Category Archives: Festivals/Awards

Previews and reviews of Coffee Festivals and/or Awards

World of Coffee 2016: The Kit

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A beautiful flat white, with latte art by Dhan Tamang, the reigning UK Latte Art Champion, made at the World of Coffee 2016 using the Conti Espresso 60th Anniversary espresso machine.I can’t believe it’s only been two weeks since I was in Dublin, attending the World of Coffee Event. As I pointed out in my round-up last week, I’d never been to World of Coffee before, so I didn’t know what to expect. As it turned out, I really liked it. A cross between the London Coffee Festival and Caffè Culture, it incorporated the best of both events and, as is always the case, there was far too much to for me to see, even though I was there on all three days.

I spent a lot of my time at The Village, catching up with various European roasters, which I’ll cover in detail next week. The rest of the time, when I wasn’t bumping into people I knew, I had a look at some of the kit on offer, which is what I’ll talk about this week.

The automatic filter coffee crowd was out in force, but having spent a lot of time with them at the London Coffee Festival, I gave them a miss this time around. Instead, I caught up with a couple of espresso machine manufacturers and a manual method that was new to me.

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World of Coffee 2016: Round-up

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A beautiful flat white, with latte art by Dhan Tamang, the reigning UK Latte Art Champion, made at the World of Coffee 2016 using the Conti Espresso 60th Anniversary espresso machine.This time last week, I was at the final day of three at the World of Coffee Event in Dublin. I’d never been to World of Coffee before, although I’d toyed with going in previous years.  In 2014 it was in Rimini and last year, Gothenburg was the host. In both cases, they fell in the middle of busy summers: last year, for example, I was in Portland on the final leg of my coast-to-coast trans-USA trip. This year, it at least fell on dates that I could attend.

With my new, flexible job (I don’t need to been in an office on a day-to-day basis) going was a distinct possibility, so I took the World of Coffee being (practically) on my doorstep as a sign. I booked my ticket, my Ryan Air flight, and an Airbnb (I managed to find one 10 minutes’ walk from the venue) and off I went.

Although I was there for all three days, for various reasons, including work commitments, and a desire to see something of Dublin’s coffee scene, I only managed three half-days at World of Coffee itself. However, that was enough to get a feel for what was going on.

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Caffè Culture 2016: Meet the Roasters

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The Caffe Culture Show logo from this yearIt’s very much the season for shows/festivals. April saw the London Coffee Festival, while I’m writing this during the World of Coffee in Dublin. However, today’s Saturday Supplement is all about last month’s Caffè Culture show. I’ve already covered the Caffè Culture Awards, where I was judging the Best Drink Award. However, in between my judging duties, I did have time for a (brief) look around the show.

Caffè Culture’s a different beast from the London Coffee Festival: for starters, it’s trade only, so tends to have a more relaxed atmosphere, particularly compared to the Saturday/Sunday at the Festival, where people are in and out within three hours. Of course, the exhibitors are also different, with an emphasis on the café trade as a whole, not just speciality coffee.

That said, Caffè Culture has made a definite effort in the last two years to embrace the speciality end of the market, providing a platform for small roasters to exhibit their wares. This, it turned out, was the ideal opportunity to catch up with some people I’d missed at the London Coffee Festival, as well as meeting a few that I’d not come across before. And, of course, there was cake.

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London Coffee Festival 2016: Coffee

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The London Coffee Festival LogoWelcome to this, the final one of my write-ups from this year’s London Coffee Festival. Previously I’ve written about automatic filter machines, cups, various bits of kit and my coffee experiences, while there’s also my round-up, which provides an overview of the whole festival. For this, the final instalment, it’s the turn of the coffee, arguably what the London Coffee Festival is all about!

As was the case in previous years, I could have spent all four days of the Festival visiting roasters old and new and I still wouldn’t have got around them all. So, with apologies to all the wonderful roasters I failed to visit, here’s a round-up of some of the highlights, coffee-wise, from this year’s festival. I’ll start off with Old Friends, roasters well-known to the Coffee Spot, before moving onto a new addition this year, the Roasters Village. Finally, I’ll take a look at some new roasting friends that I made at the festival, including a very surprising one that featured Bourbon…

However, coffee-bloggers cannot live on coffee alone, so I’ll finish things off with a look at the wonderful food that was on offer at this year’s much-expanded White Label Kitchen (and elsewhere!).

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London Coffee Festival 2016: Coffee Experiences

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Square Mile's The Canteen from the 2016 London Coffee FestivalWelcome back to my write-ups of this year’s London Coffee Festival. After a couple of weeks off, while I went to the Caffè Culture Show and unexpectedly discovered some specialty coffee shops in Porto, we’re back at the London Coffee Festival with my series looking at the specific aspects of the festival. In previous weeks I’ve written about automatic filter machines, cups and various bits of kit, while there’s also my round-up, which provides an overview of the whole festival. I’ll round things off next week with a look at the coffee itself.

This week it’s the turn of what I call my “coffee experiences”, which proved to be a highlight of last year’s festival, particularly the La Cimbali Sensory Sessions. By coffee experiences, I mean the things that go around the coffee itself. For example, coffee cuppings, roasting demos, coffee/food pairings and latte art lessons, all of which I managed to miss this year!

Instead I went to a couple of fascinating events organised by Square Mile and Union Hand-roasted. Square Mile’s offering, The Canteen, was an exploration of taste through various food-stuffs made from coffee or coffee waste products, while Union offered a variation on the traditional cupping.

