The Coffee Show with Kirk Pearson

The prophecy foretold that one day Gabrel Tan would become Australian Barista Champion, and alas! Here we are!! Gabrel Tan of Veneziano Coffee Roasters, who has finished second three times to eventual World Champions Anthony Douglas and Jack Simpson, was finally able to break through and earn his first national title! Gabrel overcame a challenge from the legendary Angus Mackie of Ona Coffee using...

Matt Perger and Jeremy Challender run Barista Hustle, an online coffee education provider that make comprehensive courses for people of any skill level in coffee to better their knowledge! In this episode of The Coffee Show, Matt, Jeremy and Kirk have just concluded a blind tasting that compared milk coffee that was made using freshly made espresso and espresso that had been made a day prior. The...

Alex Moore is the runner up of the Australian Brewers Cup and staff member at Project Zero Coffee. Alex was trained by Kirk and overachieved in his first season as a competitor. What was special about Alex routine is that he was the only competitor that used a washed coffee in the whole competition. In recent years, natural and experimental fermentations have dominated the Australian competition s...

Matt Winton a World Brewers Cup Champion now residing in Switzerland. Sierra Yeo is a National Brewers Cup Champion (previously representing the UK) and recently won the Swiss Brewers Cup, meaning she will compete again at the World Brewers Cup in Brussels. Matt and Sierra are happily married and together run Rose Coffee Roasters, and internationally famed roastery that sells some of the highest q...

Nicole Battcefeld is Germany's most awarded barista with multiple national championships to her name. These days she works as a consultant to Nunc, an AI powered home espresso machine that could potentially reshape coffee brewing at home. Vladyslav Demonenko is former Doctor from Ukraine who now resides in Berlin and owns Kolo Coffee, a coffee roaster that is gaining praise across europe for i...

Paul Ross is a UK barista champion and founder of Special Guests Coffee in London. On our recent Euro tour, Kirk stopped by Special Guests Coffee and was blown away, calling it the best coffee in the UK and he isn’t alone. Paul told a really interesting story about how he made coffee for the landlord which blew them away. It was that fateful decision of taking a flask of competition coffee to the...

If you ask most coffee professionals: What is the most famous specialty coffee place in the world? Most of them will answer Patricia Coffee Brewers in Melbourne.  Patricia is one of the crown jewels of the City of Melbourne. They make 1200+ coffees per day and people travel from all over the world to experience going there.  What makes it so special? This is a coffee shop tucked away in an alley o...

As part of our recent tour or Europe, Kirk stopped by Copenhagen where he discovered that the #1 Restaurant in the world has opened a coffee bar! Kirk was the first customer and managed to secure an interview with Noma Head of Coffee Carolyne Lane inside the new space. So why have Noma ventured into coffee? And what are their plans in the future? WIll Noma's world leading expertise on fermenta...

Jose Luttrell (or Don Jose as Kirk likes to call him) is the Patriarch of the Luttrell Family that owns Panamanian coffee farm 'Abu Coffee.' Sofia Luttrell is his daughter who hasn't finished high school yet, but is keenly interested in the farming life and at the ripe old age of 18, is the Brewers Cup champion of Panama! Together they make a dream team that is amazing to see, and it is fair to sa...

Jack Simpson of Australia has won the World Barista Championship.  About an hour after his victory we sat down with Jack, his roaster Matt Crowley and owner of Axil Coffee Roasters Dave Makin.  In this podcast we discussed what went into becoming the world barista champion and the methods Jack used.  Instrumental in his success was his entire team, perhaps most of all was Matt Crowley (Head of Cof...

Jamison Savage is a Panamanian coffee grower who has produced coffee for multiple World Barista Champions. Jamison is unique in his approach with his processing as he regularly embraces experimental processes with his coffee fermentations. In this podcast, recorded at Host Milan, Jamison discusses champion barista Jack Simpson who is using his coffee at this years World Barista Championship. Jamis...

Chris Baca is one of the founders of Cat and Cloud Coffee in Santa Cruz, California. Chris is also a previous winner of the USA Barista Championships and one of the original specialty coffee content creators, dating back more than ten years. Chris career journey is one of the most traceable in all of coffee. Nowadays his focus is on Cat and Cloud and one of his biggest focuses is building a nurtur...

