Keys To The Shop : Equipping Coffee Shop Leaders

It feels like we need to constantly be growing and producing something new or else we risk looking like a failure, or that we lack ambition. The idea that we always need to be expanding and taking on new things is a flawed one that often submarines our chance at finding fulfill ent fro what we do.

Today on Shift Break we will be talking about how sometimes we need to sacrifice productivity for the sake of our health and why appropriate growth is better than constant growth.

Related episodes:

• Doing What You Want -vs- Doing What is Needed
• Scaling Values
• Slowing down your Response Time Grass Roots Improvement: Tapping into the power of your staffs observations and ideas
• Accurate Reflection : A very important end of year challenge and encouragement to the Keys to the Shop community

The best espresso machines in the world!

www.lamarzoccousa.com

Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!

www.espressly.co

Brewing a great cup of coffee is what we all strive to do daily. Over the years, our own understanding of how to do this well has grown as the body of literature and content regarding brewing science has increased. Most recently one such resource has been published from someone who has applied their expertise and scientific rigor to the subject of brewing coffee, thus creating one of the most thorough treatments on the subject to date.

On today's show e are talking with the author of the new book, "The Physics of Filter Coffee", Jonathan Gagné !

Jonathan Gagné is a scientific advisor at the Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium in Montreal, and adjunct professor at Université de Montréal. He completed his Ph.D. in astrophysics in 2015 and moved to the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. for a 3-year postdoc as a Sagan Fellow. He came back to Montreal to start a second postdoc at the Institute for Research on Exoplanets before he was hired by the Planetarium. Jonathan's expertise is focused on brown dwarfs, young stars, exoplanets, and stellar associations. He uses various telescopes throughout the world to carry his research, from the Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic in Québec, the Infrared Telescope Facilities in Hawaii and Gemini-South in Chile.

In his free time, Jonathan is also passionate about coffee brewing and has dived deeply into all many aspects of how physics affect coffee preparation for pour overs and more recently espresso. He maintains a blog of his findings and understanding of coffee physics at coffeeadastra.com, and he is the author of the book The Physics of Filter Coffee.

This is a wide-ranging conversation that addresses many of the key elements that impact our brewing and how we can apply practical solutions to create wonderful coffee both at home and at at scale in the shop

We cover:

• Motivation through frustrated brewing
• Beginning his experimentations in coffee
• Studying the most significant aspects
• Relying on the community and their experience
• Applied physics in how water moves through coffee
• Building and refining you mental model
• Accounting for the variability in coffee's behavior
• Tracking your brews
• What shops can do to improve extractions at scale
• Different way of thinking about batch brew
• Coffee freshness and extraction
• Recommendation for appropriate bicarb levels in water for brewing
• Recommended tools to assess your coffee quality

Links:

Jonathan's Blog : www.coffeeadastra.com

Jonathan on IG: @jgagneastrocoffee

Buy the book! The Physics of Filter Coffee

Related episodes:

• 347 : Brewing Coffee and a Career w/ U.S. Brewer's Cup Champion, Elika Liftee
• 333: Bridging the Professional and Home Barista Gap w/ Lance Hedrick of Onyx Coffee Lab
• 286 : Coffee Roasting Best Practices w/ Scott Rao
• 148 : Exploring the Ground Control Brewer w/ Eli Salomon

Visit our amazing Sponsors!

www.groundcontrol.coffee

www.pacficfoodservice.com

www.coffeefest.com

How do we get customers to buy coffees they will like? This is more or less the question I was asked by a client recently in regards to bean purchases and I feel it also speaks to other decisions the coffee shop customer will make in beverage, food, etc.

Today on Shift Break I will give you the answer I gave my client on how to help customers find beans they will like. From there we will talk about my philosophy and approach on up-selling as an important feature of hospitality vs an opportunistic grab for revenue.

Related episodes:

227 : Connecting with Hearts and Minds

092 : Tony "Tonx" Konecny of Yes Plz : Consumer Accessibility, roasting, 3rd wave, subscription

The best espresso machines in the world!

www.lamarzoccousa.com

Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!

www.espressly.co

How specialty coffee has evolved, understood, and enjoyed has changed greatly over the past 50 years. Today get to talk someone whose career has not developed in parallel with the coffee industry but has been instrumental in advancing some of the best aspects of it. I'm thrilled to have bene able to sit down with the great Kenneth Davids!

