I use to be a huge fan of Star Wars and am old enough such that I was truly wowed by the original Trilogy, which still hold up very well in this CGI age. A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back (the latter one of the best sequels ever made, along with the Godfather II, to my mind) were cracking films, whereas Return of the Jedi felt a bit meh at the time (bloody teddies in it, although Princess Leia’s gold number did kinda compensate as I was in my teens at the time), but now seems like a absolute cast iron masterpiece compared to the current garbage Disney spews out.

Out of more recent (Disney you have alot to answer for) slop pumped out at an alarming (failure) rate I thought Rogue One (amazingly now 10 years old), Andor and (at a push) the first series of the Mandalorian were passable (actually really liked Rogue One, as I do love a unhappy ending, granted there were flaws in it with me recalling an idiotic plot obstacle in the form of a malfunctioning hatch towards the end which could have been straight out of Galaxy Quest), with the Mandalorian (for a while, at least) bringing into the common vernacular the phrase “This is the way“.

Now I love a cringe blog post title and Sway (a rather swish coffee shop in Canton) granted me the opportunity to be a bit of a “helmet” (well more so than normal) and roll out a “Mando” related one. My visit coincided (vaguely) time wise with the inevitable slide into VOD (on Disney+ from 2nd Sept apparently) of “The Mandaloran and Grogu” (an exceedingly long toy advert so far as I can tell and based on the Box Office numbers oh boy do they need to sell a lot of little Grogu toys to merely break even), which looks about as much fun to watch as being slowly digested in the stomach of a sarlacc.

To sweeten the bitter paid parking pill (see my Hardlines post), I did a bit of shopping in Canton too before my sojourn to Sway (this place is in Canton not Pontcanna, in my book, unless the west side of Lower King’s Road operates as a Kaliningrad or Cabinda-esque enclave of or Wakhan Corridor/Oklahoma Panhandle extension to Pontcanna).  Said shopping was, of course, food with me picking up steaks order online from Oriel Jones (who have a new online shop, so I can order in advance and pick up at my leisure, subject to running there and back to not go over the free parking time cap).

In terms of coffee, I always think there are plenty of synergies between it and my great love beverage wise in the form of  wine.  Aromas and taste in both are coloured by the terroir (soil, location, topography) and processing methods. When tasting certain red wines I often get espresso and mocha notes and conversely when I taste coffee I often get fruity berry notes that I find in wines. An interesting fact (well at least to me) is the coffee aromas wheel in based on the orginal wine one.

It is also fair to say that both are highly attractive to those of us who are a bit geeky/on the spectrum in nature and who like a real deep dive into the mechanic of it all. Wine appreciation is famously geeky, with the members of the Cardiff Wine Buyer’s Club being Exhibit A M’lud, but I think the real coffee lover brigade actually step it up another gear or two. Both are also a paradise for those of us who love a gadget (again coffee significantly ups the ante, over wine, gadget wise)!!!

If you don’t believe me as to the astonishing levels of coffee geekery just take a look at this YouTube vid!!

https://youtube.com/shorts/IztEz0VVlII?is=CmuhIVseJskJRgzE

All that effort and kit and then…..!

It is, therefore, no surprise that there is a huge cross over between the two, with hipsters/dipshitsters (regrettably) prevalent in both fields.

I love both, coffee and wine that is (certainly not hipsters), but I am still a relative novice regarding proper coffee appreciation. As a result I spend about a 100 x less on coffee than wine.

This bring me back to Sway, which seems to me to be pretty much coffee geek heaven!

It has quite a swish interior

and they even have a nice back garden area if the weather is clement (we have been rather blessed or cursed with good summer weather depending on your view point).

The coffee menu (in line with my intro) rather reminded me of a wine list

with tasting notes et al.

As it was quite a hot day, although we are seemingly back to standard UK Summer weather so can moan about that now, I decided to go for something cold first from their rather interesting “Signature Drinks” section.

