Making Coffee with Lucia Solis

1 hour 6 minutes
The Coffee Producer Toolkit #2: Processing
In this second episode, we show you how to stop losing coffee to a badly calibrated pulper, why chasing 100% ripe cherries is actually costing you money, the $480 fix that lets a small farm sort cherries perfectly well, how to keep your coffee under 40°C during drying without spending a fortune, why a mechanical dryer isn't the villain everyone says it is, the cheap instruments that will deliver consistent quality across harvests, and ways to treat your wastewater.
The Coffee Producer Toolkit is the podcast that helps you run a more profitable coffee farm.
Hosted by coffee journalist James Harper (Filter Stories podcast) and fermentation specialist Lucia Solis (Making Coffee with Lucia Solis podcast), it's built for farmers who want to run their farm like the business it is.
Over two years we interviewed 50+ producers and experts across 20 countries. Each episode takes one part of the business — agronomy, processing, fermentation, storage, quality, sales — and lays out what the best farms are doing.
Related podcast episodes:
Lucia:
- Making Coffee with Lucia Solis — How to De-Funkify your Naturals
- Making Coffee with Lucia Solis — Germination: A Close Look at Coffee Drying
James:
- Filter Stories: Why One Colombian Farmer Chose Specialty, and the Other Walked Away
Follow us through our newsletters and Social media:
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Lucia Instagram
James’ Filter Stories Instagram
People mentioned in the episode:
Resources:
Lucia's Favorite Tools:
Cover Art: Nick Hafner
The Coffee Producer Toolkit is made possible by these leading coffee organisations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | Descamex | InterAmerican | Pinhalense | Novonesis | GrainPro
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10 August 2026, 11:00 am
1 hour 6 minutes
The Coffee Producer Toolkit #1: Farming
The Coffee Producer Toolkit is the podcast that can help you run a more profitable coffee farm.
Hosted by coffee journalist James Harper (Filter Stories podcast) and fermentation specialist Lucia Solis (Making Coffee with Lucia Solis podcast), it's built for farmers who want to run their farm like the business it is.
Over two years we interviewed 50+ producers and experts across 20 countries. Each episode takes one part of the business — agronomy, processing, fermentation, storage, quality, sales — and lays out what the best farms are doing.
In this first episode, we show you how you can benchmark your farm against the two numbers that matter, protect your flowering without paying for irrigation, avoid the exotic variety trap that's costing farmers their harvests, stop wasting money on fertilizer your soil doesn't need, and save weeks of labor a year with tools that cost less than $50.
Follow us on Instagram - Lucia (@lluciasolis) - James (@filterstoriespodcast) and tag us in an Instagram story.
Join our Patreon community to be a part of our live Office Hours sessions.
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Discover how James produces Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to his Substack newsletter

Cover Art Designed by Nick Hafner
Related Podcasts:
Lucia:
- #79: Farm First: Lalo Perez on Long-Term Coffee Health
James:
- The Science of Coffee: The Magic of Soils
- The Science of Coffee: Plant Genetics
People mentioned in episode:
- Fernando Castillo Guatemala
- Paulino Quintero, Colombia
- Orlando Osoria, Colombia
- Julia Ortega, Mexico
- Sergio de la Vequia, Mexico
- Hugo lopez, Innovakit
Agronomists:
Resources
Our partner sponsors
The Coffee Quest
Descamex
BWT
InterAmerican Coffee
Pinhalense
Novonesis
GrainPro

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27 July 2026, 2:00 pm
45 minutes 31 seconds
#81: Nobody Wants to Pick Coffee

Check out our YouTube videos

AI writing shape

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16 July 2026, 11:00 am
35 minutes 55 seconds
#80: How Microbiology Can Explain Beginner's Luck
Buy Roasted Coffee Here.

