Coffee Retailer Trade Show Expands its Reach, Bringing Coffee Education to Asia

After 16 years of bolstering the specialty coffee business throughout the United States, Coffee Fest will venture off into uncharted territory when it hosts its first international coffee trade show in Hong Kong on November 7-9, 2008. AsiaWorld Expo Center will house 150 booths and organizers expect between 5,000 and 50,000 attendees hailing from surrounding Asian countries and New Zealand and Australia.

The shipping capital of the world, Hong Kong was a draw for Coffee Fest organizers who are looking to reach out to a market that is warmly embracing coffee. Household coffee consumption in China has increased 40 percent annually and yearly retail sales have grown by more than 25 percent. Coffee Fest hopes to ride the caffeinated momentum as it heads toward its first global show.  

“Hong Kong is a true crossroads of cultures,” says David Heilbrunn, Coffee Fest show manager. “The coffee culture is vibrant, with Seattle-style cafes all over the place. We want to share our breadth of coffee knowledge with a region that is poised to become one of the largest coffee consumers worldwide.”

Coffee Fest Hong Kong will offer their hallmark brand of high-quality educational seminars, workshops and demonstrations. Budding entrepreneurs, veteran coffeehouse owners, specialty retailers, restaurant owners, roasters and those just mulling over a career in coffee retail will glean useful information they can integrate into nascent and established business plans. To help close the language gap, show organizers will offer simultaneous translations in free educational rooms. Another Coffee Fest standard, The Millrock Free Pour Latte Art competition will continue to challenge baristas and entertain the tradeshow audience. Incorporating recent refinements — blind-judging and a leader board that automatically registers competitor’s scores — to the contest, organizers have sought to make the competition a true barometer of barista skill.

A cross-cultural exchange over coffee and all its accoutrements, Coffee Fest Hong Kong will create an abundance of networking opportunities for distributors, roasters and retailers interested in making inroads into the Asian and Southern Pacific marketplace. Coffee Fest Hong Kong has been endorsed and recommended by China Coffee Association Beijing, Specialty Coffee Association Japan, Hawaii Coffee Association and Coffee Association Guangzhou. Registration for the show begins December 1, 2007. Please contact Coffee Fest or call 425-283-5058, ext. 113 or 1-800-232-0083 or 86-135-11008735 in China.

About Coffee Fest
Coffee Fest has been bringing the specialty coffee industry people together since 1992 when the show first got its start as a consumer festival in Seattle. Since 1998, Coffee Fest has gathered coffee retailers, roasters, distributors and manufacturers together for thrice annual trade shows to help attendees build and refine their businesses, learn about the latest products and remain current with the latest happenings within the coffee industry. Coffee Fest will celebrate its 50th show in Washington, D.C., in February 2008, and will host its first show off the mainland in Hawaii in June. In November 2008, Coffee Fest goes international with its debut show in Hong Kong. For more information about all the shows, visit Coffee Fest.