Northeast Coffee Festival Recap

This past weekend, the city of Concord, New Hampshire played host to the Northeast Coffee Festival, a two-day event that brings together roasters, producers, business owners, and home enthusiasts for a little more regional, maybe a little more intimate interpretation of the traditional coffee event. Off the bat, I want to say that Northeast Coffee Festival is not affiliated with CoffeeFest, another similarly named event that travels the United States. In fact, as I learned from chatting with John, who actually attended NECF in years past, the event used to be called MANE, or Mid-Atlantic North East Coffee Conference, but times and names have changed.

As a resident of New England, I was well situated geographically to attend this year’s festival, and after a quick car ride, I found myself among the brick-laden colonial buildings of Concord for a very walkable, mostly outdoors, non-tradeshow coffee event.

Festival vs. Tradeshow

One of the first things that really struck me about the event was how different it was from some of the coffee trade shows that I’ve attended. Because the focus was much more regional, many of the educators and vendors came from the New England area and felt like a nice counterpoint to the west-coast mindset that tends to dominate coffee. The workshops and experiences on offer came largely from local and regional exhibitors, people who I could reasonably cross paths with again in the future.

The size of the event also made it much easier to see and participate in a much larger breadth of the experience on offer. In total, it was roughly 1-2 street blocks with vendors, stalls, and food trucks — shout out to Bubble Bee for their chicken dumplings — lined up outdoors and several seminars hosted at the BNH Stage. Despite not being a massive tradeshow, I did see a number of products that we sell here at Whole Latte Love, and shows like these are a great venue to encounter coffee equipment in the wild and get candid opinions about it from the operators.

As an online company with a YouTube channel, we make heavy use of videos for education. At the same time, coffee is also very influenced by influencers. In my personal life, like many people, outside of going to a coffee shop and talking to a barista, my opportunities to engage in a dialogue on things like brewing techniques or extraction results are limited largely to the online space.

Workshops

Advanced Latte Art: How to Pour Like a Pro

Matty Mellini, Borealis Coffee Company

Latte art is a capstone for many people when it comes to their home coffee education, but it can be difficult, especially if you have bad habits to break. I attended a latte art class at the event, which was a lot of fun. If you're struggling to learn, I recommend finding a place to learn from other people, and with other people. Being able to succeed and fail together can help put your progress into perspective and give you more reasonable expectations.

Matty Mellini from Borealis Coffee Company held a class that was more of them talking through the process and showing as much as they could through a camera closer to them. While I wish I got to get my hands on a pitcher to pour one or two on my own, I did learn some valuable lessons. One of the biggest things that stood out to me while they spoke was the importance of the momentum of your pours. Someone can explain latte art to you over and over, but seeing the way a faster pour can push the milk differently, or how slowing down allows more foam to lay on top, made the whole thing click in a different way. It felt like one of those concepts I technically understood, but watching it happen made it much easier to connect the explanation to the actual movement.

They also showed us a little sneak peek of the pour they are practicing to compete with in the Latte Art World Championship at Coffee Fest Chicago, not to be confused with the World Latte Art Championship hosted by the Specialty Coffee Association.

Channel guest and friend of Whole Latte Love Emilee Bryant was actually the winner of several of the America-based Latte Art World Championships and really helped pioneer the hollow heart.

Importance of Coffee Partnerships: Our Common Future

Phil Hurley, Coffee By Design

The session started with a conversation honed in on the guest speakers’ thoughts on the future of coffee and the importance of real partnerships across the supply chain. There is so much that happens before that coffee reaches your hand, and maintaining partnership and trust between growers, distributors, roasters, and buyers is vital.

One of my favorite learning experiences I had at the event was with Phil Hurley, the head roaster from Coffee by Design based in Portland, Maine. He ran the cupping session at my table after the initial partnership discussion, and it was super informative. He made the rounds with us as we cupped to take the temperature and see how we were doing. I’ve actually been to Coffee by Design on a past trip to Portland, so the chance to meet their team more closely and experience coffees they love in a different context with Phil’s expertise was incredibly informative.

