The first La Marzocco Strada in France

Two weeks, one café in Paris, one long walk across London, and a brewer that most people give up on because they rush it. Nothing here needs a reservation. Some of it needs comfortable shoes.

One café: Coutume, rue de Babylone, Paris

Coutume got the first La Marzocco Strada in France. That machine sits in a laboratory-style room on rue de Babylone in the quiet 7th, next to a V60, a siphon and a cold extraction tower, which tells you how the place thinks about coffee: one bar, several methods, no house style imposed on the bean.

It opened in 2011 and helped reset what Parisian coffee could be. Co-founder Antoine Netien took Meilleur Torrefacteur de France in the café's first year. Everything is single origin, roasted in the Ile-de-France region.

Go when you have an hour. Order an espresso first, then ask for the same coffee as a siphon and drink them side by side. There is pastry, there is room to sit, and the neighbourhood is quiet enough that you will actually taste the difference.

[See Coutume Cafe](https://remembrew.com/cafes/coutume-cafe-paris)

One city: London, west to east, on foot

Start at Monmouth Coffee on Monmouth Street in Covent Garden. It has been there since 1978, roasting single origins bought direct from farms. There is no Wi-Fi by design and there will be a queue at the weekend. Take a filter to the bench and go early.

Walk to Leather Lane for Prufrock, founded by World Barista Championship finalist Gwilym Davies. It is a training academy as much as a café, so this is the stop for espresso and a proper lunch. Then east to Nagare on Brushfield Street, inside a Georgian building from 1790. The guest roaster list rotates across the UK and Asia. Order the Pearl 40, jasmine and espresso.

If you have the afternoon, continue to Batch Baby in the brutalist Rose Lipman Building on De Beauvoir Road, where batch brew is taken as seriously as a slow pour-over. Origin anchors the bar, European guests fill the rest. Finish at Dark Arts on Rosina Street in Homerton for something fruit-forward and ferment-led, but check the day first: they close early afternoon on weekdays.

Holloway is a separate trip. Vagabond N7 is roaster-agnostic, so ask what is pouring and why.

[All 50 in London](https://remembrew.com/cities/london)

One thing to try: Give the Chemex its full five minutes

Most Chemex brews taste thin because they finish in three minutes on a grind meant for a V60. Go medium, and aim for a total time of five minutes for two to three cups.

Use 1:16. Sixty grams of coffee to 960 grams of water for a full carafe, or thirty to 480 for a smaller one. Bloom, then pour in slow, steady stages and let the bed drain most of the way before adding more.

If you land at four minutes, grind one step finer next time. Clean, sweet, and enough of it to pour a second cup.

[The Chemex guide](https://remembrew.com/brew/chemex)

If you make the London walk, log each cup as you go. Reading them back in order is the best part.

Povilas