For Episode 6 of this podcast we bring you Dianne Wang who recently took home the 3rd place trophy from the New Zealand Brewer's Cup competition (basically a contest to see who can make the tastiest cup of coffee). Dianne is also a contributing author at Sprudge, Perfect Daily Grind, and now her own project at ctitoolbox.com. In this episode, we learn about Dianne's career as a coffee writer, what the Brewer's Cup is, how she prepared, and what motivates her to compete. We also get some advice on brew methods, how the variables affect taste, and a brew technique that uses two scales to measure both the pour and yield separately. Lots of interesting tips for people who are thinking about competing, but also great advice for brewing better coffee. Dianne's also a big part of the reason why I started the podcast. Responding to a request for feedback as an Angels' Cup subscriber, she let me know she was using our tasting flights to help prepare for the Brewer's Cup, which led me to realize there were people in our community with stories we need to get out. If you're part of our community and placing in coffee competitions (or doing other really cool things), please reach out and let me know so we can get you on the show! Favorite quotes: The Clever Dripper is the closest you can get to cupping, and that is easier to control and also give you better uniformity. But because it's inversion, there's also the possibility of over extraction. If it's darker roast, to bring out the best sweetness, I probably will go lower temperature around 88. If it's a lighter roast I usually start with 92 and then to the adjustment from there. I actually use two scales. The bottom scale is to measure my total water input. And the top scale is to measure my coffee yield so I know exactly when to stop my extraction. So I use 15 grams of coffee and 225 grams of water, but I stop all my extractions at 180 grams. It takes a lot of practice because you eyes have to look at two scales at the same time, and you have to watch yourself pouring water. If it's your first time competing, follow your gut, follow your heart. Just practice hard, as much as you can do. Don't even think about if your coffee is good enough. Maybe some competitors will have a top quality Geisha, but brewing three cups at the same time takes a lot of practice. If they don't have enough practice they may not produce a good enough cup. I've been a coffee lover for years and I want to do something good in this industry. I'm not very good at public speaking, but thought is competition I've overcome this fear. And that's one thing that inspired me to compete. I want to show people that I can do this. Find Dianne's new site at ctitoolbox.com and follow her on Instagram!

For episode 5 of our podcast, we speak with Christine Matta about her travels to China and how she became a Q grader. We explore what motivates Christine, what she's learned about coffee and China, where she sees coffee going in the future, and how coffee can promote equality. Most importantly, we hope Christine's courage inspires you to take that next big step in your career, whatever that may be!

Quick Overview

For most of us, moving to China and/or becoming a Q grader would be massive undertakings, or at least require some planning. For Christine, moving to China was almost accidental. After being laid off from her advertising job, Christine found herself ready for a new challenge, and said yes to a random phone call from a church helping farmers in Yunnan. While in China, Christine developed a relationship with a struggling coffee grower. Perhaps without knowing how difficult it would be, she decided to become a Q grader, simply to help one individual understand his crop better. If learning Chinese wasn't hard enough already, she now had to learn the language of coffee. And learn she did, now she's a Q and back in the US to tell her story!

Favorite Quotes

I had been connected to a group that did church planting work in China, and they invited me to come. At that time it was like "come for a year and help us out". Because I got laid off I decided to go. I had a house, a car, everything, and I just decided I needed a change. Because I'm multinational, it was a natural thing for me to do. Specialty cafes are popping up everywhere (in Asia). I think one reason for that is people want quality and also people in Asia love what we're doing in the west, and so they're taking their cues from what's happening here and because specialty coffee is a growing scene in America, young people there are really latching on to that and bringing in this coffee culture which is amazing. There's a lot of incentives that the government is giving. The government sees this as a growing commodity. In the 90's they were sending out 3,600 tonnes of coffee, now it's about 28,000. I think that people will see that and they want in on that. In China, a lunch meeting is like an all day event. People just build relationships over food, over tea. That's just the culture there. I met this coffee farmer, and he showed me what he was doing, and he was doing a lot of awesome projects with local tribal people. And I really wanted to get involved and help him. The problem was that I had no idea what I was talking about and I just didn't know coffee enough to help him at all. So out of this desire to help him, that's how I connected with Torch Coffee Company. And I realized the value in learning about coffee professionally as a taster. For me it kind of linked that quality of the coffee, where it comes from, what the attributes are, and linked it with being able to talk about coffee in a way that represented coffee farmers. But I really didn't know what I was getting into! I had the great people at Torch to really guide me and train me and mentor me. Every day we were cupping different coffees and talking about it. Improving my sensory memory. Learning about the different region. If I did not have them, I would have have been able to pass the Q at all. On learning Chinese: Be in an environment where you're hearing it a lot and just be brave. Talk, and even if you sound awful (which you will), you just have to pretend to be confident and have courage. On risk: Honestly, I'm honestly not a huge risk taker. The older I've gotten, maybe the more and more I want that risk in my life! I've been doing this crazy life thing for the last 8 years. Before this I was stable, in one place for a long time. Now I'm here and I just want to kind of relax and enjoy being settle for a for a little while. Advice for people just getting into coffee: Develop your sensory memory, use the coffee flavor wheel, use the coffee Lexicon. In the World Coffee Lexicon, you can download online and it gives you a reference for every flavor. So if they describe citric - lemon. You just buy a lemon from the supermarket and taste it. Especially the things you're not familiar with. Developing that sensory memory, so that whey when you are tasting coffee, you can taste the thing you want to describe. Follow Christine on: Instagram or email christine at joebeanroasters.com Follow Joe Bean on: Instagram, Twitter, or Website Follow Torch on: Instagram or Twitter

