The Amsterdam Coffee Festival

Last weekend was the first dutch coffee festival of the year. It was setup at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. The ACF is the Walhalla for all coffee-lovers and also fun for coffee-enthusiast like me. Various Roasting companies and coffee-sellers were attending. Specialty coffees everywhere as well as awesome coffee-machines.

A big hall with lots of stands and a stage for the Dutch Barista Championship.

     

The picture below is a coffee machine of the method syphon. It uses the vacuum technique to extract coffee from fresh grinded beans.

Some stands were selling complementary products like sweets to have with coffee. For instance Cakesmith selling cakes. These products are nice to have when having someone over for coffee or when you are on a coffee-break.
  
Other Stands are specialized in making something special out of coffee, like Expresso Martini Bar. Where they combine coffee and martini and create a cocktail. A fancy drink for in the happy-hour’s or while going out.

Coffee Pairing and Gastronomy: The Scandinavian Embassy Pop-up Restaurant.

The Scandinavian Embassy: A Coffee hotspot in Amsterdam near Sarpathi-park was at the Festival. They were having a coffee and food pairing-pop-up restaurant.

‘A screenshot of the three-course menu that the guest were having in the food & beverage-tasting.’
   

For starters we had Espresso-smoked oyster followed by a Mussel with coffee infused vinegar and lastly a Clam with coffee cherry infused butter accompanied with a Chilled Danish espresso. The way to taste the experience was to have a shellfish first and a sip of espresso afterwards to bring out the seafood, flavours and coffee combination. It was a rather unique experience to have coffee like that.

Next up was the main dish a Gin flambe scallops. Originally it was to have this dish with a strong extracted coffee, but there was a mistake of the barista and we had a different kind of experience one of a mild extracted coffee.
 
As desert was a tartar of beetroot and herring with yogurt and salt accompanied with coffee and a distilled drink poured in the first glass of espresso, giving it a boost to your taste experience.

The food-pairing was definitely an experience, but it was not suited for all visitors of the Festival. Because it is food as in gastronomy, fine dining of flavour and taste-combination.

It was fun to experience the different aspects of coffee.
Looking forward to the next Festival.
Have fun and Keep Experimenting!