever tried, it was bought from a spices shop in a cornish shopping arcade in the early 90s and they were ground in my first ever grinder, a 1970s beige and clear plastic hand crank affair bought from the local mental hospital summer fayre.

but back to the point, my nostalgia all stirred up and my eyes then drawn to the fact that they had a ditting grinder behind the counter led me to buy a bag and ask for it to be espresso ground, on getting home i swiftly cracked it open and noticed that it would have been finer ground if id just put the beans in a sock and hit it with a hammer! i seriously dont even think the coarsest setting on my krups is that coarse, i know i really need a decent grinder of my own that does the job, but if i ask for espresso id like to think they could do a bit better than i can, at least i can take it to work for the press though so its not a loss by any means

incidentally the krups hasnt been managing too bad considering, after the whittards fail i tried the jailbreak and got a lovely double shot from 14g in 30 secs, so a little long but not a bad result at all


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## vintagecigarman (Aug 10, 2009)

I know that this was a trip down memory lane for you, but I've never had any coffee from Whittards that wasn't pretty dire. It just astounds me that they manage to keep in business.


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## profspudhed (Mar 18, 2011)

You're not wrong there, even in the press its more like ground up old bar stool than coffee!


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## DavidS (Apr 8, 2010)

Don't know about the coffee, but all the hot chocolate flavours from there are good









I'd always steer clear of pre-ground if you want a good espresso, regardless of who it's from. The problem isn't necessarily the freshness (although that is a problem), you just never know what kind of particle size you're going to get. Even at work, where we get pre-ground decaf on a commercial scale, the size of the grinds change more or less per bag.


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## vintagecigarman (Aug 10, 2009)

DavidS said:


> Don't know about the coffee, but all the hot chocolate flavours from there are good
> 
> 
> 
> ...


....but have you ever tried any of the instant teas that they dispense as tasters in their shops? ;>)))


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## coffeeman (Mar 20, 2010)

I think the problem is most staff in these places just don't know what the grind should look like and unless people complain constructively then they'll keep serving it up.

A lot of the store manages I'd imagine are more interested in store profit than grinder maintenance.


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## love-coffee (Apr 26, 2011)

To me Whittards is a glorified C=china shop that sells a bit of tea and coffee.

They opened a branch in Bournemouth about fifteen years ago, their staff recruitment ad read no experience or knowledge necessary.

Alas, they don't seem to provide much thereafter either.

A long way from the following story.

In the early 1970's I was studying in Chelsea, no not just the dolly birds either.

Being young and a bit of a boy racer I pulled one wheelie too often in my car and had the clutch cable snap.

Seeing I was in desperate trouble, no mobile phones in those days, a local shop keeper walked across the road, Fulham road that is, and asked if I'd like to use his telephone to call for soma assistance as I was beginning to cause a bit of a hold up.

I did just that and thanked him for his help.

That shop keeper was in fact, yes, the one and only &#8230; Mr Whittard.


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## cjbailey1 (Jan 17, 2011)

coffeeman said:


> I think the problem is most staff in these places just don't know what the grind should look like and unless people complain constructively then they'll keep serving it up.
> 
> A lot of the store manages I'd imagine are more interested in store profit than grinder maintenance.


 I did notice the the Whittards in the East Midlands Designer Outlet has the three main settings on a sticker on the side and then a load of scribbled settings for several different (cheap, admittedly) espresso machines. Still wouldn't make me buy their stale coffee - although their Tea is ok as I can't afford to buy from the likes of Lahloo Tea too often!


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## BunniesAreEvil (Jun 14, 2021)

I know this is an ancient thread, but a few years back I picked up a bag of bi lo chun loose leaf tea from Whittards. At its best this tea is superb, with a wonderful sort of asparagus like taste. The stuff you get in supermarkets is not worth drinking. The Whittards tea was horrible, obviously a very low grade of tea sold for the price of medium to high grade tea. Sad because countless people will have come to the conclusion that decent tea is a con. It isn't.


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

Whittards got a lot of people interested in coffee, sadly it ended there.


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

Me too. Used to get our Earl Grey and dark roasted Monsooned Malabar there.


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