Kenneth has been involved with coffee since the early 1970s and has published three books on coffee, including the influential Home Roasting: Romance and Revival, now in its second edition, and Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying, which has sold nearly 250,000 copies in five editions. His latest book, 21st Century Coffee: A Guide, is an unprecedentedly thorough survey of specialty coffee in all of its aspects, authoritative yet engaging.

Ken's workshops and seminars on coffee sourcing, evaluation and communication have been featured at professional coffee meetings on six continents.

He is Professor Emeritus of Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. In 1996 he was awarded a Special Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to Coffee Literature by the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

One of our industries most influential people. Kenneth's work has shaped multiple generations of coffee enthusiasts and professionals and in this sense an hour conversation is woefully insufficient to give you even idea of the breadth and Kenneth's journey and work but here we are and I can honestly say it was true honor to speak with him and to feature his wisdom and perspectives on this show.

We cover:

• Goals of his new book
• The new challenges of writing about coffee
• Honesty and authority of information
• How Kenneth went form cafe owner to coffee writer
• Mere communication vs delivering depth of understanding
• Consumer community and its evolution
• Starting Coffee review
• The gap of accessibility and need to building the middle
• What shapes consumer tastes today
• Incentivizing accessible excellence
• Using information to draw people in vs push away
• Communicating flavor
• How naturals chawed things
• The hope for coffee's future

Links:

Buy Kenneth's new book!

https://www.kennethdavidscoffee.com

Related episodes:

Visit our amazing Sponsors!

www.groundcontrol.coffee

www.pacficfoodservice.com

www.coffeefest.com

Management absolutely means you have the opportunity to affect change in the coffee shop. It also mean you have a responsibility to make sure the current operation is running smoothly and that the basics are taken care of. Often we favor the change over the stewardship and that is where we can get in trouble.

Today on shift break we are going to be chasing about the difference between what you want, what is needed, and how doing things in the proper order can and often does allow for both.

Related episodes:

226 : The Art of being Indispensable at Work w/Bruce Tulgan

Visit our Sponsors!!!

The best espresso machines in the world!

www.lamarzoccousa.com

Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!

www.espressly.co

It's Founder Friday! We are traveling to Panama to learn about one of the greatest cafes and roasters, Cafe Unido through a wonderful conversation with its founder, Benito Burmudez.

Inspired by the idea that Panama has some to of the world's best coffees, the first Café Unido opens its doors in 2014 in the city of Panama with a clear goal: provide a space for Panamanians to learn and appreciate coffee grown by different local producers, their distinct terroirs, regions, micro lots, varietals and processes while at the same time giving back to coffee growing regions. Over the years they evolved from a single shop, to nine stores, seven in Panama City, one in Boquete, and a new store in Washington DC.

Benito had previously opened and run a successful restaurant, Maito, prior to Unido and is also a Panama Barista Championship 2nd place finisher. Since founding the company he has been tirelessly promoting the celebration and deeper understanding of the coffees of Panama to the world.

Today we will be talking all about this journey, what has made it successful, the lessons learned, and much more...

We cover:

• How Restaurant experience helped
• Staying motivated through tough times
• Working to win over locals to a new flavor of coffee
• Being flexible and not snobbish about coffee
• Training system and structure
• Delegation and investing in understanding
• Culture and values at scale
• The biggest mistake in growing the business
• Allowing for the brand's evolution and how to judge success
• Exploring the depth and variety of Panama coffee
• Expansion to the states

Links:

https://cafeunido.com

Instagram: @cafeunido

Related episodes:

• 294 : At Origin Roasting Revolution w/ Luis Fernando, founder of Amor Perfecto!
• 335: A Better Business Model for Coffee Farmers w/ Thaleon Tremain of Pachamama Coffee
• 332: Founder Friday! w/ Iman Kusumaputra & Putri Yulandari of Kopikalyan, Jakarta, Indonesia
• 061 : You Don't Know Beans about Brazil w/ Kelly Stein, Coffea Podcast
• 289 : Founder Friday w/ Ochen Simon Eidodo of Chariots Coffees, Uganda!

Visit our amazing Sponsors!

www.groundcontrol.coffee

www.pacficfoodservice.com

Welcome to the 10th episode of the Rate of Rise Live Series! In this interview we are talking with Green Coffee Buyer and Director of Coffee at Huckleberry Coffee Roasters, winner of the Roast Magazine Macro Roaster of the year award.

