The Coffee Show with Kirk Pearson
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© The Coffee Show with Kirk Pearson
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Uncovering the untold stories about coffee
52 Episodes
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The World Coffee Championships recently unveiled their new sponsors, with Ceado now being the grinder sponsor for the barista category and Option O for brewers cup.Coffee competitions have always been costly, but this year they're going to a new level and the frequency at which the sponsors change make it hard for would be competitors to budget accordingly.Perhaps the most shocking change is that for the Brewers Cup competitors will now be required to use the same grinder for compulsory and open service which is a massive change that has already upset many competitors.Plus, Kirk apologises to Ceado for singling them out in a previous post.Like this podcast? Leave a review and please tell two of your friends!
On the weekend US President Donald Trump and his administration captured Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela and his wife, sparking international outcry and condemnation.While the world is still learning more details there is much conjecture on what comes next. One thing is for sure, if the region were to become unstable and if shipping near one of the worlds busiest shipping routes is disrupted, the outcome for the coffee industry would be dire. Like this podcast? Leave a review and please tell two of your friends!
In our recent tour of Europe, we touched down in Berlin to attend the launch of Oatly's 'Look Book' they formulated to help cafes and home enthusiasts to make better drinks that are better for the planet! Kirk sat down with Toby Weedon who is the Barista Development Director at Oatly who oversaw the creations in the Look Book. Along with the launch of the look book Kirk and Toby discuss the 'Future of Taste' report that Oatly developed which looks into upcoming trends within the coffee industry, like: - The Global Flavor Exchange - Conscious Indulgence - Fibre Has Entered the Chat - Destination Drinks - The Future State of MatchaThis is a great podcast to understand what trends could emerge in 2026 and what the future of coffee might look like! Like this podcast? Leave a review and please tell two of your friends!
The prophecy foretold that one day Gabrel Tan would become Australian Barista Champion, and alas! Here we are!! Gabrel Tan of Veneziano Coffee Roasters, who has finished second three times to eventual World Champions Anthony Douglas and Jack Simpson, was finally able to break through and earn his first national title! Gabrel overcame a challenge from the legendary Angus Mackie of Ona Coffee using coffee from Finca Janson in Panama and unique microlot from Indonesia! In this episode we discuss Gab's journey where he competed against the very best in Australia's top heavy barista competition and what it took for him to overcome the mental hurdles of defeat! Jack Allisey is the Head of Coffee for the Nomad Coffee Group which is roasts more than 100 tonnes of coffee a week supplying some of Australia's biggest coffee brands. Jack is also Gab's coach for competition and has worked with Gab throughout his competition journey! Like this podcast? Leave a review and please tell two of your friends!
Matt Perger and Jeremy Challender run Barista Hustle, an online coffee education provider that make comprehensive courses for people of any skill level in coffee to better their knowledge!In this episode of The Coffee Show, Matt, Jeremy and Kirk have just concluded a blind tasting that compared milk coffee that was made using freshly made espresso and espresso that had been made a day prior. The results were quite fascinating and might surprise you! Is the future of coffee pre made? Also, the guys talk about the state of coffee education, whether or not coffee is better than it was 10 years prior and what you can do to immediately improve the quality of your batch brew! Like this podcast? Leave a review and please tell two of your friends!
Alex Moore is the runner up of the Australian Brewers Cup and staff member at Project Zero Coffee. Alex was trained by Kirk and overachieved in his first season as a competitor. What was special about Alex routine is that he was the only competitor that used a washed coffee in the whole competition. In recent years, natural and experimental fermentations have dominated the Australian competition scene, this year Alex coffee was the highest scoring of the whole weekend despite coming second to the legendary Simon Gautherin! In this podcast Alex breaks down his entire competition prep, how the coffee was sourced, roasted, brewed and every other little detail. Plus, Project Zero Coffee is opening a second store soon and the concept is something that will be an amazing success, or a spectacular failure! Like this podcast? Leave a review and please tell two of your friends!
