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Water really matters when you’re brewing coffee. Different waters can dramatically change how a single coffee will taste. But what is the right water for the best coffee? In this episode I will give you the answer, but I will first take you back billions of years to tell you the sto ... Show More
Sep 14
Producer Toolkit: Marketing & Sales, Pt 2 - Navigating trade shows
This episode explores what a trade show actually feels like for a farmer who flew in on money his community pooled together, why a sausage dog opened a door that hundreds of cold emails couldn't, and why learning English may be a better investment for a farmer than a longer ferme ... Show More
43m 21s
Sep 14
Producer Toolkit: Marketing & Sales, Pt 1 - The power of story
This episode explores why specialty coffee is a luxury business that runs on story more than flavour. Part of The Coffee Producer Toolkit, a series made in collaboration with Lucia Solis, it will help you understand coffee farming better than most professionals you'll meet at a t ... Show More
37m 9s
Aug 24
Producer Toolkit: Fermentation, Pt 3 - Is using yeast cheating? And who decides?
This episode explores why 30 cents a kilo is trivial for a large farm and unaffordable for a small one, the strange power imbalance that lets roasters define quality when nobody asks a winemaker what yeast they used, and how producers can talk to buyers who think starter cultures ... Show More
32m 32s
Feb 2024
Coffee Roasting, Part 2: Roasting made easy
Roasting coffee can be maddening. Just 4° Celsius is enough to make the same green beans taste distinctly different! And there are so many things roasters can play around with: temperature, time, fan speed, drum speed, types of probes…the list goes on and on. So, if you want to s ... Show More
46m 19s
Jan 2024
Coffee Roasting, Part 1: How heat transforms coffee beans
What flavours do you want from your coffee? Every coffee bean begins its life green. And if you brewed it up without first roasting it, you’d get a yellow-green cup of grass-flavoured water. But, as soon you apply heat to a bean, the flavour can morph to from something quite vege ... Show More
37m 39s
May 2024
Freshness and Grinding, Part 2: How grinders work deep inside
Deep inside your coffee grinder, tiny changes can have massive consequences. This episode takes you deep inside Mahlkönig’s grinders to show you how coffee is ground and the importance of particle sizes on flavour. If you’re a home coffee lover, you could easily spend thousands o ... Show More
47m 19s