Check out CBS News this Sunday from 6 – 9 am as John Elliott reports live as we set up to celebrate all things coffee at the first The Hoboken Coffee Festival!

All are welcome to browse a pop-up shopping emporium of local crafters of coffee, tea and sweet treats in the Shipyard Passageway by the Museum’s entrance.  Some of Hoboken’s finest coffee roasters and crafters will be offering coffee for sale, and local chocolatier, Strawberry’N’Me, will offer her tempting treats for sale — the perfect hostess gift (or personal indulgence).

Meanwhile, inside the Museum, those who are passionate about their brew, or simply curious to dive deeper into the craft and history of coffee, the Festival offers four talks throughout the day. Make sure to reserve a ticket in advance for one or more of the following talks. 

The talks are $10 each, and tickets will be limited to 20 people per session to adhere to social distancing protocols.

Sunday, November 7, 2021

11 – 12 pm:  “Nordic Coffee Culture (Coffee, Not Just Fuel to Get You Through the Day)” by Thor Arbjornsson of East Iceland Coffee 

Icelandic coffee roaster Thor Arbjornsson discusses his personal experiences of Nordic coffee culture, contrasting chatty cafes to ones full of people quietly tapping away on open laptops. He will talk about his aims as a lover of coffee and how the pandemic has revealed the importance of coffee culture in bringing us all together.

12:30 – 1:30 pm: “Coffee is a Fruit,” by Travas Clifton of modcup coffee

Travas Clifton, co-founder of modcup, talks about the basic truth about coffee, starting with the fact that it is a fruit, and discusses the different ways coffee is processed in countries of origin from a red cherry to green bean ready for export. He will focus on natural and experimental processing and varietals and how it’s changing the face of flavor in coffee in the modern world. Follow him at #drinkmoderncoffee 

2 – 3 pm: “Haitian Coffee, Past, Present and Future,” by Tats Mori-Ryan of bwè kafe

Tats Mori-Ryan of bwè kafe hosts a meaningful coffee discussion exploring the history of coffee in Haiti; what it means for small producers today; and what the merger of specialty coffee and technology may bring tomorrow. 

3:30 – 4:30 pm: “Coffeeland,” by Augustine Sedgewick  

Augustine Sedgewick discusses his recent book “Coffeeland,” which centers on the volcanic highlands of El Salvador, where James Hill, born in the slums of Manchester, England, founded one of the world’s great coffee dynasties at the turn of the twentieth century. Adapting the innovations of the Industrial Revolution to plantation agriculture, Hill helped turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history—a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality and violence. In the process, both El Salvador and the United States earned the nickname “Coffeeland,” but for starkly different reasons, and with consequences that reach into the present. Learn more about the author and his book here.

The Hoboken Coffee Festival is organized by coffee and tea enthusiast Richard Wright of The Secret Tea Room (check it out on Instagram: @secret.tearoom), who treated Museum visitors to an engaging series of talks and coffee demos in 2020 about coffee history and the Hoboken Maxwell House plant’s role.