Coffee and tea lovers to come together to raise money for the Ohio River Foundation at the Cincinnati Coffee Festival
The Ohio River Foundation’s Cincinnati Coffee Festival will be held for the first time since 2019 this Oct. 23-24 with a special “Platinum Buzz” event on Oct. 22 in the Grand Ballroom of Cincinnati Music Hall.
The festival is the biggest fundraiser for the Ohio River Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to protect 200,000 square miles of the Ohio River Basin, and draws thousands of people from all over the area.
The event raises approximately $50,000 annually for the organization and helps fund its mission, which includes assisting communities in removing over 300,000 invasive species and planting 16,000 trees all throughout the Ohio River watershed. The Ohio River Foundation also has an education program that has had over 50,000 students in its 20 years and leads a 22-county coalition in the Greater Cincinnati area.
The event, which is planned over a year in advance by husband-and-wife duo Rich and Judi Cogen, is the largest coffee festival in the Midwest, and features over 40 vendors selling everything from coffee and tea to ceramics. The organization also incorporates education into the event by informing the attendees on the importance of a clean river and what the organization does to help improve the watershed, even bringing in live freshwater mussels for the attendees to meet.
“As our tagline says, ‘Without great waters, you can’t have great coffee,’” says Judi Cogen. “It’s all about the idea of bringing coffee and tea together and having a festival where we can celebrate the coffee and tea culture in Cincinnati as well as bring awareness to the watershed.”
“When I generated that kernel of idea, [it] was to help draw the connection with the general public about our work and the importance of water quality in our daily lives,” Rich Cogen adds. “Interestingly enough, tea and coffee is more than 98% water so it just made sense to have this kind of an event.”
This year’s event will include a Platinum Buzz event on the Friday night of the event weekend. The event includes specialty coffee and tea cocktails, coffee beer, dinner from Eat Well catering company, a silent auction, and the Cincinnati Coffee Festival classic, the latte art throwdown.
To keep people safe from COVID-19, the event will be divided into five sessions over Saturday and Sunday. The two days will feature the vendors along with live music and Latte Art in Action, a place where guests can have a barista teach them how to make their own latte art.
The Ohio River Foundation will be following Music Hall’s COVID-19 precautions for the festival, which currently includes proof of vaccination or a negative test for entry, and all guests must wear masks during the event. It is also recommended that those planning to attend purchase their tickets in advance, which can be done on the festival’s website (cincinnaticoffeefestival.com).
