Boss Barista

A full transcript of this episode can be found at bossbarista.substack.com

Specialty coffee distinguishes itself by its higher price tag—and stops there. To make meaningful change, Brendan Adams of Semilla argues that cost alone cannot be the finish line.

A full transcript of this episode can be found at bossbarista.substack.com

A full transcript of this episode can be found at bossbarista.substack.com

A managing partner at Mighty Peace Coffee, Jim Ngokwey is creating pathways for Congolese coffee growers and posing difficult questions about the future of the industry.

A full transcript of this episode can be found at bossbarista.substack.com

The coffee pro-turned-coach talks about the gentleness of service work.

A full transcript of this episode can be found at bossbarista.substack.com. Listen to past episodes of Camila on the Boss Barista Podcast in 2019 and 2020. 

Check out the trailer to their documentary, Cxffeeblack to Africa, here, watch the documentary by joining Patreon, and keep an eye on their Instagram account for tour dates to watch.

A full transcript of this episode can be found at bossbarista.substack.com

Wine and coffee are a lot alike—up to a point. Marie Cleslik of Slik Wines explains more. 

A full transcript of this episode can be found at bossbarista.substack.com. 

The founder of Couplet Coffee eschews traditional ideas to make delicious coffee available to all.

A full transcript of this episode is available at bossbarista.substack.com

Julien Langevin is a production worker for Coffee by Design and the 2022 United States Cup Tasters Champion, going on to represent the United States at the World Cup Tasters Competition in June. 

A full transcript of this episode can be found at bossbarista.substack.com

When COVID-19 laid off a substantial number of coffee workers, Valorie Clark helped start a nonprofit called GoFundBean to provide essential services and financial support.

A full transcript of this episode is available at bossbarista.substack.com

The co-founders of Cute Coffee urge you to keep it cute or put it on mute—or you're gonna get slimed.

You can find a full transcript of this episode at bossbarista.substack.com

A full transcript of this episode is available here. 

Revisiting our February 2020 episode with the members of the Tartine Union in the Bay Area. 

For a full transcript, go to bossbarista.substack.com

The owner of Café con Jiribilla talks about Mexico's unique coffee scene and why you should discover its roasters.

You can find a full transcript of this episode here. 

My guest is Sonam Parikh, one of the co-founders of Mina’s World, a coffee shop in West Philadelphia. Sonam and their partner, Kate, opened Mina’s World 18 days before COVID-19 forced the majority of hospitality businesses to close or completely revamp how they serve food and drinks to customers.

You can find a full transcript of this episode here. 

How Eric Grimm of Glitter Cat Barista and Ghost Town Oats has approached building more accessible spaces through the lens of human resources.

A full transcript of this episode can be found here. 

The lead roaster at Modern Times helps navigate the San Diego roastery's next phase while advocating for herself.

A full transcript of this episode can be found here. 

The co-founder of Three Keys Coffee in Houston talks jazz riffs, trumpet keys, and I ask him some weird questions. 

A full transcript of this episode can be found here.

What it means to want to do things differently—and actually do them. With David Lalonde, co-founder of Rabbit Hole Roasters in Montreal, Quebec. 

A full transcript of this episode can be found here. 

A full transcript of this episode can be found here. 

A full transcript of this episode can be found here. 

Today, we're re-releasing our episode with Maggy Nyamumbo. Maggy is the founder of Kahawa 1893, a social enterprise aimed at connecting farmers directly to consumers in an attempt to get more money back to farmers. There is so much money in coffee — with farmers making less money than it costs to produce coffee, Maggy tells us where all that money goes. 

This episode was originally released in November 2019. Find a full transcript of this episode here. 

So she decided to take action. Learn more about Joven Coffee here. 

This episode is brought to you by Urnex. 

Today, I’m chatting with Jose Uechi, co-founder of Compadre, a coffee brand based in Peru. Jose—or Pepe, as he goes by—is an industrial designer by trade, and got into coffee because of his friend, Juan Pablo. Juan Pablo invented a solar roaster, a machine that could roast coffee without electricity. Initially, Compadre’s founders worked to get these roasters into the hands of farmers.

A few years later, and Compadre is still working on raising wages for farmers—albeit in a slightly different way. In this episode, we talk about the shifts and pivots that Pepe and his team have made as they got deeper into the economics of coffee-buying and -selling.

The broad goal of Compadre is still the same—to shift value down to farmers—but it does so now by removing barriers that farmers face (like unpredictable weather conditions) and building a brand that connects farmers to consumers.

This episode is brought to you by Urnex. 

Neichelle Guidry is a storyteller. Neichelle is a college administrator and the founder of Black Girl Black Coffee. The brand began as an Instagram account, as a way for Neichelle to document her journey through coffee, and her passion for the subject, during the upheaval of the pandemic. Since then, it’s evolved into a coffee brand that reclaims the Black history of coffee.

We about staying inspired, filling your cup, and giving yourself permission to seek joy in the things you love—that will hopefully leave you feeling uplifted and inspired after listening. 

This episode is brought to you by Urnex.

Sierra Yeo of The Kore Directive and Alpro UK get real vulnerable.

This episode is brought to you by Urnex. 

Rachel Faller is one of the co-founders of tonlé, a zero-waste clothing company that believes in promoting equal value across the supply chain. Like coffee, most of the clothing we wear goes through hundreds of hands and relies on a system of manufacture and exchange that is a relic of colonialism.

In this episode, Rachel explains some of the parallels between how coffee is bought and sold and how clothes are made. We talk about who gains and who loses in a world that relies on fast fashion: the production of cheap clothing with quick turnaround times for garment factories.

This episode is brought to you by Urnex. 

Before coffee, Nigel Price of Drip Coffee Makers had a career in finance, working for a firm in Downtown Manhattan. But eventually, he decided he’d had enough—and he turned to cafes as a way to break away from the life he’d built and the trajectory he no longer wanted to be on. Over a decade later, Nigel credits coffee as the beginning of his second life, giving him a chance to create connections and bond with people in a way that his prior life in finance hadn’t.

This episode is brought to you by Urnex. 

We have "We Are Not A Family" tees available now—Erica is modeling one in the photo for this episode. Order them here! 

This episode is brought to you by Urnex. 

Suneal wanted to learn more, and he decided to start a game. Leaderboard Coffee is a seasonal coffee experiment where participants receive 10 unlabeled bags of coffee alongside a set of guiding questions to help them deduce where each coffee is from and what makes it unique. Leaderboard doesn’t just offer the opportunity to become an at-home sleuth, but also to learn about coffee in a way that a cafe environment can’t replicate.

This episode is brought to you by Urnex.