For the next stage of the journey, we flew to London via Frankfurt and arrived in London feeling pretty smashed and dreaming of the simple Tonsai life.I stayed with Joel who worked with me at Alley Break, who lived in an area named Bethnal Green, a bit like Surry Hills or Newtown. Thankfully this is also the area where all the good espresso bars are, so I didn't have to travel far at all. Famous "Brick Lane" was 5 minutes walk from Joel's place as well.

My first day we went to the bar of last year's world barista champion Gwillym Davies to drink coffee from the lever machine that he won in the comp. Really lovely guy, and super psyched about coffee and talking/sharing opinions... I spent a few hours there chatting with him one morning. Very cool. We also went to Penny University, another coffee shop/concept store with no espresso machine, just siphon brewers and drip filters. No milk or sugar… It was really interesting to check out the coffee scene in London, as the way they serve espresso and the cafe culture was quite different to what I had expected.

Reubs wasn't so lucky with where he was staying- his mates lived about an hour to the south and he had to travel to come and see the coffee shops and hang out. As we had a few nights in London, one night we went to a Bangladeshi restaurant that Tanvir had organised for us to go to which was really, really good.

The days were spent cruising around and drinking coffee mostly, and I'm ashamed to say that I did zero sightseeing in London, but I'm sure I'll go back. So not too much to report from London to be honest! It was nice not to run around too much, especially after the relaxation of Tonsai. We continued in that vein… Expensive place for sure, even with the aussie dollar being so strong. I was happy to leave and stop burning through cash!