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Caffè Culture Awards 2016

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The Caffe Culture Show logo from this yearOn Tuesday (10th May) I made my annual pilgrimage to London’s Olympia for the Caffè Culture show the four year running that I’ve been to Caffè Culture and the second time that I’d been asked to judge the Caffè Culture Exhibitor Best Drink Award.  Prior to the show, this involved me whittling a list of 13 entries down to a shortlist of five. Then, on the first day of the show, I visited the stands of the five shortlisted exhibitors to try each of the drinks before selecting the winner. Just as I did last year, I had a fantastic time at meeting all the exhibitors, discovering the stories behind their products and trying the drinks themselves. Then, of course, came the tricky part: deciding on the actual winner.

I also had a chance to have a quick look around the show, which was an opportunity to catch up with some of the roasters I’d missed at this year’s London Coffee Festival, plus to catch up with a few that I’d not come across before. These feature in their very own Caffè Culture Meet the Roasters instalment of the Saturday Supplement. For now, however, let’s get back to the Awards.

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London Coffee Festival 2016: The Kit

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My surprise favourite bit of kit at this year's London Coffee Festival, the Marco Beverage Systems Bean Counter, doing what it does best (and indeed all it does), count (well, weigh) beans.Welcome to the third of my detailed write-ups of this year’s London Coffee Festival (if you want an overview of the whole festival, take a look at my round-up). Here I cover individual aspects of the festival, starting with some automatic filter machines and continuing with last week’s look at cups. This week I’ll be casting my eye over some of the other kit I found, before covering, in future Saturday Supplements, my coffee experiences and the coffee itself.

I’ve already looked at one specific aspect of the kit, the surprising proliferation of automated filter/pour-over machines, which I covered two weeks ago. This time it’s a round-up of various miscellaneous bits of kit that I came across, starting with my surprise favourite, the automated bean-counting machine. Another area which particularly excites me, as a coffee shop customer, is the emergence of the modular espresso system, typified by the Mavam, which made its London Coffee Festival debut this year. Finally, I take a look at top-end grinders which are making espresso extraction ever more reliable. In this instance, it’s the Mahlkönig Peak, which was launched the festival.

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London Coffee Festival 2016: The Cups

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The Kaffeeform cup, made from recycled coffee grounds, in action at the London Coffee FestivalWelcome to the second of my detailed write-ups of this year’s London Coffee Festival (if you want an overview of the whole festival, take a look at my round-up). Here I cover individual aspects of the festival, starting with last week’s look at automatic filter machines. This week I’ll be taking a look at cups, before covering, in future Saturday Supplements, miscellaneous coffee kit, my coffee experiences and rounding things off with the coffee itself.

In previous years, my posts on cups at the London Coffee Festival proved surprisingly popular. This year, however, cups were somewhat thin on the ground, with the familiar (to me, at least) JOCO Cup, UPPERCUP and Frank Green all missing. KeepCup was there, but since I managed to go a whole year with destroying either of my glass KeepCups, for once I didn’t need to visit the stand.

However, if you looked, there were still some cups to be found, including those made from interesting materials (porcelain, bamboo and recycled coffee grounds), while one was claiming to be totally spill-proof (although I managed to get it to spill…). I also saw the all-in-one portable coffee maker, Cafflano, and its new product, the Kompact.

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London Coffee Festival 2016: Automatic Filter Machines

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The Ratio Eight automatic pour-over brewer in action at the London Coffee Festival 2016Welcome to the first of my detailed write-ups of this year’s London Coffee Festival. If you want to know what I made of the festival as a whole, take a look at my round-up. Here I’ll be covering individual aspects of the festival, such as the cups, coffee kit, my coffee experiences and the coffee itself. However, I’m going to kick things off with a look at something that really surprised me with their abundance at the festival this year: automated filter machines.

There have, of course, always been automated filter coffee machines, ranging for your simple drip-machine at home, all the way up to the large bulk-brewers found in coffee shops. However, they generally don’t make great coffee. Things started to change with the Moccamaster, an automated filter machine that many speciality coffee shops use to make small batch-brews.

Then, a couple of years ago, Alpha Dominche burst onto the scene with the Steampunk, a machine designed to make a single cup of filter coffee as good as any barista could make a V60, Chemex or Aeropress. And that, it seemed was that, until this year, when the London Coffee Festival appeared to be overrun with automated filter machines!

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London Coffee Festival 2016: Round-up

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The London Coffee Festival LogoAnother year, another London Coffee Festival come and gone. This time last week I was right in the thick of it, just about to throw myself into the third of four days of this year’s London Coffee Festival. Yes, that’s right, this year, for the first time ever, I attended all four days, both industry days on Thursday and Friday, and the two consumer days on Saturday and Sunday.

Just as for previous years’ festivals, I’ll be writing a series of themed Saturday Supplements, each covering a different aspect of the festival. Today’s Saturday Supplement is a general round-up, including what I made of the festival, the highs and lows, and what differed from last year. The remainder in the series, to be published over the coming weeks, will cover automated filter machines, cups, coffee kit, my coffee experiences and the coffee itself.

Something that I’ve noticed is that the organisers of the London Coffee Festival do seem to learn from experience and listen to feedback. Several issues from previous years have been addressed and while the festival is not perfect, it keeps on going from strength-to-strength as it continues to grow. This year, with over 30,000 visitors, was easily the biggest so far.

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