Making Coffee with Lucia Solis

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In this fifth episode, we give you a practical guide to pricing your coffee to ensure your farm is economically sustainable in the long term.
We start by showing you how the “C” price is actually set, and why it is not what your coffee is worth.

Next, we show you how to calculate your cost of production and the common challenges producers will face doing this for the first time. We then look at how high above your cost of production. We cover where to find what coffees like yours are really selling for: asking other producers, asking roasters for their spot price lists, V-Hub and the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide. We also explain why spot prices are only a starting point, and how producers add a 15 to 20% premium by offering consistency, trust and a relationship.

And we finish with negotiation. We explain why many roasters would pay more but have never been asked, and how cultural values of humility and harmony can hold you back. We show you a tool for communicating with buyers from different cultures, what to ask for when a buyer won't move on price, and how to charge for investments a buyer asks you to make.

The Coffee Producer Toolkit is the podcast that helps you run a more profitable coffee farm. Hosted by coffee journalist James Harper (Filter Stories podcast) and fermentation specialist Lucia Solis (Making Coffee with Lucia Solis podcast), it's built for farmers who want to run their farm like the business it is.
Over two years we interviewed 50+ producers and experts across 20 countries. Each episode takes one part of the business — agronomy, processing, fermentation, storage, quality, sales — and lays out what the best farms are doing.

Related podcast episodes:

Lucia: 

#64: "What Kind of Coffee Lover am I? How Much am I Willing to Pay for a Cup of Coffee?"

James: 

Filter Stories: The Hard Business of Selling Beautiful Coffee


Follow us through our newsletters and Social media:

Lucia’s Newsletter

James’s Newsletter

Lucia Instagram

James’ Filter Stories Instagram


People mentioned in the episode:

• Karla Boza — Jacinta Y Su Cafe, San Benito, El Salvador
• Julia Ortega, Finca Los Pinos, Puebla Mexico
• Edilberto Tovar — Finca La Esmeralda, Huila, Colombia
• Melissa de Gasperín — Rancho San Felipe, Veracruz, Mexico
• Diego Robelo — Aquiares Estate, Turrialba, Costa Rica
• Cristian Reyes — Finca El Rodeo, Santander, Colombia
• César Marín — Chacra D'Dago, Peru 
• Gilberto Baraona — Los Pirineos, Usulutan, El Salvador
• Lalo Perez, Biofilia 
• ASOPEP, Planadas, Tolima, Colombia
• Piedras Azules cooperative, El Salvador
• Agnes Thieleke, InterAmerican Coffee Europe

Resources: 

• Record keeping and profitability analysis
• V-Hub (formerly Cropster Hub)
• Coffee Yield Calculator
• Cost-of-production calculator
• Fairtrade Verified Living Income reference prices
• Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide
• Chad Trewick interview on Bellwether podcast
• Heifer / ASOPEP / Fairtrade Tolima living income study
• Book: The Culture Map by Erin Meyer

Cover Art: Nick Hafner

The Coffee Producer Toolkit is made possible by these leading coffee organisations:

The Coffee Quest | BWT | Descamex | InterAmerican | Pinhalense | Novonesis | GrainPro

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Support the show

Support the show on Patreon

In this fourth episode, we give you a practical guide to finding buyers and selling your coffee into the specialty market.

And we finish with the sales conversation itself: the questions to ask in your first five minutes with a buyer, and how to handle the rejection that's coming, because it is coming.

The Coffee Producer Toolkit is the podcast that helps you run a more profitable coffee farm.

Hosted by coffee journalist James Harper (Filter Stories podcast) and fermentation specialist Lucia Solis (Making Coffee with Lucia Solis podcast), it's built for farmers who want to run their farm like the business it is.

Related podcast episodes:

Lucia:

• #54: Visiting Producers, Advanced Tourism & The Coffee Hunter (farm visits, the buyer relationship)
• #56: Pranoy Thipaia (finding export markets, expo advice)
• #65: To Blend or Not to Blend? Wine Vintages, and Harvest Update (sales strategy, consistency over novelty)
• Cabal Cafe Podcast en Espanol

James:

• Filter Stories: The Hard Business of Selling Beautiful Coffee

Follow us through our newsletters and Social media:

Lucia’s Newsletter

James’s Newsletter

Lucia Instagram

James’ Filter Stories Instagram

People mentioned in the episode:

• Diego Robelo — Aquiares Estate, Turrialba, Costa Rica
• Cristian Reyes — Finca El Rodeo, Santander, Colombia
• Cristian Reyes — Personal Instagram
• Catherine Bedoya — Eje Cafetero, Colombia
• Hamsini Appadurai — Sangameshwar Coffee Estates, Chikmagalur, India
• Melissa de Gasperín — Rancho San Felipe, Veracruz, Mexico
• Edilberto Tovar — Finca La Esmeralda, Huila, Colombia
• Desnudo Coffee (Austin) — Austin, Texas, USA
• Alejandro Rodríguez Delgado — Hacienda San Pedrito, Puerto Rico
• César Marín — Chacra D'Dago, Peru

Resources: 

• Algrano — Producer Sign Up
• The list of 144 international trade shows
• Clases Gratis de Inglés en linea - USA Learns
• Clases Gratis de Inglés en linea - Voa News
• English Accent Training
• The SCA Coffee Value Assessment, Extrinsic Criteria List
• PDFs of CVA Form in 7 languages

Cover Art: Nick Hafner

The Coffee Producer Toolkit is made possible by these leading coffee organisations:

The Coffee Quest | BWT | Descamex | InterAmerican | Pinhalense | Novonesis | GrainPro

Support the show

Support the show

Support the show on Patreon

In this third episode, we give you a practical manual to take control of your fermentations and improve your farm's profitability. 

