Espresso yourself! Big coffee and tea festival moves to Greenpoint

This event comes with some perks.

The 10th annual Coffee and Tea Festival is set to boil over in Brooklyn on March 21 and 22. The caffeinated celebration, which has previously been held on the distant island of Manhattan, is moving to the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint this year. And the organizer said the move to Kings County is a welcome one.

“Brooklyn is a great craft community for coffee and tea,” said Kristyn Dolan, the event manager for Starfish Junction Productions. “And the space is perfect.”

Around 75 companies will be serving up their products at the two-day beverage bash, which Dolan expects to attract 7,000 people. And the borough will be roundly represented on its home turf.

The neighborhood hosting the festival is serving up Eagle Street tea-maker Miss Tea Organics and coffee purveyor Cafe Grumpy, which has its roastery on Diamond Street. Toby’s Estate, a roaster and cafe from nearby Williamsburg, will also be exhibiting. Toby’s has participated in the convention once before, and a company representative said the festival’s new location was so close, it had to come again.

“It’s a good way to connect with existing customers and to meet new ones,” said Amie Raskin, a sales associate for Toby’s.

Baristas from Toby’s will be serving up espresso drinks and cold-brew coffee during the fest, and its head roaster Clark LeCompte will also lead a workshop about pour-over home-brewing techniques, which costs an additional $10. LeCompte will show participants the ins and outs of the Chemex, Hario V60, and BeeHouse manual drippers.

To sweeten the deal, some borough-created condiments will also be at the fest, including long-time Fort Greene low-calorie sugar substitute Sweet’n Low, which also makes the In the Raw line of sweeteners.

Coffee and Tea Festival NYC at the Brooklyn Expo Center [79 Franklin St. between Oak and Noble streets in Greenpoint, (631) 940–7290, www.coffeeandteafestival.com/nyc]. March 21–22 from 10 am–5 pm. $25–$35 per day.

Reach reporter Matthew Perlman at (718) 260–8310. E-mail him at mperlman@cnglocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @matthewjperlman.