Thursday, June 1, 2023

Terroir Launch Party + AMA with Lucia

BH Unlimited Update, June 1st 2023

The BH team will be going to Athens this month for a special Terroir book launch party on the 22nd of June at Coffee Island. If you are in Athens for WOC, then please come and help us launch this first book, which we have put our hearts and souls into over the last couple of years. The delightful folks at Coffee Island are putting on a spread for us too and you can even pre order a copy of Terroir to pick up on the night with a 10% discount. Here's a link to reserve a ticket. The tickets are free but booking is essential as spots are limited.

Ask Lucia Solis Anything — Part 2

In this second instalment of our Ask Me Anything session with Lucia, your questions once again lead us into some very interesting areas. Lucia explains where she thinks the biggest gains can be made with yeast inoculations. Spoiler: she sees a lot more improvement in cupping scores with hybrid varieties like Castillo than she does with Geishas, to the extent where she considers it almost a waste of money to inoculate geisha — not because it doesn't work, but because it's like gilding the lily.

One question Lucia examines has to do with the use of rice wine cultures, like what we saw Melanie Edwards doing last season with extraordinary results. Could this approach be translated to Colombia, we ask? To find this out and a massive amount more, head here to watch Part 2.

The Coffee Buyers Guide to Colombia

Sustainable farming methods in Colombia can do more than just reduce the impact of coffee farming — they have the potential to benefit the environment, by actively absorbing carbon emissions, and by creating new habitats to support Colombia's incredible biodiversity.

The aptly named Beautiful Woodpecker, endemic to the Magdalena River valley in north-central Colombia

However, efforts to support farmers in sustainable coffee production do not always have the intended effect, and the benefits of the numerous sustainability schemes in coffee may not extend to the producers themselves.

This week in our Coffee Buyer's Guide to Colombia, we explore the potential — and the pitfalls — of sustainable coffee production in the country. We also explain why Colombian farmers are particularly vulnerable to climate change, and how the industry can adapt to its effects. Finally, we discuss how the El Niño and La Niña weather patterns contribute to the difficulties that coffee farmers in Colombia face.

Quick links

Baristas in Ukraine assembled last week for the national barista championships. Huge congratulations to all the baristas involved, and here are your new 2023 Ukrainian champions.
Cup Tasters - Andriy Vasylʹyev
Brewers Cup - Demonenko Vladislav
Barista - Demonenko Ruslan
Cezve - Nevinchanyy Volodymyr
These four competitors will be off to Athens next month for the World finals during the WOC.

Scott Rao just announced that he'll be giving a Masterclass in Athens that week, too.

BH Tools

Speaking of barista competitions, Jack Simpson from Axil Coffee took out the Australian Barista Championship last week, using a prototype Autocomb. The same BH Tool Anthony Douglas used to win the Worlds last year — just saying, there does seem to be a pattern emerging here and Autocombs are getting awfully close to hitting the shelves.

Coffee Education — Without the Advertising

BH provides a level of detail about coffee production that platforms like Youtube are unable to obtain, because we are a subscription service — our members pay us to produce the best, most detailed information for them, rather than creating videos that get the most views for an advertiser.

At BH we never do ads for other company's products on our website. There's no product placement in any of our courses, newsletters or blog posts. Our only income comes from what you pay for your subscriptions.

When you see machinery or coffee gear mentioned in any of our educational material, or featured in our course videos, we have chosen to use that equipment because we like using it, because we think it's historically significant in the evolution of the espresso machine, or because it shows you something you need to see about modern coffee culture. It's as simple as that.