Yellowknife will host coffee festival on January 31

A coffee rave, coffee cocktails, coffee beer and coffee that came out of a cat’s backside. Welcome to Yellowknife’s first coffee festival.

Titled the PercUp Coffee Festival, the event is being run by the Territorial Agrifood Association, which operates Yellowknife’s downtown Tastes of the North store.

From 9am-4pm on Saturday, January 31, a section of the YK Centre mall will host a range of activities – some of which you might predict, others perhaps not.

“The idea is to celebrate something that warms us and keeps us sustained throughout our very long winters, which is coffee,” said Janet Dean, the Territorial Agrifood Association’s executive director.

“We have local coffee roasters that do amazing things. Many of us support coffee culture – very regularly – and we thought it was a nice natural fit.”

Yellowknife coffee institutions like Javaroma and Barren Ground Coffee are heavily involved.

“We modelled it off a festival in BC that celebrates chocolate. Their organizers realized you can’t just eat a lot of chocolate or it’s not going to be much of a festival,” said Dean, explaining how the event will try to move beyond mere coffee tasting.

“So we are celebrating coffee – you’ll be able to have coffee – but you’re also going to learn how to paint with coffee,” she said.

“You’re going to use used coffee grounds to make a facial scrub. You’re maybe going to try some coffee beer that NWT Brewing has created. You’ll learn how to make your own coffee liqueur.”

Her personal highlight, she said, is a “coffee rave” scheduled for 2-4pm.

“We’ve got a DJ in. We’re going to have coffee cocktails and some more coffee beer, but also just some good coffee for people to drink while they dance the afternoon away on a Sunday in downtown Yellowknife.”

Tiramisu will be served, but is by no means the most exotic item on the menu.

That honour probably belongs to civet coffee, which is unusual in that another species consumes it first.

“It is a jungle cat that eats raw coffee berries,” Dean said of the Asian palm civet, a cat-like mammal native to south and southeast Asia.

The berries are digested by the civets and excreted, Dean delighted in explaining, then retrieved and roasted to form an expensive coffee bean. She called the product “cat poop coffee.” It’s a thing.

“It’s very elite and supposedly tastes like no coffee you’ve ever had before,” she said, which seemed likely.

The festival runs from 9am-2pm on January 31 before the two-hour coffee rave begins. Entry is free, with a charge for some activities.

“There are things you can purchase if you’d like, but you’ll be able to sit in on the workshops and the talks at no charge,” said Dean.

“If you want to do some of the craft or interactive activities, we’re asking for $15 and that covers all the activities and a lot of extras you’ll get in your little coffee kit, and helps us generate a little bit of revenue so we can hope to do this festival every year.

“We’re taking a blank canvas and we’re going to turn it into what we hope is the most amazing coffee shop you’ve ever stopped in to visit.”