I also know that specialty coffee can be intimidating to people who haven't had a formal education or developed their palate with similar beverages like tea, beer, or wine, for example. Doing something like a cupping is a great way to get your feet wet because tasting something in a group setting, sharing experiences, and being guided by a roaster or other professional helps to calibrate each person so that they're better able to articulate what they're experiencing.

Brew Like You Care: Tea as a Crafted Beverage

Ren Wheeler, Linger

I also attended a tea-focused workshop with Ren Wheeler from Linger that ended up being one of the more unexpected highlights of the day. Since we have recently brought tea back into the catalog with Althaus, I found myself listening not just as someone who enjoys tea, but as someone thinking about how we talk about brewed drinks more broadly. We spend so much time helping people understand grind size, water temperature, extraction, and brewing variables for coffee, but tea deserves that same level of respect and curiosity.

The session walked through different ways to brew tea and how much the final cup can change based on the vessel, steep time, temperature, oxidation, and even the part of the plant being used. I especially liked hearing tea described in a way that did not force it to be loud or obvious to be valuable. Some lighter teas are more delicate, but that does not mean they are weak. It just means you have to slow down a little and pay attention to what is there.

What stuck with me most was how much room there is to keep learning. Tea has its own language, techniques, seasonality, and traditions, and it was exciting to be reminded that coffee is not the only brewed beverage with this much depth. Even if coffee is still our main focus, understanding tea better helps us talk about craft, extraction, and at-home brewing in a more complete way.

CVA Descriptive Analysis Workshop

BethAnn Casperson, Equal Exchange

The final workshop of the day walked us through one section of the SCA’s newer coffee evaluation system, which was released in 2024. This was quite the technical session to end a long day on, but it ended up being one of the most unique coffee experiences I’ve had. One of the main ideas we explored as a group of about 30 was calibration and how much it matters when developing a palate and working with a team. We worked through three exercises, starting with blind aroma identification, then moving into intensity exercises for sourness and sweetness, before finally applying those same ideas to brewed coffee.

What stood out most to me was how subjective tasting can be, even in a room full of people evaluating the exact same samples. The group was mostly aligned on sourness, but sweetness varied wildly, which made the importance of calibration feel very real. By the time we tasted coffee, I could see how much personal preference, experience, temperature, aroma, and even palate fatigue can affect what someone perceives. It gave me a deeper appreciation for trained tasters and the amount of practice it takes to separate “what I personally like” from “what is actually present in the cup.”

The Importance of Local Connections

Returning to chat with John that I mentioned at the outset of the article, in his past career in local coffee here in Rochester, he and Rory Van Grol, the owner and founder of Ugly Duck Coffee both attended NECF (or MANE) 13 years ago and Rory went back again this year (I didn’t see you Rory but I did look for you!).

It used to be called the MANE conference, Mid-Atlantic North East Conference. New Harvest Coffee Roasters in Providence Rhode Island used to host it. I went about 13 years ago with Rory from Ugly Duck and had a great time. The karaoke party / latte art throwdown at the end did get a little out of hand but we had fun. - John

Rory has long been a leader within Rochester’s coffee scene and worked to make education more accessible to residents in much the same way as the coffee festival. Several members of our team have attended a recurring monthly event hosted by Ugly Duck Coffee called Industry Night where local coffee professionals and enthusiasts mingle to discuss topics and trends in an intimate Q&A Setting.

Final Thoughts

If I had one major takeaway from my time at NECF, it's that coffee thrives in communities that encourage dialogue and education. No matter your level of experience or education, getting out and meeting people, sharing a cup of coffee or tea, and embracing the local scene can be a great source of enrichment for everyone involved.

So much of the coffee experience can be captured at home, and there is a different value in that. You can watch videos, read articles, test recipes, practice latte art, and dial in your setup one shot at a time. But there is something different about learning alongside other people. There is something special that happens once conversations spark, questions are asked, and perspectives are shared.

This all is what made the Northeast Coffee Festival feel special to me. It was approachable, regional, and full of people who were eager to share. In short, you can brew coffee at home, but get out there and tell people about it!

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