Manchester Coffee Festival Round Up 2021

Manchester Coffee Festival is the best coffee festival in the calendar every year. The festival itself is an independent festival run by Hannah Davies and Ricardo Gandara, who have built a vibrant community of coffee revellers and made the experience thoughtful,  accessible and fun. The 5th & 6th November saw the Climpsons enjoy the spoils of Manchester and the coffee community. It was inspiring to say the least. It was a real celebration of people and some amazing coffees. Cheers all round to all of the producers, importers, roasters and baristas for shining a light on the coffees, and the enthusiastic coffee lovers of Manchester and beyond who were so engaged and interested. 

Here are 5 cool things we did at the festival

1. 3 years of freezing coffee from the Manchester Coffee Archive (@manchestercoffeearchive). Tom has kept a freezer full of coffee from festivals past, and showcased them in the Tasting Room. It was a blast from the past with a Sudan Rume from Granja La Esperanza, that Lisa-Laura Verhoest used in the World Brewers Cup championship in 2018.
   
   
2. The Talks Program at MCF. An epicly curated program with a real focus on hope for a more sustainable future by working in better ways with people in the supply chain, and useful insight and real life examples into how the specialty coffee industry has the potential to be more sustainable.
   
   
3. Farmers Voice Radio - facilitates social, economic and environmental improvement in farming communities across the coffee belt. Disseminating up-to-date, relevant and practical information to even the most remote and isolated communities by bringing local farmers, agricultural experts and supply chain partners together to share their knowledge, experience and expertise via the trusted medium of community radio.
   
   
4.  We tried the new crop coffees arriving soon from Passiflora and Finca La Esperanza from Cedro Alto in Colombia. To add to the fun, we met  Karl Weinhold from Cedro Alto in person. He wrote Cheap Coffee - a guide on how to attempt to untangle some of the complexities of coffee economics for a more sustainable future.
   
   
5. Outside the festival, The Barista League  is a party disguised as a coffee competition. MC'd by the legend that is Aashifa Hussein from Well Grounded, teams of two competing (including our very own Dan & Tetsuya finishing a respectable third) and a panel of esteemed judges. 
   
   
   Image by Manchester Coffee Festival 
   
   Image by Manchester Coffee Festival