IF ANY more proof were needed of Northern coffee culture’s meteoric rise, it’s Manchester’s Cup North festival; in which industry professionals, home baristas and discerning denizens all converge for a celebration of the brewed beverage that will truly fill you full of beans.

Having successfully launched last year, 2015 sees the festival upgrade to a new home in Trafford's Victoria Warehouse, making the event the first to christen ‘The Bays’; a brand new industrial event space in the adjoining hotel. 

All are pedlars of what coffee nerds call ‘third wave coffee’...

Last year’s festival centrepiece Tamper Tantrum (dubbed the ‘Ted Talks of Coffee’) will also be back to champion ‘an industry full of incredible people with interesting stories’. Born following the 2009 World Barista Championship, when its founders recorded a controversial conversation (for those that give a monkey's) about all things coffee, the online video blog now has a dedicated lecture library amassed over five years of live events and interviews in ten cities worldwide.

Tamper Tantrum’s co-host Colin Harmon will also feature in Sunday’s esteemed line-up of speakers, alongside: Chloe Callow (founder of Bespoke Water and Associate Editor of Caffeine Magazine); Francesco Sanapo (proprietor of Florence’s Ditta Artigianale); Gordon Howell (owner of four York businesses geared to quality coffee, beer and spirits); Matt North (owner of Bristol’s Full Court Press and acclaimed author of Coffee – A Modern Field Guide); plus Laurent Richet (master sommelier and 'cafelier').

All, of course, serious coffee connoisseurs.

Cup NorthCup North

With the city's coffee scene flourishing, as ever more independents spring up to blow Costa’s stale muffins out the mass-market water (though we have a long way to go, with over 49 branches of the ubiquitous chain), where better to stage the North's leading coffee event than Manchester, which in the last year alone has seen 'artisan' coffeehouses such as Foundation, Lupo, Federal, Ezra & Gil, Pot Kettle Black spring up at a startling rate.

All are pedlars of what coffee nerds call ‘third wave coffee’, which is largely to do with origins, processes, methods, sustainability and maintaining a 'special relationship' with one ancient African bloke who's been lugging around sacks of coffee on his back for nine decades, which makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside

And you won't get warm and fuzzy at Neros (unless it's a cappuccino), so wake up, smell the coffee and book your tickets...

Or have a cup of tea.

The event takes place 7-8 November at Victoria Warehouse; tickets from £10 at Eventbrite. More info @CupNorth