The Coffee Show with Kirk Pearson

Jak Michael Ryan, originally from Australia, is the United States Barista Champion. Jak is one of the most unique personalities you will find anywhere in life. Jak is a professional dancer, dedicated boxer with ambitions for great things and just casually, the best barista in the USA. This podcast looks into his journey and discipline and the many years of hard work it took to reach this point. Ja...

Davy Ball is the Founder of Draped in Blue and one of the Co-Founders of Now and Then, a now closed coffee bar that provided a fine dining coffee experience. In this podcast Davy and Kirk are recording in Chef Sean Brock's office in Nashville with all of his cook books, as you can see there are many! Kirk and Davy discuss how fine dining and coffee can work together and the future of coffee ex...

Kirk has reached the means streets of Calgary, Alberta in Canada. In Calgary one of the worlds most reputable specialty coffee roasters is there, Rosso Coffee Roasters. Rosso was started by David Crosby who is a 2x World Barista Championship coach, coaching both Mikael Jaisin and Boram Um to victory in consecutive years. David and Kirk have been friends for years now and it was great to catch up a...

George Howell is the Founder of George Howell Coffee and one of the most influential forces in the coffee industry ever. Many know him as the man who created the Frappuccino, which he sold the rights of to Starbucks. Such was his influence in the 90’s he sold all of his venues to Starbucks as well, and has devoted his entire life to the betterment of the specialty coffee industry. In this podcast...

Nemesis Coffee are based in Vancouver and have multiple venues spanning specialty coffee focused venues and bakeries. The owners Jes and Albert blew Kirk away with the coffee quality and service throughout the Vancouver leg of the 'Freedom Tour!' We sat down in their Great Northern Way store and spoke about the origins of Nemesis and the near terminal challenges they faced along the way. A...

Dr Doran Pennington is a former student of someone the coffee industry knows well: Dr Christopher Hendon. Doran and Chris story has shades of Good Will Hunting, Doran the former student recruited his teacher to form a start up that has the change to change the beverage industry as we know it. It is called Overpotential. In this episode Kirk visits the ‘Engine Room,’ a start up accelerator within t...

Last year the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) announced sweeping changes to what is known at the Coffee Value Assessment. Coffee professionals were furious that a seemingly functional system of assessing a coffees quality was being replaced by a system that was far more complex. Craig Simon is Australia's leading coffee trainer who was one of two certified Q Grade instructors in the country. Cr...

'Breakfast Shirts' or Mark Crotti is a content creator who travels Australia as a touring musician and cafe connoisseur. Mark has compiled some data from a survey sent out to his followers. It seeks to find out: Who is Australia's favourite coffee roaster? What is Australia's favourite coffee order? And where is the best breakfast in the country? Kirk and Mark discuss all this week...

Nic Petrie is the Head of Coffee for Born and Raised, a Melbourne based coffee roasting supplying cafes and sharpening their focus to go direct to consumer. Nic has been one of the lead agitators with pre batched coffee, something Kirk is very familiar with. Additionally, Nic has been big on Co-Fermentation. Kirk and Nic discuss the potential problems that Co Ferments could create and also discuss...

Ryan Caisley is an ‘Oat Dealer’ from Oatly based in Melbourne Australia. When working in London, Ryan would often serve some of the biggest name actors and sports stars, leading to him eventually featuring in a Hollywood film! Kirk and Ryan discuss famous stars like Jimmy Butler and Emma Chamberlain entering the specialty coffee industry with their own brands that are doing very well. Sustainabili...

Think of this podcast as a 100 minute lesson on how to make espresso. Whether you're a beginner at home or in the cafe, you're going to get something out of this. 2022 World Barista Champion Anthony Douglas sits down with Kirk to go through espresso making. What is the best equipment to use if you're on a budget? Where should you allocate your money for buying home coffee equipment? Pl...

Kirk is getting international heat, again! Firstly, Kirk and Jack caught up during the week and sorted out their drama from last week, which ended in a really pleasant reunion. There are some looming articles to come out soon where journalists have been seeking alternative opinions on pre batched espresso. Potential hit pieces in the works? What are Kirk's philosophies on coffee service? Find...

