2024 Austin Coffee Field Day Recap
Austin Coffee Field Day was held on Saturday, November 2, 2024 at The Long Time in Austin, TX. It was organized by Miranda Haney (Barista Friend) and a committee of awesome local coffee people. Funds raised during the event went to the Austin Coffee Collective.
The sign painter makes his coffee in a percolator on the electric stove. Lavazza Espresso, big bag, rolled and chip-clipped.
“They’ve got a shop on 6th street,” he tells me, unraveling the bag. He passes it my way, raising his bushy white eyebrows above his wire-rimmed glasses, inviting me to smell.
“I’ll have to check them out,” I say politely, sniffing.
It’s four days before election night on the eastern outskirts of Austin. Clouds cover the sky, and the chance of rain is 50/50. We’re safe inside a Texas-style rancher with concrete floors, vaulted ceilings, and sliding doors that look out onto a regulation-sized baseball field.
My brew steeps in an Aeropress at the end of the counter. It’s a freezer-stash of 97-pt Colombian geisha I’ve been saving for a special occasion; we have an abundance of donated drip coffee, but I feel compelled to brew something extra special for the volunteers. It’s another way of saying thank you, like the Skittles and the tacos on the dining room table, free t-shirts, long-winded text messages, and clapping and cheering when they finally pull their cars into the gravel lot after months of planning.
Epoch vs. Rising Tide on the kickball field. Photo by Mason Merrill.
Outside, Charles dresses the property fence with rainbow flags. Lucero unboxes the merch and sorts it by size and color. Dani loads cases of sparkling water into 45-gallon coolers, and Randi fills them with ice from her cafe. Noah and Gilbert set up a speaker on the front porch while Bud and Sam measure the length of a rope, spray painting boundaries on the grass of the Pecan grove.
Jak climbs a wooden ladder up to the MC box and plugs his phone into the aux cord, drenching the field in Prince and Australian 80s rock. Hana fills glass bowls with sprinkles and toasted coconut for the ice cream bar; Jill, Michael, and Eric rewire the venue’s electrical system to set up an Eversys machine under a tin-roof pavilion; Tony preps a flash tattoo station inside the other house on the premises — an old white Victorian with a big front porch, where the sign painter works and lives — while Jenny and Wilton stand guard in the parking lot, waiting for our guests to arrive for the first annual Austin Coffee Field Day.
Greg, the painter, asks for a scoop of my coffee in his percolator. Without a second thought, I send a heaping spoonful into the stainless steel pitcher. We’re not here to draw lines in the sand about coffee quality. We’re here to have fun.
Here’s the idea: coffee shops will assemble teams to participate in classic field day events at The Long Time, a mystical sandlot baseball field on the edge of town. It’s decidedly un-competitive, thanks to a flimsy scoring system and a completely unhinged first-prize trophy. The stakes are low. Winning is so not the point, and everyone knows it.
Jared (Creature Coffee) and Karla at the plate. Photo by Mike Truong.
Field Day was a response to the common complaint that coffee people are tired of latte art competitions. Since I started my career in 2015, I've heard countless baristas argue that throwdowns are too serious, too exclusive, and too late at night.
Here in Austin, our local throwdowns have varied in terms of attendance. It really depends on the location, the prizes, and the time of year. But more often than not, the same handful of baristas from the same handful of shops show up and consistently place in the top three.
What could we do to appeal to a broader audience? How could we support those who don’t come to the throwdowns but still want to feel part of something? What can we do to celebrate and energize our community?
Custom merch designed by Mason Merrill. Photo by Mason Merrill, too. Hell yeah, Mason.
Now, a solution was starting to take shape. Teams and spectators trickle in as the food and market vendors set up shop. They check in at the red umbrella by the picnic table, where they pay a sliding-scale donation for drinks and raffle tickets. A QR code sends them to the schedule of events and a spreadsheet where we’ll be tallying up the points.
Bud meets the team captains to dole out cheeky bandanas that say “no latte art allowed”, a different color for each cafe. Mason and Mike snap photos, and everyone seems in good spirits beneath a gentle mist of rain. We keep our fingers crossed that this is as wet as the day gets, but Austin weather can be unpredictable.
DJ Dana spins a knock-out setlist of vinyl on the main stage, and at 1:45 p.m., I hop on the mic to welcome the crowd. I try my best to state my grand intentions, but all I can really say is thank you and thanks for coming, and the egg toss will start at 2 p.m. A few teams have yet to show up, and I’m getting pretty nervous because we’re on a tight schedule. If everything goes according to plan, we have to get through a kickball tournament, egg toss, bean sack race, tug-of-war, and obstacle course between now and sunset. I’d spent the better part of the last five months planning this, and I was planning on sticking to the plan.
What happened next is a blur to me now, but I’ll try my best to give the highlights:
Team Dark Horse laying out the strategy. Photo by Mike Truong.
All in all, we had seven teams competing and around 100 attendees. Jak and Brogan did an amazing job of MC-ing on the fly. Bud, Smith, and Sam looked super cute in their matching referee uniforms. Most players did not know the rules of kickball, which was hilarious, but next year, we’d better do a crash course beforehand.
One team dropped out at the last minute, which meant a few volunteers, including myself, got to fill in and play three innings of kickball. I’m really glad we did that. I felt so many things, cheering on my teammates as they kicked line drives and slid into bases. I felt nervous when it was my time to kick and I felt totally free sprinting to first base. Just like the morning rush, kickball is a good game and a team sport.
