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#66: Winemaker Tools for Coffee Producers: Sugar & Acid Additions, Co-Fermentation w/ Fruit
23 Aug 2024
01:06:18
I was going to create a new episode about Infused vs Inoculated Coffees, but much of what we established back in Episode #39 is still relevant. So I am pulling a Taylor Swift and going to re-release a new version of episode 39, keeping what still works and adding some new perspectives from the last 3 years.
In this episode I talk about:
The sugar and acid additions that French and California winemakers use
How adding mango to a fermentation tank is completely different from adding passion fruit or citrus
How to tell when a coffee is infused with a flavor
#65: To Blend or Not to Blend? Wine Vintages, and Harvest Update.
24 Jul 2024
00:37:48
On today's episode I will be updating you on the coffee we made this harvest season and speaking of the importance of blends.
If you’ve listened to even 1 other episode of this podcast, you’ll know that I'm usually trying to discourage the coffee industry from blindly adopting wine culture. Usually I share my thoughts that adopting a wine model benefits consumers more than producers and further accentuates inequality between the coffee buyers and coffee producers. Usually I believe the wine mode does more harm than good.
But here is a rare occasion where I think coffee could truly benefit from the wine model.
In this episode I talk about:
Identity shift from a wine person to a coffee person
Why coffee could benefit from adopting the wine vintage model
#56: Finding Work/Life Balance as a Coffee Producer w/ Pranoy Thipaiah from Kerehaklu in India
29 Aug 2023
01:17:47
Today I bring you a long overdue second conversation with Pranoy from Kerehaklu in India. His first appearance on the podcast was EP#34 in May 2021
I have been wanting to catch up with Pranoy for more than 2 years, and after spending a week together processing coffee and learning we were able to sit down in Jakarta after the intense week of FTC and talk.
In this new episode we talk about:
How he has found new markets to export his coffee
Advice for producers attending coffee Expos like SCA and MICE
The impact of climate change on his farm, including the changing monsoon season.
His approach to biodiversity.
How Covid revived an interest in Indian farm life
The lingering prejudices of the Indian caste system
How Australian culture has influenced his life philosophy
RESOURCES Inquiries about coffee samples or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Today I bring you a conversation with an extraordinary producer: Rani from Java Halu in Indonesia. I do not use this word lightly. Rani is a truly exceptional person and my new coffee crush.
I met her because she was the only woman who attended FTC Indonesia in June. Each previous FTC has been minimum 50% female, this is very important to me because so many coffee spaces are still very male dominated.
During our plan for FTC Indonesia, I handed over many of the logistics to the Bandung Coffee Exchange team. It was only after 23 tickets were sold that I looked at the roaster and saw 22 males and 1 female.
I thought this might make Rani a bit shy but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In this episode we talk about:
How her past influences her present
how she developed her business acumen
turning waste into new money
civet coffee without civets
the contradiction of “specialty wet-hulled” coffee
why women are important to the sucess of her business
the importance of getting research out of the lab and into the farms
RESOURCES Inquiries about coffee samples or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
#54: Visiting Producers, Advanced Tourism & The Coffee Hunter with Tom of Sweet Maria’s
31 Jul 2023
01:38:45
The conversation with Tom Owen is wide ranging, but one main theme we talk about is coffee travel and tourism. How the host and guest dynamics play out including the unintentional burden we may be placing on coffee producers when we visit them.
Its an interesting time to be reflecting on the role of travel in coffee, since I just had a major trip to teach coffee fermentation. You’ll hear Tom bring this up when he asks me about FTC being a form of advanced tourism.
Sweet Maria’s is an incredible resource for curious coffee nerds who want to learn about home roasting basics, green coffee quality, roast profiles and cupping. The website has an extensive coffee library and resource page, so I highly recommend you check it out if these topics interest you.
In this episode we talk about:
why he keeps traveling to coffee farms after 26 years
what is the role of travel in coffee
when can we use Zoom & WhatsApp instead of hopping on a plane
what is his approach to sourcing coffee
how he is like a personal shopper
etiquette when visiting a producer, what questions to ask ourselves before we visit
the coffee hunter trope and caricatures of our industry
A bit about Vava Angwenyi... In 2009, Vava Angwenyi started VAVA COFFEE – a Benefit Corporation (B-corp) with a Social enterprise model that exports, roasts and consults on coffee value chains, the organization aims to contribute to better future prospects for coffee communities and the industry as a whole. The company ensures sustainable livelihoods for the people and communities in which it works.