Check out our YouTube videos

#63: Terroir for Busy People
Dirty Jobs Hawaiian Coffee Clip
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30 June 2026, 12:00 am
1 hour 39 minutes
#79: Farm First: Lalo Perez on Long-Term Coffee Health
Lalo's substack page

Ikaria Coffee (Lalo's farm + roasted coffee)

Biofilia (agronomic consultancy)

Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.

And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal

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6 April 2026, 11:00 am
44 minutes 41 seconds
#78: What Is Specialty Coffee? And Who Gets To Define It?
If you would like to watch our YouTube video on "What is specialty coffee"
You can watch that here.
If you are a roaster and are interested in participating in the Fermentation Project with James Hoffmann, click here -> For Roasters: Buy Fermentation Kit

Listers Movie (bird watching) it's beautiful, I highly recommend this.

Email info.luxiacoffee@gmail if you would like to discuss Pluribus or Listers Movie in our Discord server.

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18 March 2026, 6:00 pm
30 minutes 49 seconds
#77: The Most Challenging Harvest We've Had
Roasterkat IG Reel about rain.
YouTube version of the Q&A portion
James Hoffmann Healthy Coffee Video

The 2025/2026 Harvest has not gone according to plan.

Nick and I have found ourselves with some down time and therefore have put together this casual, end of year update on how the season is going so far. Spoiler alert: not well.

I've combined a harvest update with listener questions about fermentation.

Questions featured in this episode are:
- Are all coffees that are not anaerobic, aerobic?
- Am I aware of any efforts to design yeasts for Robusta?
- Do I think producers should create terms that further describe processing?
- How can you more precisely measure fermentation process with whole cherries?
- What's the most eco-friendly way to treat waste water and effluent?
  
  Email info.luxiacoffee@gmail if you would like to discuss Plur1bus.
  
  Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
  
  And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
  
  Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
  
  Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
  Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
  Support the show
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24 December 2025, 6:00 pm
1 hour 16 minutes
#76: How Commercial Microbes Threaten The Coffee Industry
Sprudge Best Of Panama Article

Remanence and survival of commercial yeast in different ecological niches of the vineyard

Responses, Inquiries, & questions about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: [email protected]

Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.

And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal

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Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
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16 November 2025, 12:00 am
1 hour 13 minutes
#75: Getting Great Water for Coffee
Water massively impacts your coffee's flavours. But most of us struggle to fix our water because water science is confusing...
Join me and James as we go step-by-step through:
- Why these concepts matter for coffee flavour and equipment
- How to test your water at home
- How to fix it, depending on what you're working with
Check James' website for all of the visuals mentioned in the episode.

Resources:
#44: Are Wine Making Techniques the Future of Coffee?
Responses, Inquiries, & questions about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: [email protected]

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Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
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14 August 2025, 9:00 pm
1 hour 10 minutes
#74: Supply Chain Reflections: Consulting Insights from Farm to Roaster w/ Luke Waite
Resources:
Responses, Inquiries, & questions about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: [email protected]

Get a ticket to FTC-10 December 2025
Luke's Website: Pomelo Coffee Consulting
Luke's Book: Pre-Order Pomelo book

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Office Hours with Luke: 9am (GMT-6) Friday July 18th 2025

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Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
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14 July 2025, 10:00 pm
1 hour 4 minutes
#73: Cultivating Identity: A Life Forged by Migration and Fermentation
This episode developed thanks to Nick, who thought it would be a good time to revisit a bit of my history in coffee to reconnect with long-time listeners, and to share a bit more about myself with new listeners. We started this podcast about 6 years ago, and if you've been through all 72 episodes, you probably have a good idea about my coffee philosophies.
But I also know that not everyone enjoys, or maybe even has the time to go back and start at the very beginning of a podcast. So we thought it would be a good opportunity to give you a bit of my coffee origin story, and a manifesto of sorts, all under one roof.
Resources:
Responses, Inquiries, & questions about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: [email protected]

Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.

And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal

Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.

Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
Support the show
18 June 2025, 9:00 pm
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