Nominations have been received from cafes, restaurants, tea shops and new for this year have been entries from beverage carts – stationary coffee outlets in out of town retail centres.
As with the Michelin Guide, only anonymous trained assessors will provide accurate and impartial assessments of an outlet’s beverages and service. This process will begin this month with the second round of assessing in July.
After training, the BSA assessors visit and report on each outlet. Entries are not only assessed on the quality and presentation of drinks but also the ambience, hospitality, service, knowledge, cleanliness, hygiene, menu range and descriptions, disabled accessibility, training and sustainability procedures. All entries to the Awards receive feedback from the assessors’ report to help them develop their business.
The awards ceremony will take place in September when the winning outlets will receive their trophies, certificates and window stickers.
Martyn Herriott, executive director, BSA, said: “We are delighted at this response. When we opened the nominations in late January this year, we hoped to double the number of entries from 2012. We have exceeded this by a further 50%. The spread of entries is much wider than last year and we are pleased to see a dramatic increase in the number of entries from Scotland.
What’s more, 90% of Best Drinks Awards and Five Cup winners from 2011 and 2012 have re-entered this year.”
Sponsors for this year’s Awards are 3M Water Filtration, Kimbo UK, Jaguar Espresso Systems, Taylors of Harrogate and The Kokoa Collection.