Fall Festival Coffee Continues!

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Fall Festival Coffee Continues!

14 Oct

The famous painter Bob Ross coined the phrase “Happy little accidents.” Sometimes, he meant to paint a certain thing but ended up painting a different thing, which ended up being the better thing. The previous weekend (the weekend of October 5th), I had intended to go to Baltimore for an Oktoberfest. It was called “Das Best Oktoberfest.” It was going to be my Big Event of autumn.

I woke up that morning…and was absolutely not feeling it. I wasn’t in the mood for a long trip to the big city. I blame the fact that it was the first weekend after a massive, two-week bout of rain. Following that impulse (and my subsequent abandoning of the road trip), I was hit by a second sensation: the fear of missing out.

I decided that the proper corrective to all this was to go to a flurry of little festivals instead of one big one. Thankfully, I’d read about a few happening that weekend and fairly close to me. I went to four events. Yes, it was a tour de force of autumn-related awesomeness. One of them was the annual Oktoberfest held at Spring Gate Vineyard. It wasn’t that big, but the beer was good, and so was the music. Really, what else do you need from an Oktoberfest?

After that, I went cruising for more adventures. Full disclosure: My Mom and I cruised for adventures since my car’s tire inflation warning light came on at some point during the morning. I took that as a sign that I was right not to head to Baltimore. This was, in other words, fate, I think. I am wont to believe in such things.

I’d vaguely remembered that something was happening near Linglestown. I’d seen it before when we were looking for garden supplies; a sign on the road heading towards Blue Mountain. Blue Mountain is the unofficial start of the Appalachian Mountains. It’s the first ridge of the ridge-and-valley system once you head north out of Big Valley (the aptly named valley containing the capital). It’s the hill you look over when you wonder what lies ‘over the next hill.’

That is how I came upon Maple Valley Acres Community Fall Festival.

A Hallmark Movie. That was my first impression of this festival. If there is an ideal of the ‘fall festival,’ this was it. It was very well attended for what initially appeared to be a small, local neighborhood festival in the foothills of Blue Mountain. There were hayrides for the kids, and vendor tents stretching around the large barn in the middle of the field. There was even a wine tent, serving free samples from J&P Winery in Grantville. The scent of smoked food wafted off a giant barbeque rig near the road.

There was also coffee. Somehow, there was coffee. Coffeehouse-on-wheels Crema had a truck parked near the hayrides. Crema is another coffeehouse that began during the plague. The business started in 2021, to be exact, a long-contemplated labor of love for the owner (see the card below). I must have seen them at other events; after all, Crema is local to the Harrisburg area, and there has been a bevy of fall fests since the beginning of September! Even so, seeing them here amid a great green meadow made yellow by the afternoon sun was a beautiful surprise.

The coffee was as unexpected as the appearance of the coffee truck. It was from Dillons Coffee Roasters. No, not the big Dillons food store known for shipping fast quantities of coffee nationally. This was the smaller Dillons out of Sumner, Washington. Smaller is a relative term in this case, with Dillons Coffee Roasters having grown to over 1,500 clients since it opened shop in 1992.

Despite being on the road, Crema had no shortage of offerings (as you can see in the photo below of the menu). Even so, I wanted to go basic as usual to take an accurate measure of how they roasted and presented. The coffee I got was Dillons’ original medium roast. Brazil, Papua New Guinea, and Central America were the far-flung destinations represented by the beans in this mix. It was easy to tell. The Chocolate notes were all New Guinea. The smoothness and acid were clearly Latin. This wasn’t ‘good for festival coffee.’ It was exemplary for coffee in general. Half the enjoyment came from what a well-timed surprise this was.

With coffee in hand, my Mom and I walked back around the barn, past the animals on display, and into the field where the car was parked. By this time, the sun was only beginning to go down behind the ridge, but Today, it all went together: the weather, the joy of the event, the scent of the farm, the taste of the coffee. This was autumn in the country.

Next, I should be heading north, for real this time. Lewisburg still looks good, with a burgeoning college scene and the Pennsylvania Wilds looking more and more wild as the fall turns to winter. On the other hand, this next weekend is the last big weekend of festivals before the majority of events become small and cold. OK, so, there are some signs that this year might be different in that regard, especially in Bloomsburg, where the fairgrounds are set to get a workout. If there’s any more stellar festival coffee to be had before we head far north to the Wilds, you’ll know about it.

Until then, stay caffeinated.