Londons East was filled with caffeinated people last weekend. The London Coffee Festival 2018 was once again a huge hit! The coffee industry gathered at the Old Truman Brewery for four days of coffee filled action. Visitors to the festival were spoilt with all that is coffee and more. From The True Artisian Cafe, to The Roasters Village, The Lab, the Home Barista Workshop to Latte Art demonstration and the Coffee Masters. It really doesn’t get any bigger than this in Europe.
This year I was invited by Coffee Culture, Dublin to attend the Friday 13th session. The La Marzocco Kitchen would be our home for the day as we carried out Home Barista Workshops. These workshops were purchased as part of a donation supporting Project Waterfall. These 30 minute home barista sessions covered 3 key areas. The espresso recipe and extraction, milk foaming and basics of latte art. We were fortunate to be using the beautiful, exceptional and cute La Marzocco Linea Mini. I worked closely with Trainer, Trish Ferguson, from Coffee Culture on the espresso recipe for the day – 18 grams of ground coffee, to 36 grams of extracted coffee with extraction time around 28 seconds. For one who doesn’t usually follow recipes exactly to details, I knew it was best to stick to instructions from Trish. We wanted to make sure our visitors left with some additional coffee knowledge and a smile. Hour after hour we trained our enthusiastic home baristas. From those with basic knowledge, to those that have never used a grinder or coffee machine. I lost count of the amount of espressos that we made but it was definitely over 50. Milk foaming and the first latte art attempts bought out the creativity in our home baristas of the day. There were we few nice hearts and even a potato or two.. or was it an apple. It was a great way to engage with coffee drinker and share coffee knowledge and insights.
What were some of the highlights for me at this years festival? With this being the my third visit, I was again overwhelmed with all there is to see and do. Visiting Carvan was definitely a highlight for me. The espresso I had was amazing. I also got a chance to pick up their limited edition The Niners box. This limited-edition box contains the 9 coffees used at this year’s Coffee Masters competition held at the London Coffee Festival. I also was excited to see the new Hario limited edition V60 summer range. There were also a lot of personal highlights, including receiving a signed copy of Brian’s Coffee Spots new book, The Philosophy of Coffee.
The photos and videos tell the story, as I recovered from yet another great London Coffee Festival experience. Thank you to the Coffee Culture team, Trish, Allan and Rachel for a fabulous day and to The London Coffee Festival organising team. See you in 2019!