Matt Winton a World Brewers Cup Champion now residing in Switzerland. Sierra Yeo is a National Brewers Cup Champion (previously representing the UK) and recently won the Swiss Brewers Cup, meaning she will compete again at the World Brewers Cup in Brussels. Matt and Sierra are happily married and together run Rose Coffee Roasters, and internationally famed roastery that sells some of the highest quality and unique coffee the world has to offer. At Host Milan, Kirk, Sierra and Matt all linked up to record a podcast and touched on the quality that competition has reached recently. Plus, they all play an entertaining game of "he's a ten, she's a ten!"Like this podcast? Leave a review and please tell two of your friends!
Nicole Battcefeld is Germany's most awarded barista with multiple national championships to her name. These days she works as a consultant to Nunc, an AI powered home espresso machine that could potentially reshape coffee brewing at home. Vladyslav Demonenko is former Doctor from Ukraine who now resides in Berlin and owns Kolo Coffee, a coffee roaster that is gaining praise across europe for its quality and exceptional service at their flagship site in Berlin. In this podcast we discuss the European coffee scene, why Vlad chose coffee over being a doctor and of course AI super robot home coffee machines! Like this podcast? Leave a review and please tell two of your friends!
Paul Ross is a UK barista champion and founder of Special Guests Coffee in London.On our recent Euro tour, Kirk stopped by Special Guests Coffee and was blown away, calling it the best coffee in the UK and he isn’t alone. Paul told a really interesting story about how he made coffee for the landlord which blew them away. It was that fateful decision of taking a flask of competition coffee to the pitch that helped him beat out others for a highly coveted space to open a coffee shop in a swanky part of London. Paul also talks about his hospitality philosophies and how new expensive gear is rarely on customers minds. Like this podcast? Leave a review and please tell two of your friends!
If you ask most coffee professionals: What is the most famous specialty coffee place in the world? Most of them will answer Patricia Coffee Brewers in Melbourne. Patricia is one of the crown jewels of the City of Melbourne. They make 1200+ coffees per day and people travel from all over the world to experience going there. What makes it so special? This is a coffee shop tucked away in an alley of Melbourne. Next to it are some dumpsters and the best seat you can get is a milk crate, and yet people wait in line (no matter the weather) just to drink their coffee. For that level of devotion they must be doing something right! In this podcast Bowen and Pip give the A-Z of how they started, and what details the went over to get things right. How valuable is complimentary sparkling water? What do customers really care about? How do you make a negative experience a positive one? If you want to open a coffee shop, you NEED to listen to this first, there is so much value in one podcast! Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share it with some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
As part of our recent tour or Europe, Kirk stopped by Copenhagen where he discovered that the #1 Restaurant in the world has opened a coffee bar! Kirk was the first customer and managed to secure an interview with Noma Head of Coffee Carolyne Lane inside the new space. So why have Noma ventured into coffee? And what are their plans in the future? WIll Noma's world leading expertise on fermentation be part of a broader collaboration in the future? Find out on this episode of the Coffee Show with Kirk Pearson! Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
Jose Luttrell (or Don Jose as Kirk likes to call him) is the Patriarch of the Luttrell Family that owns Panamanian coffee farm 'Abu Coffee.' Sofia Luttrell is his daughter who hasn't finished high school yet, but is keenly interested in the farming life and at the ripe old age of 18, is the Brewers Cup champion of Panama! Together they make a dream team that is amazing to see, and it is fair to say that the future looks bright for Abu Coffee! Abu coffee is known for producing some of the most complex and high quality coffee in the world. In this podcast hear how Abu coffee has been producing coffee since the 1800's and what the future holds for Sofia, who is planning to study at university and use her skills to improve the farm at Abu. Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
Jack Simpson of Australia has won the World Barista Championship. About an hour after his victory we sat down with Jack, his roaster Matt Crowley and owner of Axil Coffee Roasters Dave Makin. In this podcast we discussed what went into becoming the world barista champion and the methods Jack used. Instrumental in his success was his entire team, perhaps most of all was Matt Crowley (Head of Coffee at Axil) who was with him every step of the way. As many know, Jack came second last year in what was the tightest result in WBC history, and he came back determined as ever to win. What goes into sourcing, roasting and preparing for a World Barista Championship run? Find out in this episode of the Coffee Show. Thanks again to Jack who is a great friend of The Coffee Show. Thanks again to our Sponsors Timemore, Oatly and Barista Group. And big shout out to Specialty Coffee Association Panama who lent us space on their booth which allowed us to record podcasts at the show. Watch Jack's winning routine here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVoHoMhzy2wLike this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
