How to connect to a running bigtable emulator from java

You need one additional config property to be set:

conf.set(BigtableOptionsFactory.BIGTABLE_USE_PLAINTEXT_NEGOTIATION, true);

Also, from the log message it looks like it's trying to connect to an IPv6 address, which I don't think will work. Double-check that host is a valid IPv4 address.

The java client will make this easier to do in the near future.