It’s the 50th Episode of Keys to the Shop and I had the opportunity to interview 5 people live at the Kentuckiana Coffee Champs Pre-lims this past weekend. In this 2nd edition of Baristas Speak Nathan Quillo, Sam Miers, Cimara Dunn, Matt Park, and Rita Kaminsky join me on the to give their thoughts on the role of the barista, …
Steve Cuevas of Black Oak Coffee Roasters is the 2017 U.S. Cup Tasters Champion and he is here to here to talk to us about learning to taste, tips for developing your palate, and talking to customers about coffee with confidence, and empathy. His approach to cupping and communicating about coffee to consumers is generous and refreshing and will inspire …
Ah Latte art…that ubiquitous often ill used symbol of specialty coffee in the eye of the consumer and to the professional both a creative outlet and a seal given to a well made drink. This week we sit down to talk all about latte art with four accomplished latte artists: Jibbi Little, Antoine Franklin, Kenny Smith, and Christopher “Nicely” Alameda. …
Pour over & batch brew. Each method of brewing has it’s strengths and weaknesses and depending on what message you want to communicate in your shop you will likely find one to be better suited to assist you in that cause. Today in Part 2 of our discussion, Ryan Soeder breaks down the pros and cons of each method along a …
Chocolate and coffee seem to be made for each other! Whether you are having a simple well made mocha or pairing a bar with a single origin espresso, chocolate can compliment, enhance, and make more accessible the specialty coffee we serve. Yet, as much as we know about coffee, we tend to fall short when it comes to this very important …
This week we get to chat with 2 time Japanese Barista Champion and 2014 World Barista Champion, Hide Izaki! We talk about his path to the WBC, the distinctive traits of the Japanese coffee culture, what has he learned and experienced in his travels , the importance of failure, what is his #1 piece of advice to baristas, and how we can build our …
Kevin Sinnott is the author of the books The Art and Craft of Coffee and Great Coffee, blogger at CoffeeCompanion.com, producer of Web TV series Mission Coffee Can and creator/host of CoffeeCon, the Consumer Coffee Festival. He’s appeared in Oprah Winfrey, ABC-TV’s 20/20 and many other television shows talking about coffee. He’s frequently quoted as an independent coffee expert. Sinnott …
Pour over coffee is often seen as a sign that you take coffee seriously. It implies a level of quality not usually reserved for plain ol’ batch brew. Batch brew is seen as a bit more pedestrian. Customers may even assume that, compared to pour over, batch brew is inferior in quality. The truth? It all depends. Today we take …
Fear, frustration, stress…we all have experienced one or more of these feelings when we deal with groups in the cafe. Be they a family, friends, or study group we can sometimes have trouble managing the group dynamic and the chaos that can often accompany it. In spite of all this though the group does not represent a hurdle to jump over …
WWW.RAINMAKERTHINKING.COM brucet@rainmakerthinking.com RELATED/MENTIONED EPISODES: KTTS 021: How to Leverage Your Performance Review KTTS 003:Pete Licata:The role Of Mentorship in Specialty Coffee Resources: www.keystotheshop.com About Bruce Tulgan Founder & Chairman of RainmakerThinking, Inc. Bruce Tulgan is internationally recognized as the leading expert on young people in the workplace and one of the leading experts on leadership and management. Bruce is a …
