This entire conversation started with a tweet. I was working on a story about coffeeshops and their historical place in society—as gathering places, communal spaces to share ideas or areas to come together and engage in community action. I asked a question about this, and Sarina Prabasi tweeted back at me: “I wrote a book exactly on this topic.” Sarina Prabasi is the co-owner of Buunni Coffee in New York City, and as I mentioned, she wrote a book about her experiences called The Coffeehouse Resi...
Jul 30, 2020•45 min•Season 5Ep. 31
I’m honored to have two guests on the show today—Bartholomew Jones and Renata Henderson of Cxffeeblack. To say that Cxffeeblack is a coffee roasting company is an understatement. Cxffeeblack is a brand, an educational platform, a music outlet, an informative podcast, connecting the ancestral history of coffee to the modern day. Renata and Bartholomew, who are married and raising two children in Memphis, Tennessee, didn’t just aim to start a business, but set off on a mission to impact social cha...
Jul 17, 2020•58 min•Season 5Ep. 30
This is part two of my interview with Ciera Young, owner of Mama’s Brew in Houston, Texas. Part one was originally recorded for the Matchbook Coffee Project podcast, so in part two, we dig deeper into the meaning of specialty coffee and why Ciera rejects that label for her own coffee roasting business. I’d strongly suggest listening to part one before you listen to this episode—we talk about Ciera’s background and entry into coffee in part one, and jump directly into it in part two. Here’s Ciera...
Jun 27, 2020•49 min•Season 5Ep. 29
As some of you know, I work with a group of people called The Matchbook Coffee Project. Every month, we team up with a roaster and give them complete creative control over a coffee—they choose how they want to roast their coffee, what the bag label looks like, and a unique piece of swag meant to represent something about them. This episode is sort of a hybrid between Matchbook and Boss Barista. Ciera Yong is the owner of Mama’s Brew in Houston, Texas, and she’s the July featured roaster for Matc...
Jun 27, 2020•54 min•Season 5Ep. 28
There is a lot of work that goes into learning how to make coffee. Learning how a machine works or making a great pour over or how to steam milk—there’s a lot to take in. And sometimes, learning how to make coffee can be sort of daunting. Usually, when you become a barista, skills are transferred through big establishments. First, you usually have to work in a coffee shop, and then you get trained by either someone who works at the cafe or by a roasting company—and there aren’t many options othe...
Jun 19, 2020•51 min•Season 5Ep. 27
There are a lot of reasons I continue to do Boss Barista, especially as the show has evolved and changed. One of the reasons is to connect with people I wouldn't have met otherwise. There are at least a handful of folks I know and consider my friends because of the show—people I've become closer to through interviews, through sitting down and having a really focused conversation. Doing this show has also made me a better listener—I’m still learning how to listen, but I also listen for other list...
Jun 11, 2020•48 min•Season 5Ep. 26
On May 12, 2020, Amethyst Coffee in Denver announced they would no longer be accepting tips. They increased prices 50%, and posted about their new policy on Instagram—the post got over 200 comments. The comments ranged in tone—from excited to inquisitive to downright aggressive—and almost every single comment or question was answered by one of the two owners of Amethyst: Elle Taylor and Breezy Sanchez. In this episode, we sit down with Elle and Breezy and talk about their no-tipping policy, and ...
May 28, 2020•59 min•Season 5Ep. 25
Andrea Allen won the 2020 United States Barista Championship in February of 2020. Two weeks later, thousands of coffee shops and restaurants across the U.S. were closed because of COVID-19. Andrea is the co-owner of Onyx Coffee Lab in Northern Arkansas, and has been navigating what it means to be a responsible business owner during coronavirus—the answer isn't always clear, and it's certainly not the same for everyone. In this episode, Andrea talks about what it means to be the reigning champion...
May 22, 2020•28 min•Season 5Ep. 24
I met Geetu Vailoor, owner of Union Coffee in Seattle, just a few weeks before the coronavirus would change all of our lives. We talked a lot about employment - things employers do to support others, things they do to hurt their staff, and we were incredibly in alignment with a lot of ideas. Like, if this person were to be my boss, I feel like they’d...get it. I left that conversation feeling very aligned with Geetu’s values. As you’ll hear in this episode, Geetu took over Union Coffee just days...
