I've been going to Yellow Bird Coffee (web) near Amager, Copenhagen since first Covid-19 lockdown in Copenhagen in 2019. Almost twice a week.
Every April we were about to get ready for setting up Nordic Game Jam, and around that time, posters for Danish Coffee Festival (web) would appear at the Yellow Bird Coffee. Unfortunately, as Nordic Game Jam and the Coffee Festival would collide I never really had the chance to join. But for some reason, they didn't collide this year (and no hosting of NGJ gave me quite some space). So, finally I could join, which I did with a few friends of mine.
I expected a lot of coffee tasting and otherwise some kind of competition going on. And you know, it was that, just with 10x more people. It was so busy. And there was a ton of companies there, all giving long description of the different notes, and background to the coffees.
Wouldn't call myself much of a good taster. I prefer a Cappuccino on oatmilk, something simple with nutty and creamy taste. I guess that's just a dark roast in the end. I don't do pour over either. This gave me an assumption that I wouldn't find much value in coffee tasting - but honestly, it was pretty fun and you really get to see all the different variety in coffee. Going from one barista to another, you could easily tell some kind of difference. And more often I would say "I actually don't like this one" compared to the one we just had previously. Even while being brewed as a pour over on a coffee from the same region.
I would say, the whole culture gives a heavy impression that you need a lot and good equipment to make "good" coffee. I recently got an Espresso machine and it was a pretty big space to move in to figure out what I could get, wanted and needed. And I don't think I really got a good answer to this. Even all the "big" YouTubers are talking about massive machines that costs so much money. And just being at the coffee festival.. Loads of display of expensive equipment. This just results in some kind of idea that you need all this equipment to make "good" coffee. Of course, this is not needed. You can easily make something that is really nice with basic equipment.
Luckily, a lot of the coffee here was pour over, which I guess is actually pretty cheap.
Otherwise, really fun to see what is consider nice coffee. I would say the distance between whatever most people can make at home and what I experienced here, is actually much shorter distance in taste than I expected. As I have been "training" my espresso making at home, I've done quite of bit of espresso tasting. And frankly, I don't find it really that good. Unfortunately, I forgot to do a proper espresso tasting here, just so I could get a baseline for what a good espresso shot is. That will be for the future!
If crowded places overwhelm you, it was pretty bad there. And people are quite caffeinated, so everyone can be a bit more on edge that usual. It was also super noisy with commentary on the competition and the some kind of music going on which was way to loud.