As with every speaker-focussed Tamper Tantrum event, we always try to include a speaker from outside of coffee who would be able to provide insights relatable to our industry. San Francisco’s interesting and unique culture provided us with lots of potential options, but our host partners (Wrecking Ball Coffee) presented us with a unique and exciting opportunity through their work: Chef-Owner of the Michelin-starred Khin Kao, Pim Techamuanvivit.

Following the lead from Khin Kao in how it subverts expectations, we chose instead to have our hosts, Katie Carguilo and Stephen Leighton, interview Pim to learn more about how her approach to using ingredients, building flavour combinations, and giving good service could have a positive impact on specialty.  

--

Pim grew up in Bangkok, was shipped off to study in other places, and somehow found herself living and loving it in the San Francisco Bay Area. She quit her Silicon Valley job in 2005 to pursue a career in food: the writing, reporting, and basically anything interesting thereof that comes her way. Her recipes, writings, and photographs have since appeared in the New York Times, Food & Wine Magazine, Bon Appétit magazine, and more.

She’s also moonlighted as a judge on Iron Chef America, been profiled on Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie, Food(ography), and cooked Pad Thai on the Martha Stewart Show, for Martha, natch.

Pim opened her first restaurant, Kin Khao Thai Eatery, in March 2014. In September of that year, Kin Khao was included in 50 Best New Restaurants list by Bon Appetit. In 2015, it was ranked #6 in 25 Outstanding Restaurants 2015 by G.Q. Magazine. The Michelin Guide awarded Kin Khao 1 Michelin Star in 2016 and again in 2017.

One of the things we really enjoyed about the podcast in 2017 was the “From the Field” segment, shared by Alejandro Martinez from Finca Argentina in El Salvador. Every time we’d have an event, we’d ask ourselves: is there a way to get Ale here as a speaker?

Finally, the stars aligned and we were able to have Ale join us, in person, on stage in San Francisco. Here, Alejandro provides a personal insight into one of the issues raised in Hanna’s talk earlier that morning: coffee farming profitability. In sharing his own story, Ale calls attention to the challenges and opportunities to farmers working within the specialty model, offering some actionable advice to anyone looking to ensure the future of quality specialty coffee.

--

Alejandro Martinez doesn’t have the usual “coffee producer” backstory: once a VP of Investment Banking in the Technology Mergers and Acquisitions Group of Bank of America Securities (now Bank of America Merrill Lynch), Alejandro began his career in specialty coffee in 2008 managing a 35 hectare farm originally acquired in 1967 by his grandfather, Luis Guillermo. Today, he manages a coffee estate of approximately 70 hectares, working remotely from Ahuachapan in El Salvador with the financial planning and analysis team of a cybersecurity tech company to keep the farms afloat as he builds initiatives to secure the future of the land and its workers.

Alejandro holds an MBA from Tuck Business School at Dartmouth and a BS in Business Administration from Universidad Fidelitas in Costa Rica, but it doesn’t stop him from talking about the biodynamic gnomes.

Think you like to get geeky with your coffee? Think again! We’re pretty sure our second speaker from our San Francisco event last September has you beat. Professor William (Bill) Ristenpart takes the idea of being “curious about coffee” to the next level in his role as the Director of the first multidisciplinary university research center in the world devoted to post-harvest coffee studies: the UC Davis Coffee Center.

Like most of our professorial guests, Prof. Ristenpart packs a lot of information into both his short time on stage and his slides: the relationship between chemical engineering and coffee, the development of the UC Davis Coffee Centre, a sneak peek at some on-going research into the coffee brewing control chart, and many, many equations. It’s time for you to level up!

--

William Ristenpart's research is in complex transport phenomena, with an emphasis on using advanced experimental techniques to extract quantitative measurements from complicated phenomena. Ristenpart Research Group strives to answer fundamental scientific questions about a variety of systems where the transport behavior is paramount. Recent topics include: electrocoalescence of charged droplets, shear-induced deformation of red blood cells, electrically-induced aggregation of colloids near electrodes, and turbulent dispersion of airborne pathogens.

Ristenpart's lab has two Phantom high-speed cameras (a grayscale v7.1 and a color v7.3), both of which can capture at more than 100,000 frames per second. They also have several microscopes and various optical and laser systems.

