Sensible people navigate cities by maps. I navigate them by the character of coffee. It’s a wholly unreliable method. Then again, in my hands, so are maps.

Once you have settled on coffee as a compass, the difficulty lies in deciding where to go. In Norwich, Strangers Coffee presents itself as an obvious choice. The coffee is precise, almost studied, and the window offers a steady procession of passersby, each briefly suggestive of a story. On a sunny day, the succulents on the sill cast shifting shadows on your notepad, dark as spilt ink, while behind you, the espresso machine keeps time – hiss, tamp, hiss – a metronome for sentences that do not always arrive. After a Kenyan espresso (acidic, deep into your gums) and a Colombian (warmer, more forgiving) my notepad remained mostly flat white.

Opening skirmish: Coffees 2 – Sentences 0

Do you pick aroma as your destination, or a spot where you get your best writing done? This is the writer’s perennial conundrum. And is there such a thing as a blend that works?

The Merchant’s House certainly comes close. Claim the red velvet armchair by the counter, if you can, where a black card with a hand-drawn sun informs you that Ray arrives at 10:30 and will depart at 1. In those two and a half hours, sentences are nearly guaranteed to appear. The hitch is that other writers convene here too. It’s easy to lapse into long conversations with them while Ray quietly sees himself out. And though the staff are exceptionally friendly, the agreeable macchiatos arrive with foam that subsides apologetically before your first sip.

Half-time score: Coffees 4 – Sentences 5 (two of them someone else’s)

The daily question of where to go becomes, soon enough, the day itself. You start with purpose: you will write today, you will choose wisely, you will not spend one hour browsing reviews and doomscrolling picture galleries. Inevitably, you still do exactly that. By the time you sit down, so has the morning.

Alchemista thus enters as an afternoon choice, which is to say, one already half-surrendered. But their window overlooks a former church, now an antiques store, which bodes well. The menu leans into alchemy – potions, tinctures, a pharmacy of elixirs – and my medicine arrives with espresso, bourbon, cold brew and orange bitters … served in a plastic skull. This robs the gesture of its weight, while the bitters arrive a beat too late. I prefer science, I decide – and succulents on the window sill. There are none here. The bustle outside has nothing to soften it: a missed opportunity. I write none of this down.

On the hour: Coffees 5 – Sentences 5

Earlier this week someone told me (over coffee, evidently) that Norwich’s infatuation with the bean began in earnest during Covid, implausibly late for a city that has always been steeped in something: stories, rain, the drift of the Wensum. Coffee got there in the end, but took its time, as writers do. They do much the same thing: loitering with a purpose. The pen and the bean were always going to get along.

They do at the darling Attic Brew, where a barbershop occupies the upstairs premises and the swan atop the latte has the clippers’ precision. CoffeeBike, a bicycle with an espresso machine strapped to it, is hard to write at but the earthy americano rewards the attempt. And then there is Bread Source at the Refectory. Monks once spent weeks here labouring over a single page. I manage a paragraph, spurred on by a suitably intense cortado, and one cinnamon bun too many.

Final whistle: Coffees 8 – Sentences 9, at the death

In Norwich the coffee trail does not lead to a conclusion. It loops, lingers, doubles back. It asks you to sit a while, to taste carefully, and perhaps, if you please, to write something down.

You finish the sentence. Or you won’t.

You finish the cup.

And if you don’t, there is always another.