James Hoffmann is the most recognised face in all of coffee. From winning the World Barista Champioship, his detailed coffee videos and the World Atlas for Coffee, James has for a long time been the biggest name in the coffee industry. After years of asking, Kirk finally landed the interview and the conversation did not dissapoint. What makes a cafe thrive in 2025? Are cafes competing against home...

Do you want to open a cafe but don't think you have the money? This story is something you want to hear. Fabian Brito together with his business partner Leon Holdsworth (Kirk's Sensei) bootstrapped opening their cafe Officer Coffee, where you will find the who's who of coffee in their spare time. In this episode of the Coffee Show, Fabian gives all the details of what it took to open O...

Simon Gautherin and Nemo Pop from Apax Labs are reshaping the way coffee is made world wide. Apax Labs make mineral concentrates to enhance the quality of coffee both pre and post extraction. Simon has long been among the leading thought leaders around the world on the importance of water for coffee for years now. Nemo is a new employee of Apax tasked with better understanding the impact of the &#...

Kat Melheim is a veteran coffee roaster who has developed a large online following for her roasting content. In this podcast Kirk and Kat go through how to enter the industry as a coffee roaster and discuss some of the nuances of the profession. Plus, we talk about the 'importance pie' and give our coffee roaster Mt Rushmore's! Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some fr...

Julijan Markovic is the founder of Brew Methods in Melbourne Australia and is one of Australia's most talented coffee brewers of the last few years. This podcast occurs right after we tried the Best of Panama winning Washed Geisha, Natural Geisha and Laurina. This was an incredible experience. Julijan and Kirk also talk about what makes a good coffee experience and controversially: Why you sho...

How do you introduce those who need no introduction? Like this: Morgan Eckroth is the most recognisable face in the coffee industry today! With nearly 10 million followers across Youtube, Instagram and Tiktok, Morgan has touched every corner of the globe with their catchy videos and lessons on making unbelievable coffee drinks! We were excited to learn that Morgan is as big of a Star Wars fan as K...

Dr Dean Miller is a sleep and circadian scientist based in Adelaide who studies sleep and works with high performance athletes advising them on sleep to optimise performance. Pete Licata is a World Barista Champion who started a new coffee company 'Caffeine Control Coffee' which offers different coffees with varying levels of caffeine, so that people can better manage their caffeine intake...

Lucy Ward is green coffee buyer for one of Australia's biggest and most influential coffee brands, ST ALI. Kirk and Lucy are former colleagues and discuss at length an existential threat to coffee not enough people are talking about: The aging workforce at coffee origins. Recently we learned that the average age of a coffee farmer in Colombia, one of the worlds biggest coffee producing countri...

The upcoming World Barista Championship will be the hardest ever to win! There are three returning baristas that are all former podium winners that have won their respective national competitions multiple times. So who will win the World Barista Championship in Milan? Grab a coffee and listen in for Kirk's take! Like this podcast? Leave a review or even share to some friends! Sharing helps us...

Rachel Peterson is one of the family members that own Hacienda La Esmeralda in Panama, which has a claim to being the most recognisable coffee farm in the entire world. Recently as the Best of Panama auction they didn't just break the record, the totally annihilated it, winning every category and setting a new world record of $30,000 USD per kg. This is the first podcast Rachel who represents...

Todays guests Bruno, Jennifer and Emiline of the Australian Specialty Coffee Association discuss with Kirk their new change in approach to competition in Australia and how effective it was. The organisation themselves identified that their own competitions had become 'elitist' and wanted to do something to change that and make competitions more accessible, to develop community! This is som...

Yesterdays auction shattered every record possible and was predicted almost to the dollar by Kirk. This is our reaction to what went down at the Best of Panama Auction!

This week the Best Of Panama Auction will take place and it is the most anticipated auction ever. Since the competition took place, the industry has been abuzz about Hacienda La Esmeralda winning all three categories. Their Washed Geisha entry scored an unprecedented 98 points, which may be the best coffee on record! Many are speculating that this coffee will exceed $20,000 USD per kilogram, and K...