 UK Coffee Week™ includes an exciting and dynamic set of public and cultural events relating to coffee and foodservice to further increase public awareness and knowledge of coffee quality, preparation and ethical sourcing.
Coffee shops across the country participating in UK Coffee Week hold their own events to showcase their coffee expertise and ethical credentials as well as further engage with the local community.
Many coffee shops, organisations, companies and pubs have fundraised for Project Waterfall. Showcasing expertise and ethical credentials, it can be a great way to engage with the local community.
Ideas could include:
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Coffee tastings and talks
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Barista demonstrations
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Local art and cultural exhibitions
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Host community engaging fundraising events (e.g. ticketed events held out of normal opening hours), such as open mic night, coffee speed dating, performances by local musicians or a coffee quiz
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Do you have a great idea for a UK Coffee Week fundraiser? Register here |
UK Coffee Week 2013 Events
There are many events taking place across the country during UK Coffee Week. These are just a few of them...
Timberyard's One Year of Dunne Frankowski private view and cupping
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Wednesday 24 April, 6pm-8pm
Timberyard, 61-67 Old Street, London. EC1V 9HW
Come along to Timberyard to enjoy a cupping session and choose prints from Dunne Frankowski, and make a donation to Project Waterfall. You can also enjoy one of Timberyard's UK Coffee Week cappucino brownies!
Nude Espresso’s Coffee Tastings
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Monday 22 – Friday 26 April, 1pm-3pm
The Old Cooperage Yard, Truman Brewary, 91-95 Brick Lane, London, E1 6SB.
Back by popular demand, Nude Espresso will once again be providing an opportunity for you to taste your way through a selection of their single origin filter coffees. Tastings will be held daily and visitors will be required to make a £5 donation to Project Waterfall.
Kick Ass Coffee, World Changing Ideas
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Monday 22 – Friday 26 April, Throughout London
Taking you back to the original use of coffee shops with hotly contested debates over the finest coffee with some of London's top names and speakers. The new book "World changing ideas start with kick-ass coffee" by Chris Ward will be available to purchase at these events and all profits from sales of the book during UK Coffee Week will be generously donated to Project Waterfall.
Coffee@Work
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Monday 22 – Friday 26 April, Nationwide
There is still time to sign-up your workplace to Coffee@Work, the initiative bringing UK Coffee Week™ into the workplace. It is a great opportunity to enjoy free biscuits, enhance your workplace’s ethical credentials and potentially win some great prizes including a top of the range Prima Donna DeLonghi Coffee machine, worth over £900. Sign-up at ukcoffeeweek.com/coffeeatwork
The London Coffee Festival, is UK Coffee Week's flagship event and the nation’s most inspiring and dynamic celebration of coffee and food culture. This year, over 12,000 coffee and food lovers attended the event being at The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane with 50% of all ticket sale proceeds going directly to Project Waterfall.
UK Coffee Week 2012 was once again filled with exciting fundraising activities and events.
Highlights included:
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Kicking off UK Coffee week 2012, a traditional Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony was held at Ground Control (Ethiopian Coffee Company). We saw coffee beans being roasted over hot coals, which were then ground, stirred into a clay pot and served in china cups to all those watching. |
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We spent Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings with Ozone Coffee Roasters learning how to make the perfect cup of coffee at home and sampling some of Ozone’s premium coffees during roastery tours. On Sunday we visited their scrumptious bake sale. More information and photos can be found here.
