Vibes from Vilnius Coffee Festival 2019  

What is Vilnius coffee festival?

The event is dedicated to the blooming coffee culture in Lithuania.  Vilnius Coffee Festival is an annual happening, this time being already the eleventh!  Art Factory Loftas provided a cool environment for the festival. Rough, industrial space was decorated with colourful lights and cool stuff making the atmosphere similar to the other coffee festivals around the world. The event presented loads of local and Baltic coffee companies. You could meet baristas around the world there.

Paulig collected all take away coffee cups from the festival. The cups will travel from Loftas to polymer recycling company and changed into raw material of building panels.  

Exploring the festival 

Upstairs was full of things to taste and to eat! Roasters Village was all about presenting different coffees, different brewing methods and of course some interesting products that are related to coffee. When stepping to the other area upstairs - the Food&Coffee market - you could find not only a cup of coffee to drink but also high quality cheese, delicious ice cream and refreshing kombucha to mention only few. And not to forget the two coffee book presentations!  

Learning about coffee 

It is always interesting to learn new things. One of the great things about barista community is that we share information. On the Educational Zone there were over 20 inspirational speeches and informative lectures that the attendees could listen to – all this with no additional fee or registration. Festival guests also had an opportunity to watch the movie Coffee Man. 

The subjects of the Educational Zone were varying from green coffee sourcing to speciality coffee, from sustainability to sensory analysis, from roasting to water quality. My lecture was about the significance of water quality  (of course :)). I talked about the meaning of mineral content in brewing water and the effect on the extraction. 

Lithuanian national championships 

There were three different national championships going on throughout the weekend: Aaaaaand the winners are…: 

• Lithuanian Barista Champion 2019: Goda Pangonytė (Italala Caffe)
• Lithuanian Latte Art Champion 2019: Ieva Ivonė (Taste Map)
• Lithuanian Coffee Tasters Champion 2019: Ignas Butėnas (coffee loving IT guy)

Ground floor area 

Coming downstairs was worthwhile not only because of the competitions. Near the stage there were also many activations. One interesting spot was a VCF Espresso Bar where you could taste the competition coffees. At the Paulig booth you could attend a mini training by SCA certified baristas of Paulig Lithuania and prepare your own espresso and steam the milk. Or if the water quality captured your interest, there was a change to taste, how the water effects on the coffee. 

I brewed two batches of our official Vilnius Coffee Festival Coffee (a nice Colombian with berry notes and creamy mouthfeel roasted in Paulig Kulma) at a time. The batches were brewed using exactly the same parameters, only difference was the water. One was tapped Vilnius water and the other was mineral water with completely different composition to the tapped one. The attendees were amazed by the effect of the water. After all there is more than 98% of water in a cup of coffee so that’s a no-brainer actually!     

What about Vilnius coffee shops? 

Sure, I saw something else too, not just the festivals. Following the guidance of this post I had a nice morning walk via 4 cool cafés on my way to Loftas on Friday morning. Unfortunately I did not have time to visit all the nice places mentioned on that blog post, not to mention all the others that are not listed there.  

Taste Map: Macchiato. With a swan on it. Of course – thanks ladies ;)    '

Caffeine Roasters: Espresso with “An Interior”. Way. Too. Nice.    

Kavos virėjai - Brew: Another espresso, so my head was a bit dizzy already. Luckily found some quiet & peace from here <3  

Strange Love: OK. Fourth cup of coffee during my 4 km walk within less than 2 hours. Totally worth having it. Nice baristas used their Hario V60 well and I was very happy with the first filter coffee of the day  :)