L.C.F 2016
8.30am on a Sunday and the alarm goes off… why on earth would I do that? I hear you ask…
Well… the answer is simply… London Coffee Festival (LCF).
I think I am widely known by now (at least to my group of friends) as a massive coffee snob and yes I am absolutely proud about it! It would therefore be no surprise how I would be excited to wake up at 8.30am and queue outside the Old Truman Brewery to enjoy the coffee frenzy.
Thankfully, Robin Is possibly worse than me, and we both woke up last Sunday, re-living the Xmas kind of morning excitement.
10.08am and we’re in the festival! Slightly disoriented by the plethora of stands and vendors, events and attractions… eager to jump onto anything and everything at the same time.
The main objective was to get a coffee and then “we’d plan the day out” – pfff as if that ever happened. You see the problem is that with such an abundance of options it can be extremely difficult to get only one.
Long story short, we ended up having a 3 hour sampling session of all sorts of bizarre, intriguing and enticing coffee.
The barristas all eager to explain the origins of their coffees, the secret of how best to master the cofee’s oils, the tricks in grinding the beans and a gazillion more information around the beauty of coffee. (think comicon but... more like coffee-con)
My top picks from the Festival:
Mr. Black’s cold press coffee liquor
BulleIT’s Bourbon infused coffee
The Personalised Canadian Percolators
Of course I can’t leave out the incredible equipment and machines out there, helping you to refine and perfect your coffee, along with the masterclasses to do so.
At the same time, the festival was also hosting the Barrista championship, where two hipsters, were battling it out in order to establish themselves as the best coffee maker for 2016. Winner for this year was st.Ali representative Ben Morrow and runner up Yuko Inoue from Timberyard (<3). I have to admit I was a Yuko supporter but… oh well, she’s first in our hearts.
And as for the Tea lovers...well they weren't neglected.
The festival had a significant area dedicated to glorious teas as well. All the way from Japan … and just from around the corner, from your local Starbucks, you got to sample a vast range of brews and origins.
To accompany all this drinking there was also plenty of delicious pastry stands like the crosstown donoughts (guilty as charged I halved one with Robin). Moreover, a lot of mylks, snacks, chocolates, juices… were also featured at the festival, along with fashion items, tech stuff and the whole coffee equipment shebang too.
3 hours later and we come out to the world, where the sun burns our eyes, our brains are mushy and we feel completely dis-oriented and are fidgety.
We did however, came out of this more knowledgeable, and one grinder, one bag of coffee beans and one espresso cup made out of coffee (YES it’s made out of coffee) richer!
Now? Well… we either start planning opening our own café, OR, we just wait until September’s next session.