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Nude Espresso had tastings every day during the week, where customers made their way through a selection of Nude Espresso’s single origin filter coffees. We also attended their London Coffee Festival after-party on Saturday and sipped delicious espresso martini cocktails. |
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Old Street coffee shop Look Mum No Hands hosted an energy-filled, high drama Roller Racing Challenge on Tuesday 24th April. Competitors representing coffee shops across London battled it out on stationary racing bikes over a 500m distance to be crowned Rollapaluza champion. More information and photos can be found here. |
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Tuesday and Wednesday evenings also saw events at the Make Believe Ideas Café in Hertfordshire. They were an opportunity for coffee lovers to learn the coffee story, with Apsley based coffee roasting company Smiths. There were various coffee samples to try and taste profiling skills tests. |
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The London Coffee Festival (Friday 27th April - Sunday 29th April), the flagship event of UK Coffee Week 2012, was a resounding success for a second year. Twelve thousand coffee lovers, foodies, professional baristas, coffee shop owners and industry experts united for the UK’s most inspiring and dynamic celebration of coffee and food culture. Guests grazed their way through The Street Food and Artisan Markets, learnt about coffee through tastings and demonstrations, watched the UK Barista Championships and enjoyed live music throughout the uniquely themed zones. This included the Growing Community where visitors were able to learn more about Project Waterfall and UK Coffee Week. |
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Friday also saw two coffee mornings held in pubs: The Prince Albert (Camden) and The Adam & Eve (Mill Hill). Baristas from Illy Coffee held demos while guests enjoyed coffee and muffins provided by the venues. |
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Golden Brown Coffee held a coffee cupping afternoon on Friday giving customers the opportunity to sample some rare speciality coffees and take home bags of shop roasted coffee, all while enjoying delicious cakes and scones. An exciting raffle took place with local artists donating pieces of their work. |
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Saturday meant an exciting musical tour of London's original and best coffeehouses courtesy of Unreal City Audio. From the first ever coffee shack in a muddy City churchyard to the establishments that laid the foundations of the modern world. Featured in Time Out, the Londonist and the Daily Telegraph. It was a walking tour like no other with free 18th-Century coffee included! |
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The final day of UK Coffee Week saw local musicians showing off their talent at an open mic night at Refresh Café in Sheffield. There was singing, poetry and music and all entrants were treated to a delicious lunch courtesy of the café. |
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Carvetii Coffee Roasters arranged a pop up coffee shop at Dearham Primary School where pupils ran the show, serving coffees to their parents and staff (with a little help from some trained grown ups!) They then marked the final day of UK Coffee Week by hosting a coffee tasting event. Customers were able to try a range of quality coffees, learn how to brew great coffee and got a fantastic going home present of a bag of their freshly roasted coffee. |
The Big Challenge
To launch UK Coffee Week in April 2012, a sponsored 10Km (6.2 miles) walk carrying up to 10L of water for 5Km along the River Thames took place in aid of Project Waterfall. The Big Challenge, held on 15 April, represented the difficult daily task of fetching water by women and children in Africa.
The walk started The Scoop at More London, the amphitheatre situated beside City Hall and next to the iconic Tower Bridge on South Bank. Participants headed west along South Bank, over Westminster Bridge, east along Victoria Embankment and over Tower Bridge, and finished back at The Scoop.
At the half way point, marshals gave participants up to 10 litres of water to carry for the remaining half of the journey.
The distances covered as part of The Big Challenge were reflective of the long distances walked to collect water every day in developing countries, giving us a small taste of what daily life is like for the people we were fundraising to support.
The walk was enjoyed by many enthusiastic participants on a sunny Sunday morning. All the money raised will go to support much needed sustainable clean water projects.
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UK Coffee Week 2011 was jam-packed with fundraising activities and events.
Highlights included:
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Smashing the official and unofficial world record for the most espressos made in an hour at The London Coffee Festival on Saturday 9 April. A team of more than 100 UK baristas produced a staggering 12,003 espressos in one hour. That’s an incredible 3.33 espresso shots per second. Click here for full details, photos, participants and footage.
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The London Coffee Festival (Friday 8 - Sunday 10 April), the flagship event of UK Coffee Week 2011, was a resounding success in its first year. The festival was attended by 7,500 people over the three days who together consumed over 70,000 coffee samples! Visitors were treated to a wide array of coffee, gourmet food, tea, cocktails, live music and a thought-provoking seminar and debate programme. The Allegra Foundation hosted a space at the festival to educate visitors about Project Waterfall and UK Coffee Week.
Check out the festival photos and visit the website for more information.
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Old Street, EC1 coffee shop Look Mum No Hands hosted an energy-filled, high drama Roller Racing Challenge on Wednesday 6 April. Competitors representing coffee shops across London battled it out on stationary racing bikes over a 500m distance. See the full results and photos here.
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Coffee shops in Darlington in the North East of England collaborated to organise the first ever North East Coffee Festival organised by Afternoon Tease. During the week participating coffee shops held barista workshops, in-store coffee roasting and coffee tastings. Coffee lovers were encouraged to follow a coffee treasure map of all participating coffee shops with a prize for the winner.
Click here for Festival photos on Flickr
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The official UK Coffee Week launch at the beautiful Hempel Hotel on Monday 4 April sponsored by Tchibo Coffee Service. German artist Wolfgang Riegelsberger exhibited his stunning coffee art at this invite-only event.
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The glamorous red-carpet Gala Event was hosted by United Coffee on Tuesday 5 April at the Langham Hotel. We were blown away by the first live performance of the official UK Coffee Week song “Coffee” (performed by Sam Smith). |
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