He is also passionate about coffee - he serves as Director of the UC Davis Coffee Center, and see here for an overview of his undergraduate course, The Design of Coffee.

If you’re a regular podcast listener, you’ll already be very familiar with our first speaker last November in San Francisco - World Coffee Research’s Hanna Neuschwander – but this time, we’re talking about far more than WCR’s sensory lexicon. We’re talking about the future.

After asking us to imagine what life will be like for each of us in 2050 – well within our expected lifespans – Hanna explores both the challenges (“This is going to be, like, a super downer for a minute – sorry!”) and the opportunities (“more optimistic stuff!”) that the future holds for coffee and the industry built around it.

--

Hanna Neuschwander has been communicating about coffee and science since 2004. Her writing about coffee and food has appeared in publications including Travel + Leisure, Edible Seattle, Portland Monthly, and the Oregonian, among others. She is the author of Left Coast Roast, a guidebook to artisan and influential coffee roasters on the west coast. She has presented about the history, sustainability, and economics of coffee at everywhere from Boston to Panama City. She is based in Portland, Oregon.

History is full of the winning combination of comedy duos – Abbott and Costello, Lucy and Desi, French and Saunders – but 2017’s final episode of the Tamper Tantrum Podcast features the irreverent comedy of everyone’s favourite muppet hecklers. No, not Statler and Waldorf – although they do a decent impression – No. 94 features the return of our own, in-house comedy duo: Colin and Steve!

No. 94 is also home to the third annual Tampies, incidentally disguised this year as a 2017 recap and general catch up between Colin and Steve. Again, we won’t give it all away here, but as Jenn wasn’t involved in the recording of this podcast, we’ll let these post-show interjections give you a glimpse of what this episode contains:

• You can find a copy of Meister’s “New York City Coffee: A Caffeinated History” here.
• The name Steve was looking for is that of the incredible Eva Gefvert Nordell at Are Kafferosteri.
• Steve somehow managed to forget Gothenburg (February) and Bristol (August) when he recapped this year.
• GIF wish granted!
• You can watch Colin’s favourite talk of 2017 here (Steve’s is yet to be released).

Of course, that doesn’t even begin to cover it all…! Thanks for joining us on the wild ride that has been 2017, we’ll see you in the new year. x

www.nuovasimonelli.it/en

We’ve made it a habit the past few years running to release what we feel is a particularly special or insightful video right before the holiday season in the hopes that it sneaks into your (sub)conscious as you think about the year coming to a close and think about what it is you want to achieve in the year ahead.

There’s been a lot written this year questioning who we are as a community, what it means to work in coffee, and what’s coming next. Are we on the fourth wave, or the fifth wave? The sixth? What’s a wave, anyway? Although she says she’s “not the ‘wave oracle’,” returning speaker Trish Rothgeb has been credited with the creation of the phrase “third wave coffee” (FlameKeeper, 2002) and has often been asked to give her take on the state of the industry.

Here, recorded at our event in San Francisco, Trish delves into what inspired her to talk about coffee in waves all those years ago – something until now that she has previously brushed off in conversation - and what it means for coffee’s future. We hope this talk inspires you not only to learn more about the history, concepts, and people that Trish highlights in this talk, but also to impact how you think about coffee, our industry, and the work that needs to be done.

--
Photo by Cris Mendoza (Saint Frank Coffee)

Trish Rothgeb is the co-founder, owner, director of coffee, and roastmaster at Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters in San Francisco.

Her experience in the industry spans over 30 years as a coffee roaster, green coffee buyer, and teacher of all things coffee. An avid traveler in coffee growing regions worldwide, she teaches “cupping” to coffee producers and coffee professionals around the world. She is also credited with coining the term “third wave coffee” and identifying the relevant concepts.

Trish is a licensed Q Grader and credentialed Q Trainer by the Coffee Quality Institute. She has served on the SCAA’s Roasters Guild Executive Council, was a charter member of the World Barista Championship Board of Directors and a founding member of the Barista Guild of America.

From 2013 to 2016, Trish worked on staff at the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) as the “Director of Programs: Q and Educational Services,” in addition to her work with Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters.