Vava is also the co-founder and director of business development & fundraising at GENTE DEL FUTURO (People of the Future). GDF formed in 2017 is an organization born out of a partnership between African Plantations Kilimanjaro, Vava Coffee and Oro Molido three private sector players within the coffee sector to tackle two of the main problems we face as an industry - Producer profitability and Next generation involvement. Gente Del Futuro’s focus is to amplify the voices of youth by creating economic empowerment, choices and sustainability for the coffee industry. The organization offers young people a unique and one of a kind learning opportunity by fusing coffee cultures and knowledge from three different growing origins : Tanzania, Kenya and Colombia.
Vava holds a Masters degree-Msc in International Finance and Management from University of Groningen as well as Certificate in Global Asset Management from Warrington College of Business, UF and a BSC in Statistics & Actuarial Science from University of Western Ontario- Canada. Vava’s vision is to challenge the status quo and promote positive social disruption within the Coffee industry. This vision comes from an inborn passion for transformative change and a drive to promote the sustainable production of coffee at various origins by tracing the production of high quality coffee beans to the independent smallholder coffee farmer, who works day in and day out, against major obstacles and with meager resources to produce some of the world’s best tasting coffees, often without an understanding or appreciation of the final fruits of their labor.
Vava is also a Q grader and was part of the 2015 IVLP program a prestigious State Department sponsored program. Vava Coffee has also been recognized over the years for its grassroots initiatives and contribution to smallholder farming communities and Youth in agriculture. Vava served on the SCA board 2019- 2020 on the Finance and Sustainability Committees. In 2019 Vava Coffee was recognized as a Best for the world community Honoree - B Corp.
Vava recently authored the book “Coffee Milk Blood”. Coffee Milk Blood is a project and book inspired by her own experience as an African woman in the industry and the theme of the book touches on appropriate storytelling/depiction of producers - how producers want to be seen beyond the coffee and as Women , the African woman, the culture of the place as well as underp
#48: My Philosophies on Coffee Processing, and the Future of the Industry, with Katrien of OR Coffee
17 Oct 2022
01:02:54
Today’s episode is a little different. I am sharing a conversation that I had with Katrien of OR Coffee, A specialty coffee roastery & training center in Belgium. This episode is a little different because I’m not interviewing her, She actually interviewed me for her new podcast, Puur Koffie.
#64: What Kind of Coffee Lover am I? How Much am I Willing to Pay for a Cup of Coffee?
04 Jul 2024
00:35:02
This episode also comes on the heels of our recent trip to London.
Our very first stop was the Nagare coffee shop in Shoreditch in North London. Nick and I do what we usually do when we step into a coffee shop and order the pour overs. They had 2 different coffees on the menu for a pour over so we got one of each and sat back at our cute little table in a cozy cafe, and it was only when we looked down at our empty Kinto ceramic cups that we finally realized we had paid 18£ ($23 dollars!) for 2 small cups of black coffee.
I experienced sticker shock because we have been living on farms in Colombia and Guatemala for the last 4 years and we are very out of touch with big city prices. I knew London was going to be expensive but I was not emotionally prepared to spend $11/cup on our daily coffee.
Nick and I needed more coffee that morning but if we got 2 more cups at Nagare, we would be close to $50 and we hadn’t even had breakfast yet.
In my head, a voice was saying, dang $11 is an expensive cup of coffee. And then immediately another voice said, hold on....
"don’t we want the price of a cup of coffee to rise?"
Aren't low coffee prices a big part of the problem with our supply chain?
The conversation about the price of a cup of coffee is one I have often. What should coffee cost? Who gets to set the price? How does price reflect value?
The conversation about price and value is often at the forefront of my mind because there is such a disparity between what a coffee producer gets paid for growing and processing the coffee and what a consumer pays for a cup of coffee made from their raw material.
#44: Are Wine Making Techniques the Future of Coffee?
