Cool Things We Discovered at the Amsterdam Coffee Fest
On the first weekend of April, Amsterdam hosted the 10th edition of its coffee festival. Today, we’re sharing a few interesting things we saw at the event.
BY TANYA NANETTI
SENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT
Photos by Tanya Nanetti
On an unexpectedly warm and sunny weekend in early April, Amsterdam hosted the 10th annual Amsterdam Coffee Festival. One of the city’s most popular coffee events, the three-day festival welcomed its guests with a packed schedule of events, a vibrant roasting village, and a bevy of exhibitors showcasing their new tools and creations.
That’s how, between (definitely too many) sips of delicious coffee, I had the chance to discover many interesting things: Here’s a short list of really interesting discoveries I made during my wanderings around the crowded festival.
Cascara Cabinet: A Newly Released Macerated Cascara that Will Blow Your Mind
Colorful and playful, Cascara Cabinet’s booth caught my attention as soon as I started exploring the festival. Behind the counter, founder Vincent Rikken and two friends were ready to pour a sip of lightly sparkling macerated cascara to anyone interested.
As I sampled this delicious and unusual drink, on the market for just 48 hours, I had a chance to get a quick statement from Vincent, as playful and endearing as the Cascara Cabinet itself.
“Ever since Ben and Jen sadly separated and their home, with more bathrooms than bedrooms, went on the market, I’ve dreamed of bringing that kind of comfort into my life,” Vincent says, toasting with a generous portion of caffeine-free cascara. “I don’t believe that at this age I am meant to live an uncomfortable life. I don’t have the will. To finance my villa dreams, I needed a neglected and misunderstood commodity. Here is cascara: the cherry discarded from coffee, reborn as a sparkling, prebiotic soda. Cascara Cabinet proves that it is possible to turn something undervalued into something deliciously extravagant.”
And indeed it is both delicious and extravagant, available in a traditional caffeinated version and a more fun caffeine-free one. Stay tuned to get one of the colorful cans, set to hit the market in the coming months.
Graycano: An Inventive Dripper Made from Aluminum
As is the case at every coffee event around the world, the latest edition of the Amsterdam Coffee Festival saw a fair amount of classic and innovative drippers and brewers. Among the many we saw in action, the Graycano Dripper definitely deserves special mention, due to its unique features that include a cast aluminum core specifically designed to maintain a stable brewing temperature and innovative lava ribbing to promote a steady flow of water for brighter, sweeter notes in every sip.
We met Felix Bruegmann, CEO of Graycano, at the Graycano booth, and he made us a delicious, super-smooth, sweet, and balanced Colombian coffee that intrigued us to experiment more with this fascinating dripper.
Chunky Cherry Coffee: A New Roaster Dealing (Mostly) with Canephora
Among the many interesting roasters that produce almost exclusively arabica, this year’s coffee festival introduced Chunky Cherry Coffee, a local roaster doing pretty much the opposite, launched earlier this year by Mikolaj Pociecha.
Mikolaj, a familiar name to anyone interested in canephora thanks to his interesting book titled precisely “Canephora,“ selects and roasts delicious beans from both producing countries usually associated with canephora (such as Indonesia and Vietnam) and countries famous for their delicious arabica beans.
How could we not mention the Panama Kiva Estate that we had the opportunity to try as a pourover? It’s a slow-drying anaerobic canephora featuring perfect boozy notes of whiskey, mixed with a hint of sweet chocolate and buttery cookies. Something worth trying if you get the chance!
Il Manovale, Sprout, and Other Roasters from Far and Wide
Finally, as is often the case, the coffee festival was an opportunity for many of us coffee lovers to discover, often for the first time, new roasteries from all over Europe.
Alongside many of Amsterdam’s coolest roasters, this year’s festival featured interesting entries such as Sprout Coffee (a roastery based in Eindhoven with roots in Australia) and Il Manovale (from southern Italy, home of the 2025 Italian Roasting Champion), alongside familiar faces like Berlin’s Five Elephant and Romanian Mabo Coffee. Lots of good coffees to try and interesting people to meet!
One of the most interesting things we got to discover thanks to this year’s Amsterdam Coffee Festival was the festival’s new location and surrounding neighborhood.
Called simply NDSM (short for Nederlandsche Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij, or “Netherlands Dock and Shipbuilding Company”), the area, located in northern Amsterdam on the banks of the IJ River, is a former shipyard now redeveloped into one of the city’s most vibrant areas.
Home to interesting museums, fantastic street art, and good food and drink, NSDM is off the beaten path: enough not to be too crowded, yet well enough connected to the city center to be easily reached by a short (free) ferry ride.
It is definitely a place to put on your list for the next time you are in Amsterdam.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tanya Nanetti (she/her) is a specialty-coffee barista, a traveler, and a dreamer. When she’s not behind the coffee machine (or visiting some hidden corner of the world), she’s busy writing for Coffee Insurrection, a website about specialty coffee that she’s creating along with her boyfriend.
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