Most coffee shops offer pastries with their beverages, and it's becoming popular to have a breakfast food menu as well. Is having a food menu necessary? In this episode, we talk about some of the great experiences we've had at coffee shops as well as what are some of the businesses pros and cons of serving a food menu.

Narrative Coffee, here in WA, models excellence very well. Everything from their coffee program to their food menu is refined for a very pleasant experience. Alex Scariotta, the new owner of Narrative Coffee, shares more about what it they're doing at Narrative, his personal story of growth in coffee, and how important it is to build an exceptional team in coffee.

Starting a coffee shop or a coffee roastery are both challenging and a risk. After having started a roasting company and helped owners start cafes, we've noticed some of the differences between these two coffee businesses. In this episode, we take apart the pros and cons of starting both a coffee shop and a roasting company.

This past week, decaf coffee got the spotlight and it happened to be at the US Brewers Cup Championship. The 2024 USBrC winner, Weihong Zhang, wins first place competing with a decaf coffee. This is a huge turning point to see decaf crush at a competition and it wasn't even a Gesha! In this podcast episode, we talk about decaf, where we see this going, and some of our favorite decaf coffees we've had in the past.

A special episode with Jimmy The Barista where we talk about what his journey has been like creating content around coffee, how he started in coffee, and his mindset in growing as a creator. Listen until the end because there are so many insightful pieces of information for creatives, coffee shop owners, and roasters. Subscribe to Jimmy: https://www.youtube.com/@jimmythebarista Jimmy's IG: https://www.instagram.com/jimmythebarista/ Shop Our Coffee: https://bit.ly/36gPLRU

As a coffee roaster, offering wholesale to coffee shops is core to our business model. For us, however, it's not just about getting more coffee out the door. Coffee roasters and coffee shops should be working together to help each other thrive and succeed. In this episode, we talk about how we set coffee shops up for success when they partner with us.

As coffee roasters, we understand that we can only roast a coffee to the potential of the green coffee itself. In many cases, we're doing our best to try to maximize the potential of each coffee and minimize the loss it may go through in the roasting process. That being said, starting with quality, fresh green is plays a vital role to roasting good coffee. In this episode, we specifically talk about the impact aging can have on your green coffee. Shop Our Coffee: https://bit.ly/36gPLRU Find...

Coffee competition has always intrigued us, and these last few months have been very busy because of that. Sergei just came back from competing in both cup tasters and brewers cup, and in this episode we talk about his prep, routine, and what it takes to compete on the national level.

Something we hear and are asked often is how we brew coffee based on origin. The same goes for our roasting approach as well. In this episode we talk about how different origins impact the brewing and roasting process and if it's even as important as we think it is.

When brewing pour over coffee, for the most part you're left with either a flat bottom or cone shape brewer. Both of the major categories come with their own nuances, flavor profiles, and recipes. In this podcast episode, we dive into our experiences with brewers like the Orea, V60, and Stagg brewer as well as how we approach brewing with them.

Recently, we've heard of several well known coffee brands sell either a big chunk or all of their business to other big brands. Oftentimes people call this selling out and paint in negative light, but is that always the case? In this episode, we share our thoughts and look at past acquisition to get a better idea of what this could mean.

We've all been there. You order a coffee at a coffee shop and the barista asks you to answer a few simple questions on the screen. Tipping your barista is normal, and we believe it should happen, however, with the increase in tipping amounts and inflation, has it gone too far? What are tips in hospitality for? We answer these questions in episode 130 of the Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessions podcast.

We've been running our coffee roasting business for 4 years now, and we're still learning old and new things in the process. As 2023 comes to an end, we're reflecting back on two big things that we're walking away with that being owners of Mirror Coffee Roasters taught us.

This year flew by fast, and very quickly did we pocket another year as a coffee roasting company. It's been an incredible year of relationships, connection, incredible coffee, and competition. In this episode of the Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessions podcast, we look back at the year and reminisce on our favorite moments of the year.

The holidays are always bringing people together and there's a good chance coffee will make its way amongst conversation and gatherings. This is a great opportunity to expose people to tasty coffee and hopefully give them the eye opening experience many of us have had about coffee. In this episode, we share a few tips on how to get your friends and family hooked on the world of coffee they may not have experienced!

Filter roasts and espresso roasts have been around for a while in coffee, however, are they absolutely necessary? Can't you just have one roast for both brew methods? In this episode, we touch up on the pros and cons of different roasts for different brew methods and why for now we've chosen an omni roast approach.

Coffee roasting, water chemistry, and coffee flavor notes are all linked together and are a bit more complicated than we'd like. Both coffee roasting and water chemistry create a flavor experience unique to the combination, however, when one is off, things usually are thrown off.

Roasting coffee is similar to dialing in a cup of coffee or shot of espresso. Under and over extracting your coffee leaves you with an unpleasant taste in your mouth, and there's nothing better than a perfect extraction. The same goes for roasting, and in this episode, we dive into how we perceive dialing in our batches and what we're tasting for in our QC.

This is a Q&A episode where we got some questions from you and answered them on the podcast. We cover a few topics including today's coffee culture, what we did professionally before starting Mirror, and our greatest fears and dreams.

An eventful few weeks for the coffee industry with new gear rolling out at World of Coffee in Milan as well as recent coffee news that's worth highlighting. On this episode, we highlight the new Mahlkonig EK Omnia, the updated La Marzocco Strada X, and the recent news with Alaska Airlines.

One of the key data points we use in coffee is time. Whether we're pulling espresso, making a pour over, or roasting coffee, it's something we're always keeping track of. Although it's helpful in the process, what does it actually tell us? What limitations does this key data point have? We dig into these questions on this episode of the Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessions podcast

Coffee is mainly water with small, extracted coffee particles. Water makes up most of your beverage and depending on its alkalinity, hardness, and other factors, it could make or break a delicious coffee. In this episode we talk about our frustrations with water, how we've adjusted our brewing and QC practices around water, and how we're planning to tackle this inconsistency moving forward.

Loving the craft behind coffee is one thing, but building a thriving business is another. Often times we hear people start coffee shops because they love it which is an absolute must when embarking on such a journey. It doesn't take long to realize that is not the only part necessary to being successful. In this episode, we dig deep into the sobering truth of running a coffee business.

Working in as a barista in coffee looks great from outside, but once you're in it, the job comes with many challenges and oftentimes compensated poorly. In this episode, we give practical tips on how someone can build a career in coffee and set themselves up for success and growth in the industry.