03 Jun 2022
01:05:40
Next time you set about making your morning coffee, take a moment to peruse the info on your bag of beans. What do you notice? The variety of beans? Flavor notes? Technical details on where the coffee was grown?
They're not so different from the sort of blurb you might find on the back of a wine bottle in many ways. And that’s intentional. Specialty coffee has taken a lot from the world of wine.
But could the increasing overlaps be a problem for coffee farmers — or even dangerous?
In this episode, Scott and Jools join forces with coffee processing specialist and former winemaker Lucia Solis from the Making Coffee podcast to dive deeper into where our coffee comes from and what (if anything) wine's got to do with it.
Lucia talks to coffee producer Karla Boza from the Finca San Antonio Amatepec coffee farm in El Salvador and vintner Todd Kohn from the Wayfarer Vineyard in California to shed some light on the techniques behind picking, transporting and processing their precious produce.
Take a sip on this (soon-to-be-a-good) vintage episode to pique your curiosity about how coffee and wine are made, and why it matters.
S-E Knopp, G Bytoff, D Selmar, Influence of processing on the content of sugars in green Arabica coffee beans, European Food Research and Technology 2005 223(2):195-201 DOI:10.1007/s00217-005-0172-1
D Selmar, G Bytof, S-E Knopp, B Breitenstein,Germination of coffee seeds and its significance for coffee quality, Plant Biol (Stuttg) 2006 Mar;8(2):260-4. DOI: 10.1055/s-2006-923845.
Ludlow CL, Cromie GA, Garmendia-Torres C, Sirr A, Hays M, Field C, Jeffery EW, Fay JC, Dudley AM. Independent Origins of Yeast Associated with Coffee and Cacao Fermentation. Curr Biol. 2016 Apr 4;26(7):965-71. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.02.012.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
#39:Infused vs Adulterated coffees, Cinnamon and Fermentation Failures
15 Sep 2021
00:57:43
As many of you know, we've started doing live hang out after the episodes on Discord a week after the podcast comes out. I find this valuable because I get to hear from listeners and we create our own podcast after the podcast together.
In the most recent gathering I had Felipe, Jose and Lucas from Ep 38 on the discussion so listeners of the podcast could ask them questions directly.
A few things stuck out to me from that conversation that I want to share here because what started as a fun hang out turned out to provide a key insight for coffee producers.
#38:Reverse Engineering a $5 Castillo in Colombia w/ Lucas, Felipe & Jose
17 Aug 2021
01:04:15
Today's episode features Lucas, a Patron and exporter with Unblended who sold a Kombucha coffee. I invited him and the producers he works with, Felipe and Jose to talk about their experience reverse engineering a $5 castillo. They started with the end goal in mind, the picked the price, the flavor profile they wanted and then created a process to hit their target.
In this episode you'll hear from 3 passionate coffee professionals about:
What a successful relationship looks like between producers and exporters
The true cost of experimenting, 80 kilos vs 1 ton
The price the farmer gets vs the roaster price
Their exact process: preparing and caring for the kombucha SCOBY
Their tracking: ph values and number of fermentation hours
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
Contact: For special collaborations, samples, or inquiries about USA and HK on-spot inventory from Felipe, Jose and UVI: https://www.unblended.coffee/ or through Instagram: @Unblendedcoffee
For connecting, learning more, or suggesting experimentation ideas: Instagram: @Ventolacoffee and @joalherb
#35: Acetic Acid 101—Kombucha & Making a Washed Coffee Taste Like a Natural
27 May 2021
00:55:44
Do you drink kombucha? Coming from California, kombucha is about as normal as orange juice. But I imagine it might not be as popular in other parts of the world. Kombucha is probably more popular in North America and Europe (coffee importing countries) and probably very rare in coffee producing countries.
I can imagine a near future where buyers are drawn to or supportive of kombucha process without understanding what they may be asking producers to do. Or similarly, producers wanting to be ahead of the curve and differentiate their coffee in a new way borrowing methods from beer and wine.
My hope is that this episode helps coffee producers experiment intelligently and with intention, to maximize positive results.
If you’re a coffee buyer or consumer, I hope you’ll be curious and critical if you see these words pop up on a label. I hope the information in this episode helps you be a better consumer by questioning what you read on labels or websites.