May 01, 2020•24 min•Season 5Ep. 23
On the day I'm writing this—it's April 20, 2020, coffee shops and restaurants across the nation have been closed or altered their operations in some way. Millions of people have been laid off, and many of the folks who have lost their jobs are service workers—baristas, waitstaff, bartenders—many of whom rely on tips as a source of their income. In this episode, I'm talking to Adam JacksonBey, the coffee pro behind GoFundBean . GoFundBean is a collection of virtual tip jars that serves as a nexus...
Apr 21, 2020•30 min•Season 5Ep. 22
Take a minute to think, “what does specialty coffee mean to you?” If you work in coffee, it might mean one thing, if you don’t work in coffee, it might mean another. The word “specialty” implies something unique, different, something that makes it different than just regular coffee, right? For something to be a specialty item, something else that’s decidedly NOT specialty has to exist. Today, we’re going to break down what specialty is—and what makes a thing special—with Sahra Nguyen, founder of...
Apr 16, 2020•53 min•Season 5Ep. 21
Just a note, this episode does talk coronavirus or COVID-19, so if you don’t want to hear about that, you should skip this episode. So much of our lives have moved to the internet. Because many of us are at home to prevent the spread of coronavirus—and many of the businesses that we love have been shut down—we’re interacting online more. We’re creating virtual coffee shops, hosting happy hours on Instagram, buying coffee from our local cafes through their web stores. Obviously, not everything ha...
Apr 09, 2020•25 min•Season 5Ep. 20
One of the best times I’ve ever had in my coffee career was at an event where I played a coffee-version of Family Feud. I was on a team with former guests Alicia Adams and Erica Escalante, and we played this silly game on stage with folks cheering us on and having a good time. Thinking about community events for an industry is an interesting challenge. Balancing the tone between useful and educational and fun and exciting is difficult, and it’s no surprise that the team at the Barista League thi...
Apr 02, 2020•44 min•Season 5Ep. 19
Just a note, this episode is about coronavirus or COVID-19, so if you don’t want to hear about that, you should skip this episode. A few days ago, someone told me that 144 baristas in Kansas City lost their jobs. This is self-reported data, so it’s wholly unscientific, but it led me down a pathway to try to figure out how many baristas have lost their jobs. Again, this is unscientific, but if you take the population of Kansas City, around 400,000, and then extrapolate the number of baristas who ...
Mar 28, 2020•26 min•Season 5Ep. 18
Just a note, this episode is about coronavirus, or COVID-19, so if you don’t want to hear about that, you should skip this episode. News about the current global pandemic is changing quickly—every day, there’s a new story, a new piece of information. In that same span of time, the service industry has morphed drastically. With orders across the globe to shelter in place, or to avoid crowds, small businesses are forced to shut their doors or find ways to limit interaction with employees and guest...
Mar 24, 2020•26 min•Season 5Ep. 17
I’ve seen a variety of different responses to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, in the service industry. Because of how contagious the virus is—and how long it takes for symptoms to show up while a person is contagious, the service industry, in a matter of days, has changed completely. I wanted to understand the variety of responses I’ve seen from businesses. I’ve seen some address the virus as a passing hiccup, while others have already fired some of their staff anticipatin...
Mar 17, 2020•31 min•Season 5Ep. 16
Sometimes you have an idea. And it sparks another idea. And another. And another, and soon you've created something greater than perhaps you could have ever imagined. It ends up touching more people and doing more good than you could have ever hoped for. That's what happened to Arielle Rebekah Gordon when she started her blog, Trans and Caffeinated . After writing beautiful Instagram captions, on her mother's urging, Arielle started a blog and shared her experiences working in the hospitality in...
Mar 06, 2020•43 min•Season 5Ep. 15
This was not the episode I intended to share. My guest today is James Hoffmann, the 2007 World Barista Champion, co-founder of Square Mile Coffee in London, author of the book The World Atlas of Coffee , YouTuber , and overall one of coffee's most recognizable superstars. James has been on other shows. He's been interviewed a hundred times and honestly, I wasn't super interested in having the same conversation with him as I've heard on other platforms. I almost didn't have him on the show, but w...
Feb 23, 2020•58 min•Season 5Ep. 14
Here's a quick timeline of events for the Tartine Union. On Thursday, February 6, the employees of Tartine presented their managers with a letter of intent to unionize. It was signed by roughly 141 people or about 2/3 of all of their Bay Area-based employees. Essentially, they were asking for a seat at the table—a chance to negotiate their wages, have a say in decision making, and know more about where money was going. Tartine has grown A TON in the last few years, and with so much aggressive gr...
