Every time we open a bag of beautiful specialty coffee — like Erick Bravo’s from Finca El Chaferote in Huila, Colombia — we’re drinking something that’s been on a long journey.
And I mean long! Over 1500 kilometers north up and down the Andes mountain range, a distance more than twice the height of France.
Along the way, it passes through dozens of hands, machines, and decisions. We follow it through muddy mountain sides, dusty dry mills, and hurricane-battered coastal warehouses — places where all kinds of things can go wrong. A leaky roof. An overly aggressive polishing machine. Or even theft.
But here’s the mystery: getting Erick’s coffee to port costs 50% more than sending a commodity coffee through the same route.
Why?
That question led me deep into Colombia’s coffee supply chains — and what I found changed how I think about the real cost of treating coffee with care.
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Find your next favourite Colombian coffee from The Coffee Quest
Taste coffees from Erick Bravo’s award winning farm, Finca El Chaferote, and follow him on Instagram.
Season 3 of The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat
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54:19
Why one Colombian farmer chose specialty, and the other walked away
I travel to Colombia’s Huila region to answer a question that’s puzzled me for years: if specialty coffee pays more, is better for the environment, and brews tastier cups—why don’t more farmers grow it?
I speak with two producers in the same region whose choices couldn’t be more different. One stakes his future on specialty. The other opts out.
Their decisions come down to more than passion or a hard work ethic. Instead, I uncover two starting conditions—often invisible to us buyers—that strongly shape whether a farmer chooses specialty at all.
If we want to see more speciality coffee grown, we need to bring down the barriers to specialty. But first we need to understand what those barriers really are.
The answers might surprise you. They surprised me.
Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee!
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story
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Find your next favourite Colombian coffee from The Coffee Quest
Taste coffees from Erick Bravo’s award winning farm, Finca El Chaferote
Nerd out on my farm profitability estimations
Season 3 of The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat
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46:45
The hard business of selling beautiful coffee, part 2
Volume. Cheap. Lame flavours. This is the traditional way of growing coffee in Brazil, and almost every farm does it this way.
But what if you wanted to produce beautiful, distinctive flavours instead—and make a living from it?
In this episode, we travel to Fazenda Paraíso in Minas Gerais, Brazil, where farmer Vicente Pereira and his daughter are on a steep learning curve finding buyers for their beautiful coffees.
Part 2 explores what it looks like for a small Brazilian farm to find better buyers, and the challenge of achieving pricing power.
Behind every beautiful coffee is a family story like this, but it’s a story we rarely get to see close up.
Let’s take a closer look.
Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee!
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story
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Source your next lot of specialty green coffee on Algrano
Listen to Firefly to hear a cautionary tale about a specialty farm failing because they couldn't find the right buyers.
Try Fazenda Paraiso's and Sancoffee's coffees for yourself!
Season 3 of The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat
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39:02
The hard business of selling beautiful coffee, part 1
Volume. Cheap. Lame flavours. This is the traditional way of growing coffee in Brazil, and almost every farm does it this way.
But what if you wanted to produce beautiful, distinctive flavours instead—and make a living from it?
In this episode, we travel to Fazenda Paraíso in Minas Gerais, Brazil, where farmer Vicente Pereira and his daughter are on a steep learning curve finding buyers for their beautiful coffees.
Part 1 unravels the hidden structures of Brazil’s coffee industry: how prices are set, why it’s so hard to create a specialty-focused farm, and why Vicente's farm is unsustainable if he sells his coffee the traditional way.
Behind every beautiful coffee is a family story like this, but it’s a story we rarely get to see close up.
Let’s take a closer look.
Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee!
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story
Write a review on Apple Podcasts
Discover how I make these Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to my Substack newsletter
Source your next lot of specialty green coffee on Algrano
Listen to Firefly to hear a cautionary tale about a specialty farm failing because they couldn't find the right buyers.
Try Fazenda Paraiso's and Sancoffee's coffees for yourself!
Season 3 of The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat
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29:08
The Speed of Heat: How to roast more coffee, faster!
To roast coffee faster, you need to turn up the heat….right?
No!
In this episode, we explore the three powerful methods of heat transfer that revolutionised roasting. We’ll journey from humble beginnings—when roasting three kilos took half an hour—to machines that now roast hundreds of kilos of coffee in the time it takes you to boil a kettle.
But beans roasted at lightning speed look strange, and taste… well, you’ll find out. Join us as we test-drive an industrial tangential roaster where first crack remind me of fireworks crackers.
We also see the whale-sized roaster so massive it’s worth you a Guinness World Record.
We have the technology today to roast coffee faster than ever, so why aren’t we all roasting at recording-breaking speeds?
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Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee!
Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify
Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story
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Check out the Probat roasters mentioned in this episode:
Emmerich Spherical Roaster - "Pink Hydrant"
Large ball roaster - “Sputnik in a pizza oven”
G45 early drum roaster - “Old school steam train”
Early tangential roaster
Sample tangential roaster - "Shoebox"
Neptune 4000, the largest drum roaster in the world! - "The whale"
And there are lots of other specialty roasters from Probat I didn't have time to showcase, including their new hydrogen powered roasters. See them all for yourself!.
Theodor von Gimborn's wikipedia page
Go deeper into the science of roasting
Read Mark Al-Shemmeri’s coffee roasting blog
Do a Certificate of Advanced Studies with the Coffee Excellence Centre
Explore Barista Hustle's online roasting learning
Learn more from Morten Münchow and his coffee roasting courses
Read Morten’s paper in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen on Roasting Conditions and Coffee Flavour
Follow Filter Stories on Instagram for my infographics
Learn more about first crack on my episode Coffee Roasting, Part 1: How heat transforms coffee beans
Season 3 is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:
The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat
The Science of Coffee is a journey into coffee’s hidden microscopic secrets to help you make even better coffee at home.
Documentary maker and coffee professional James Harper travels the world and speaks with leading coffee scientists to help you appreciate coffee more deeply.
You are going to get taken into the science of water, coffee extraction, plant genetics, espresso technology, latte foam, sonic seasoning, our sense of taste and smell, organic farming, roasting, grinding and freshness, and how to think like a scientist.
Press the Subscribe button so you don’t miss future episodes!
The Science of Coffee is a spin-off series from James Harper’s documentary podcast Filter Stories.
Follow James on Instagram: https://bit.ly/2Mlkk0O
Listen to Filter Stories: https://bit.ly/3ajoT5
Ireland