Boss Barista

WACWA details the forming of their union, and initiatives they plan to pursue.

Coffee and tech are the hot topics in this episode of Boss Barista with Andrea Pacas, CEO of Coffunity.

Kat Melheim of Coffee People Zine gets shit done. An idea struck her during a latte art competition—why don’t I collect stories, art, and creative works from coffee folks and put them into a magazine? Five months later you have Coffee People Zine, a quarterly publication celebrating the creative pursuits of folks in the coffee world. She’s expanded the magazine, put on a film festival, thrown coun...

Gabe Boscana of Maquina Coffee Roasters faces a daily conundrum - how do we buy coffee responsibly? In this episode he talks about the ethics of buying coffee at all, what it means to be Latinx during a sourcing trip, and if you haven’t heard it on here yet, we bring it up again: we discuss how and if anyone ever needs to go to a coffee-producing country to source coffee. Photo by Lindsey Shea.

In part two of our interview with Jen Apodaca, Director of Roasting for Royal Coffee, Jen talks about being a leader and what that entails. We learn about her work with the Zapatistas in Mexico, her union roots, and how that influenced the way she approaches leadership. SPOILER ALERT there's some real talk about HR and management, but you probably needed to hear it anyway.

There are few people in the coffee industry that are as easy to talk with as Jen Apodaca. Catching Jen at a party can often lead from a casual hello to a two hour conversation about family, growth, life, and, well coffee. Today we’re thrilled to have part one of a two-parter breaking down Jen’s experience roasting coffee and eventually her role in helping develop the #shestheroaster campaign. Part...

The Colorado Springs Independent, a local newspaper, released a poll asking its readers to vote for their favorite baristas in the area. The list failed to include any womxn in a community overflowing with amazing womxn coffee professionals. Brittney Balestra of Third Space Coffee noticed, and decided to do something about it. Today we talk with Brittney about exclusion in your community, what def...

What does it mean to consume a $5 burger? How do we rectify the need to provide people with affordable food and create viable food and service jobs? Soleil Ho is an accomplished writer and host of The Racist Sandwich and Popanganda podcasts, and she joins us today to talk about the flaws of service - we unpack a lack of diversity in ownership, why restaurants aimed at providing affordable food lik...

We continue with the abortion series, a storytelling project normalizing abortion amongst coffee professionals. Today, Jennifer tells her story of tumultuous relationships and finding ways to communicate with her coworkers and superiors. Jennifer's story shines a light on the sometimes destructive way we force employees to separate their personal lives from their work lives, and will force you to...

On this episode of Boss Barista, we present Filter Stories, a new coffee podcast focused on longform storytelling. In this episode, host James Harper interviews the folks involved with the Waking Life scandal in Asheville, North Carolina. Negging, red pill theories, and a story about community action are all in this episode. Check out Filter Stories on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or filterstories.or...

Alice Wong joins us today to talk about the straw ban, ableism in public spaces, and performative activism in a capitalist society. Alice is the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project, and is an disabled-rights activist based in San Francisco. Alice talks about the rhetoric of the straw ban, how disabled voices are often erased, and how she fell into activism and storytelling. I...

On August 6th, 2018, Nya Njee shared her story of racism and wage disparities. She was the only black female at a coffeeshop in Ann Arbor, and was repeatedly promised, then denied, wage increases. She was told conflicting things about her work ethic, dealt with defensive business owners, and finally discovered that she was being paid less than her white coworkers, many of whom had not been working...

Boss Barista is proud to present The Abortion Series, a collection of stories about abortion while working in coffee. Today, we meet Katie, a barista in the midwest who talks about scheduling her abortion around her work schedule, keeping quiet about liberal ideas in a conservative space, and ponders if she's told her mom yet. We hope to launch a mini-series and collection of stories around aborti...

We continue to explore the colonialist systems that are interwoven in the coffee industry by asking what does it mean to truly empower a group of people? Vava Angwenyi, founder of Vava Coffee and cofounder and director at Gente Del Futuro, talks to us about how colonization has affected the way we view empowerment and created systems of dependency that farmers are unable to get out of (and frankly...

TWO COFFEE CHAMPIONS IN A ROW! Becca Woodard is the 2018 United States Brewers Cup Champion, and she generously sat down with us TWICE (the first episode was scrapped due to audio issues and frankly, we're lucky because this one is wayyyyy better!). Becca dishes on representation in competition, what it means to compete on behalf of her company, and real talk on gaining privilege and prestige afte...

IT'S ANDREA ALLEN! If you haven't seen a barista competition routine by Andrea, stop what you're doing and go watch—Andrea manages to evoke feelings, create trust with her audience and judges, and just make you fucking bawl every time she takes the stage. In this interview, we go beyond the barista competition stage, and learn more about what inspires and motivates Andrea to pursue excellence in c...

Have you ever been told, "you just HAVE to go to origin?" Do pictures of farmers and children in coffeeshops really bug you? Do the words "hardworking" or "humble" or "exotic" belong anywhere on a bag of coffee? Coffee is built on colonial structures, and its bled into the way we view the way we travel and talk about coffee. In this episode, travel writer Bani Amor talks about what it means to dec...

In this episode, we sit down with Mayra Hernandez and talk about hiring, being in the spotlight, and what happens when you open a business (hint - you get REALLY busy). Mayra gives advice on mentorship, and insights on building community in neighborhoods. Listen to this episode. You will come away with some new ideas.

Mayra Hernandez opened a cafe in her childhood neighborhood in Chicago called Back of the Yards Coffee Co, and we sit and chat at her cafe in part one of a two part series. We talk about returning to your neighborhood, what building community looks like, and ponder why local artists' works and neighborhood flyers have disappeared from modern coffee shops. This is the first episode of Boss Barista...

Jasper and Ashley started Boss Barista almost two years ago, and now Jasper says goodbye to the podcast (and coffee!) in this episode. Jasper and Ashley talk about their highs and lows, and Ashley conducts an exit interview with Jasper. THIS IS NOT THE END OF BOSS BARISTA. More Boss Barista will be coming to you—and we talk at the end about the future of the show.

In February 2018, baristas at the four upstate New York Gimme Coffee locations voted to unionize, becoming the first group of baristas to form a union. Two of the organizers, Samantha Mason and Korbin Richards join us and talk about how they formed the union, what protections can baristas work towards, and the power of collective action. Hear from members of Workers United Local 2833!

Meghan McCarron is a staff writer for Eater.com, and wrote an article about sexual misconduct in the hospitality industry called "Dear Bad Man: Divest From Your Restaurants Already." We talk power, economic loss and gain, and the responsibility of restaurants and coffeeshops when they are the subject of sexual misconduct allegations. Read the article here: https://www.eater.com/2018/1/25/16932246/...

Ok folx. We're not gonna lie - we need your help to keep this project going. We tell a story about sponsorship, talk sad feels, explore proper plant care, and do our VERY FIRST SEGMENT: #thoucrushshoutout! Please consider donating to our patreon - it really keeps us going: www.patreon.com/bossbarista

It's been almost six weeks since Jeremy Tooker and Four Barrel were accused of sexual misconduct. We talk about what's next and put out an open call for current owners, Jodi Geren and Tal Mor, to get in touch with us.

Umeko Motoyoshi of Sudden Coffee talks about her role as the main organizer in the Four Barrel lawsuit, and dishes on finding a lawyer, feeling validation, and we also do a 101 intro on gaslighting. #startdrama #talkshit Photo by Jenn Chen.