We start with the basics — what is actually happening inside your tank, where the microbes come from, and why your coffee is going to ferment whether you want it to or not. 

Then we go through five ways commercial microbes can make you money: consistency batch to batch, long fermentations you can run safely, lifting the score of your worst cherries rather than your best, clearing bottlenecks in your wet mill, and extending your coffee's shelf life. 

We cover what a well-run fermentation actually looks like — the cleaning, the monitoring, the record-keeping — with a step-by-step blue-barrel protocol for smaller farms and guidance on when to move to tanks. We also look at the investment sums needed for commercial yeasts and how to justify them. 

And we finish with the difficult questions — the environmental worries, whether using a starter culture is the same as adulterating your coffee, and how to talk about all of this with buyers who may view commercial microbes with suspicion.

Related podcast episodes:

Lucia: 

• #72: Planning Your First Coffee Fermentation Trials? Start Here. 
• #76: How Commercial Microbes Threaten The Coffee Industry
• #80: How Microbiology Can Explain Beginner's Luck

James:

• Filter Stories - Coffee Quality, Part 1: The birth of specialty coffee flavours

Follow us through our newsletters and Social media:

Lucia’s Newsletter

James’s Newsletter

Lucia Instagram

James’ Filter Stories Instagram

People mentioned in the episode:

• Lester Lerner, Old Willow Coffee, Colombia 
• Victor Chala, Palma Rosa, Colombia 
• Fridolin Stocker— Mount Sunzu, Zambia
• Shyira washing station, Rwanda
• Evangelos Filippatos, La Cabra
• La Cabra, Copenhagen
• Helen Riley — Novonesis
• Gunne Øregaard — Novonesis
• Franz Zeimetz — Lost Origin Coffee Labs, Panama
• Alejandra Rodríguez Delgado — Hacienda San Pedrito, Puerto Rico
• Gustavo Arroyo — Rancho Contento, Puerto Rico

Resources: 

• pH meter & buffer
• Thermometer
• Novonesis Pichia yeast
• Novonesis Lactobacillus bacteria
• Pressure washer
• Fermentation Log Sheet
• Yeast’s impact on the environment in research on vineyards
• Sprudge Best Of Panama coverage
• Lucia’s Fermentation Training Camp
• Coffee Wet Mill Sanitize
• Opciones para la desinfección del beneficio
• Cabal Cafe Podcast en Espanol 

Lucia's Favorite Tools:

• Temperature Gun
• Ambient Temperature Sensor
• Temperature Probe
• pH meter & buffer solution

 
Cover Art: Nick Hafner

The Coffee Producer Toolkit is made possible by these leading coffee organisations:

The Coffee Quest | BWT | Descamex | InterAmerican | Pinhalense | Novonesis | GrainPro

Support the show

In this second episode, we show you how to stop losing coffee to a badly calibrated pulper, why chasing 100% ripe cherries is actually costing you money, the $480 fix that lets a small farm sort cherries perfectly well, how to keep your coffee under 40°C during drying without spending a fortune, why a mechanical dryer isn't the villain everyone says it is, the cheap instruments that will deliver consistent quality across harvests, and ways to treat your wastewater. 

The Coffee Producer Toolkit is the podcast that helps you run a more profitable coffee farm. 

Hosted by coffee journalist James Harper (Filter Stories podcast) and fermentation specialist Lucia Solis (Making Coffee with Lucia Solis podcast), it's built for farmers who want to run their farm like the business it is.

Over two years we interviewed 50+ producers and experts across 20 countries. Each episode takes one part of the business — agronomy, processing, fermentation, storage, quality, sales — and lays out what the best farms are doing.

