It’s that time again, friends—the world’s greatest consumer coffee festival is back, taking over a square city block of Shoreditch in the beating heart of swinging London. It’s the London Coffee Festival, loves, and it’s everything.
This year’s show promises to be the biggest and best yet, with highlights a-plenty from the show floor to the competition stage. Sprudge will be covering the event throughout the weekend in an immersive social media array, so be sure to give us a follow on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for the very best from LCF 2017. In meantime let’s peek ahead to some of the most hotly awaited happenings at this year’s show.
Captivating Competitions
The London Coffee Festival is home to the Coffee Masters Tournament, a wildly interdisciplinary display of coffee exceptionalism. This year’s competitors are a coterie of top barista talent from around the world, and they’ll do battle across four days live at the fest. Special guest MCs Gwilym Davies (2009 World Barista Champion) and Lem Butler (2016 US Barista Champion) are joined by our own co-founder Jordan Michelman to keep you informed and chucking throughout the show. All coffee at the 2017 Coffee Masters comes courtesy of the Niners program by Caravan Coffee, with event sponsors including Mahlkonig, Faema, Acme & Co., Brita, Fetco, Rattleware, and more.
This year’s LCF is also home to Latte Art Live, a brand new zone dedicated to the much-loved world of latte art. Expect daily latte art throwdowns, master displays from top artists around the world (including World Latte Art champion Shinsaku Fukayama), workshops by London’s Ozone Coffee, and all of it happening on stunning new Slayer Steam espresso machines.
Show Floor Favorites
Each year the show floor at the London Coffee Festival is a wonderland of booths, product exhibitions, demos, delights, pop-ups, boozy tipples, and very special showings from the top brands in global coffee. This year’s no different, so we suggest you give the floor a good wander upon entry and discover its delights for yourself. We’re especially excited this year to check out the coffee & whiskey demo, the tasting room & “immersive cofffee journey” stations, home barista workshops and cupping demonstrations, talks at The Lab (in partnership with MUMAC Academy), the White Label Kitchen and coffee & food pairing exhibitions, and so much more—really a dizzying array of live experiences unlike any other coffee festival in the world.
We come to the London Coffee Festival each year especially excited to check out what’s happening at the True Artisan Cafe by La Marzocco. In an annual tradition they’ll be hosting some of the very best coffee roasting companies from across Europe for coveted daily rotation slots, with each brand rolling out inventive signature drinks and coveted coffees for some of the festival’s thickest lines. This year we’ll be queuing up alongside you lot for drinks from Coffee by Tate, Five Elephant, TAF, Wired feat. Climpson & Sons, and that’s just a sampling. And in honor of La Marzocco’s 90th anniversary, DJ Sprudge is on the ones & twos on Saturday April 8th from 4pm-6pm for a very special Britpop-powered set of British hits from the glory days of Camden Town.
Night Life Is Right
Like any good coffee festival there’s heaps on after hours this year in London. Want to have your event listed? Drop us a line.
Wednesday the scene starts at Brooklyn Coffee, just blocks from the LCF event space, for a launch party of Brooklyn’s newest coffee sourced by Raw Material, with remarks by Raw Material’s own Matt Graylee and wines by Don’t Wine. Tickets are £20 and can be reserved here.
On Thursday evening join Sprudge co-founders Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen at Prufrock Coffee for a live taping of the Coffee Sprudgecast, with complimentary drinkies from Minor Figures and the sweet sounds of Northern Soul to get you by. Book complimentary tickets for this evening here.
Elsewhere that night Assembly Coffee have teamed with Treves & Hyde for a Coffee Festival Afterparty just blocks from the event space. Expect cocktails and snacks to help you ease into the festival vibe.
Friday night’s packed this year, with a brilliant Espresso Martini Party happening at the festival itself in partnership with Bailey’s. Festival-goers are in for a rare treat, with decks at the Martini Party overseen by legendary London DJ Norman Jay, co-founder of the Good Times Sound System and dance radio pioneers KISS FM, our requested station for all London car rides.
Later that night La Marzocco UK are hosting an epic Friday Night Throwdown at Juju’s Bar & Stage (15 Hanbury Street), sponsored by event partner Ikawa. Up for grabs is a free trip to the La Marzocco factory in Florence, Italy. More info available here.
On Saturday the aforementioned La Marzocco 90th anniversary celebration continues, again at Juju’s Bar & Stage for an evening of snacks, drinks, and 90s party classics.
And that’s not the half of it! There’s heaps more on at this year’s London Coffee Festival, more than we could ever possibly preview in this humble heading. Do cruise over to the official event website and have a look at this year’s array of fun, and we’ll hope to bump in to you at the show, one of the many evening events, or over a coffee at one London’s many fine cafes. TTFN, see you come martini & KISS 100 time.