#34: Robusta, Tropical Fruits and Mechanical Drying. Visiting India w/ Pranoy of Kerehaklu.
06 May 2021
00:55:44
Today's episode is another in a series hearing from coffee producers from all parts of the world.
I think one of the common traps we can get into is thinking and talking about "The" coffee farmer. Or "The Average Coffee Farmer." As if coffee farmers are a monolith. The average doesn’t exist. The people who grow and produce coffee are a very diverse group who do it for different reasons in very different conditions.
It’s our nature, that when we learn something new, to compare it to what we already know, we learn by grouping and recognizing patterns and assigning categories. We take large amounts of information and shrink it, and distill it until it’s a small enough unit that we can attach a label.
My hope with these episodes is to take a microscope to the group, get to know the individuals, how they think and what they think about.
Today we get to visit India through the eyes of Pranoy, a 5th generation coffee grower. His family got into the business in 1953 where they have grown different produce in biodiverse, multi-cropped conditions.
#33: Listener Q&A: Learning from Thailand, Avoiding Mold Growth in Honey and Dry/Natural Processing in Humid Locations
23 Mar 2021
00:36:26
Today’s questions all come from Dr. Mack in Bangkok, Thailand. Even though he is asking the question on behalf of coffee producers in Thailand, I wanted to answer them on the podcast because they are relevant to all of the newer coffee producing regions.
Thailand didn’t export coffee until 1976!
This is very recent and not a lot of time for coffee growers and producers to develop their craft and catch up with older coffee growing regions like Colombia, where I am living. Colombia was already exporting coffee in 1835.
As new regions begin to grow coffee, the questions in this podcast will become more and more relevant.
Dr. Mack's questions allow me to address a few things like:
How to avoid fermentation during transportation from the farm to mill
How to use yeast with rust resistant varieties
How to do a honey or a natural process while avoiding mold growth (a common problem in humid tropical countries)
#32: Where Is Ripeness? Lessons From Brazil on Brix & Color
16 Feb 2021
00:59:40
Our sugar journey is almost complete as we round out the third installment in the Brix series. I hope the previous podcast episodes helped open your mind to some of the challenges we face in talking about sugar in the coffee industry.
Today's episode focuses on ripeness and how counterintuitively sometimes measuring Brix can lead to lower quality coffee.
And to help illustrate this point I'm sharing a lesson from one of my favorite industries: the cork industry. Specifically cork wine stoppers. In 2013 I was invited to visit Portugal as part of a Quality Control trip on behalf of the winery I worked for.
In this episode we will talk about Brix and fruit maturity (ripeness), I will discuss the results of research done on a Brazilian coffee farm and we will see if there isn't a better instrument than a refractometer to help us look inside the coffee fruit and determine what will make a quality cup of coffee.
I hope the previous podcast episode helped open your mind to some of the challenges we face in talking about sugar in the coffee industry. In today's episode we are adding another element, another piece of the puzzle—the refractometer and the other instruments used to measure sugar.
In today's episode we will see how a refractometer can give a high Brix reading even when there is zero sugar in the sample. Or, how it is possible to get negative Brix readings.
I think understanding more about the the instruments we use, helps us understand the limitations of measuring Brix at all.
Where does sweetness come from? Can something taste sweet that has no sugar? How can we measure sugar in coffee?
This will be a more technical episode where we will talk about the sugar compounds like carbohydrates, sucrose, glucose and fructose and sweetness as a concept. We will also look at how sugar content differs based on processing style: washed, honey or natural.
#29: How Can Yeast Help in a Rural Ugandan Setting: Consulting w/ The Coffee Gardens
08 Dec 2020
00:44:48
Today you get to be a fly on the wall of a consulting session between myself and a coffee producer in Uganda. The Coffee Gardens is a newer project of coffee producers who have partnered with select coffee farmers in Eastern Uganda. They currently work directly with 300 small holder farmers. They have a micro-processing station in the foothills of Mount Elgon.
This episode might be most relevant to a coffee producer, so if you know any, please pass this episode along to them. Especially if they are curious about using yeast to control their fermentations.
