more about coffee and tea

Keeping to the theme of trade shows, M and I go to The Coffee and Tea Festival today.

We arrive at 10:55; the doors open at 11.  Already the line snakes half a block between between 25^th and 26th, and a full block more between Lexington and Park.  I had no idea this event would be so popular.  But the line moves quickly, and we are soon in.  We are among the first 1500 visitors, so we are given a big red bag with coupons and samples.  The place is mobbed, and I keep losing M.  Apparently, someone somewhere called it one of the “10 Best New York Events” and about 5,000 people attend.  This I read later.

Unlike yesterday’s very chic crowd, today’s group is more of the granola variety.  In addition to the many vendors, there are people there promoting items tangential to tea and coffee.  For example, there’s a tea leaf reader.  There’s someone selling Vermont cheese and someone else grinding and selling peanut butter (both are excellent but their connections to tea and coffee are somewhat unclear). And, there is even a person in a little hut inviting people in, to “sit and have tea and share their story.” 

 M and I sample lots of coffees and teas.

Our favorite vendor is Bee Raw Honey.  They sell gorgeous jars of honey for only $10.  Since honey is one of the few foods that never spoils, I buy two jars: Maine Wild Raspberry and Oregon Meadowfoam Honey. Also, the owner turns out to be someone M used to work with and hasn’t seen in years.

After we’ve seen about everything, we decide to stop in on an event called Coffee: Seed to Cup, presented by Byron Holcomb of Dallas Brothers Coffee.  We take a seat with about 70 other people.  Seated in the front row is a mismatched couple.  He is sporting three earrings (two in one ear and one in the other) and she is wearing a lace-like thing that M says, “Looks like something my Italian relatives would use on a table.”  They are cuddled together as if on a romantic date.  He keeps twirling her short choppy hair.  We become more focused on the couple than the speaker. They are more interesting.

Ah, the speaker.  If I were a 10^th grade teacher, and he were the student, my appraisal would read something like this: 

C+. 

Byron, you know your material but not your audience.  The visuals you use in your PowerPoint presentation are boring and add little, if anything, to your words.  But worse,  many of the topics you cover are of no interest to your audience.  I mean really, do you think they care about bean storage in Brazil?  And then Ethiopia?  And then Kenya? And what about those slides and lengthy descriptions of Wash Water Management, by country?  Your audience was sleeping at that point (except for the lovebirds in row one). 

Shorten the segment on Green Grading.  Just tell them that one bad bean can ruin an entire pot of coffee.  That they may find interesting.

And finally, cut the entire section on Densimetric Sorting.  Again, Byron, these people are here to learn a bit about coffee production; they do not intend to become bean farmers!

We leave before Byron finishes, our arms filled with teas, honey, peanut butter, and in M’s case, some books on tea. I can't imagine that this is one of New York's ten best events, but it is a good one.