“Cafe Treff Ambleside Review”

There are three things in Ambleside Cumbria, tonnes of shops with a fetish for Gortex, cafés filled with ice cream lickers & day trippers plus lots of rain.

And when it rains and rain it shall you’ll most likely end up sitting in one of the many cafés if you want to avoid buying a Gortex jacket with a price tag of a one week holiday in Spain.

I found my self in one such café after our AA 30 Walks in The Lake District got us lost somewhere up Loughrigg (Note to self: must learn how to use a compass)

The café in question was “Café Treff”. When me and girlfriend Zil entered the Café the decor was very pine & with the windows steamed up from wet walking gear it looked like a Sauna for hill walkers who did’nt like to take their clothes off.

Managing to dodge the walking poles we shimmied are way to a cosy table for two and grabbed a coffee menu that straight away told me these guys knew their coffee but did they know their latte art?

Walking up to the counter there’s a buzz of  pretty baristas, the hissing of steam and the sweet scent of fresh coffee. I’m asked v promply what I’d like, the gauntlet was dropped i throw the curved ball. “I’d like a cappuccino with a bit of latte art”. “No problem” the barista replies. Impressive i thought not only
does this caf serve up a serious coffee speciality range they appear to be purveyors of latte art but we shall see.

A short wait later my cappuccino & Zils latte was served up accompanied by black chocolate wafers and yes 50% latte art. I say 50% latte art as the Rosetta pattern wasn’t a complete shape but a valiant attempt from a Barista in training.

So if you want to pick a café with a broad speciality coffee menu, switched on staff and no sales sight of a sales man trying to justifty a £300 jacket price tag head for Café Treff Address: Rydal Road, Ambleside, Cumbria, LA22 
Telephone: 0871 963 2333 

Whoops I nearly forgot, they do food as well :-)

“rent espresso machines” - serve coffee with latte art!

“Who’s the king of latte art in York?”

Why does my office constantly eat cake?
“Uk office culture recruits candidates for fat camp”

You’ve heard the old adage out of site out of mind well in my line of sight right now, more eye catching than a baboons bum I can see a tin of Quality Street and some left over cakes from Thursdays sales meeting. I’ve missed breakfast and the chocolates begin to chant… “go on eat me just one,  you’ll burn the calories off in Salsa tonight.” I try to it out but the voices just get louder. Before I know it I’ve got cream cake voices in my head and choc treats all wanting me to give in to there short lived pleasure promise.

Determined to lose weight I have a running battle everyday in the office to resist sweet treats and sugar highs. I sometimes think I should wear an eye mask to block out the siren calls of sweet temptation but that would be no good every Friday the sweety van as it’s termed  turns up in the office car park, announcing his arrival with short horn blasts, morse code for “drop what your doing now I’ve got something that will make you feel better”. The horn blasts they all scamper like a pack of Pavlov dogs to their preferred owner.

It’s my strong conviction that health messages have not permeated the walls of UK offices, well not the one I work in.  Yes we get bombarded with how to eat healthy at home messages but what about the workplace?

And when are colleagues going to stop bringing in cakes for their birthday, bringing in cakes because there having a bad day, bringing in cakes because they don’t want them in the home.

Not so long back office workers could light up a cigarette at there desk with few scruples, then we got educated about the dangers of passive smoking got the message and smoked outside. When is  the same evolution of thought going to migrate into offices and colleagues over cakes and chocolate? Or will it need government intervention. Perhaps the Health and Safety Exec should protect office workers health and take an equally dim view to a chocolate office vending machine vis a vis a trip hazard.

In Dec last year I decided to loose weight i did all the right things, ate less but more healthy, trained purely on cardiovascular programmes. Yes my weight loss hit a  plateau.

Now I’m a big office coffee drinker. Then one day I asked the office coffee machine man what the whitener was. He replied karimer whitener and showed me the packet which boasted a “Luxurious, rich, creamy topping experience”. Yikkes!! I drink 6 of these a day , no wonder my weight loss has hit a plateau.

Neeless to say I only drink black coffee. But shouldn’t office coffee machines declare calorie content? Our office coffee machines don’t. Maybe I should get on Dragons Den and pitch the idea.

Any way I can hear the sound of the sweety mans horn beeping and I’m starting to salivate which is making my keyboard slippy. But maybe its time office workers conditioned to sooth the rough and tumble of the daily grind with sugar fixes need government help. On the 1^st July 2007 it became illegal to smoke in enclosed workplaces in England. Perhaps now they should tackle healthy eating in the workplace and aim to ban chocolate vending machines. If they were victorious it would undoubtedly be a bitter pill to swallow but one that would be better for the office workers health.

More articles »> “Uk offices more unhealthy than a greasy Kebab?”

Before you introduce an office coffee machine make sure
it fits.
“Some questions you will need to ask”

You’ve visited the coffee machine company’s website, you’ve got the brochure and you’ve decided which coffee machine you want. Soon the sales rep visits and helps you decide which machine will do the job. You decide you want a plumbed in coffee machine, everyone’s too busy to be filling the machine up every five minutes you need it to have a constant supply of fresh water.

You sign the contract and within a week a man with a van turns up to fit it.
You show him where you want it set up when you sense there maybe a problem. The man with a van nods his head in disappointment.

“Problem I’m afraid. The water supply is more than one meter away you will have to get a plumber in to sort that out.”

Yes this is what can happen if a site survey has not been conducted by the company supplying you with the coffee machine. Site survey is industry speak for making sure the power supply, water supply and the surface it sits on all meet specific criteria. If any of these specifications fall short the coffee machine will either get returned to sender or sit dormant.

For example if you go for a vision 400 office coffee machine it has to be situated 1 metre away from a drinking water supply and 1 metre away from a power supply.

So if you decide to get an office coffee machine congratulations it will be a lot cheaper than going off site to the nearest café but make sure the site survey is conducted and in the words of Elvis Presley’s 1962 hit its not returned to sender.
pauserefreshment.com supplying office coffee machines that fit since
2007.

Got a thirst for more office coffee machine shenanigans? Check out office coffee machine madness ;-)

Office coffee machine shenanigans ;-)