Coffee at Canakin, Reigate
Have you ever thought about creating exactly the coffee shop you want to drink in? Well that is exactly what Lee Simmons has done and the result is the latest addition to Reigate’s coffee offering, the truly delightful Canakin.
Tucked up at the west end of Reigate High Street, Canakin’s clean, white aesthetic offers something very different to the town’s other coffee shops, which was rather the point. “I wanted to create a coffee shop that I could go to because I couldn’t find one which was quite what I was looking for,” Lee says. “So I created one where I wanted to go.”
Canakin’s focus is on seriously good coffee; it’s showpiece is a “proper flat white”, which Lee discovered in Australia and sought out in the UK.
I’ll let him explain what it is.
“It’s a double shot of espresso and then the milk is microfoam,” Lee says. “That means it is not cotton-woolly foam, it’s a fine textured foam so when you drink the coffee the foam stay intact throughout the entire drink. It doesn’t separate. You don’t get coffee and foam on top, it stays consistent all the way through.”
Lee has a well-trained team of barista’s who make each cup to the same high level and customers are pleased with the result. Since opening at the end of the summer, Canakin has created a buzz for great coffee and equally great pastries.
That latter fact should come as little surprise. Lee has trained at the Cordon Bleu and formerly ran an online baking business called Macarons by Lee.
Canakin, naturally, offers macarons in a range of flavours, alongside some truly incredible cinnamon buns and a range of pastries which seems to grow every day.
The coffee itself is made from beans by Origin, who Lee calls the “full package” of enthusiasm, knowledge and personality, and the black and dairy free offerings more than stand up alongside the headlining flat white.
For all the latest news on sweet and baked treats you can keep an eye on their Instagram page (which is a #foodporn dream), but to get your hands on a true flat white – and a scrumptious cinnamon bun – get yourself across to Canakin.
