SCAE UK | Speciality Coffee Association of Europe UK Chapter

The United Kingdom Chapter of the SCAE attended Britain’s first Coffee Festival which took place in the City of Bath which is a World Heritage City and also a beautiful city with its Roman Baths and Spa, quaint streets, wide crescents and many coffee shops both the multi nationals but more importantly very good quality independents.

The event was held in two giant carpeted marquees during the weekend of 15th-16th May 2010. The reason that a stand was taken at the festival was to publicise the work of the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe, spreading the word and work of the SCAE was Pauline Sherwood, John Sherwood and myself and we were assisted by Andrew Carter and Sam Dunford who both worked the San Remo Espresso Machine that was loaned to us by San Remo UK (the UKBC machine sponsor)

On a most beautiful Saturday with the sun out in a cloudless sky the festival was opened by the Lord Mayor of Bath accompanied by the Lady Mayoress at 10.00am followed by the crowd of visitors. The visitors carried on throughout the day even in the afternoon when I thought it would go quieter because of the football Cup Final but this being a big rugby city it did not make any difference. The visitors were treated to excellent coffee from UK SCAE members including Origin Coffee and Extract Coffee to name two but of course the best coffee was from our stand. The visitors were all so treated to pastries, coffee making equipment, local sausages and pies. Outside the main marquee you could learn to Salsa either before or after you had listened to a number of musicians while you read the newspaper courtesy of Taylors of Harrogate in their marquee which they called the Easy Tent.

The organisers also arranged workshops including cupping and blending by coffee buyer Mike Riley, Turkish coffee preparation by our own Ibrik competition organiser Aysin Aydogdu, a Latte Art master class by Daisy Rollo who is from Coffea Arabica and a barista demonstration was given by Jose Melim who won the south west regional heat of the UKBC. Finally artist Derek Stansfield showed the visitors to paint using coffee as a medium; these were repeated on the Sunday which started out wet from the rain (I glad I was prepared with my wellingtons in my car if it had carried on raining). At first this put of some visitors but as soon it stopped raining they came swarming in. On the Sunday the dancing class was the Samba.

According to the organisers 7530 visitors had visited the festival though I am not too sure of this figure as I had been counted twice on the Sunday. The organisers had publicised the event through all types of medium, newspapers, magazines, web sites and radio, they did do an excellent job but then again they are a PR company.

On our stand the visitors were intrigued by the display of green coffee beans which were from a number of different countries which of course showed different characteristics and did appreciate all the work that goes into quality coffee. The way that we had positioned our espresso machine so that the visitor could see our barista at work especially when performing Latte Art this was a big draw with crowds of people watching.

The coffees we used were donated by Has Bean, James Gourmet Coffee and Pennine Tea and Coffee – thank you. We were visited by Mr. Mike Segal the SCAE web editor and Mr. Colin Smith Chairman of the SCAE Communications Committee

The organisers were very happy with the reaction to the event and the visitor numbers and are preparing for 2011 and one has to wonder which other cities and towns will follow the City of Bath with their own coffee festivals – please form an orderly queue.
I am glad that we had a stand at the festival it gave a chance for us to explain to the consumer that not all coffee is the same and that you can obtain great specialty coffee.