The hard business of selling beautiful coffee, part 2
Volume. Cheap. Lame flavours. This is the traditional way of growing coffee in Brazil, and almost every farm does it this way.
But what if you wanted to produce beautiful, distinctive flavours instead—and make a living from it?
In this episode, we travel to Fazenda Paraíso in Minas Gerais, Brazil, where farmer Vicente Pereira and his daughter are on a steep learning curve finding buyers for their beautiful coffees.
Part 2 explores what it looks like for a small Brazilian farm to find better buyers, and the challenge of achieving pricing power.
Behind every beautiful coffee is a family story like this, but it’s a story we rarely get to see close up.
Let’s take a closer look.
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Source your next lot of specialty green coffee on Algrano
Listen to Firefly to hear a cautionary tale about a specialty farm failing because they couldn't find the right buyers.
Try Fazenda Paraiso's and Sancoffee's coffees for yourself!
Season 3 of The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat
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39:02
The hard business of selling beautiful coffee, part 1
Volume. Cheap. Lame flavours. This is the traditional way of growing coffee in Brazil, and almost every farm does it this way.
But what if you wanted to produce beautiful, distinctive flavours instead—and make a living from it?
In this episode, we travel to Fazenda Paraíso in Minas Gerais, Brazil, where farmer Vicente Pereira and his daughter are on a steep learning curve finding buyers for their beautiful coffees.
Part 1 unravels the hidden structures of Brazil’s coffee industry: how prices are set, why it’s so hard to create a specialty-focused farm, and why Vicente's farm is unsustainable if he sells his coffee the traditional way.
Behind every beautiful coffee is a family story like this, but it’s a story we rarely get to see close up.
Let’s take a closer look.
Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee!
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story
Write a review on Apple Podcasts
Discover how I make these Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to my Substack newsletter
Source your next lot of specialty green coffee on Algrano
Listen to Firefly to hear a cautionary tale about a specialty farm failing because they couldn't find the right buyers.
Try Fazenda Paraiso's and Sancoffee's coffees for yourself!
Season 3 of The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat
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29:08
The Speed of Heat: How to roast more coffee, faster!
To roast coffee faster, you need to turn up the heat….right?
No!
In this episode, we explore the three powerful methods of heat transfer that revolutionised roasting. We’ll journey from humble beginnings—when roasting three kilos took half an hour—to machines that now roast hundreds of kilos of coffee in the time it takes you to boil a kettle.
But beans roasted at lightning speed look strange, and taste… well, you’ll find out. Join us as we test-drive an industrial tangential roaster where first crack remind me of fireworks crackers.
We also see the whale-sized roaster so massive it’s worth you a Guinness World Record.
We have the technology today to roast coffee faster than ever, so why aren’t we all roasting at recording-breaking speeds?
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Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee!
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
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Check out the Probat roasters mentioned in this episode:
Emmerich Spherical Roaster - "Pink Hydrant"
Large ball roaster - “Sputnik in a pizza oven”
G45 early drum roaster - “Old school steam train”
Early tangential roaster
Sample tangential roaster - "Shoebox"
Neptune 4000, the largest drum roaster in the world! - "The whale"
And there are lots of other specialty roasters from Probat I didn't have time to showcase, including their new hydrogen powered roasters. See them all for yourself!.
Theodor von Gimborn's wikipedia page
Go deeper into the science of roasting
Read Mark Al-Shemmeri’s coffee roasting blog
Do a Certificate of Advanced Studies with the Coffee Excellence Centre
Explore Barista Hustle's online roasting learning
Learn more from Morten Münchow and his coffee roasting courses
Read Morten’s paper in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen on Roasting Conditions and Coffee Flavour
Follow Filter Stories on Instagram for my infographics
Learn more about first crack on my episode Coffee Roasting, Part 1: How heat transforms coffee beans
Season 3 is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat
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52:24
Coffee Roasting: How baby plant food transforms into delicious coffee flavours
A mother coffee plant gifts its baby everything it needs to grow—a green seed packed with food. But when we roast coffee, we hijack that gift and turn it into something else: flavor.
But what is flavor, at a microscopic level? What actually happens inside the bean when heat meets those nutrients?
In this episode, we shrink down to witness the Maillard reaction up close—a wild chain of molecular collisions that transforms baby plant food into aromas we adore.
Grab your popcorn - you’re getting a front row seat at the wildest chemistry show in coffee.
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Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee!
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story
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Ethiopian forest sounds curtesy of George Vlad. Hear more nature sounds here.
Explore Probat's roasters
Go deeper into the science of roasting
Do a Certificate of Advanced Studies with the Coffee Excellence Centre
Grab a copy of Anja Rahn's upcoming book on coffee science through her Instagram
Explore Barista Hustle's online roasting learning
Learn more from Morten Münchow and his coffee roasting courses
Read Morten’s paper in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen on Roasting Conditions and Coffee Flavour
Follow Sebastian Opitz on LinkedIn
Follow Filter Stories on Instagram for my infographics
Season 3 is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat
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47:43
Fruit juice or creamy almonds? Your guide to controlling cold brew flavors
When I started making cold brew this last year, I treated it like hot brew filter coffee. But no matter how I adjusted the grind or tweaked the brew time, I hardly got any differences in flavor…
Then it hit me: cold brew isn’t just a slower hot brew—it’s a completely different game with its own rules!
In this episode, I speak with leading coffee researchers who break down the microscopic dance between water and coffee that explains why cold brew plays by its own playbook.
And I bring you in on the brewing secret that can turn your brews from fruit juice to nutty creaminess.
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Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee!
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story
Write a review on Apple Podcasts
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Explore TODDY’s cold brewing kits
Go deeper into the science of cold brew
Do a Certificate of Advanced Studies with the Coffee Excellence Centre
Read Jiaxin (Jessie) Liang’s equilibrium extraction SCA 25 article and her published article
Discover all of UC Davis' cold brew research through the Coffee Science Foundation
Learn how to do a cold brew cupping with Toddy
Follow Filter Stories on Instagram for my infographics
Season 3 is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat
Coffee stories with an extra shot of history and science. Filter Stories is a podcast revealing coffee’s hidden microscopic secrets, its powerful past, and how your choice of beans impacts tens of millions of people.
See the behind-the-scenes stories on Instagram @filterstoriespodcast.
If you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!