It was a lot busier than last year, and the classes I gave were filled to the rafters. The trend I noticed over the last eighteen months is continuing; the general public, as represented by the visitors, is a lot more knowledgeable about coffee that in the past. If you ever need to give a talk; you can get into the hard details. Almost everyone knows the basics. In the espresso class, almost everyone had machines and grinders, and nobody was looking for advice on the best machine.

Saw some old friends and new faces. I'm glad Terry (pipeguy) was there to bail me out in the espresso class. Met Domenico, who was demoing his turbo oven/drum home roaster.

The most interesting new product for me was "nitro coffee," a style of cold brew invented by Tim of Ipsento Cafe. This is a hot brewed coffee, chilled and infused with nitrogen based effervescence. The brew is unsweetened; therefore being ice cold, it is distinctly dry. Coupled with the very fine effervesce of the nitrogen, the sensation is summer ale-like. But its coffee, and its very refreshing. I'm sure this concoction has a future. Sadly, once it catches on, I'm guessing there'll be a over sweetened, third rate coffee version canned by the big companies. Just remember that Tim Taylor and others at Ipsento invented this; and it was a straight up good cup of coffee.

Thanks for sharing, I wish I could have made it. I've been a big Kevin Sinott fan for a while.

As a member of this new wave of informed coffee people, I wouldn't worry much too much about the canned nitro coffee. Most of us will know that the real thing is worth it. I'm not sure you can can nitro anyway, never seen a stout or other dark beer canned with it (commonly served that way on tap)

That Ipsento Nitro coffee was fantastic and my significant other, who is much less interested in coffee, also loved it. I also thought that the Goshen cold brew that was infused with actual figs to make the flavor notes pop was also great. Although, I can't say that I had a bad sample from anyone (although I didn't sample starbucks or peets booths )

Around lunch time it really became packed. I wasn't able to catch the home roaster outside but glad to hear it went well.

I had some of the Nitro coffee too! My experience was a bit different however.
It was creamy as they said, either I got a bad pull or its just not my thing, because I didn't really taste anything other than what I could describe as gassy creaminess. It didn't even really taste like coffee to me. Maybe I just didn't let it sit long enough.

I really enjoyed the event as a whole. The venue was kind of neat, I got the chance to talk all day about coffee, roasting, espresso, and equipment, got to play with a GS3 and had a total of 5 double shots of espresso, all of them tasting pretty good.

another_jim presenting to a standing-room-only crowd about grind / dose / temp and its effect on taste:
To thin the crowd a bit he made us all drink citric acid.

dominico wrote: To thin the crowd a bit he made us all drink citric acid.
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I don't know about you, but i loved the citric acid.


As for the rest of the convention, Metropolis did an utterly fantastic cold brew roast, my better half loved the Toribio Vasquez Cold Brew that was infused with fig and lime out of Geshen Coffee, and the Geisha that JBC was brewing was utterly awesome. Great vendors and great coffee last Saturday-- and that combined with going to the Cubs v Phillies game (being from Philadelphia) and seeing the Cole Hamel's career first no hitter completely made my weekend.

Was bummed that Haute sausage sold out of food by 12:30-- didn't really feel like a crepe on Saturday. Thankfully my hunger was satiated by the fantastic lecture on grinding and burr geometry run by Chris Pratz of MPE.

Truly a wonderful weekend at Coffeecon and looking forward to roasting next year! (didn't see the announcements that roasters were in short supply-- I've been moving to a new apt!)

I "enjoyed" equally the citric acid and the citric acid / gentian mix.
I wasn't too keen on the gentian by itself, although had it been gassed it would have tasted a lot like Chinò, a bitterish orange soda sold by Sanpellegrino.

Yeah Metropolis pulled me a shot which tasted like a mix of Merlot and marshmallows. I would have thought the pairing to be odd, but somehow it worked well in the cup.

Unless I have an unavoidable scheduling conflict I'm going to do this again next year. Maybe by then my "grill roaster" project will be finished.