Mark has just returned from this year's Caffè Culture show in London and he's had a great time catching up with friends old and new to talk all things coffee.

For Mark, coffee festivals are a chance to meet up with existing suppliers, link up with new suppliers and meet new friends in the coffee world.

Having a stand at Caffè Culture has also given Mark the opportunity to showcase Shiloh Coffee Roasters and its coffee, with our Mills Christmas blend taking centre stage this year.

Mark says: "I really enjoyed showing our coffee as it was a bit unusual this year.

"For the past two years we've taken an Indian single-origin coffee from South India Coffee Co and last year I took a single-origin from Colombia too.

"This year I took the Christmas blend and people were really shocked at how nice it was because now many people use blends any more in the specialty industry. I really enjoyed surprising people with it."

During the two days of Caffè Culture, Mark had the opportunity to meet up with people including Martin at Agri Evolve, Komal from South India Coffee Co and the lovely, amazing Sucafina team.

It's always lovely to catch up with our green coffee suppliers and hear what's happening where they work in the coffee-growing community.

Big thanks to Brewed by Hand, our Hario suppliers, who kindly helped out Mark after he left his scales in his hotel room (oops!), machine suppliers Dalla Corte, who provided a lovely single group head coffee machine for Mark to use at the event, and the wonderful people (and cows!) at Brades Farm, who supplied our milk for the show.

Mark's looking forward to his next coffee festival already (although he might take the weekend to recover from this week's travelling before he starts too much planning).