A love affair

Coffee connoisseur Adam Becket delves into the storied yet mysterious relationship between cycling and the original energy drink

As you read this, it is not unlikely that you have a coffee in hand. Ninety-eight million cups of the black - or brown, or white stuff are drunk in the UK every day. Tea might still hold the upper hand as Blighty's national beverage, but coffee is on the march, and has been for 400 years.

Your morning cafetiere or coffee-stop flat white might seem routine, but every time you add hot water to grounds and brew, you're joining in a history that stretches back a very long way.

In cycling, coffee is associated not just with taste but image too. As far back as the 1950s, during the long-drawn-out war between cycling's governing body in the UK, the National Cycling Union (NCU) and the upstart British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC) over the latter's desire to bring mass-start racing the UK, coffee was a signifier of cool. It's an episode told by Michael Hutchinson in his book Re-Cyclists: "It wasn't just the racing, it was cultural... The establishment riders and officials were from a black-and-white age; the Leaguers were, to be blunt, cool. They wore sunglasses, they had brightly coloured jerseys. They bought the French sports paper Miroir-Sprint if they could find it, whether they could read French or not, and looked at the pictures in coffee shops."

Coffee has always been a cool accoutrement in cycling, from the days of Coppi sipping espresso and Eddy Merckx riding for Faema, a team named after its Italian coffee machine brand sponsor. The ritual, the aroma, the sophistication - it all ties into the urge, in cycling, to look and feel European, Continental, cosmopolitan and modern. It seems odd, then, that France has a reputation for bad coffee. "It's ironic," agrees Will Corby, head of coffee at Pact Coffee, "that coffee in France is generally terrible. The connection feels culturally far more tied to Italy."