Making Coffee with Lucia Solis

What is a Q Grader? In the coffee industry the Q Grader license is often compared to the sommelier exam in wine—this is a shorthand that can be useful to provide some vague ballpark approximation, but over the next 2 podcast episodes we will see how different these tests are. When I started to get serious about working in the coffee industry I was looking for ways to deepen my knowledge and the Q...

I find the term " over fermentation " to be especially annoying. From a biology point of view this term is nonsense. When coffee professionals use this term it's understood to mean a defect, usually vinegar, "boozy" or like rotting fruit. Everyone agrees that it's a negative trait for a coffee to have. I think it's important to be able to identify this trait but...

If you made it through last week's deep dive about how we talk about and label specialty coffee - you've earned your coffee-nerd badge! This week I want to pull back the lens and talk more broadly about quality and value. Instead of examining the rigidity of microbiology, this week's episode explores the subjective side of preference and what makes something "good". I tell...

The first step in expanding the role of processing in the coffee quality conversation is how we label these coffees. I have noticed a lot of redundancy and confusion in how we describe the coffees. I've heard various forms of; fermented coffees, yeasted coffees, anaerobic fermentation, lactic process, acetic process. The labels we use set up the foundation, and I argue that when the labels ar...

In this very first episode, I wanted to give you a little background on how I approach coffee processing as a former winemaker and microbiologist. I discuss the similarities and differences in the processing methods of wine and coffee, and how they can impact perception and education within coffee processing. Support the show

A behind the scenes look at one of the world's favorite beverages. Lucia is a former winemaker turned coffee processing consultant. This podcast will talk about the steps in getting a coffee cherry ready for roasting, share current coffee research in microbiology and have interviews with coffee producers in different parts of the world. Photo by @a.w.klass Design by @hafner.nick Music by @eli...