The Coffee Show with Kirk Pearson

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, World Barista Champion and coffee authority, shares his insights on how coffee shops can thrive in 2025. He discusses the rise of experimental processing, the impact of social media on cafe culture, and ways to improve coffee quality across chains like McDonald's. Hoffmann also reflects on the importance of privacy in the digital age and his personal journey in the coffee industry. With humor and wisdom, he emphasizes the need for cafes to focus on customer relationships and navigate the challenges posed by home brewers.

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.

How do you introduce those who need no introduction? Like this: Morgan Eckroth is the most recognisable face in the coffee industry today! With nearly 10 million followers across Youtube, Instagram and Tiktok, Morgan has touched every corner of the globe with their catchy videos and lessons on making unbelievable coffee drinks! We were excited to learn that Morgan is as big of a Star Wars fan as Kirk and has some spicy takes on which order to watch the films in. Beyond that, Morgan is a world class barista competitor and committed member of the coffee community. In this podcast Morgan also spills the beans on they make world class drinks!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.

Dr Dean Miller is a sleep and circadian scientist based in Adelaide who studies sleep and works with high performance athletes advising them on sleep to optimise performance. Pete Licata is a World Barista Champion who started a new coffee company 'Caffeine Control Coffee' which offers different coffees with varying levels of caffeine, so that people can better manage their caffeine intake and improve sleep. In this podcast Kirk, Dean and Pete discuss whether coffee consumption in general is bad for your sleep. How many coffees can you have in a day and still sleep well? Should we wait when we wake up to have coffee? If you drink coffee does that mean your sleep will be bad? Is sleep one of the most important elements of health? In this episode those questions get answered and much more! 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.

Lucy Ward is green coffee buyer for one of Australia's biggest and most influential coffee brands, ST ALI. Kirk and Lucy are former colleagues and discuss at length an existential threat to coffee not enough people are talking about: The aging workforce at coffee origins. Recently we learned that the average age of a coffee farmer in Colombia, one of the worlds biggest coffee producing countries, is 58. With coffee farmers aging and not enough young people interested in becoming coffee farmers, we have a looming crisis that requires solutions fast. 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.

The upcoming World Barista Championship will be the hardest ever to win! There are three returning baristas that are all former podium winners that have won their respective national competitions multiple times. So who will win the World Barista Championship in Milan? Grab a coffee and listen in for Kirk's take! 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.