This week, newly crowned World Barista Champion Dale Harris and long-time coach, friend, and all-around troublemaker Pete Williams take the lead on No. 93 to share stories about the lead up to this year’s WBC and the somewhat unexpected result. This one is definitely longer than usual, but for good reason – there’s lots to cover, despite the relatively short amount of time they had to prepare between the UK and WBCs. Together, they chat through ideas left behind, their (dys-)functional working relationship, “the Harris process”, the goals they worked diligently toward during their eight weeks of preparation, and more – including (for those who know where to find this sort of thing) the answer to the question that everyone has been asking. Yes, that one.

www.nuovasimonelli.it/en

It's all go here at TT HQ as we prepare for the upcoming weekend festivities in Manchester whilst simultaneously preparing for the WBC in Seoul (Jenn) and getting ready to embark on a five country book launch tour (Steve) - with long days and lots of travel over the past few weeks for both Steve & Jenn, we thought it was time for a good old-fashioned skype catch up before getting on the show officially back on the road! 

No. 92 is a catch all for upcoming fun - our second year of the Brubiaceae coffee beer home brew competition and a new alcoholic twist on our industry-focused evening panel at the Manchester Coffee Festival, naturally - but also a place for us to speculate and anticipate how the most recent rule changes could impact this year's World Barista Championship. Hop in and (try to) enjoy the sleep-deprived ride!  

www.nuovasimonelli.it/en

We’re back this week with No. 91 and, goodness, we have quite a bit packed into this episode: we’ve got guests aplenty! We kick off with an update from the field with Ale Martinez of Finca Argentina, where they’re working hard to squeeze in as much planting and preparation as possible before the harvest starts whilst also managing the impact of the recent spate of hurricanes. Ale himself is joined by a guest – Chris Lee of Café Demitasse in LA – who is spending a month on Finca Argentia to get a feel of farm life.

After a quick Argentina update, we move onto the core of this week’s podcast: Jenn is joined by Ales Pospisil, co-founder of European Coffee Trip, to talk about their journey from home-coffee-geekdom to movers and shakers of specialty coffee media. As with previous “talking about coffee” guests with a unique view of the industry, there’s lots to ponder: is there a correlation between the growth of specialty in new locations and the enthusiasm for geekery? How do you maintain or renew your own enthusiasm and passion for your work?

We also look to the future with their newest (and biggest) project: The Aeropress Movie, a feature-length documentary about specialty’s strangest (and most engaging) brewing device, currently seeking funding via kickstarter.

www.nuovasimonelli.it/en

We’re absolute and utter competition geeks, so we jumped at the chance to join SCA UK at this year’s first-ever Espressofest in Bristol, home of the UKBC semifinal and final rounds. Joined by some equally geeky friends – Cerianne Bury, Nick Mabey, and Jessie May Peters – we sat down with each UKBC finalist on Sunday, August 20, 2017 to learn more about their routines and chat through some of the conversations taking place within the industry this year.

Here, we’re joined by Diana Johnson of Taylor St. Baristas, who placed sixth in this year’s comp. Together with Diana, the panel chats through her choice of variety, the impact of innovation and research, and her 2017 endeavour to compete in every SCA competition. This sparks a much longer conversation about career progression, competition, and the institutionalisation of barista education: what does it mean to be a career barista?

Want to see a video of Diana's performance? You can find it here, courtesey of SCA UK! 

http://vamachinery.com/  

We’re absolute and utter competition geeks, so we jumped at the chance to join SCA UK at this year’s first-ever Espressofest in Bristol, home of the UKBC semifinal and final rounds. Joined by some equally geeky friends – Cerianne Bury, Nick Mabey, and Jessie May Peters – we sat down with each UKBC finalist on Sunday, August 20, 2017 to learn more about their routines and chat through some of the conversations taking place within the industry this year.

Here, we’re joined by Callum Parsons of Extract, who placed fifth in this year’s comp. Together with Callum, the panel chats through what it means to be “sustainable” and “seasonal”, which sparks a much longer conversation about the growth of our industry, profitability, and business.

Want to see a video of Callum's performance? You can find it here, courtesy of SCA UK! 

http://vamachinery.com/