Feb 17, 2020•32 min•Season 5Ep. 13
Before we start this episode, a quick warning - this episode will be dealing with the bush fires in Australia, as I mentioned at the top of the episode. We’ll be talking a lot about trauma associated with natural disasters and loss, so if that’s a topic that you don’t want to listen to for whatever reason, feel free to skip this episode. The bushfires in Australia started in June of 2019. Fires are not uncommon during warmer months in Australia, but this season’s fires were especially devastatin...
Feb 13, 2020•18 min•Season 5Ep. 12
Some of you might know I belong to a group called the Matchbook Coffee Project. Every month, we work with a roaster to release a once-in-a-lifetime coffee, and then we give them total control over how the coffee will be presented. Instead of roasting for the companies they work for or a specific audience, this is their chance to do something fun and weird and find touch points to connect the coffee they’ve chosen to, essentially themselves. We do these releases every month, and I don’t think we ...
Feb 01, 2020•48 min•Season 5Ep. 11
A few weeks ago, I asked listeners to send me voice memos—and you did. Lots of them. Some were happy, some were sad, some were about a specific topic - at the time, I really wanted to learn about tips and how they affect your life as service workers. And one of the voice memos I got was from a barista in Memphis named Laurel Moreland. She joins us, along with Courtney Paige Harrough, to share their experiences about being fat behind the bar. Please send me more voice memos! If there's anything y...
Jan 16, 2020•27 min•Season 5Ep. 10
One time, in the midst of a sorrow-filled rant about my bosses and work, one of my friends told me I was unemployable. So I asked him—Brandon Epting—to come on the show and explain the weirdest compliment I’ve ever received.
Jan 03, 2020•28 min•Season 5Ep. 9
We're working on some big episodes dropping around the holidays, but in the meantime, here's one of my all-time favorite episodes.
Dec 19, 2019•48 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Right now, as of December 2019, coffee is being traded at $1.05 per pound. And yet, when you go into a coffee shop, it can feel like prices are way higher —and sometimes vary wildly depending on the coffee shop you go to or the bag you pick up. How does coffee's journey from farm to retail shelf affect the cost it incurs along the way? We decided to dive deep into the world of coffee prices. Featuring Joe Marrocco of List & Beisler.
Dec 12, 2019•24 min•Season 5Ep. 7
How do you tell a customer about what's really going in your life? Today we talk to Camila Coddou of Barista Behind the Bar about what it means to have a meaningful conversation with patrons—the folks who keep the service industry alive, but often don't know much about the issues affecting workers. Learn more about her project, in partnership with Coffee at Large , about patron engagement and encouraging direct conversations with the folks who patron our workspaces— here !...
Dec 05, 2019•22 min•Season 5Ep. 6
Hey friends, we're taking a break this week BUT we have a special treat for you! I've been lucky enough to know Lucia Solis for a few years. She consults coffee farmers all around the globe, helping them improve their processing methods and think critically about fermentation. All coffee goes through some sort of fermentation, and not in the way you think. Lucia is a fountain of knowledge, so she started her own podcast called, Making Coffee, where she talks about big topics like, "how do we det...
Nov 28, 2019•27 min•Season 5Ep. 5
In the U.S., the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. 29 states have set a higher minimum wage than that, HOWEVER all by 6 states have a tipped minimum, or an amount that’s lower than minimum wage that you can pay your staff if they also receive tips. Rules vary on how little an employer can pay state by state, but in general, when we think of minimum wage, we think of lowly paying jobs, and for many, minimum wage isn’t enough to support themselves or their families or make their lives work wi...
Nov 22, 2019•20 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Welcome to the first episode of the Boss Barista Roundup! On this show, I ask experts, writers, and you—yes, our listeners—to send me messages, voice memos about a topic, and together, we’ll take a hard look at a big question. And I wanted the very first episode to be about a topic I never stop thinking about: tipping. I am obsessed with tipping. It’s something I’ve written about, commented on for other articles, even done a few episodes of this show about. And for this episode in particular, I ...
Nov 15, 2019•14 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Everyone has had a bad boss. Everyone has probably had multiple bad bosses. I had one boss tell me I was inauthentic and that he hated me, I had one tell me he couldn’t give me more money after he promoted me, I had two, a married couple, get a divorce in the middle of the cafe and put all the employees right in the center. And I too, have been that bad boss. I’ve been too overbearing, too nitpicky, too weird and mean. I learned to be a better boss—not perfect, not great, probably not even good—...
Nov 07, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Season 5Ep. 2
