By RACHEL WACHMAN
For the Insider
Downtown Concord will transform into a coffee wonderland during the first weekend of May.
The Northeast Coffee Festival, held Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3, will feature an outdoor community market with over three dozen coffee and tea vendors, as well as dozens of workshops, panels and hands-on educational opportunities for those looking to learn more about coffee as a craft.
The festival originated in Laconia in 2023 and immediately searched for a way to expand its reach. Founder Karen Bassett, who owns Wayfarer Coffee Roasters in Laconia, said she planned the two-day event to prioritize coffee and community. Wayfarer and Concord’s own Revelstoke Coffee host the weekend.
“We really wanted to bring coffee shops, coffee roasters, and all the coffee people from all over the northeast to a gathering place to year by able to be to connect, to be inspired, to learn, to be educated, to grow and just to feel like it’s more of a community,” Bassett said.
Complete with food trucks, coffee and tea vendors, mobile espresso bars, a kids’ play zone and live music from the New Hampshire Music Collective, the festival offers something for everyone.
“This is a really unique festival, where it bridges the gap between coffee professionals and coffee consumers,” she said. “That’s really important to us, and to be able to kind of shed light on the coffee world, the specialty coffee world, and helping consumers be educated about their coffee and give coffee professionals a place to learn without spending thousands of dollars on coffee classes.”
Bassett said she loves holding the festivities in Concord and finds the city to be a very welcoming environment.
“From the city itself and all the players there to grant funding to businesses that have really welcomed the festival, it just really feels like a collaboration between The City of Concord and the Coffee Festival,” she said. “It’s been just an honor to work with everyone down there and to just see how they support community events and really want Concord to be a destination for festivals, for culture, for arts, for music, for education.”
Coffee producers, roasters and importers from around the world will be in attendance. Bassett hopes bringing together so many members of the coffee economy will help facilitate connections and grow collective knowledge. For coffee consumers, she wants the festival to shed new light on a familiar drink.
“It goes beyond that cup that you’re drinking. It’s always about the story behind it, always about the people who brought it all the way from farm to cup, and it’s about how you impact your community through real, in-person relationships,” Bassett said.
For more information about the Northeast Coffee Festival, visit http://www.northeastcoffeefestival.com.
The free community market will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, with the coffee education programming, which requires a pass, happening throughout.
Rachel Wachman can be reached at rwachman@cmonitor.com