Both the Tea – nage dirt bag (lols – one I would have been  proud to have come up with that) and the Summer Cup 2026 appealed, but as my diet tends to lack fruit the Summer Cup (£6.50) seemed a good option to help keep scurvy at bay (virtually no Vitamin C in wine regrettable).

I was rather drawn to the grape connection here despite having no idea what grape cofermented cold brew meant (seems, according to Google, that it is a process where coffee cherries are fermented in a tank with wine yeast and real grapes or fruit extracts, with the result apparently being that the brewed coffee is given a strong flavor of sweet grape candy, berry punch, and fizzy soda – who knew!!).

Regardless of the seeming descent into ever greater coffee geekdom this represented, I rather enjoyed it as a very refreshing (much needed) soft drink. What I would regard as a very adult booze free soda (vimto for grown ups). I happily downed it despite the handicap of a shxte paper straw

which was next to useless as a conveyance of the liquid from the glass to the gob (with actually dubious environmental benefits, so scrub the polar bears and the vaquita), let alone for fishing out the fruit and veg which I didn’t want to waste due to the need for precious vitamin C. I thus resorted to using my fingers (Mrs. SF was not there to tell me off).

I know plastic straws are regarded about as favourably in a drink as polonium 210, but based on how shxte at their job the paper ones are maybe just maybe we could dispense with the whole straw thing altogether and go back to drinking this sort of stuff directly from the glass like we do with 99% of drinks (I mean who uses straws at home). Maybe I should do a straw poll?

Next up, I wanted a cortado (king of coffees), but which bean? The staff are very helpful and after a chat (and me getting fully technical by indicating I didn’t want anything “too chocolaty“) I decided on the rather intriguing El Parasio Tabi from Columbia.

It was a pretty little cup

with the coffee having a lovely, almost velvety, texture that coated the mouth.

Taste wise I am not sure I got the referred to lemonade or blackcurrant, but the last Mystere Wine Club (blind) tasting showed how very jaded my palate seems to be so no surprise there. I actually found it rather nutty with hazelnut and dare I say it had an almost peanut butteriness to it, which was not at all unpleasant, with a touch of tempering citrus (lime) acidity.

It was a very nice cup of coffee, regardless.

They don’t really do food per se (can go next door to Ogof for seriously good food), but they do do cookies.

I rather like a biscuit, so went for the chocolate chip (not the white one – hate white chocolate as it isn’t chocolate at all in my book and usually sickly sweet shxte) number.

Not sure how much the heat was a factor but is was nicely gooey (as a cookie should be), despite it being quite thin and it was (thankfully) not too sweet. I think it was £3.50. Nice cookie, I thought.

The verdict

The cortado I had a Sway was one of the nicest cups of coffee I have had in a long while. The summer cup was very pleasant too and perfect to counter the heat at the time.

It ain’t cheap, but as with wine you pays your money and takes your choice. Give me a somewhat pricey coffee from Sway over the acrid shxte (tastes like the contents of a ciggie butt filled ashtray, which has been set on fire and then had the flames doused by a downpour and don’t get me started on the pumpkin spiced bollocks) you get from the likes of Starbucks any day of the week.

It is certainly a new (s)way for me to appreciate good coffee.

I must now try and resist a (ADHD linked – but is it according to C4 so maybe I am just, actually what most people think when they first meet me, ODD) coffee obsession developing as can’t be spending money on coffee and wine and tinned fish (the latter the current, but probably short lived, pricey obsession)!!!

The details

Address:  13 Kings Road, Canton (definitely Canton in my book), Cardiff, CF11 9BZ

Website: They don’t have one so far as I can tell but they are on Instagramaaaaaaazing (in case you were wondering about Insta coffee  “Honestly, I’m not going to lie, this gonna go viral for sure drink is absolutely banging, the best thing evah and literally to die for, just insanely good, they call it Gold (certainly is) Blend I think – ad” ) at :

https://www.instagram.com/sway.cdf?igsh=MmVlYXA2bHZqZGx5

Opening hours: