Coffee in Bath – The forum
This blog is in danger of becoming a tour of the UK’s independent coffee shops that sell Almond Milk lattes! But again, just after Christmas, we found ourselves in a city centre frantically searching Google for places to get a suitable hot drink.
The city, this time, Bath. Our home for about 4 years when my wife and I first lived together after University. A beautiful city with fond memories even if, on reflection, we were both pushed pretty hard by our work back then and struggling to integrate ourselves into the social networks of a new area. Our first flat was very much a ‘first flat’, with eye-level views of the passengers on the open top buses keenly looking in on us eating our breakfast, the constant sirens of the ambulance depot just round the corner on our main road, and the bizarre middle of the night noises that emanated from the artist’s flat above. Said artist once woke us in the middle of the night by painting with rollers on her floor (our ceiling) and also threw a teapot through her window (we heard both the smash of the window pane and the smash on the pavement). A lovely flat.
Our second flat was a gorgeous basement flat in a tall Georgian stone house, set back from the main road. I liked that flat a lot and enjoyed the 3+ years that we lived there. It was only really work pressures and the need for a change that led us to relocate to Gerrards Cross back in 2011.
Anyway, back to the present day… A quick search for coffee shops threw up The Forum. An entertainment venue that we knew of from the days we lived there, but not somewhere I’d ever been to. Originally an Art Deco cinema, it has been through various guises before falling into a state of disrepair and eventually being done up by the church and made into an entertainment venue for live music, performances and church events. However that all went over our heads (literally) as we were down below in the coffee shop.
The coffee shop was exactly what we were after. Somewhere open, light, spacious and not too busy so that we could sit reading, writing blog posts, planning and chatting without feeling guilty that someone was desperate to jump into our seats. We found a table, dumped our shopping and I went up to the counter to see what our milk options were. Cow’s milk, soya milk, oat milk, coconut milk (no luck so far) and… almond milk (bingo). So one decaf almond milk latte and one almond milk flat white and just a pang of sadness that Piglet wasn’t with us to savour an almond milk babyccino.
The coffees were fantastic although the almond milk was quite sweet so I wish I’d tried it before adding sugar. As is always the case with a good flat white, it was gone much quicker than I’d hoped and I had to watch my wife slowly finish her latte – wishing I could have another but knowing that I didn’t need that much caffeine. After a good hour of reflecting on 2018 and looking forward to 2019 we headed back to my parents to hear how Piglet had gotten on with Zog and Hendrix (A Julia Donaldson character and ditsy cat respectively). If we lived any nearer to Bath, we’d be coming back to the Forum very soon.