Today we cover how to process undesirable cherries, we talk about the challenges in scaling up from a small trial to full scale lots. We also discuss yeast usage in very rural settings, is it even appropriate? At what volume should a producer consider using yeast?
Even if you’re not a coffee producer I hope you will listen to the questions and concerns of a coffee producer and better understand their reality.
#28: Origin, Native, Indigenous and Local: Building Our Coffee Vocabulary
24 Nov 2020
00:40:30
If you started the season with me in October you’ll remember that I started exploring the topic of what we lose when we take a plant from its native environment. Episode #25: A California Coffee Farm & Native vs. Local Yeasts looked at the relationship between coffee trees and the fermentation.
Dr. Aimee Dudley’s research showed that the native microbes do not travel with the plant material and therefore all coffee fermentations outside of Ethiopia are non-native fermentations.
So we’ve touched on the above and below ground microbes that we leave behind. But is it only about microbes? Are microbes the most important thing we leave behind? I argue that it is not. As important as I think they are, I think there is something more valuable that is lost.
Today, in part 3 I want to talk about another aspect we miss out on when we take something from its native environment.
#27: Searching for the Escape Velocity of Coffee–w/ Mark from Finca Rosenheim
03 Nov 2020
01:12:25
We usually hear about coffee from roasters or even people like me, who work with coffee producers but we are not producers ourselves. One of my podcast goals is to bring you directly to the source. Whether it's scientific research or hearing directly from coffee producers.
Often we leave it to coffee professionals and educators to speak about coffee producers but it’s rare to hear directly from coffee producers about their motivations and challenges. And even when we do hear from them on their social media channels, there is a hidden pressure to present a rosy version of reality.
Today’s conversation is with Mark from Finca Rosenheim in the Villa Rica region in Peru.
This conversation is an honest look at some of the challenges producers rarely get to talk about. I asked Mark about organic certifications, climate challenges, coffee competitions, crop diversification, and what happens when markets can’t rebalance themselves.
#26: Do Coffee Trees Talk? How Underground Fungi Affect Coffee Quality
20 Oct 2020
01:02:23
What is left behind when coffee moves to new locations. What is the trade off for innovation? This episode looks at what else we potentially leave behind when we introduce new plant material to non-native locations.
The inspiration for this episode was a beautiful book by Peter Wohlleben called The Hidden Life of Trees. In it, Peter talks about native forests vs planted forests and the differences we (humans) are able to perceive.
One of the example trees in Peter's book are oak trees. This was an interesting cross over for me because oak is very important for winemaking. Most of red wine is aged in oak barrels and many Chardonnay's too.
This episode is filled with wine information on barrels, tastings and stories of my time in the wine industry.
I enjoyed putting this episode together and I hope you enjoy listening to it. If you would like to support the show and help me make more episodes, join the Patreon community.
#25: A California Coffee Farm & Native vs. Local Yeasts
06 Oct 2020
00:50:20
This week I want to talk to you about where native coffee yeast come from. If you are concerned about coffee flavor manipulation by yeast, I hope by the end of the episode you have a broader understanding of where "native" yeast originally came from.
To help illustrate the point, we start with non traditional coffee growing regions like Southern California.
In the episode I will also be sharing research from Dr. Amiee Dudley.
I met Dr. Aimee Dudley in 2017 during SCA EXPO in Seattle when we were on a Re:CO Panel together talking about yeast. I was offering the perspective of practical application of yeast, how coffee producers in situ could use it and Dr. Dudley was presenting her research on yeast genetics. She runs a lab at Pacific North West Research Institute and she is an expert on yeast genetics.
#24: Tea and Coffee: Conscious Uncoupling w/ Aurora Prehn
10 Aug 2020
01:03:33
Aurora is back for another tea chat.
Unfortunately I think coffee and tea are often lumped together in similar categories but they have very different histories and I think it’s worth trying to de-couple these beverages.
Join us as we discuss how: -tea is largely consumed in it's botanical origins and coffee is not. -the different flavors of stress (positive and negative) -over extraction and the role of color -my thoughts on Cascara tea
Mentioned in the Podcast:
Support the show on Patreon and get Aurora's curated tea flights and download the research paper on Leafhoppers and Oriental Beauty oolong tea.
