Lafayette's coffee universe has expanded rapidly in recent years. From Rêve's bustling cafes to Jet Coffee's new roastery and the proliferation of high-quality neighborhood shops like Huya Craft Coffee and Black Cafe, coffee lovers don't have to look far for a great cup of joe in Acadiana.
According to New Orleans entrepreneur Jim Currie, the area coffee scene is bursting with talent — and exceptional coffee. He thinks the Lafayette market is more than ready for a coffee event that will allow consumers, roasters and baristas to interact directly and learn from each other. The inaugural Lafayette Coffee Festival will be held June 14, and Currie said coffee connoisseurs should be ready to dive deeper into the world of beans than they ever have before.
"There's so much tremendous passion around everything we do with food in the Deep South, and in Louisiana," said Currie. "We don't lack for really great coffee companies and really great coffee people.
"This event — it's for the foodie, and the strong epicurious audience in Lafayette."
Don't look for bands or fair games at this festival.
The programming will be more along the lines of "coffee class," according to Currie, with a focus on coffee workshops and brewing demonstrations.
"The world has about eight or nine major brew methods, and typically in the United States, you just see two or three of them," he said. "But these other methods are kind of fun and really do change the flavor."
For example, he talks about the Japanese being notorious in their studiousness and being exacting with their coffee.
Being precise makes a difference and can create better coffee.
"If you treat it like a science, and concern yourself with the ratio of coffee grinds to water, the temperature of the water, the level of grind — it suddenly transforms how you're extracting flavor out of the coffee molecules," Currie said. "By making it a science, you can tinker and change the flavor of the coffee you're using now."
Coffee as a Louisiana specialty
Currie's passion for coffee is newly developed out of his passion for promoting New Orleans, Lafayette and the Gulf South as a major coffee center, competing with the likes of Seattle and Portland. He spent his career in health care marketing and said he and his business partner, Kevin Richards, decided to take on a retirement project that would promote a key Louisiana industry.
They landed on coffee, after research that revealed that the Port of Orleans had been a major player in the world of coffee, before regions like the Pacific Northwest became ascendant in the 1970s and '80s.
Three years ago, Richards and Currie started the New Orleans Coffee Festival, which is a two-day trade show that promotes knowledge building between Louisiana coffee craftspeople and global industry players.
The Lafayette event will complement Currie's New Orleans-based trade show with a focus on the consumer experience. Currie and Richards see coffee culture progressing in much the same way cocktail culture has in recent decades, with a deeper consumer appreciation for quality ingredients and the expertise of mixologists (or baristas).
"When bartenders became mixologists over the last 20 years, you saw a real resurgence in the American cocktail," said Currie. "The same thing is happening with baristas and the development of coffee, with this great exploration of the adventure in flavor that coffee provides."
"We could not have picked a better industry to promote in Louisiana," Currie said. "It's just a really positive place to put your time. I think Lafayette could be one of the real secret weapons in coffee, because the consumer is ready for it. The coffee shop owner is ready for it. I think there's no reason why Lafayette, over the next five to 10 years, can't become known as one of the really cool coffee places in the whole country."
The Lafayette Coffee Festival, a one-day event for coffee lovers who want to learn more about roasting, brewing and pouring a great cup, will take place on Saturday, June 14, at Rock n' Bowl in downtown Lafayette.
Tickets are $10 online and at Lafayette Rêve Coffee locations.