Jamison Savage is a Panamanian coffee grower who has produced coffee for multiple World Barista Champions. Jamison is unique in his approach with his processing as he regularly embraces experimental processes with his coffee fermentations. In this podcast, recorded at Host Milan, Jamison discusses champion barista Jack Simpson who is using his coffee at this years World Barista Championship. Jamison also discusses what goes into starting a coffee farm and shares an update on the recovery of Morgan Estate, which was tragically damaged during Hurricane Eta in 2020, rendering it unable to produce coffee. Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
Chris Baca is one of the founders of Cat and Cloud Coffee in Santa Cruz, California. Chris is also a previous winner of the USA Barista Championships and one of the original specialty coffee content creators, dating back more than ten years. Chris career journey is one of the most traceable in all of coffee. Nowadays his focus is on Cat and Cloud and one of his biggest focuses is building a nurturing company culture, which he broadly implores the rest of the industry to do. Chris and Kirk talk about the costs and disadvantages of high staff turnover and even touch on skateboarding in the early 2000's! Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
James Hoffmann is the most recognised face in all of coffee. From winning the World Barista Champioship, his detailed coffee videos and the World Atlas for Coffee, James has for a long time been the biggest name in the coffee industry. After years of asking, Kirk finally landed the interview and the conversation did not dissapoint. What makes a cafe thrive in 2025? Are cafes competing against home baristas? Should we switch the internet off? These are some of the questions we answer on the podcast. This is the biggest interview we have every done, so please don enjoy! Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
Do you want to open a cafe but don't think you have the money? This story is something you want to hear. Fabian Brito together with his business partner Leon Holdsworth (Kirk's Sensei) bootstrapped opening their cafe Officer Coffee, where you will find the who's who of coffee in their spare time. In this episode of the Coffee Show, Fabian gives all the details of what it took to open Officer Coffee. From building most of the cafe themselves to becoming creative with finding furniture they finished the job with an eventual price tag of $30,000 aud ($19,500 usd), which could have been lower if they chose to source their coffee machine differently. If you have been dreaming of it, this podcast is certainly for you, Fabian's story is one that will resonate with many of you. Also, is Fabian the new Fonz? Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
Simon Gautherin and Nemo Pop from Apax Labs are reshaping the way coffee is made world wide. Apax Labs make mineral concentrates to enhance the quality of coffee both pre and post extraction. Simon has long been among the leading thought leaders around the world on the importance of water for coffee for years now. Nemo is a new employee of Apax tasked with better understanding the impact of the 'Wave' machine by Wavedtech, which pulses electro magnetic waves though liquid. Together they're making new discoveries on what this machine might be able to do for the coffee industry and the results are already promising. Recently Nemo won the Australian Aeropress Championship and the Wave machine played a key role. Kirk's cafe, Project Zero Coffee has been using the Waved machine for months and it has already made a great impact. Plus, we discuss Simon's Pokemon card investments and talk about Indian food being the most slept on cuisine of all time. Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
Kat Melheim is a veteran coffee roaster who has developed a large online following for her roasting content. In this podcast Kirk and Kat go through how to enter the industry as a coffee roaster and discuss some of the nuances of the profession. Plus, we talk about the 'importance pie' and give our coffee roaster Mt Rushmore's! Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
Julijan Markovic is the founder of Brew Methods in Melbourne Australia and is one of Australia's most talented coffee brewers of the last few years. This podcast occurs right after we tried the Best of Panama winning Washed Geisha, Natural Geisha and Laurina. This was an incredible experience. Julijan and Kirk also talk about what makes a good coffee experience and controversially: Why you shouldn't start a coffee business! Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us grow so that we can go to more places and share more stories around the world.
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