#23: Tasting Authenticity—When Different Countries Have Similar Flavor Profiles
28 Jul 2020
00:51:08
What happens when the best in the world can't tell if a wine comes from the Willamette Valley in Oregon or Burgundy, France? What happens when the experts can't tell if the bubbles are from Champagne or California.
Does a place really have a taste? Can we find it in the glass?
That is the premise of terroir, tasting the land, localizing the product. But often, when put "terroir" to the test it cannot be found.
Today's episode starts with the story of the 1976 Judgement of Paris tasting, a famous part of wine history that pitted French terroir-driven wines against terroir-less California wines. The competition had a blind tasting for red wine and for white wines. The red wines were predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon and the white wines were the Chardonnay variety.
We are also going to see what happens when Terroir is used as a basis for certifications. I'll share with you some of the limitations of the "geographic protectionism" and the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) system.
Certifications are usually protective tools but sometimes they can work against the producers they are meant to protect.
How can such a romantic and noble concept, tasting the land, respecting nature - work against producers?
To pick future podcast topics, get access to the scientific papers, ask questions that I answer on the podcast, and help me continue making episodes: consider supporting the show by Joining Patreon Here
Welcome to the next installment of terroir in coffee.
This one little word contains a whole world of history and has an important role in the economic viability of certain agricultural products.
After the last episode I heard from some of you who wished I had talked about soil minerals and plant nutrition from soil. Others also asked about the wine making regions like Bordeaux where Terroir is regulated by french law. I cover both of these concerns in todays episode before we get to discuss what I really wanted the episode to be about: microbes and morality.
There is an unspoken understanding that products that express terroir are more moral than others.
I wanted to give you an episode that focused on microbiology, that talked about the yeast and bacteria that contribute to a "taste of place" but I couldn't do it without including the human perception that products that express terroir, products that are "transparent" are superior.
I think we need to be really careful because science doesn't support this view. Any moral component of terroir is a choice to see it through a religious and political lens.
I want to challenge your views on "transparency" and "intrinsic quality".
To pick future podcast topics, get access to the scientific papers, ask questions that I answer on the podcast, and help me continue making episodes: consider supporting the show by Joining Patreon Here
#21: Terroir—Part I: The Soil, The Science & The Human Element
30 Jun 2020
00:42:55
I'm so excited for you to join me in this discussion about terroir. Terroir comes from latin, for terra - soil. Also translated as land, or “taste of the land”.
Terroir is predominantly a wine concept, so why are we even talking about it in reference to coffee?
If you’ve listened to other episodes, you’ll know that there are certain concepts that the coffee industry likes to borrow from the wine industry. We’ve talked about some of the really bad ones, like using wine or beer tanks to ferment coffee or how a Q grader is not like a sommelier.
From the outside we see the concept used in wine to justify the high prices of a French wine, perhaps we associate it with valuing the land, a sense of place. We know it’s connected to soil, so maybe we assume that terroir also has to do with soil health.
This makes terroir seem like it would be a positive concept to adopt.
I see how tempting it is to think that coffee could benefit from adopting this way of speaking about coffee farms and how it can help sell the coffee beverages at higher prices. Also, it sounds so romantic, and the specialty coffee industry loves romance.
But similar to my argument about “anaerobic fermentation”, terroir faces a similar problem- the word is vaguely understood at best, and then repeated and made familiar by sheer repetition, not by true understanding.
Many of us have a hard time defining this word if we are asked.
I have made this episode to give you a background into the origins of the word so that before we dive head first into regular use in the coffee industry, we have a better understanding of what it means.
While most student of winemaking take terroir for granted, as a given, I was lucky that one of my UC Davis professors challenged the idea. The historical origins are from the book Terroir and Other Myths of Winegrowing by Mark A Matthews. I highly recommend this book for those wanting to go deeper after today's episode.
To pick future podcast topics, get access to the scientific papers, ask questions that I answer on the podcast and help me continue making episodes: consider supporting the show by Joining Patreon Here
Thanks to Patron Brodie for casting the deciding vote!
