How did you spend the weekends? My friends and I who are coffee addicts and home baristas visited the Singapore Coffee Festival (SCF) last Saturday. We arrived at the exhibit area at about 12-PM and spent nearly 4-hours in the hall. True to the reviews you might have read online, the queues and crowds could have being better managed.

With coffee tasting as our sole interest, we felt it was a worthwhile experience because the quality and varieties of coffee available outweighed the hustle and bustle on the exhibition floor. The espresso cup and the magazine in the image above are part of the door gift. To curb the post SCF syndrome, I made an espresso with the cup the-day-after.

These are my coffee addicts companions in SCF. They are also talented photographers from Melvin Ho Photography and Framewerks. We had at least 10 different cups of coffee and none of us had any bad episode of cardiac arrest 😉 We survived the caffeine overdosed by sharing the drinks among ourselves, kind of like what you would do in ‘coffee cupping’. It is always more insightful to share the taste experiences with a group too.

Our sensory overloaded experience started with the folks from Hook coffee who were located near the entrance. Ernest and Faye are the duo behind Hook coffee which specializes in mail-order coffee. They’ve made the experience of ordering coffee online so much easier. We enjoyed a very nutty double ristretto latte made from their “Ole-ole” blend.

Happy baristas Elysia and her teammate from Nine Press behind their shiny new customized Synesso MVP espresso machine at Stellar M‘s booth. They’ve been sharing coffee brewing tips and techniques on their blog, check it out!

The Bazata’s Settle 270 which won the best new electrical product in SCAA2016 was also present in Stellar M’s booth. A representative from Stellar M was kind enough to demonstrate the performance of the grinder. Some beans were grounded at very fine micro & macro settings and we did not spot any clumps. The Settle 270W version which was not present is the weight-based version that comes with an integrated scale. They are set at very competitive price, very tempting indeed!

Marcus from Papa Palheta, a veteran in Singapore & KL’s specialty coffee scene sharing his knowledge on Siphon coffee to a group of keen audiences.

Samantha behind the filtered coffee bar at Tiong hoe‘s booth. I had a sweet, complex tasting filtered coffee with fruity acidity made from washed geisha beans from Panama.

We also ordered a tasting set which comes in 3 mini cups from the Japanese roasters. They are from Good Coffee, an exporter of beans roasted by famed roasters in Japan. One of which had nice lasting taste of sugar cane on my palate probably brewed from Kenya beans.

They had fun with the Profitec Pro 700 machine at Knockhouse‘s booth. While I’ve gotten myself a 20-g VST basket.

Perhaps the most exciting event in SCF was the live demonstration by the 2015 World Latte Art Champion Caleb Cha. We were very fortunate to be at the ‘front seat’ to catch the action. The recordings of the demonstrations and dialogs hosted by Pamela from Bettr Barista are still available on Bettr Barista‘s facebook page.

These are not all that we’ve seen. I’ve forgotten to bring the camera strap so the camera was kept aside when it got too crowded. We also had interesting concoction such as carbon dioxide infused coffee, beer infused with coffee, ‘Unicone tears’ from Dapper coffee and we are looking forward to try the organic coffee from Wheelys Cafe Singapore. The local coffee scene is starting to get more interesting.