Speciality coffee shops in Edinburgh I have visited

During lockdown, I had my heart set on the days I could go back to Edinburgh and do coffee crawls. Before lockdown, I was not interested in speciality coffee to the degree I am today, and so after lockdown eased I was able to go on my first coffee crawls. I have been visiting various shops around Edinburgh and realise that I am liable to lose track of the shops I have visited because there are so many I want to go to.

One of the items on my bucket list (which needs to be rewritten at some point) is to visit all of the speciality coffee shops in Edinburgh that I have made a mental note to visit. I want to be able to see exactly where I have been and I thought there would be no better way to achieve that than to write a blog post.

Without further ado, here is a list of all of the speciality coffee shops in Edinburgh I have visited:

• Cult Espresso (takeaway and sit in)
• Union Brew Lab (sit in)
• Cheapshot Coffee (takeaway)
• Artisan Roast Broughton (takeaway)
• Room and Rumours (takeaway)
• Lowdown Coffee (sit in and takeaway)
• Hideout Cafe (the one on the Royal Mile, sit in)
• Little Fitzroy (takeaway)
• Fortitude Coffee Stockbridge (takeaway)
• Machina Espresso (takeaway)
• The Milkman (the one at 52 Cockburn Street, takeaway)
• The Milkman (the one at 7 Cockburn Street, sit in)
• Gordon Street Coffee (sit in and takeaway)
• Cairngorm Coffee (Melville Place, sit in and takeaway)
• Black Medicine Coffee Co. (sit in)
• Fortuna Coffee Bar (sit in)
• Artisan Roast Stockbridge (sit in)
• Fortitude Coffee (York Place, sit in)
• Wellington Coffee (takeaway)

Here are the coffee shops I have visited outside of but near Edinburgh:

• Williams and Johnson, Leith (sit in)
• Brew Culture Coffee and Tea, South Queensferry (sit in)
• Steampunk Coffee, North Berwick (outdoors)

I had to refer to my Google Map to remember some of the names above. And I am still not finished. There are many speciality coffee shops I want to visit but have not yet done so. I can only drink about four cups of coffee in a day, maximum, so I am limited in how many shops I can explore each trip I take to Edinburgh. So this will be a multi-week challenge, but one that I am up to. I will be drinking a lot of coffee—what's not to love!

Why am I doing this? I want to explore the Edinburgh coffee scene. I want to meet coffee shop owners and baristas and have conversations. I want to see new cafes, their interiors, and how they serve coffee. I would like to see coffee prepared in professional shops. My journey is not just about checking names off a list: my list is my guide through the Edinburgh speciality coffee scence.