#20: Listener Q&A: Slow vs Fast Fermentations, Adding Foreign Yeast, & Post Harvest Effect on Density
16 Jun 2020
00:39:31
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you introduced foreign yeast and bacteria into a coffee farm? Or maybe you're curious if we can speed up a long fermentation by warming it up. How does post harvest processing affect the density of the seed?
In today's podcast episode I’m answering listener questions like these and also sharing how I approach designing a fermentation.
When I was planning this podcast I knew that I wanted it to be a community supported project and that I did not want to rely on advertisements or sponsors that can be annoying or distracting to the information I want to share.
The Patreon supporters are a group of individuals who care about coffee education and support me and this project. They made a monthly pledge to help keep this information free and available to everyone. With their help I can pay for equipment upgrades like a better microphone, I can pay the subscriptions for the editing software I use and cover the monthly hosting fees. Their contribution also allows me to take some time away from consulting so I can document and record these episodes. As part of their membership, Patrons submit questions—often I answer them privately in the message chats but today I wanted to share and record some of them here on the podcast so we can all learn from each other.
#19: Botanical Awareness, Tea Fermentation & Processing with Aurora Prehn
02 Jun 2020
00:46:15
For those who know, it may not come as a surprise when I share how much I love tea. But professionally, today is the day I come out of the tea closet. I drink logarithmic levels of tea compared to coffee, and the more I confess that, the more other coffee professionals share with me that they too love specialty teas.
Unfortunately I think coffee and tea are often lumped together in similar categories but they have very different histories and I think it’s worth trying to de-couple these beverages.
Today's episode serves as an introduction the basics of specialty tea and will be the first of many episodes exploring the processing and history of this beverage.
Our guide through the world of tea is my friend Aurora Prehn. She is a researcher of people and plants. Her undergraduate work was a double major in Anthropology and environmental studies. She worked at Rishi Tea and Botanicals as a tea educator. In 2018 she then left to do a masters in ethnobotany in Canterbury, England, which she finished last fall.
#18: Anaerobic Fermentation: Building Our Coffee Vocabulary
19 May 2020
00:31:56
In today's Making Coffee Podcast episode, we're taking a deep dive into anaerobic fermentation and how language reflects values.
Specialty coffee is a young industry. In the consumer space we have only recently started to differentiate between processing styles like natural, washed and honey and now we’re jumping off the deep end into the microbiology of these processing styles.
I wanted to record this episode because many Green Buyers ask me what Coffee Producers mean when they label their coffee like this and Coffee Producers ask me what the Green Buyers mean when they ask them for an anaerobic process.
Both parties expect the other one has the answers.
Even if the words are poorly understood they are still copied, pasted and repeated so much that they become familiar through sheer repetition.
We see them so much that we can sometimes convince ourselves that we know what everyone is talking about, or we assume that at least they must know what they are talking about.
But in my observations, it seems like at this point everyone has their individual, personal, un-scientific definition.
And this is a problem because when everyone defines the words differently, we undermine the point of language to communicate.
To Support this Podcast and become a Patron CLICK HERE
Today's Making Coffee Podcast episode is a continuation of the theme of coffee pickers and their role in quality.
In the previous episode I shared my surprisingly difficult experience trying to source red ripe coffee cherry. It was surprisingly difficult to pay the farmers more for a different quality than they were used to picking because of the established system, a system that developed over decades as a response to chronically low coffee prices.
It's important for me to share this with you because I don’t believe enough of us who enjoy drinking coffee realize how fragile our coffee supply is. Coffee is such a staple in our daily lives that I believe we simultaneously revere it for making our mornings more enjoyable and take it for granted.
For example, many businesses offer free coffee, free coffee refills or free coffee with food. If you look around hotels, restaurants and gatherings you can often find more than 1 “FREE Coffee” sign.
We expect that there will always be coffee. It seems so abundant that there is a real disconnect between the effort it takes to get that cup into our hands and what we are willing to pay for that work. Many of us would be turned off by a $5 cup of coffee but have also likely paid $15 to $20 for a glass of wine. Additionally, it's a lot less common to expect free wine.
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#16: The Elusive Search for Red Ripe Coffee Cherry
21 Apr 2020
00:29:45
Today's episode is part 1 of a 2 part series talking about the people who pick our coffee.
