S3: Episode 12: Celebrating The People Who Bring Your Brew To You
The coffee in your cup takes quite the journey to get from growing on a bush in the subtropics to being served in your local cafe. In the final episode of Season Three we are celebrating the network of people who form the links in the coffee supply chain bringing your coffee from farm to cafe. This time we highlight the work at the consumer end of the chain by green bean buyers, roasters and baristas. In this week’s FACQ we discover who has the biggest influence on the coffee in your cup.
I am also very excited to announce that I will shortly be releasing a puzzle book called ‘Wordsearch For The Coffee Curious’ to celebrate 25 years working in the coffee industry.
Sign up to the waitlist here to be the first to hear when it is released.
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https://fierce-artisan-9425.kit.com/c34c96cf3f
Making coffee breaks better, one wordsearch at a time!
If you missed it you can listen to the episode Miracle In A Cup here:
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Please note that although I read all texts, I don’t have the facility to reply to them, but you can also get in touch via Instagram and email.
Email: thecoffeedrinkersguide@gmail.com
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Lusona Publishing and Media Limited website: https://www.lusonapub.co.uk
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Hello and welcome to The Coffee Drinker’s Guide, a podcast for the coffee curious where I explore and explain the world of specialty coffee to make your daily coffee better and more satisfying.
I’m Angela Holder a coffee roaster and writer on a mission to fight back against bad coffee by giving you the knowledge you need to help you get good coffee and a happier (coffee) life in coffee-break sized episodes. So grab your coffee, pull up a chair and take a break…
In the final episode for this season we are a celebrating a few of the people through whose hands your coffee has passed on its long journey to your cup…and later I’ll be answering a question about which of them may have had the most influence on your coffee, so stay tuned for that…
Welcome to another season finale! If you have been with the show from the start - nearly a year ago now - I want to say how much I appreciate your support. And if you are a new listener, hello and thanks for listening! Before I get into today’s show I wanted to share with you that this year I will have been working in the coffee industry for 25 years. It feels like both a long time and yet only yesterday since I started! So to celebrate I have have created a wordsearch puzzle book called ‘Wordsearch For The Coffee Curious’ which I am very excited about. It is of course all about coffee with coffee insights to keep you entertained on your coffee break and give you snippets of information to surprise and delight your friends with! If you want to be the first to hear when it is launched sign up to the waitlist using the link in the show notes.
And now back to the show. Today we are also celebrating some of the people in coffee, namely the hard working passionate baristas, cuppers, roasters and green bean buyers who work at the consumer end of the coffee supply chain ensuring that coffee grown half a world away gets to your cup at it’s best. It might be something to do with the sheer amount of coffee they taste and drink on a daily basis or perhaps their own coffee epiphany which led them into the coffee industry but they are often marked by a fervent desire to make absolutely sure you are drinking great coffee too….
So firstly coffee people and the brew
Most people these days know that a barista is a skilled coffee professional who makes and serves high quality coffee. But the global use of the word ‘barista’ in this context has really only come about in the last 15 to 20 years or so. Before that it was simply the Italian word for a bartender who is expected to be able to brew coffee and other beverages as well as serve alcohol. The English use of the word to describe a person primarily brewing coffee in a coffee shop appears to have been started by Second Wave specialty coffee chains like Starbucks in the 1980’s. Back then specialty coffee was associated with espresso, a brewing method imported from Italy, hence the use of the word barista for the person who operated the espresso machine. Nowadays though baristas need to be accomplished in brewing coffee through many different brewing methods. As the last hands to touch the coffee before it's served to you baristas often feel the weight of responsibility on their shoulders to do their best by the coffee and showcase the work of all the previous hands in the coffee chain. So if they take their job a little too seriously, don’t be harsh on them…
Next coffee people and the taste
Someone who tastes brewed coffee professionally to assess its quality and flavour is called a Cupper. This process of tasting coffee is called cupping and involves brewing and assessing a number of coffees at the same time while adhering to rigorous standards. The main reasons for cupping (or tasting) coffee like this are to make buying decisions when buying green beans or for quality control of the roasted beans. Coffee cupping is an extremely important task, but is usually part of a larger role such as being an importer or exporter of coffee, a roastery’s green bean buyer or a coffee roaster. Although at busy times it is possible to spend your whole day just tasting coffee, which can lead you to feeling a bit strange by the end of the day! Even so I have to say that cupping is one of my favourite things to do - and it never feels like work!
Finally coffee people and the bean
Aside from cupping a lot of coffee, a roastery’s green coffee buyer is also responsible for ensuring the delivery of the green coffee from all around the world and for managing the company’s green coffee inventory. But once the coffee has arrived at the roastery it becomes the responsibility of the coffee roaster. This is the person who roasts, or in other words cooks, your coffee. As a side note, confusingly the word ‘roaster’ is also used for the machine that roasts the coffee. As with any job that involves cooking, a certain level of skill is required to produce a consistently good result. Professional coffee roasters go through a training programme before they are let loose on the beans destined for sale to ensure that they can consistently achieve the company's standards and not burn the building down while doing it. Alongside roasting the coffee, a significant portion of the job is cleaning and maintaining the machinery so that they can safely produce the large volumes of roasted coffee the business needs. So while being a coffee roaster is often viewed as glamorous in fact it involves a lot of hard graft and grease - by both elbow and machine!
And now its time for a Frequently Asked Coffee Question…
And this episode’s question is…
Who has the most influence on the coffee in your cup?
As a coffee roaster myself I would like to say that roasters have the biggest impact on your cup by transforming it from something that is undrinkable into something that is delicious. But in fact all stages of the coffee chain matter to the end result. In particular, as I notably said before In my Miracle In A Cup episode - everyone’s hard work along the coffee chain can fall flat at the last hurdle when the coffee is actually brewed if it is not done well. Today I have focused on the people at the back end of the chain if you like who certainly influence the flavour of your coffee by their selection and handling of it. However the people who arguably affect your coffee the most are those at the beginning of the chain who define its inherent character: the farmers, pickers and green bean processors working diligently and largely unrecognised in the countries where coffee is grown.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coffee Drinker’s Guide and that was all about some of the dedicated, passionate people who work in the coffee world to round off season three. I hope you have enjoyed this season’s episodes. If you did please rate and review this podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts to help other coffee curious people find the show too. And if you have a coffee friend who you think would like the show why not send them a link to your favourite episode? It’s free to do, helps the show to grow and may well help your friend have a happier coffee life too! Feel free to get in touch with your thoughts about the show or about coffee. I’m on Instagram @thecoffeedrinkersguide, email me at thecoffeedrinkersguide@gmail.com or leave me a text message using the link in the show notes. Thanks to my executive producer Viel Richardson at Lusona Publishing and Media Limited. You can find him at lusonapub.co.uk.
And that’s it for season three of The Coffee Drinker’s Guide! If you need something to fill the void until we return with the new season be sure to look out for the release of my new ‘Wordsearch For The Coffee Curious’ puzzle book. Don’t forget you can sign up to be notified when its out using the link in the show notes. And make sure you catch the start of season four by hitting follow so you don’t miss it when it drops with more peeks behind the scenes of the specialty coffee world, need-to-know coffee information, brewing tips and your Frequently Asked Coffee Questions. Until then I’m Angela Holder thanks for sharing your coffee breaks with me - the best way to tackle life is one coffee at a time and here’s to better coffee!
The Coffee Drinker’s Guide is a Blue Sky Coffee Project