Manchester Coffee Festival
Tags: Coffee, Manchester, Caffeine, London, Festival

While I lived in London I had always wanted to go to London Coffee festival. For a bunch of reasons my diary never really lined up with it, so when I got the opportunity to go to Manchester Coffee Festival I took it. I didn’t really know what to expect besides the fact a lot of coffee would be on offer. But I wasn’t even really certain of that. I was a little nervous too — As much as I like coffee and have preferences as to what I liked, I was worried that it would be filled with a really weird snobbish crowd of people who can tell every coffee apart. In hindsight I don’t really know why I thought that because the reality was nothing like that at all!

Manchester Coffee Festival takes places over a weekend, and I think there were a few different stalls open each day. However I only went the morning of the Saturday 6th November 2021. As I didn’t know what to expect, I wasn’t sure if this was one of those things where you spend an hour there or spend all day there. Will it be a big venue with lots going on or a smaller venue with a few bits going on?

Turns out somewhere in between! It was a smaller venue, but it was ram-packed with different coffee stalls. As soon as you walk in you’re hit with the fantastic smell of sweet, freshly ground coffee. Everywhere you turn there’s a different coffee company or shop offering different types of coffees and different beans for you to try. All of this is free to you too. You can pretty much just approach any stand and have a chat with people regardless of your coffee knowledge or experience and try the different drinks they have on offer.

One mistake I made was to not pace myself. In my excitement and enthusiasm to really try a bunch of different coffees I realised I had tried somewhere around 10–12 different coffees by lunchtime, which was within a couple of hours of being there. Most of them were flat whites or espressos, so I was completely wired on caffeine.

What’s pretty cool about Manchester Coffee Festival is that it doesn’t just have coffee stalls. There’s a few tea and chai stalls, alongside a couple offering cocktails (no prizes for guessing espresso martini’s were mostly on offer!). Initially I found this a bit odd, but then after consuming the sheer amount of coffee that I had I realised that actually I wanted to drink anything but coffee. It was nice to take a break from coffee and enjoy drinking some christmas teas or a variety of chai or turmeric based drinks. Palette cleansed, I was back to coffee for a little while. Food wise there was plenty on offer too for you if you wanted to take a break from coffee, or simply just needed something to soak up the sheer amount of coffee in your system.

There were plenty of equipment manufacturers like La Marzocco at the festival too. I spent a fair bit of time appreciating their latest machines and imagining one day owning one, although I suspect that won’t be anytime soon given the eye watering prices of their machines. There were also different specialist water companies alongside the plant milk companies like Oatly and Glebe Farm Foods. I was actually really pleased to see Glebe Farm Foods there and to have such a presence, especially after Oatly tried to sue them after the nonsensical claim of copyright infringement. I let the team from Glebe Farm Foods know I was so glad they beat Oatly in court, and it turns out Tom who was behind the campaign to raise awareness of what Oatly was doing to them was there. It was great to be able to chat to him and the team about the work they’re doing.

I discovered so many really neat coffee companies alongside trying some new stuff from places I already knew about. Personal favourites I discovered were Salford Roasters who had an interesting Christmas blend on the go and Pam Ban who do authentic Chai and Turmeric based drinks. I tried a new Ethiopian from Takk and a Christmas blend from Origin coffee, which was completely different to the one from Salford Roasters.

What was really neat was how energetic and enthusiastic people were, although they were undoubtedly powered somewhat by the caffeine. It was just so nice to be able to chat to other weird coffee people like myself. Usually when I am geeking over different coffees, people who aren’t into the hobby look at me a bit like a mad scientist. For once I didn’t feel like such a weirdo, as I was surrounded by so many fellow weirdos. It’s one of those events that I’ll definitely be attending every year, and maybe I’ll see if I can check out London Coffee Festival too just to see if it’s any different!