In episode 15 we went deeply into how a molecule of sucrose in the coffee cherry pulp becomes a flavor compound like banana or peach and gets into the coffee seed.
Flavor is an accessible entry point for specialness.
However, I don’t like talking about flavor and coffee too much. I don’t think coffee flavor is what’s going to help the industry move closer towards long term stability. I think it’s most often a distraction of the larger picture. My concern is the coffee farmers, the people at the source of the value chain.
I think focusing on flavor distracts us from the larger threats to coffee, like climate change, pests and diseases and—what I want to talk about specifically today—availability of labor.
Sitting down to collect these interactions is possible through the support of Patreon. I’m grateful for the 31 individuals who currently support this podcast and it’s through their generosity that I can make it available to you all. As a thank you, I create additional resources on the Patreon account.
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#15: How Microbes Contribute Body, Acidity, & Fruity Flavors To Your Cup of Coffee
06 Apr 2020
00:31:38
Today's episode is very special because it was picked by the Making Coffee Podcast Patrons. I sent my patrons a poll on what they wanted to hear about next and the topic most people wanted to hear about was HOW fermentation impacts coffee flavor.
How can the same yeast that makes bread rise also make my coffee taste like apricot or jasmine?
Maybe you’ve thought that farmers added fruit to the coffee (and while this sometimes happens—it’s not the kind of flavor we are talking about today). Maybe you thought those flavor differences came from the different plant variety or that different countries of origin explains those differences.
Those are important factors but that’s not the whole story. In this episode we will go deep into the biochemistry of how a yeast or bacteria can turn the glucose in the coffee fruit into various flavors ranging from lemongrass to mint to raspberries.
There is also a question at the end about how baristas can communicate flavor in a simple way (without having to give a 30 minute science lecture) to their customers.
To pick the next episode, get a copy of the scientific paper that I reference in this episode and ask questions that I answer on the podcast, check out: https://www.patreon.com/makingcoffee
#14: George Howell on Cup of Excellence, Coffee Pricing and Craftsmanship
11 Mar 2020
00:53:43
Join me in listening to this conversation with George Howell, where we cover topics such as Cup of Excellence, coffee pricing, processing styles, craftsmanship, additives in processing, kamikaze farmers, and much more.
George was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award from the SCA in 1996, even before he helped found the Cup of Excellence program in 1999. He's accomplished a lot towards improving coffee quality and educating consumers on several fronts. What I admire most is that he continues to be an advocate for quality. He's been in the industry 46 years and I was surprised to learn that he continues to travel to maintain his relationships with coffee producers, and visits Antigua every year.
Even though George has had a longer career in coffee than me, and we approach coffee from different points of view and with different backgrounds, I was surprised to learn how much we have in common regarding coffee processing.
#13: Growing Up On A Coffee Farm, With Sofia Handtke of Mapache
28 Jan 2020
00:29:32
Hello friends,
Today I want to share an interview with Sofia Handtke from Mapache Coffee in El Salvador. I recorded this last November at the end of my time with them. That was my second season working with them and designing fermentation lots at their mill. Over the last 2 harvest seasons we've done about 40 different batches combining 4 strains of yeast, 3 cultivars and various lengths (# of hours in the tank) in an effort to create additional flavor options.
I wanted to interview Sofia and Jan Carlo together but they have a small mill team and a lot of responsibilities so I caught them when I could. In the interview with Jan Carlo we spoke about how Mapache is embracing vertical integration, how he believes this current generation is more open to sharing information, and some of his struggles like disease pressures and how climate change has impacted his farming philosophy. You can catch my conversation with him HERE.
In this conversation I ask Sofia to share her Q Grader experience and talk about her background in coffee. She believes that getting coffee producers and buyers using the same standard language is very important but unfortunately it’s still out of reach for many producers in Central and South America—this is a topic that deserves it’s own episode and it's in the works.
She shares what it was like growing up in a coffee farm and how she and Jan Carlo are engaging their two teenage children to inspire them to see the coffee industry as a career option, unlike her parent’s generation, many of which had to abandon the industry because it was no longer a viable way to make a living.She shares some fantastic insights about coffee branding and marketing and the coffee gear she takes when she travels.
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