Join Ben Symes, our whole sale manager, and Tim Wendelboe as they informally sum up and talk about the year 2021 from a coffee roasters perspective. 2021 was an ever changing year, where Covid was dominating the first and last months of the year, there was a frost in Brazil making commodity prices on coffee rise and a lot of people talking about how Kenyan coffees are not what they used to be. Tune in to find out our thoughts about the "coffee year 2021."
Jan 26, 2022•35 min•Ep. 14
In this episode I speak with Alejandro Renjifo who was the one who introduced me to Colombia back in 2007 and who is exporting the coffees we buy from Elias Roa and his farm Finca Tamana. Alejandro has a long history in the coffee industry and is one of the pioneers in the developing of the FNC’s (Colombian Coffee Growers Federation) specialty coffee program. Today Alejandro is an exporter of high quality Colombian coffees and he loves to facilitate connections and help establish long term relat...
Jan 12, 2022•48 min•Ep. 13
In this episode I am having a long conversation with my dear friend and freshly crowned World Barista Champion of 2021 Diego Campos. Diego is a Colombian barista that I have known since 2014 when he came with me to Finca Tamana to help me translate. It did not take long before we became good friends and since 2014 I have been privileged to be able to work with Diego both on improving the farm practices at Finca Tamana, working at our own farm Finca el Suelo as well as training him for barista co...
Nov 30, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 12
In episode 11, my guest is Mr. Fotios Daflas. Fotios used to work with us as a barista and coffee roaster but is now working at Solberg & Hansen in their roastery. In 2019 Fotios traveled with me to Colombia to visit Finca Tamana and our own farm Finca el Suelo. For a full week he helped me work on the farm, making compost, spraying compost tea, spreading wood chips around the trees and removing weeds. Since then some of the coffee trees on our farm have started producing coffee and recently...
Oct 21, 2021•34 min•Ep. 11
This is the second episode that I recorded with Mr. Morten Munchow during my trip to Copenhagen in August 2021. Morten is an old coffee friend of mine and a fabulous coffee scientist. He runs the company Coffee Mind and together with his colleague Ida Steen he has been doing a lot of interesting research within the coffee world, mainly focusing on coffee roasting and the sensory evaluation of coffee. They also provide training for both coffee professionals and other people who are interested in ...
Sep 16, 2021•29 min•Ep. 10
The guest in this episode is Mr. Morten Munchow who is an old coffee friend of mine. Morten is a scientist and runs the company Coffee Mind. Morten and his colleague Ida Steen have been doing a lot of interesting research within the coffee world, mainly focusing on coffee roasting and the sensory evaluation of coffee. They also provide training for both coffee professionals and other people who are interested in coffee roasting and sensory training. I love speaking with Morten as he always striv...
Sep 10, 2021•39 min•Ep. 9
Join us for another coffee podcast episode where I discuss funky coffees together with Jamie Jongkind who works with sales and coffee purchasing at Nordic Approach. It is no surprise that I am personally not a huge fan of coffees that have pronounced flavours of fermentation, but our guest Jamie explains why he loves funky coffees and what fermentation can contribute with in terms of flavours. This is a long episode where we discuss natural processed coffees vs washed coffees, try to explain wha...
Dec 23, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 8
In our 7th episode I speak with our fantastic bar manager, Stephanie Dawn Holm who has been working with us for 10 years and has been our bar manager for a very long time. Listen while we talk about how we hire, train and do our quality control in our Espresso Bar.
Jun 22, 2020•43 min•Ep. 7
In this episode I am joined by my team member Marit who is one of our roasters and baristas. Marit was traveling with me to Central America in February this year where we visited Gilberto at Los Pirineos in El Salvador, Moises Herrera and Marysabel Caballero in Marcala and Jobneel at Finca Nacimiento in Santa Barbara in Honduras. Marit shares some of her experiences from her first ever visit to a coffee farm and we talk about how it is to taste coffees at origin and share some of our memories fr...
Apr 30, 2020•45 min•Ep. 6
In our fifth episode I visit famous coffee producer Gilberto Baraona on his coffee farm Los Pirineos in El Salvador. Listen in while we speak about coffee processing and also about Gilberto's farm that has been in his family for over 100 years. Gilberto will also explain how different processes like washed, natural, honey or anaerobic fermentation affect coffee flavour and how he is able to custom make different qualities of coffee for different clients. We have been buying coffees from Gilberto...
Apr 19, 2020•51 min•Ep. 5
In our fourth podcast episode, I am joined by our colleague Anders Fretheim who works with sales and customer support. Anders is also a barista and used to run his own coffee shop. In this episode we discuss Espresso and why it is almost always disappointing. We share our experience on how to fix common problems to get your extractions up so that your shots starts to taste really good. This is part two of our conversation about espresso that started in episode 3. Here are some links we mention i...
Feb 20, 2020•43 min•Ep. 4
In our third podcast episode, I am joined by our colleague Anders Fretheim who works with sales and customer support. Anders is also a barista and used to run his own coffee shop. In this episode we discuss Espresso and why it is almost always disappointing. We share our experience on how to fix common problems to get your extractions up so that your shots starts to taste really good. Here are some links we mention in episode 3 & 4: Chris Baca on hacking mazzer wire screens James Hoffmann vi...
Feb 05, 2020•34 min•Ep. 3
In our second podcast episode, I continue chatting with our roaster, trainer and overall cool guy Ben Symes. Ben recently started hosting roast workshops at our lab and roastery in Oslo, Norway and also abroad. In part two of this podcast we talk about why green coffee moisture meters are confusing, modulating roast profiles, the perfect roast curve, the importance of colour measurements and what we think is the best way to improve your roasting skills.
Dec 18, 2019•34 min•Ep. 2
In our first podcast episode, I am joined by our colleague, roaster, trainer and overall cool guy Ben Symes. Ben recently started hosting roast workshops at our lab and roastery in Oslo, Norway and also abroad. Here we discuss some of the topics we generally will teach in a roasting class. In part one we discuss the importance of green coffee quality, the secrets behind our 8 Nordic Roaster Championship victories and more. More topics will be covered in part two.
Dec 18, 2019•31 min•Ep. 1
