Unfiltered.

Local Roasters Are Buzzing About The First Dallas Coffee Day.

Welcome to Unfiltered, our weekly feature that explores the Dallas coffee scene — and how it often manages to thrive in the most unusual places. Given that we live in a time when Starbucks locations are about as prevalent as the golden McDonald's arches, when new coffee shops seem to open every other week and when almost everyone uses a ChemEx to brew their coffee, we're here to show you some alternatives — for when your coffee shop routine becomes monotonous or when you're just looking for something different in your caffeine endeavors.

As much as the Dallas coffee scene has growth throughout the years, you'd still be hard pressed to find many local roasters featured side-by-side outside of their respective neighborhoods. But thanks to some enterprising coffee lovers, that will soon change with the first Dallas Coffee Day, which goes down on Sunday, October 18.

The event was conceived by Liz Goulding, a freelance writer and adjunct biology professor at El Centro College, who teamed up with Zac Cadwalader, desk writer for coffee website Sprudge, and head of the Dallas Coffee Collective, to bring together eight of the city's specialty coffee roasters (Ascension, Avoca, Cultivar, Eiland, Noble Coyote, Novel, Oak Cliff and Tweed) and the people who love them, then put them all under one roof.

That day will feature a variety of cuppings, talks and demos, a full service espresso bar and, according to the event page, “all the coffee your little heart desires!”

“We wanted to have an event where people of varying levels of interest can all get something out of it,” Goulding tells Unfiltered. “So if you want to taste a bunch of coffees and compare/contrast and then get some (really good) tacos? Great. If you want to ask a roaster about how to brew better at home? Go for it. If you want to learn more about what happens during a roast or participate in a cupping or listen to a talk about what origin is like? Super.”

Despite the day's potential to bring about a more unified coffee community, its main goals are to create more informed consumers and to help more coffee drinkers expand their tastes beyond what's readily available in their own neighborhoods.

“I want people who maybe think Roaster A is the bee's knees — because it's who their local shop uses — to try Roaster B and fall in love with it,” Cadwalader says. “I hope that our coffee scene de-regionalizes a bit. Again, it's all about creating a larger body of informed consumers. If we all know who and what we love — and not just who is closest to our homes or offices — we can start showing our appreciation with our dollars, which will in turn allow those roasters more buying power to bring in better coffees that we'll love even more. It's an investment in our coffee futures.”

Now, more than ever, that Dallas coffee future is looking pretty bright.

Dallas Coffee Day takes place on Sunday, October 18 from noon to 5 p.m at 158 Express Street, Dallas, TX 75207. Tickets are available for $10 in advance (children under 12 get in free), and include commemorative coffee mugs.