Related podcast episodes:

Lucia:

• Making Coffee with Lucia Solis — How to De-Funkify your Naturals 
• Making Coffee with Lucia Solis — Germination: A Close Look at Coffee Drying 

James:

• Filter Stories: Why One Colombian Farmer Chose Specialty, and the Other Walked Away
  
  

Follow us through our newsletters and Social media:

Lucia’s Newsletter

James’s Newsletter

Lucia Instagram

James’ Filter Stories Instagram

People mentioned in the episode:

• Lester Lerner, Old Willow Coffee, Colombia 
• Orlando Osorio, La Primavera, Colombia 
• Astrid Medina, Tolima, Colombia 
• David Velásquez, Los Naranjos, El Salvador 
• Jesús Antonio Chala, Finca El Silencio, Colombia
• Victor Chala, Palma Rosa, Colombia 
• Melissa de Gasperín, Rancho San Felipe, Córdoba, Mexico 
• Norberto Suárez, Boquete, Panama 
• César Marín, Chacra D'Dago, Peru 
• Manuel Matta, Santa Maria, Colombia

Resources: 

• Innovakit: canguaro (picking sleeves) 
• Pinhalense Cherry Floater 
• Pinhalense Vertical Pulper 
• Pinhalense Mechanical Dryers 
• Tolva — Plastic Vertical Hopper 
• Moisture Meter (Mid Tier) 
• Moisture Meter (High End) 
• Cenicafé Low-Water Wet Milling (Ecomill-type systems) 
• Flávio Borém Drying Research 
• DIY Moisture Maths (weight + fixed volume)

Lucia's Favorite Tools:

• Temperature Gun
• Ambient Temperature Sensor
• Temperature Probe
• pH meter & buffer solution

 
Cover Art: Nick Hafner

The Coffee Producer Toolkit is made possible by these leading coffee organisations:

The Coffee Quest | BWT | Descamex | InterAmerican | Pinhalense | Novonesis | GrainPro

Support the show

The Coffee Producer Toolkit is the podcast that can help you run a more profitable coffee farm. 

Hosted by coffee journalist James Harper (Filter Stories podcast) and fermentation specialist Lucia Solis (Making Coffee with Lucia Solis podcast), it's built for farmers who want to run their farm like the business it is.

Over two years we interviewed 50+ producers and experts across 20 countries. Each episode takes one part of the business — agronomy, processing, fermentation, storage, quality, sales — and lays out what the best farms are doing.

In this first episode, we show you how you can benchmark your farm against the two numbers that matter, protect your flowering without paying for irrigation, avoid the exotic variety trap that's costing farmers their harvests, stop wasting money on fertilizer your soil doesn't need, and save weeks of labor a year with tools that cost less than $50.

Follow us on Instagram - Lucia (@lluciasolis) - James (@filterstoriespodcast)  and tag us in an Instagram story. 

 Join our Patreon community to be a part of our live Office Hours sessions.  

Stay up to date through our newsletter

Discover how James produces Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to his Substack newsletter

Cover Art Designed by Nick Hafner

Related Podcasts:

Lucia:

• #79: Farm First: Lalo Perez on Long-Term Coffee Health

James:

• The Science of Coffee: The Magic of Soils
• The Science of Coffee: Plant Genetics

People mentioned in episode:

• Fernando Castillo Guatemala
• Paulino Quintero, Colombia
• Orlando Osoria, Colombia
• Julia Ortega, Mexico
• Sergio de la Vequia, Mexico
• Hugo lopez, Innovakit

Agronomists:

• Manuel Mata, Colombia
• Sam Knowlton, USA
• Lalo Perez, Mexico 

Resources

• Anacafe technical management 
• Coffee Cascara Compost Guidelines (English) 
• Compostaje de la pulpa/cáscara de café (Espanol)
• Netafim Drip Irrigation manual
• Innovakit: abonador (fertiliser applicator) 
• Innovakit: aroplateo (tree guard for weed whacking) 
• Innovakit: selector de arvenses (low-drift sprayer)
• Innovakit: canguaro (sleeves) 
• World Coffee Research variety catalogue
• Recommended varieties: Centroamericano, H1, H16, Mundo Maya
• Coffee&Climate Toolbox
• Access Agriculture
• World Coffee Research Resources
• Barista Hustle’s Coffee Farm Management series

Our partner sponsors

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Descamex

BWT

InterAmerican Coffee

Pinhalense

Novonesis

GrainPro

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Lalo's substack page

Ikaria Coffee (Lalo's farm + roasted coffee)

Biofilia (agronomic consultancy)

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If you would like to watch our YouTube video on "What is specialty coffee"

You can watch that here.

If you are a roaster and are interested in participating in the Fermentation Project with James Hoffmann, click here -> For Roasters: Buy Fermentation Kit

Listers Movie (bird watching) it's beautiful, I highly recommend this.

Email info.luxiacoffee@gmail if you would like to discuss Pluribus or Listers Movie in our Discord server.

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Roasterkat IG Reel about rain.

YouTube version of the Q&A portion

James Hoffmann Healthy Coffee Video

The 2025/2026 Harvest has not gone according to plan.

Nick and I have found ourselves with some down time and therefore have put together this casual, end of year update on how the season is going so far. Spoiler alert: not well.

I've combined a harvest update with listener questions about fermentation.

Questions featured in this episode are:

• Are all coffees that are not anaerobic, aerobic?
• Am I aware of any efforts to design yeasts for Robusta?
• Do I think producers should create terms that further describe processing?
• How can you more precisely measure fermentation process with whole cherries?
• What's the most eco-friendly way to treat waste water and effluent?
  
  Email info.luxiacoffee@gmail if you would like to discuss Plur1bus.
  
  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
  
  Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
  
  Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
  Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
  Support the show

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