We tied Dark Horse 2-2, then elected six of our strongest players for a tug-of-war tiebreaker, which was way more intense than I remember from fifth grade. We lost, but not for lack of trying; Charles said it was the hardest he’d worked in a very long time.
Cosmic narrowly beat Summer Moon in the second game. Desnudo arrived just in time with the whole family in tow, but Creature took the ‘W’ 4-1. Nick Garza’s Get Along played a set of Texas bluegrass while The Bad Beans from Rising Tide, in full custom uniforms, tied the Epoch Magpies 4-4 in the last game of round one.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, was a good sport. “That was some rare air,” said Jordan from Spirit Tea, who traveled all the way from Chicago with his sales team for this.
Cattivo served vegan Italian food (which was delicious), and Grandpa Glizzy’s brought the hot dogs (essential). Custard Prison catered to their loyal preorder customers, some of whom drove more than 20 miles to pick up their donuts (yes, they are that good). A handful of vendors sold vintage clothes, ceramics, and floral arrangements under the pavilion; Ben DJ'ed inside the little white house. There were lots of kids and a few dogs. We had free drinks from Rambler, Louie Louie, Austin Beer Works, and Bawi. I know I'm missing some details.
Summer Moon pregame huddle. Photo by Mike Truong.
A little before 6 p.m., with just 45 minutes of remaining daylight, we were exhausted. We’d only gotten through the first round of the kickball tournament, and we still had three more games and two more events — the Eversys obstacle course and the “day-old pastry walk” — to go.
It was muggy and cloudy and hot, not at all the November day we’d hoped for when we chose the date back in June. When Nick Garza finished his set, I took the mic to remind everyone to rest if they needed to and to drink water. Then, by some miracle, the sky opened up in a torrential downpour. The speed of the rain told us it’d be quick, but it was all hands on deck to get the electrical equipment under cover. Once everything fragile was safe, some people huddled beneath the tin-roof pavilion while others danced in the much-needed rain. No one was mad, and it was beautiful.
A little bit of rain never hurt anybody! Photo by Mike Truong.
Still, we needed to quickly decide whether to keep the games going or send everyone home. Bud was reticent to risk injuries on the muddy field, but the teams unanimously voted to keep on playing. Compromising, we ditched the kickball tournament for the Eversys obstacle course. Out of all the field day events, this was the one that actually had something to do with coffee, and Eric sent a machine all the way from Kansas City to make it happen.
With the speakers covered in trash bags and the rest of the musical acts canceled for the evening, a hush fell over the crowd as they gathered around the espresso machine. One barista-elect from each team would transport a full oat capp through a series of obstacles. The barista with the most retained liquid in the fastest time wins.
The sunset melted into the live oak trees as seven brave baristas weaved through cones, stepped in and out of a ladder, sat on a stool, got up, did three kettlebell swings with each arm, squatted on a balance trainer, and then cleared a table of dirty dishes, all without spilling while Jak berated them with questions and criticisms. It was intense and impressive, proving that Austin baristas can have fun and be extremely good at their jobs. Fun and quality can, in fact, coexist!
Diana from Epoch won the race, but we would need more time and sunlight to tally up the final scores. We made announcements, thanked our sponsors and everyone for coming, and invited all the players to take whatever they wanted from the donations for the "day-old pastry walk." If they could wait till tomorrow morning, they would eat a good barista breakfast.
Team Epoch Magpies in the dugout. Photo by Mason Merrill.
At the end of the night, Randi kindly reminded me that people would remember this day for the rest of their lives. That means at least 100 other versions of these stories are floating around Austin - 100 different moments where our community chose joy and creativity in challenging times.
Very few good ideas turn out exactly the way you imagine them. Field Day wasn't everything I initially dreamed up in my Notes app - the walk-up songs, custom uniforms, opening ceremony, bonfire, carnival games, branded kickballs, and overnight camping in the outfield would have to wait till next year. But something about Field Day felt necessary for this moment in time. So many of us are struggling to get ahead while climate crisis, genocide, economic disparity, and who knows what else take their toll on our earth. How can you have fun in times like these? It’s a fair question.
I believe there will be no better future without a healthy dose of imagination and play. Field Day was a solution to a problem and an invitation to my beloved community to get creative. Coffee people are a different breed. We're sensitive, compassionate, community-oriented individuals. Many of us are artists and activists. Face it: we have just the imagination our world needs, plus access to safe spaces with free wifi and bottomless drip to start turning our wildest dreams into realities. Specialty coffee is a movement, like sandlot baseball, built on hopes and dreams. So, too, is the future ahead of us.
Thank you to the committee for believing in this crazy idea - Hana Y., Bud, Noah, Jak, Brogan, Randi, Mason, Gab, and Luisa, y'all changed my world. Thanks also to our sponsors, Oatly, Odeko, Spirit Tea, Rising Tide, Falcon Coffee, K-Tonic, Rambler, Bawi, Louie Louie, Austin Beer Works, Eversys, and Macchinisti, for supporting local movements. Thank you to Mike and Mason for the beautiful photography. To our teams, for taking the plunge into the unknown and showing up in full force. Congratulations to the Rising Tide Bad Beans for taking home the trophy — you told me so!!! And to our volunteers, without whom the day would not have been possible.
Let's do it again next year.