The Jackson Coffee Festival, the first of its kind in Mississippi, promises to bring together more than a dozen specialty coffee roasters on May 10, 2025, at the Mississippi Trade Mart. The event aims to promote innovation and flavor explosion in the southern coffee industry.
Jim Currie, a retired New Orleans native, co-founded the festival with Kevin Richards as a way to give back to their community. They discovered that the coffee industry had declined since the rise of online shopping, leaving foreign countries feeling overlooked. To combat this, Currie and Richards organized the NOLA Coffee Festival in New Orleans, which has been successful.
Now, they plan to expand the festival to other southern states by hosting events in Jackson, Mississippi, and Lafayette, Louisiana, with an event in Alabama next year. The festival will feature coffee-cupping presentations, demonstrations, and classes on coffee flavor wheels.
Some notable participants include CUPS Espresso Café, which will lead a presentation on quality in green coffee, Northshore Specialty Coffee, offering cold-brew samples and a class on intro to cold coffee, and Exploradora Coffee from Oxford, Mississippi, who is highlighting women-owned farms and businesses.
The festival’s organizers believe that by bringing industry professionals together, they can create a “better coffee adventure” for attendees. Tickets are $10 for general admission, with parking being free.
Source: https://www.mississippifreepress.org/hometown-innovation-coffee-roasters-share-specialty-blends-at-jackson-festival