This morning, World Barista Champion Jack Simpson took to Instagram, rebuking the idea of pre-batched espresso. The post came as a complete surprise to Kirk. Jack had previously played a role in helping set up the café, yet there was no prior conversation or warning—just a post pontificating on the inferiority of pre-batched espresso. In this episode, Kirk responds. He revisits why he started pre-...

James Coburn is the man behind one of the most hilarious coffee content creations currently going. You might know him as Human Tobasco, and after nearly a decade living and working in New York, he's taking a brief stint living and working back home in Melbourne Australia. James is as hilarious in person as he is online, but most of all he is very down to earth. Many of his video ideas arose fr...

Can you imagine going to a coffee shop and getting told to fuck off by the server? Well, that now exists thanks to a whimsical bunch of lads in the United Kingdom. Tom Noble, Will Sudlow and Charlie Hurst are the three founders of Flat White or Fuck Off, a pop up that came about thanks to British figure Rory Sutherland, who spoke of this idea on another podcast. Charlie Hurst loved the idea so muc...

Zac Smith is a former Aussie Rules player who played for both the Gold Coast Suns and Geelong Cats. In the final years of his football career, Zac began to fall in love with coffee, and once he retired decided that he wanted to do this for a living after football. Zac now owns Tallboy Coffee in Queensland Australia, where the weather is pretty much perfect all year round, he sees opportunity to di...

Project Zero 2.0 has opened which has captured attention globally. There are really only two camps of people on this, those who are open to new ideas and innovation, and those that think the definition of espresso was written in the Magna Carta era. Joining Kirk is Hany Ezzat, the man responsible for posting a viral reel that has caused many to have a melt down. Hany is the founder of Ni Wares, a...

Lucia Solis is a fermentation and coffee processing specialist who is now based in Guatemala. Lucia is also hosts an award winning coffee podcast called 'Making Coffee with Lucia Scolis' which recently won Sprudge Podcast of the year. Lucia's first line of work was as a wine maker. After studying Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis she worked in California's esteemed Napa Valley. T...

Christopher Feran is coffees is the author of coffees most detailed and forensic blog. Chris has many years of experience working as a post harvest and green bean consultant, helping roasters of many different sizes with their sourcing and blend formulation. Chris also has a brand called Aviary Coffee where he roasts and sells one different coffee monthly, allowing him to develop sutainable partne...

Though he would never own up to it, Andrew Kelly is one of the Four Horseman of Melbourne's specialty coffee industry. Andrew is the Founder of Small Batch Coffee, a seminal Melbourne roastery and Sharesource, which sources coffee that ensures farmers financial sustainability and aims for better outcomes on farm. The key contention of this podcast is how do we as an industry better communicate...

Scott Rao is the most recognised coffee roasting expert in the world. Through his consulting work he has helped countless coffee roasters to improve their roasting and day to day operations. The who's who of coffee all look up to him. Kirk and Scott cater to roasters that are at the beginner, intermediate and advanced level of roasting, so if you roast coffee already or you want to learn, this...

WARNING! This podcast has nothing to do with coffee. Pokemon is the most successful game/movie/merchandising franchise in the world by a long way, and in recent times that has gone to a whole new level. In the podcast we are joined by Jonathan D'allessando of Card Bot AU, a company that sells cards through vending machines. What started as a hobby for his brother CJ, ended up becoming a thrivi...

The World Coffee Championships recently unveiled their new sponsors, with Ceado now being the grinder sponsor for the barista category and Option O for brewers cup. Coffee competitions have always been costly, but this year they're going to a new level and the frequency at which the sponsors change make it hard for would be competitors to budget accordingly. Perhaps the most shocking change is tha...

On the weekend US President Donald Trump and his administration captured Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela and his wife, sparking international outcry and condemnation. While the world is still learning more details there is much conjecture on what comes next. One thing is for sure, if the region were to become unstable and if shipping near one of the worlds busiest shipping routes is disrupted, the ou...

In our recent tour of Europe, we touched down in Berlin to attend the launch of Oatly's 'Look Book' they formulated to help cafes and home enthusiasts to make better drinks that are better for the planet! Kirk sat down with Toby Weedon who is the Barista Development Director at Oatly who oversaw the creations in the Look Book. Along with the launch of the look book Kirk and Toby discus...