The RoR Live Series is a project in partnership with Roast Magazine taking the popular RoR series on Keys to the Shop and to the SCA 2022 Global EXPO in Boston where we have some live face-to-face interviews with 10 of the coffee industry's brightest minds

Kevin has spent well over a decade in specialty coffee. Beginning as a barista at Chinatown Coffee in D.C. he then moved to Guatemala where he assisted a small coffee growers' cooperative with processing, roasting, and packaging coffee and forging relationships that he maintains to this day.

For the last 8 years Kevin has helped Huckleberry Roasters develop, grow, and refine their coffee program through values and relationship based sourcing and all this at scale.

In this conversation we will be diving into Kevins role with the company and the journey of growth and development while maintaining long term sourcing relationships and quality.

We cover:

• Kevin's approach to sourcing
• Growth and keeping grounded
• Huckleberry's culture and its impact on green buying
• Feedback's role in guiding the roastery
• Overcoming challenges in logistics and supply
• Long terms farmer relationships
• Care for the people and work culture at Huckleberry

Links:

www.huckleberryroasters.com

Instagram: @Huckleberryroasters

Subscribe to Roast Magazine! (Use code "ROR" to get $5 bucks off your subscription)

www.keystotheshop.com

Consulting and coaching: [email protected]

Welcome to the 9th episode of the Rate of Rise Live Series! In this interview we are talking with specialty coffee and roasting luminary, Scott Rao!

The RoR Live Series is a project in partnership with Roast Magazine taking the popular RoR series on Keys to the Shop and to the SCA 2022 Global EXPO in Boston where we have some live face-to-face interviews with 10 of the coffee industry's brightest minds

Scott Rao has been in the coffee business for over 25 years as a cafe owner, roaster, consultant, and author. The Coffee Roaster's Companion and Coffee Roasting: Best Practices have influenced a generation of roasters and shaped the global roasting vocabulary and conversation. Scott's popular Instagram account @whereisscottrao offers expert-level tips and discussion about coffee brewing and roasting.

Today we are chatting with Scott about the abundance of technological advances in roasting and how to approach adopting these tools and innovations in a way that serves your goals.

We cover:

• Innovative technology up til now
• Controlling outcomes via technology vs brewing methods
• How better brewing and extraction tech has changed roasting
• Working with what we have
• Controlling coffee's body
• Best practice for achieving consistency
• The technologist vs artisan approach
• How to choose and adopt innovative tech

Links:

www.scottrao.com

Instagram: @whereisscottrao

Subscribe to Roast Magazine! (Use code "ROR" to get $5 bucks off your subscription)

www.keystotheshop.com

Consulting and coaching: [email protected]

Welcome to the 8th episode of the Rate of Rise Live Series! In this interview we are having a great talk with Kat Nolte-Ferguson of Sucafina Specialty!

The RoR Live Series is a project in partnership with Roast Magazine taking the popular RoR series on Keys to the Shop and to the SCA 2022 Global EXPO in Boston where we have some live face-to-face interviews with 10 of the coffee industry's brightest minds

After earning a degree in accounting and spending a few years in rural Africa, Kat been exploring coffee from every possible angle: from barista to trader; from stock lot to microlot; from craft to commercial – she has experience the spectrum one specialty and is focused full time at Sucafina where she has dedicated her career to improving economic opportunity for African smallholder farmers. Kat is also a Chair on the SCA's Sustainability Advisory Counsel.

In today's conversation we get to discuss some of what Kat actually presented on during expo related to supply chain risk mitigation for coffee roasters.

We cover:

• Helping roasters understand the world of logistics
• Why do roasters have to understand the market and supply chain
• Cost, price, and buying green
• The main topics pithing the supply chain that impact your roastery
• Where do you start with price risk management?
• Flexibility and having contingency plans for all your origins
• Amount of risk inherent in relationship focused sourcing
• Blend's role in stability that serve everyone

Links:

www.sucafina.com

www.keystotheshop.com

Consulting and coaching: [email protected]

In the wake of tragedy and heartbreak we find ourselves looking for ways to heal and make sense of the chaos around us. The recent violence, racism, and evil that took place in the U.S. took place in spaces where people should not need to worry about their safety. Spaces similar to the coffee shops we run and work in everyday.

As we wrestle with the incomprehensible pain and senselessness of these events we find ourselves taking stock of our own communities and spaces and struggle to find ways to make a difference.

Today I wanted to offer a short note on our role as providers of sacred spaces that are made for the beautiful humans that we get to work with and serve. How it does make difference and how we our we can lean into kindness and loving each other well through what we do as a part of the way we build a better future.