Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessions

One of the challenges of having a coffee roasting business is green coffee buying. How you buy green coffee will define the quality level of your finished product. In today's podcast, we dive into how we balance green coffee inventory with coffee harvest seasons from origin to origin. Although there's a lot of nuance to this conversation, we did our best to cover the topic and share how we...

We just came back from our first coffee origin trip as a coffee roasting company. We spent the week traveling, visiting farms, connecting with our producing partners, and learning more about what it takes to turn coffee cherries into coffee beans. This was an extraordinary experience and it has so much to do with the core of what Mirror stands for. Although it's hard to put words to the whole expe...

There's a lot of things that go into running a success coffee roasting operation, but we feel like there's one standout concept that is an absolute essential part to roasting delicious coffee. When we first started to crack down on systems around our roasting operation, a lot of things began to improve. It was a game changer. Tune in to this episode of the Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessions podcast t...

What does one of the most expensive cup of coffees taste like? What should you expect a coffee scored at 96 to offer? Is this even necessary or beneficial to coffees at these price points sold and brewed?  We answer these questions and more in this episode as we talk about our experience trying Proud Mary's Panama geisha natural called the Black Jaguar. This was by far one of the most memorab...

On this coffee podcast episode, we have Andrew Pernicano from Flair Espresso! This was such an enjoyable conversation as we dived into the story behind Flair Espresso, how they come up with new coffee gear for home baristas, and what it's like making coffee with the Flair 58 espresso maker. Andrew shares about what he's noticing amongst home baristas and coffee enthusiasts, and what they're workin...

Coffee is one of our biggest passions we're pursuing and see ourselves continuing to go after it for the next decade. The craft behind coffee is both challenging and rewarding at the same time. That being said, do we ever get bored of coffee? In this podcast episode, we talk about the boring, monotonous parts of coffee that are often not talked about.

The coffee experience at home or in a cafe is far more than just coffee flavor. It's a collective of aesthetics, visuals, aromas, sounds, and more. For over a year now, we've been planning and working on creating a unique experience for those who want to enjoy our coffees. From the website to the packaging, this is a creative expression of both of us, and we can't wait to share this with you.

How you roast coffee is a huge determiner of what your coffee will taste like. Although there are plenty of other variables at work that can arguably impact taste more than roasting, how a roaster approaches the process defines the outcome. What can get tricky is the subjective preferences that play a huge role in the roasting approach we create. In this episode of the Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessi...

Running a coffee business as taught us a lot about each other as well as ourselves. That includes our strengths but also our weaknesses, insecurities, pain points, and things we wish we wouldn't have to confront. On this podcast episode, we dive into the intimidating moments of having to face these uncomfortable parts, but also how we use them to leverage unstoppable growth. This is not just for b...

On this episode of the Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessions podcast, we wrap up 2022 with one last episode talking about the what we predict will happen in the coffee industry in 2023. The coffee industry is growing and changing fairly quickly and as we observe some of the growing trends we've seen, there's a few things that we believe will only become more common in the upcoming year. On the other han...

How do you roast a coffee you have little information about, limited quantity of, and it needs to be done within a short timeline? A few weeks ago we were approached by our good friends and partners in coffee about doing a very limited run roast of a special coffee for them.  Our roasting knowledge and skill was put to the test and in this episode we talk through some of the ideas we wrestled...

Exceptional coffees should be celebrated. After all, the work it takes to grow, produce, process, roast, and brew is all for the sake of a delicious cup of coffee. In today's episode, we reflect on the amazing coffees we wish everyone had the opportunity to taste. These are coffees that inspired us to pursue excellence. These are some of our favorite coffees of the year along with a few roasters w...

Starting a business with family has both negative and positive connotation behind it. There bad stories we hear about business and money destroying relationships in families are very real, but it's not all bad. Although it comes with its unique set of difficulties, there are a handful of benefits worth mentioning.  In this episode of the Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessions podcast, we talk about...

Podcasting and listening to podcasts have become nearly as common as listening to music. Podcasts have become a resource of education, entertainment, storytelling, and a form of journalism. Even though it has many similarities to an AM station on your radio, it has many differences that have made it seamlessly integrate with culture.  On this episode of the Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessions pod...

You've decided to start your coffee shop, coffee cart or buy coffee for your restaurant or employees at your business. The question we've seen come up over and over again is how and where do I buy coffee beans. Although this may seem like common sense, in some cases this could make or break a cafe or business. In this episode, we talk through how we would approach buying coffee and what you should...

On this Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessions podcast episode, we talk about holiday blends and buying your first home espresso machine. Sergei recently picked up a lever machine for home which he's been wanting for a while, however, it wasn't quite everything he expected. His experience with his first home espresso machine over the last several weeks gave him some insight on why someone would want to g...

When it comes to making coffee, we tend to lean towards putting an emphasis on the basics of brewing. It's easy to overcomplicate coffee extraction, different brewers, and entertaining speculations so much that we lose the basics that get us most of the results.  On the other hand, if it wasn't for the desire to push the boundaries of what's possible and obsess over the details, we would be v...

How do you get better at coffee roasting? This can be a difficult question to answer because there are so many variables at play and the lack of resources available online make this slightly complicated. Over the years, we've learned one thing that has truly transformed our roasting approach. It's something that could be adapted by nearly anyone regardless of machine, roasting style, or coffee bei...

What keeps baristas and coffee drinkers coming back to coffee shops? Although both show up for different reasons, why they choose to stick around for the long run have some similarities. It quickly gets messy when those needs are not met and taken cared of. Tune in to this episode of the Coffee Roaster Warm Up Sessions podcast as we break down what we think can improve the coffee shop experience f...

It's been an eventful week. Coffee Fest PNW happened which was emotional, community driven, and a celebration of craft. There was also a handful of new coffee gear, like the Fellow Stagg Kettle, xBloom brewer, and melodrip, being released and announced to the public which we wanted to talk about. Shop Our Coffee: https://bit.ly/36gPLRU Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JFSdEj_...

This week we had Coffee Fest Seattle and this year is the 30th anniversary of Coffee Fest. Coffee Fest isn't the only event for coffee enthusiasts and those who contribute to the industry. It's hard to put into words the experience, excitement, and impact these events have on coffee community. In this episode, we chat about why you should consider going and the value that they offer for the coffee...

There's nothing quite like buying a bag of coffee and being disappointed with the results. Although flavor plays a huge role in this, there's another factor we don't always think about which is price. Should a higher cost coffee come with higher quality expectations? What happens when that expectation isn't met? We've been on both ends of the spectrum. We've been disappointed with bags of coffee w...

Coffee might just taste like coffee to you. The idea of tasting flavor notes in coffee might sound both overwhelming and impossible, but we've all been there at some point. That's what inspired this podcast episode to begin with! We wanted to share a simple guide on how to approach tasting your everyday coffee, and what you can be thinking about as you dive into this hobby. There's a lot more to i...

This week we're doing a Q&A podcast episode. On Instagram, we asked folks to ask us questions we can cover on the podcast, and we got some really good topics that were hard to answer in such short time. We had questions about direct green coffee buying, how to learn coffee roasting, what are good cafe manager qualities, and so much more. We enjoyed making this episode and hope you get value ou...

The flavor difference between a light roast coffee and a dark roast coffee are substantial. Unfortunately, dark roasted coffee has some weight and negativity attached leaving many coffee roasters around the world, especially those leaning on the lighter side of the spectrum, completely abandoning that approach to roasting. Like most things, there are both pros and cons. In this episode of the Coff...