MonoArabica (One Bean)

So very excited for the New York City Wine & Food Festival happening this weekend, most notably because one of my most favorite chefs, Marcus Samuelson of the Red Rooster, will be there with illy, one of my most favorite coffee companies. Double win. Samuelson happens to be the brand ambassador for illy's delicious MonoArabica line of coffees, in which they took three of their absolute favorite beans from their main line, and developed three outstanding single origin coffees (hence, the name Mono), one from Guatemala, one from Ethiopia, and the last from Brazil.

illy was gracious enough to send me the coffees to try out, so I spent the morning wrapped in my favorite oversized cashmere sweater (from The Row), getting a serious caffeine high. Yum. But back to the point--I think you, dear readers, should all get yourselves to the illy Welcome Park at the Food & Wine Festival this Saturday and Sunday to try all three of the MonoArabica coffees. If you bring any old tired container of coffee you have laying around and collecting dust in your cabinets, illy will take it off your hands and replace it with a brand new tin of MonoArabica. AND if you Tweet and Instagram something you discovered at the tasting using the hashtag #MonoArabica, you'll automatically be entered to win lots of good prizes. Details HERE. See y'all there. xo

All photos by Mark Iantosca.