After witnessing an absolutely fantastic sunrise over the opera house, I had a feeling it was going to be a great day for the AromaFest. This is the largest consumer coffee festival in the southern hemisphere and Sunday 6th July did not disappoint. Whilst I was slightly surprised by number of roasters who were present (I thought there would be more...there were quite a few absences I thought) there were some great boutique chocolate companies there and it seems the home espresso section keeps getting better each year.

David and I presented a 30 minute talk on coffee and chocolate and for the rest of the day, manned our two stalls and enjoyed talking to both coffee experts and novices alike.

For those who have never attended, it's a great day out but as every year passes, unfortunately so do the lines for coffees, especially those of the better coffee roasters. After picking the smallest line to get a late afternoon round of coffees for our booth workers, I stood for 15 minutes in front of one booth waiting for coffee that ended up being a little disappointing. I can't fathom why after all these years some booths still haven't got their ordering/making and delivery system worked out! To give them the benefit of the doubt though, I put it down to being late in the day though and the fact that they had probably already started to think about brews of the alcoholic kind, not the caffeine kind.

I would recommend spending a few hours there next year for those who have never been.

Met a dude from The Crushed Olive Cafe in Berry today. His coffee art is going to lead the way down south.

Also read an article in the paper today that said that drinking up to 6 coffees per day is not bad for you and that the effects of coffee were particulalry beneficial for women.

Not that I'm a woman, but the drinking up to coffees a day is good news for me....