The London Coffee Festival 2023
I love my coffee.
I have done a lot of research to choose my coffee machine and my coffee beans: I’m happy where I am after going down the rabbit hole for weeks, but this left a curiosity for this incredible and vast world that is coffee.
I decided to request a press pass for the London Coffee Festival to satisfy that curiosity, document the event and share my images with you. The festival happens at the Truman Brewery in Shoreditch, right onto Brick Lane, one of my favourite areas for street photography.
The process was quite simple, I had to apply using my credentials and within a few days I had a positive response: I had the press accreditation for all four days of the festival. I went on one of the industry days and one of the public days. It really is popular, and the public days were all sold out.
When I entered I gravitated quite soon towards the Coffee Masters competition that was taking place at the time. In each round two coffee masters choose their beans, grind them to their preference, prepare coffee with their favourite methods. The judges will interview them during the process then taste the coffee and give them a score. They have a limited time to get the coffee ready, and often they pour the last cup within the very last few seconds of their allotted time - it does get your heart beating a little faster when you hear “10 seconds to go” and they are still putting the cups on the counter!
Everything set up for the Coffee Masters competition
I would love to have a chance to taste the coffee they make and the description of their thinking process and decision making!
Coffee Master Jo Lopez getting ready to pour his freshly brewed coffee
It’s time for the judges to taste Jo Lopez’s delicious brew!
I wonder what Jo Lopez is passionate about…
One thing that struck me during the London Coffee Festival was the overwhelming emphasis on espresso coffee. Being born and bred in Italy I’m really familiar with espresso coffee and surely enjoy it, but I actually am partial to (good) filter coffee. I really enjoy the smoother drink of a very nice filtered coffee, be it Chemex, V60, French Press or traditional brewing machine. They are all different, wonderful ways to drink your favourite cup, and give you different flavour and body combinations from the same beans. After much research and deliberation, I use a Technivorm Moccamaster with thermos jug, and a stainless steel filter for my morning cup. I found an low acidity coffee that I really like, the Lean Caffeine Nicaragua Ground Coffee, and Jamie Sukroo, the founder of the Lean Caffeine company, is a great person that has given me fantastic support personally when ordering the coffee from them. I highly recommend trying them! I have given you links to the products I use but I have no affiliation to them, I just think it’s worth looking them up!
So, the espresso: one of the brands I had explored for my filter coffee brewing machine, and the strongest contender after my choice, was Sage. They make a fantastic range of coffee machines and their Precision Brewer model is a fantastic option, but they didn’t have it on their stand. All the other brands that were present had many espresso machines to choose from, but I didn’t see any drip coffee machines. The only place where you could easily sample a good filtered coffee was in The Roaster’s Village on the top floor, where many sported the Technivorm Moccamaster. Still, even here the Village is sponsored by La Marzocco, the brand that seemed ubiquitous across the whole festival. Their Linea Micra machine was everywhere, in the Village and in many of the stands. La Marzocco also had several other experiences throughout the London Coffee Festival. And, needless to say, espresso was the name of the game.
Jake from Coffee World in The Roaster’s Village
A chilling area close to the VIP bar on the top floor
A BBQ made by La Marzocco…who knew? That looks tasty! It’s the La Marzocco Secret Garden.
La Marzocco was also brewing the coffee for the Latte Art Live event, a showcase of the drawing skills of the baristas on your favourite cappuccino cup. It was impressive, but also entertaining with their contests and creative challenges for the artists.
Amazing drawing skills on display! Plant based milk from Alpro was used for all the creations, in this case oat milk
Plant based products were very heavily represented, and there was a very strong emphasis on reducing the environmental impact of the coffee market: recyclable materials, upcycled and reusable coffee travel mugs, paper straws. The reusable cup holders even had a preferential entrance.
Of course I couldn’t refrain from sampling some products! I tried potato milk, which was surprisingly good and apparently with a very low environmental impact. I tried Coffee Kombucha from Momo: it was delicious!
The SCOBY is the Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast that you see in the jars: that is what allows the fermentation to produce the kombucha. I also tried the raspberry and hibiscus flavour, and took the ginger and lemon one home to Daniela, my wife. They are really good!
I have a passion for ice-cream, gelato and soft serves. An unhealthy passion for them. Of course I tried the gelato from the Soho Creamery, which was really good. There were plant based options as well obviously: the soft serve from Oatly was nice, but my absolute favourite was the cashew and almond based soft serve by Dáppa. only one word came to mind when I tried it: wow! Soft, creamy, and ooh so flavourful! I tried the vanilla flavour and I could taste vanilla and faint traces of nuttiness, the texture was wonderful. I think this might be the best soft serve I ever had. Hat off to Ollie and Justin, the founders: I’ll be looking for their soft serve! They are also very passionate about their product, and the result reflects it.
Ollie on the left, Justin on the right: your soft serve is literally nuts!
Returning to te coffee, I really enjoy a cup of iced coffee as well, and there were many options. But the espresso reigned supreme, and it was really good. With froth or without, it’s always an intense flavour and aroma that fills your taste buds. Lovely.
Another really interesting side of coffee is the cocktails, and Smirnoff Vodka had a big role in teaching them and serving them.
Espresso Martini is always a good choice
There were also lessons ranging from business management for the cafe to how to develop a career in the coffee world at The Lab.
The London Coffee Festival is an immersive experience in the vast world of coffee, from the bean selection to the roasting, from the grinding to the first sip. Visiting it only brews (pun intended) more interest in getting to know and enjoy more of this exciting (yep, pun intended again!) drink and everything that revolves around it. I plan to visit the festival again next year, and you should consider doing so as well in my opinion! I hope you enjoyed my reportage on this event: thank you for reading! I’ll leave you with a few more images. Let me know what you think in the comments!
A tattoo and an espresso
I guess you could call this an iced espresso…
Attitude