Some time ago, a friend told me to check out a place called Coffee Aroma, in her opinion the best place to—you guessed it—get coffee here in Lincoln, or to enjoy a relaxed music night, or just hang out.
Probably lured there by the smell of freshly ground coffee and the prospect of being able to warm myself up – after almost losing my nose to frostbite on a particularly cold day in the library – I somehow ended up on Guildhall Street just a few days later before the open doors of the café. Remembering what my friend had said, I had to go in and find out whether she was right.
Well… I haven’t seen enough of this city and its coffee places to be qualified to give a final verdict just yet. But honestly, it will be very hard to beat this place. Coffee Aroma is amazing: great coffee, great atmosphere, great staff and great music, too. Actually, it’s so great that the Sunday Times named it one of its top 25 coffee houses in the UK earlier this year. Not bad, eh?
Coffee Aroma is spread over three floors, with the bar and a few seats downstairs and the main seating areas upstairs. Once you manage not to fall down the horribly narrow and steep stairs they seem to love so much here in England, you reach a room full of cosy sofas, armchairs, and a few tables with normal chairs.
I walked in with the intention of just having a coffee and then going back to the library. Instead, I ended up wasting two hours with doodling in one of the numerous notebooks I always carry around with me and looking at all the little messages and drawings stuck on one of the walls – all little souvenirs left behind by visitors.
These range from a simple “Thank you for the coffee” to intricate portraits of strangers, from confessions like “I hate my friends but it’s just too hard to find new ones” and “I shot John Lennon!” to the odd “Java the Hutt”-sketch. Some of them make you wonder a little about these people, but mostly it’s just hilarious to read which stories and messages people choose to leave behind.
It was quite full that day, so I had to take whichever seat was free, but I spotted a few tables in the back of the room that seemed to have “Take out all your notebooks, your pens, and your laptop, it’s much better to work here than in that library!” written all over them.
So, here I am, sitting on one of those tables with an army of pens, a notebook and my laptop spread out in front of me, enjoying a Flat White and a Pain au Chocolat and writing this blog post. It might not be as quiet as the library, but the humming noise of people chatting and laughing is weirdly relaxing. The place is so alive, you almost feel it vibrate with stories.
And my nose feels comfortably warm.
I have the feeling that I will spend quite a lot of time here, sipping coffee (or tea) and writing stories. Or just procrastinating—it’s equally great for that.
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Originally posted in The Dreamy Squirrel
- Topics
- Coffee
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