I’ve started recording a few relaxed, podcast-style chats with members of our community, (eg @Robert Hamilton) and they are proving popular. People love hearing the real stories 'behind the beans' - the journeys, the challenges, the passion. So I’m opening it up! If you’re a: - Farmer/producer, - Exporter/importer/distributor, - Cafe/Barista/retailer - Just someone with a great coffee story to tell, I’d love to sit down and chat with you. Nothing formal - just a conversation over coffee. If that sounds like you (or someone you know), drop a comment or DM me. Let’s keep sharing the stories that make this community so special ☕💛

I just tried a sample of Monsoon malabar coffee as a V-60 pour-over. It was very nutty but that very recognisable flavour was very prominent... who knows that I mean? do you like it?

When is a coffee bad? When can you take it back to the shop owner and say - this is fucking shit house and not drinkable? Please share your comments below if you are a drinker of coffee, maker or seller Also @Luke Gilbert can you please make some better GIFs for coffee

I now publish articles quite often related to coffee for a couple of publications, and whilst I absolutely love doing it, there are things I would change if I wasn't appealing to an editor or keeping in mind the broader needs of an audience. It got me thinking. Almost nothing in life is completely pure. In the sense that compromise is needed in almost every scenario to be able to sustain something, or not cause division. For example, if you just wanted to write about pour-over cafes that serve one specific style of coffee, there would probably only be a tiny handful of people interested, not enough for them to consider it financially viable to pay for such a narrow viewpoint. If you do it yourself, on your own website, then fine. But speaking in a commercial sense, compromises always have to be made, whether that is a cafe having to sell things they personally don't like, partering with an investor who wants to dictate things out of your comfort zone, selling Matcha lattes just to pay the rent even if you despise them, a film director being told the studio want him to change the ending, it happens in every walk of life. Is the point that if you do enough of what you love, it covers over the compromises? Where is the line for you? I've gone on a bit of a rabbit trail, but what are the biggest compromises you have had to do in your personal coffee careers, and what would you do differently if give the chance. Does anyone have an example of having succeeded in doing things 100% their own way, and in that case BRAVO !! Interested to hear your thoughts on this.

How do you fit into the coffee world and this community?