For episode 4 of our podcast, we speak with Jim Osborne and Lanny Huang from City of Saints Coffee. This episode should be of particular interest to baristas, roasters, and coffee shop owners. We learn about how City of Saints differentiates itself by making each of its three locations unique. We get some tips on how to be a better barista, store design, and get into the nuts and bolts of roasting. A few of the highlights from our conversation have been included below. Also, http://cityofsaintscoffee.com is now live, and you can save 10% off your first order with coupon code "angelscup". The Ethiopia Misty Valley was the most popular coffee as voted on by our coffee tasting meet up group!

Podcast Highlights

Jim - Head Roaster From a coffee perspective, really engaging the baristas that utilize these coffees and really engaging the customers that they speak with and not deciding that we already know how a coffee's going to taste best or which coffee is going to be liked the most. If our baristas are heavily favoring something and they tell us our customers are heavily favoring something as well, I'm 20 feet behind the bar and I'll take that into consideration as the coffee evolves in our lineup. Not deciding what's going to land where on a menu before you've actually tried it out and engaged in a little bit of discussion is something that I am very dedicated to and hope that as we grow, we're able to maintain that. We talk to each other. We make sure that if something's going wrong, or maybe something isn't going wrong but someone feels like things can be going in a stronger direction. We don't let that fester until it becomes a huge problem. It's something that challenges companies as they grow. Right now we're in a really good place to try to make that communication and that collaboration part of our foundation that stays no matter how big the game gets. Most roasters want to do a fairly transparent representation of what they think makes that coffee special. Depending on what niche that coffee's going to fill in your menu, you can manipulate that profile more or less. But one thing I like to do is roast a coffee a few different ways, and if the coffees good every way, don't thank the roaster, thank the farmer and the bean. Becoming a skilled roaster does require a lot of experimentation and and lot of education and a good palate. I of course don't want to discredit what I do or what my peers do. But I think that when we're tasting the best coffees we've ever tasted the roaster is a very important part but not necessarily the point where we should stop thinking about it. There is a common misconception that what happens from first crack to the end is really what it's all about and the rest is just a recipe. They way you distribute the different chemical reactions happening before first crack can dramatically change the character of the cup in terms of sweetness, body, and acidity. I'm sure a lot of us have tried coffee that tasted grassy, or like peanut shells, or maybe a little papery. Frequently what's happening there is the coffee has been dried out to quickly, it hasn't become soluble enough for water to extract enough sweetness out of it. Lanny - Head Barista City of Saints has three locations and they all look really different. What's really interesting about us is that where the stores have ended up popping up, they've developed alongside those neighborhoods. If you think about coffee's role in general, it does need to adapt to different modes of consumption. For me as a service person, having the flexibility to respond directly to what people want, that's the most gratifying thing we offer. As a barista, sometimes you only get 30 seconds to say something, and so when it comes to designing cafes or a coffee program, you have these tiny little bits of data. Maybe it's even a facial expression as someone drinks their coffee, and you have to be ready for those cues. Because people come to coffee from so many different directions, they have this expectation set of what they should taste. My general policy is to be as kind and as open as possible. What you have to do is take that as an opportunity to start that conversation. Can I offer you something else on our menu? Being a good barista is being prepared for those instances. Every cafe is basically the same in that you walk through the door, you order a product that you expect to exist. The nuts and bolts of the cafe experience is the same across every single cafe you walk into. When it comes to putting thought into the details, everything about what differentiates cafes is the details. It's all about those little details about your experience. I spend a ton of time thinking about how to make the ordering process as simple as possible. I just want the communication to be simple, I want the menu to be intuitive. I want all the information to be available, but also if you're not interested in information, if you just want to walk up to the counter and say "coffee", I want our baristas to be able to say "sure", and that's the beginning and end of it. Order here signs are so silly, if it's not obvious where to order, the first thing you do is going to be messed up. I spend a lot of time thinking about those little things.