So when we ended up in Florence together, it seemed like a good opportunity and I grabbed my little audio recorder and we sat down and chatted for a while at the end of a splendid evening.

The conversation ranges far and wide covering espresso, pressure profiling, roasting, sourcing, relationships with producers, ageing of raw coffee, retail and more. Something for everyone I hope.

Apologies for the little audio glitch – I didn’t realise the mic picked up mobile phone signals the way old tvs and radios used to.

Thoughts and comments on this one welcome – I hope you all enjoy!

You can do stuff like subscribe or leave some sort of rating or comment on iTunes here, or you can subscribe to the podcast feed here.

(Music is “Journeyman” by Amon Tobin).

In this podcast:

- What is fermentation in coffee?
- What can a coffee being “washed” mean?
- Some experiments with fermentation
- Peter’s favourite coffee books
- Variety Vs Varietal

There is more stuff in there too. I think it is a really helpful listen if you want to better understand this incredibly important part of the process. I just couldn’t chop this one down – so if you hate the longer podcasts I’m (sort of) sorry!

You can do stuff like subscribe or leave some sort of rating or comment on iTunes here, or you can subscribe to the podcast feed here.

Feedback always welcome – really hope people enjoy this one.

In this episode:

- What he’s been up to this year
- Barista training
- Arguing about espresso brewing
- Just a little bit on barista competition

Things that didn’t make the cut:

- Mike and I discussing our mixture of proud and shame at owning these.
- Mike had a great line, in amongst the shoe shopping, that I wish I could have kept in (and still had it make sense.) He said we’re often “making coffee for ourselves” as an industry. Perhaps one for another time…

I hope you enjoy this one. The next one is going to be on aspects of producing coffee and should be really interesting too.

You can subscribe (or leave a review) in iTunes here, and the podcast feed is here. As I say – I’m open to suggestions and feedback!

Things we talk about:

- A great way to think about quality, and quality control
- A definition of innovation in coffee
- Tasting Vs Drinking and menus
- Service and how to treat VIPs
- Coffee’s best kept secret

I don’t want to present it like Colin is calling out the industry, but he does make some excellent points concerning where we’re falling down. In summary – well worth 30 minutes of your time!

I mentioned I’d put a couple of photos of the 3FE bar up and here they are: Photo 1 & Photo 2 (They’re quite big so apologies for slow loading)

Subscribe in iTunes if you’d like (rate if your feeling terribly kind!) and you can subscribe to the podcast feed here too.

I’m sure I can drag Colin along if anyone has any questions or comments.

I plan to jump around quite a lot with the guests, though there is a little thematic continuation from the last episode with Stephen.  It was great to get into a bit more detail about coffee research, as it is something most people are extremely interested in.

Dr Tim Schilling is the Executive Director of the GCQRI, and has worked in the past on the SPREAD Project in Rwanda, and is also Assistant Director of Enterprise Development at the Norman Borlaug Institute.

In this podcast we talk about

- The status of the GCQRI right now

- How to get involved and support the GCQRI – click here.

- Advances in research on the potato defect

- A new approach to cupping and sensory testing in speciality coffee

It is a little shorter than the last one, though we had a couple of issues with sound quality over skype – my apologies.  The next episode is already recorded, and is very different again.  I hope you all enjoy them.  Any questions then leave a comment!

The podcast feed url is here and also available on iTunes.

I promise a few things for subsequent shows – they will be a little shorter (the first is a touch over 40 minutes) and that I will get the audio quality up.  By making the format quite simple I’m hoping that I should be able to produce them fairly easily so there may well end up being more than one and I’ll obviously work to make them better each time too!¹

In this episode:  We talk about TED, Coffee Common and some of the ideas behind it.  We also talk about WBC judging, as well as thoughts on why people win barista competitions.  Other stuff too!

Note:  In the conversation Stephen mentions a website – the url for it has changed and can now be found at Coffee Common.

So, here it is – thoughts are welcome, questions and suggestions and all that stuff.  I hope you enjoy it.

UPDATE:  The podcast feed can be found here.

1. As soon as it is up in iTunes I will let people know.  If that doesn’t happen before the next episode then I’ll post the RSS for the podcast as a temporary fix

I have a weak spot for a childish mashup, and so I got in touch with a DJ whose mixes I like and asked him for 15 minutes of music for a coffee competition.  I didn’t give much other instruction and I am very grateful for what he sent though it turned out to be a bit too coffee heavy for practical use.

Still – it is a bit of fun, and a diverting and silly 15 minutes of music.

[Download now removed]

Check out some of his other mixes here.

On a sidenote – if anyone can name the entire tracklist (and I really don’t expect anyone to) then I’ll send them a load of coffee.

Broca attacking the coffee

For the coffee plant they are insect evil. If they ruin coffee by laying their young inside the fruit who then devour the bean. Not so good for a crop. Elliott’s article is a worthwhile read and I don’t have enough material here with me to write much more than this.

Quite mature Broca

At the ICAFE research labs they are breeding Broca under controlled conditions to better understand them and ultimately their prevention in parts of Costa Rica that may be affected. We had a look at the insides of a bean where they broca are only 18 days old through a microscope and I rather hopefully stuck my camera to the eyepiece. The video is not overly pleasant viewing but I think it is quite interesting. (Give it a chance to load)

[qt:http://www.jimseven.com/video/broca.mov 320 256]
For YouTube click here.

Parchment full of broca bored holes

So, for one week only – or until I get in trouble and have to take them down, whichever happens first – here are the tracks in order:

1. Midlake – Roscoe (Erol Alkan Remix)

2. Chipset Rockswell – 50 Ways to Leave your Lover

3. Of Montreal – Gronladic (edit)

4. Electrelane – The Greater Times

If you like them then buy the albums or you’ll go to music piracy hell…..

They will disappear around the 1st October. So be quick!

Cafe Direct had heavy involvement and the other cupper who I would be tasting with was Thierry from TWIN (who source for Cafe Direct). We were to cup 6 coffees blind and initially supposed to give them a score. However I felt quite uncomfortable giving them a score as the best wasn’t even a 4/10, so instead we gave a this is the best of them and this the worst.

I am glad I brought my own spoons as you can see the presenter using the ones they supplied, and amusingly Thierry (who brought the ladles spoons) ended up asking to use one of mine.

I am hesitant about posting this here as I figure I look pretty stupid most of the time so why broadcast that, and I didn’t really have anything to do with how the cupping was done but hopefully I don’t say anything that is too foolish. No, I have no idea why I am listed as “Coffee Expert”, and Yes – I do talk posh.  An Yes – some of the coffees are so bad that the poker face is completely lost.
The coffees on the day were:

• M&S Fairtrade Organic Kenyan Medium Roast. (£2.69)
• Percol Fairtrade Organic Guatemala. (£2.49)
• Taylors of Harrogate Fairtrade Guatemalan Cloud Forests. (£2.89)
• Clipper Papua New Guinea Roast and Ground Arabica Organic. (£2.99)
• Cafedirect Machu Picchu Organic Fresh Ground Coffee. (£3.19)
• Sainsburys Fairtrade Colombian Ground Coffee. (£2.49)

(Prices for a 227g pack of preground)

Please make fun in the comments…..