İstanbul Coffee Festival 2015

After it's debut last year on December, İstanbul Coffee Festival once again managed to gather coffee professionals and enthusiasts from Turkey as well as many other countries last week between October 22nd and October 25th. The festival place changed from Galata Greek School to a much wider and half-outdoor area: Haydarpaşa Train Station - a good choice both for its history and nice location in Kadıköy. 

The festival seems to be much more popular and tickets for 4 days-8 sessions were all sold out days before the first day. İstanbul is comparisingly new to third wave coffee considering US and Europe equivalents but İstanbul coffee scene is incredibly fast populated by many third wave originated coffee places especially after the year 2013 and this scene seems to have produced amazing roasters, brewers and baristas since then. The first festival in 2014 was obviously an important actor behind all these developments.

The festival is enhanced in many ways as far as I have seen during my single day observation on Saturday: First of all, the number of types and brands of coffee equipment -especially for third wave drippers- is increased. Last year, Chemex was very dominant and Siphon method was a frontier only for its cosmetic properties. This year, V60, Kalita and Gino drippers was all around and the kettles, the scales and all other supporting devices were abundant. Last year buying 3rd wave equipment was not so easy -or let me say defined. The new Turkish distributor for Hario managed to sell many sets. Secondly, the baristas and other staff were much more experienced resulting in better coffee served for new coffee enthusiasts. The overall quality for the coffee beans seems to be increased too. Another enhancement is that the areas for seminars and workshops are very well seperated and professional workshops are held in another individual place. Last but not least, the traditional Turkish coffee was presented with its modern -let's say 3rd wave- style as well as traditional one, mostly thanks to Specialty Turkish Coffee and Turgay Yıldızlı also with seminars.

For my part, I could sample two brews from Aslı Yaman using Gino and Chemex. Especially Kenia AA was impressive. Aslı Yaman is among prominent coffee professionals from Turkey and now living abroad - as a consultant and director of coffee in some companies. As a very lucky man, I could catch Çağatay Gülabioğlu (one of the most experienced coffee people in Turkey and now an independent consultant with the name Probador Colectiva) and Turgay Yıldızlı (consultant and owner of Specialty Turkish Coffee) behind the same desk and I could taste a great espresso extract from an amazing Ethiopia Kochere. I spent some time also at the Kronotrop desk. Kronotrop is among leaders of third wave coffee in İstanbul and I know them since the small coffee shop next to Galatasaray High School whose owner and barista is Çağatay Gülabioğlu. It's been a long time and they have been shown as one of the best 25 coffee shops all around the world by buzzfeed. I tasted one of their brews as well as Turkish coffee not from a Brasil but from an Ethiopian origin. Both of them were nice. I also visited their Cihangir place following the festival. Petra Coffee Roasting Co. has a very large booth in the festival with a big brew desk as well as a nice shopping corner. Petra is one of the most impressive coffee places in İstanbul and their roasts are very unique as far as I have tasted in my own brewings. To be honest, I did not like what I drank at the booth and found it watery but I am sure it is because of the crowded conditions of the festival. On visiting their impressively large and classy main place in Gayrettepe, I can say that the brewing, staff and roasting qualities are one of the bests in Turkey. 

I also visited the booths of Ministry of Coffee, Coffee Department, Coffee Manifesto, Zapatista Coffee Collective, Espresso Perfetto, Baristocrat and many others. I have to say that the only problem was the festivals common cups which reflects a tiny paper taste especially for the extra hot drinks such as espresso and Turkish coffee. The free water supplied by Uludağ was very essential and nice. 

For the seminar, I could join Turgay Yıldızlı's Specialty Turkish Coffee seminar, which I found very beneficial and interesting. As the workshop, I could join a cupping directed by Five Elephants from Berlin with many prominent coffee professionals. I could shortly visit the roasting competition and learned many things. I also met Cihan Başpınar, who runs one of the most important coffee culture websites in Turkey called Alice Coffee Culture.  

To summarize, İstanbul Coffee Festival 2015 was a very successful organization merging seminars, workshops, education, competitions, coffee shops and roasteries introduction as well as equipment and coffee beans sale.