carriebrighton: an evening of coffee and chocolate

The other day, I was lucky enough to be invited along to a coffee tasting evening at the Ecostream Store in Brighton. If you haven't heard of them before, they are known as 'The Refill Store', as they do just that. You take your own containers in, and refill with the exact amount of product you need. They sell household necessities, such as washing liquids, detergents etc, and many cooking ingredients, including some gorgeous oils and vinegars, and more recently a selection of dry foods. The prices are great as you don't pay anything for the packaging, a bonus for the environment too! They have also recently started selling coffee beans, which they will grind in store for you to the correct consistency to match whatever coffee making apparatus you may use. Here I am, learning how to make the perfect cup using an espresso machine:

With that perfect espresso...

The store itself is bright and airy, and so neatly organised!

Holly from Chocoholly, a gorgeous hand made chocolate shop from just down the road was also in for the evening with some absolutely delicious samples! I tried some very tasty chocolate drops made from various percentages of pure cocoa, the 100% would be perfect for those days when chocolate cravings appear! Dairy free too, an added bonus! Ecostream stock some of the lovely chocolates in store, but I will also be popping down Western Road to check out the rest of Holly's selection.

The lovely people at Ecostream were so kind as to give me a goody bag to take away, with a beautiful glass bottle of olive oil (which I will definitely be taking back to refill once I've finished it!), Eco Washing liquid, very useful for messy student houses, the tastiest smelling soap you've ever smelt, in Italian Vanilla and Almond (my favourite!) and some Chocolate Sprouted Seed Bites, which I very quickly demolished as they were so tasty.

I will definitely be adding Ecostream into my regular weekly shop, all of their products seemed so nice and at very reasonable prices, with the added bonus of being kind to the environment too! Have any of you lovely Brighton dwellers been in yet? I'd recommend you give it a go!