I went to Santa Cruz last week to visit my friends Jared Truby and Chris Baca (aka Trubaca) at their new, super-friendly cafe, Cat & Cloud Coffee Co. Jared and Chris are well known in coffee for their successes in barista comps, their Cat & Cloud podcast, and for generally being the most fun baristas you will ever meet. Oh, and Jared once made me the best cappuccino I’ve ever ordered in a cafe, a fact that we often remind Chris. :) I had the pleasure on December 2 of being a guest on their podcast. We talked about how I got into coffee, how I drove across most of America to find the ideal location for my first cafe, and how the town government there attempted to illegally shut down my business in its first year. At 22 years old, I was overworked, deeply in debt, and days away from my business being shut down by the town. My cafe was saved by the goodness and righteous anger of a few hundred devoted customers. It’s a good story; please listen.

Jared, Chris, and I also discussed coffee roasting, and I took the chance to clarify some of my ideas that had been criticized a few months earlier by a poorly informed guest on Cat & Cloud. That previous podcast motivated me to talk with Trubaca on C&C — I’m belatedly learning the necessity of actively fighting against misinformation in the incternet age. The internet is a blessing and a curse when it comes to spreading information.  I began blogging partly in an attempt to weed out some of the misinformation that plagues roasting discussions.

You can listen to the podcast here:

As a side note, I openly, and with the most friendly intentions, invite anyone who wants to debate or critique my ideas on roasting to comment on my blog. I’ll never edit a comment, and I will answer any polite comment to the best of my ability. I know of no open, expert-level debate on roasting happening in the coffee industry--let’s change that. I don’t have all, or even most, of the answers. But I’ll be happy to engage anyone polite and sensible.