Highlights From The Second Annual New York Coffee Festival

Yesterday was #NationalCoffeeDay, so today’s recap of a recent coffee event in New York is apropos.

The New York Coffee Festival is almost brand new, but its second event, held in mid-September over several days at the 69th Regiment Armory, already felt like tradition. It’s not particularly focused on café owners, with more than a fair share of events and displays for even the casual consumer. But it’s also not too gimmicky, Walter’s Coffee Roastery notwithstanding (as in Walter White, the character from Breaking Bad, though it was Gale Boetticher, not Walter White, who built an overly complicated brewing contraption, but I digress). With a bit of a bias toward technical innovation, here are my highlights from the show:

Chemex Introduces Automatic Brewer

Certainly the most elegant and clean-tasting manual coffee brewer in existence, and the only coffee maker to be displayed in NYC’s MOMA for the past 75 years, the Chemex has seemingly had no need to change or evolve. But the Grassy family, which has owned the company since the 1980s, has launched an automatic Chemex coffeemaker, the Ottomatic, which makes the brewing process even easier than before. The Ottomatic mimics the perfect pour over by preinfusing the grinds, maintaining the proper water temperature range throughout the extraction, and alerting the drinker when the brew is complete. At a capacity of 40 ounces, the six cup carafe (or a little more than three large mugs), is well suited to a family of coffee drinkers or those who want to show off – and serve to others – their pricey ($350) marvel. Customers can now select the color for the leather ties that secure the wood collars on the glass container, and, coming soon, will be able to personalize their carafe with laser-etchings, ordered through the web. At the festival, Chemex showed off a Manhattan skyline. Pick up an Ottomatic at Williams Sonoma, Crate and Barrel, Sur La Table, or online.

Cafflano’s Second Product Is Even More Compact, But Doesn't Have a Grinder

Last year, the team from Cafflano wowed me with their Kickstarter-funded “Klassic” all-in-one manual brewer. Needing to only add hot water, one can grind and brew on the go, using in one container. It’s particularly useful for camping and traveling abroad (although sourcing boiling water while traveling can be trickier than you’d think). This year, they are about to unveil the Kompact, an accordion-like press brewer without the grinder which collapses down to a near-flattened circle and weighs under half a pound. Drop in grinds, screw on the plate, and invert over any cup for two to three minutes of brewing before pressing to extract the coffee through a stainless steel filter. The maximum it can brew at one time is about 14 ounces, which, regardless of what you think a “cup” is, could be confidently described as a large mug of coffee. It’s suited for both hot and cold coffee brewing, though the latter would require some hours of steeping time. One of its nice design features is an airlock to prevent leaking when compressed for transport. The Kompact will be available for sale in mid-October.

Alpha Dominche Steampunk Is the Best Looking Machine of the Show

Unlike the Ottomatic or Cafflano, Alpha Dominche’s Steampunk is decidedly for the commercial cafe. As expensive as a commercial espresso-maker, and also dedicated to a single cup, albeit filtered, the Steampunk would be the focal point of any coffee shop with the capital to purchase one. However, it’s used even more for tea than coffee, as its tablet-controlled pump chambers can be programmed to deliver just the right temperature and steeping time as required for the dozen or so tea types with varying brewing specifications. In fact, it may be the only machine in the world with that capability. Introduced three years ago, the main advancement for this year’s show was a sturdy cart and countertop giving viewers an even closer look. Any novice operator who can follow along on a tablet after just a few minutes of training can produce a customized cup for customers with repeatable precision until their fingers tire of swiping.

Prana Chai’s Mix, Preserved in Honey, Is Irresistible

In stark contrast to the smell of roasted coffee, a notable honey aroma beckoned from a large bowl of glistening black whole spices and leaves. The strong fragrance was from Masala Chai, commonly shortened to "Chai", a spiced and generally sweetened black tea often served in heated milk. Originally enjoyed in England, it eventually spread to India where the combination of spices (that sound like ingredients in a curry dish) -- cardamom, cinnamon, star anise, and clove, among others -– took hold across Asia and the British Commonwealth. Prana Chai is a Melbourne-based business with a North American operation in Houston and can be found across the US, from San Francisco to New York. Making Masala Chai is a simple process, especially with dried spice mixes, but with Prana Chai’s hand-made roasted and blended whole teas, sweetened with natural honey rather than refined sugar, it’s easy and more rewarding.

NYC Originals Diversify: Joe Introduces Its Finest Coffees Yet; Nobletree Finally Opens a Cafe

New York City’s homegrown and family-owned Joe was once one of the few specialty coffee shops in the city. A little over a decade ago, its neighborhood spots drew the pre-smartphone, pre-Wi-Fi era coffee drinkers who were actually social. Their idea of a selfie was a carefully perched camera with a timer. Now operating a dozen shops in the city, offering extensive education, and roasting its own beans, Joe is increasingly sourcing higher quality beans and its “Top Shelf” coffee line represents the pinnacle in quality.

Also of note is that Nobletree, the vertically integrated coffee company which owns its own farm in Brazil, is finally opening its first coffee shop in October, in the World Trade Center food market. Like Joe, Nobletree is a NYC original, Brooklyn to be specific, and equally obsessed with quality, though it built its business in almost the opposite fashion. It’s the kind of diversity that makes the NYC Coffee Festival something to buzz about.

When she's not in a coffee shop, vineyard, or the ocean, Lauren Mowery covers drinks, food & adventure/luxury travel. Follow her around the world on Instagram and Twitter.