Making Coffee with Lucia Solis

Support the show on Patreon to help us keep making new episodes. In this seventh episode, we give you a practical manual to protect the quality you've worked so hard to create, all the way from the coffee tree to the export container. During picking, we look at why heavy jute sacks crush and heat your cherries, and why smaller, ventilated, stackable baskets protect both your fruit and your wo...

Support the show on Patreon to help us keep making new episodes. In this sixth episode, we give you a practical manual to judge your own coffee quality, so you can negotiate with buyers on a level playing field. We start with the simplest step of all: drinking your own coffee. We cover how to brew and taste it, how to build a catalogue of its flavours, and why tasting your neighbours' coffees...

Support the show on Patreon to help us keep making new episodes. This episode explores the strange world of the C market, where movements in the Brazilian currency or rebels boarding a random container ship decide the worth of a Colombian farmer's coffee. Yet specialty coffee still uses this number to price the coffees it says are anything but a commodity. Part of The Coffee Producer Toolkit,...

Support the show on Patreon In this fourth episode, we give you a practical guide to finding buyers and selling your coffee into the specialty market. And we finish with the sales conversation itself: the questions to ask in your first five minutes with a buyer, and how to handle the rejection that's coming, because it is coming. The Coffee Producer Toolkit is the podcast that helps you run a...

Support the show on Patreon In this third episode, we give you a practical manual to take control of your fermentations and improve your farm's profitability.  We start with the basics — what is actually happening inside your tank, where the microbes come from, and why your coffee is going to ferment whether you want it to or not.  Then we go through five ways commercial microbes can make you...

In this second episode, we show you how to stop losing coffee to a badly calibrated pulper, why chasing 100% ripe cherries is actually costing you money, the $480 fix that lets a small farm sort cherries perfectly well, how to keep your coffee under 40°C during drying without spending a fortune, why a mechanical dryer isn't the villain everyone says it is, the cheap instruments that will deli...

The Coffee Producer Toolkit is the podcast that can help you run a more profitable coffee farm.  Hosted by coffee journalist James Harper (Filter Stories podcast) and fermentation specialist Lucia Solis (Making Coffee with Lucia Solis podcast), it's built for farmers who want to run their farm like the business it is. Over two years we interviewed 50+ producers and experts across 20 countries...

Check out our YouTube videos AI writing shape Support the show on Patreon   to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos. And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal Sign up for the newsletter to hear about the next episode, FTC dates, and coffee releases.    Support the show

Buy Roasted Coffee Here. Check out our YouTube videos #63: Terroir for Busy People Dirty Jobs Hawaiian Coffee Clip Support the show on Patreon   to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos. And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal Sign up for the newsletter to hear about the next episode, FTC...

Lalo's substack page Ikaria Coffee (Lalo's farm + roasted coffee) Biofilia (agronomic consultancy) Support the show on Patreon   to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos. And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal Sign up for the newsletter to hear about the next episode, FTC dates,...

If you would like to watch our YouTube video on "What is specialty coffee" You can watch that here. If you are a roaster and are interested in participating in the Fermentation Project with James Hoffmann, click here -> For Roasters: Buy Fermentation Kit Listers Movie (bird watching) it's beautiful, I highly recommend this. Email info.luxiacoffee@gmail if you would like to discus...

Roasterkat IG Reel about rain. YouTube version of the Q&A portion James Hoffmann Healthy Coffee Video The 2025/2026 Harvest has not gone according to plan. Nick and I have found ourselves with some down time and therefore have put together this casual, end of year update on how the season is going so far. Spoiler alert: not well. I've combined a harvest update with listener questions abou...

Sprudge Best Of Panama Article Remanence and survival of commercial yeast in different ecological niches of the vineyard Responses, Inquiries, & questions about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com Support the show on Patreon   to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos. And if you don't want to co...

Water massively impacts your coffee's flavours. But most of us struggle to fix our water because water science is confusing... Join me and James as we go step-by-step through: Why these concepts matter for coffee flavour and equipment How to test your water at home How to fix it, depending on what you're working with Check James' website for all of the visuals mentioned in the episo...

Resources: Responses, Inquiries, & questions about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com Get a ticket to FTC-10 December 2025 Luke's Website: Pomelo Coffee Consulting Luke's Book: Pre-Order Pomelo book Support the show on Patreon   to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos. Office Hours with L...

This episode developed thanks to Nick, who thought it would be a good time to revisit a bit of my history in coffee to reconnect with long-time listeners, and to share a bit more about myself with new listeners. We started this podcast about 6 years ago, and if you've been through all 72 episodes, you probably have a good idea about my coffee philosophies.  But I also know that not everyone e...

Today's episode offers a behind the scenes view of how I approach a coffee producer's first time using yeast for their coffee fermentations. We run through all of the potential variables to pay attention to when designing your first trials with commercial microbes. From cost of production to work-flow and data collection. This conversation was recorded during a recent Office Hours sessio...

#54: Visiting Producers, Advanced Tourism & The Coffee Hunter with Tom of Sweet Maria’s #57: Will Frith Solves Terroir & Other Lessons From Vietnam Resources: Inquiries about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com Support the show on Patreon   to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos. And if you don...

Some of the questions in this episode: What typically happens to the water, along with cascara and whatever else is part of a fermentation, after the fermentation has been completed? Cascara is sometimes processed into a secondary product, cascara tea. Are there other secondary products that are made? As a roaster, what should we put on our bags to better point towards the farm? What's the co...

This episode is a final harvest update and the behind the scenes of performing whole cherry fermentation with various microbes in an attempt to create a Dry Process/Natural coffee that I want to drink. Resources: Inquiries about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com Support the show on Patreon   to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research...

I have wanted to make this episode for a long time, but I wasn't sure how to make it work. Finally some research for Dr. Flavio Borem helped crack the topic for me and the result is today's new episode.   Things we discuss on this episode: Washed processed that tastes like a natural Process-forward coffees, funky coffee Neutral processing  The need for speed, & gentle drying Drying i...

In this episode we talk about: How Ana decided to join the family business after pursuing a career in art. The advantages and drawback of growing coffee in a "Full Sun" system. The future of coffee picking and the role of Mechanical Harvesters. Brazil's 6 different biomes. How technology helped Brazil  jump from 6 coffee bags/hectare in 1960 to 29 bags/hectare in 2023 How climate ch...

I was going to create a new episode about Infused vs Inoculated Coffees, but much of what we established back in Episode #39 is still relevant. So I am pulling a Taylor Swift and going to re-release a new version of episode 39, keeping what still works and adding some new perspectives from the last 3 years. In this episode I talk about: The sugar and acid additions that French and California winem...

On today's episode I will be updating you on the coffee we made this harvest season and speaking of the importance of blends. If you’ve listened to even 1 other episode of this podcast, you’ll know that I'm usually trying to discourage the coffee industry from blindly adopting wine culture. Usually I share my thoughts that adopting a wine model benefits consumers more than producers and...

This episode also comes on the heels of our recent trip to London.  Our very first stop was the Nagare coffee shop in Shoreditch in North London. Nick and I do what we usually do when we step into a coffee shop and order the pour overs. They had 2 different coffees on the menu for a pour over so we got one of each and sat back at our cute little table in a cozy cafe, and it was only when we looked...