

The Coffee Show with Kirk Pearson
The Coffee Show with Kirk Pearson
Uncovering the untold stories about coffee
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 22, 2025 • 53min
The Key To Good Coffee? Good Water! Simon Gautherin and Nemo Pop (The Waterboys).
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.

Sep 15, 2025 • 1h 10min
Kat Melheim (Roaster Kat): How To Become A Coffee Roaster
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.

Sep 8, 2025 • 52min
Julijan Markovic: Esmeralda Aftermath & Why You Shouldn't Start A Business In Coffee
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.

Aug 31, 2025 • 1h 14min
Morgan Drinks Coffee: Your Friendly Internet Barista!
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.

Aug 28, 2025 • 55min
Dr Dean Miller & Pete Licata: Coffee Doesn't Ruin Your Sleep!
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.

Aug 26, 2025 • 56min
Lucy Ward: Why Food Security Is Something The Coffee Industry Should Focus On
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.

Aug 17, 2025 • 7min
Kirk's Take: This World Barista Championship Will Be The Most Competitive Ever
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.

Aug 14, 2025 • 1h 36min
Rachel Peterson: Producer Of The Worlds Greatest Coffee
Rachel Peterson is one of the family members that own Hacienda La Esmeralda in Panama, which has a claim to being the most recognisable coffee farm in the entire world. Recently as the Best of Panama auction they didn't just break the record, the totally annihilated it, winning every category and setting a new world record of $30,000 USD per kg. This is the first podcast Rachel who represents Esmeralda has done since the infamous auction, which will go down forever in the coffee history books. Record prices like this haven't always been the story of Esmeralda. Kirk and Rachel discuss the early years, how they operated at a loss and how they built the brand of Esmeralda and Panama coffee collectively. Kirk asks Rachel all about the competition, what the days following were like and together they addressed the industries reaction, most of which was positive, though there was some criticism. This was one of the most logistically challenging podcasts we have done, so please enjoy! 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.

Aug 11, 2025 • 1h 7min
Australian Specialty Coffee Association: Dropping The Elitism In Coffee Competitions
Todays guests Bruno, Jennifer and Emiline of the Australian Specialty Coffee Association discuss with Kirk their new change in approach to competition in Australia and how effective it was. The organisation themselves identified that their own competitions had become 'elitist' and wanted to do something to change that and make competitions more accessible, to develop community! This is something that should be viewed from around the world so we can ensure money and status are not a barrier to entry for coffee competitions. 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.

Aug 7, 2025 • 12min
Best of Panama Reaction: The Most Expensive Coffee Of All Time!
Yesterdays auction shattered every record possible and was predicted almost to the dollar by Kirk. This is our reaction to what went down at the Best of Panama Auction!


