Scenes from the London Coffee Festival 2014

Last weekend saw the annual coffee festival come to London at the Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane. The London Coffee Festival celebrates London’s bustling and vibrant coffee scene. It’s an unmissable event for discerning coffee lovers!

I have been a regular visitor of the London Coffee Festival for the past three years (though somehow I never blogged about it…) and every year the festival has been bigger and better.

I like being involved in the London (and British) coffee scene and generally spend a lot of time in coffee shops, trying to keep up with all the new openings. Whenever I’m at the coffee festival I always see a lot of familiar faces: from baristas to competition judges, from coffee roasters to bloggers. I enjoy the atmosphere and watching the UK Barista Championship (especially if the current UK barista Maxwell of Colonna & Small’s is on stage)!

This year I arrived at the festival on Saturday afternoon, just as the morning rush was beginning to wane. After a walk around all the different zones and a quick pit stop at St Ali coffee bar to buy the last one of their delicious Lamingtons, I headed to the True Artisan Café where I spent the rest of the afternoon.

The True Artisan Café is a pop-up coffee shop by La Marzocco located in the ‘Soho’ zone of the festival. There you can “meet the baristas from Europe’s best coffee shops and roasters, sample bespoke coffees and cocktails, listen to live DJs and learn how to make professional coffee” (quote from the official website).

Terrone Coffee owner Edy Piro and head barista Callum Hale-Thompson were working at one of the bars, preparing espresso based drinks made with the Ciclista blend.

I loved the colourful paper cups by Happy Cups, so cute!

The Terrone signature drink at the festival was the ‘Snifter’: a double shot of Ciclista blend with a drop of balsamic vinegar in a cup vaporize with non alcoholic lemon zest.

Every year there’s a fun party atmosphere at la Marzocco True Artisan Café, with everyone fooling around while high on caffeine and dancing to the music. Edy’s enthusiasm was infectious as usual!

As the Truman Brewery closed down for the day, we moved on to La Marzocco after-party at Climpson’s Arch in Hackney, where beers and BBQ meat replaced the coffee and everyone celebrated being part of the exciting London coffee community!