Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan Rockefeller Center on newsstands studios, joined as usual but not live. She's in the great state of Connecticut. Small state best state right, John? The Stasi, the hammer Lopez, how're you doing? I'm good. How are you? Good. I'm doing all right. I mean, I'll put you a little bit. You had a birthday recently how to go is a good you feel happy? Feel good? Yeah, it was good. Thanks for coming. John. Dave. Hey, listen, I was taking my kid to college. I did not college like to visit colleges. I'm sorry that my son has to like figure out where he's gonna go to college. I apologize that I couldn't go to your party so that my son can have a future. I deeply apologize. I don't actually, I don't. I deeply apologize for showing your 40th birthday many years. Yeah, at the school, it was also to people's 40th birthday. And again, you weren't taking your son to come to visit colleges because you didn't have don't whatever. I don't want to get into it. This is a dumb conversation. You know what, I also apologize for buying you all those fireworks for your party. Maybe I'll go back in time and not have bought you all those fibers to the party. All right. I'll go back in time and not have done that. Anyway. Okay. By the way, the one thing I learned I learned many things. I don't have time to talk about them because we have a jam packed show today. But should you be driving in between like Albany Saratoga, and Burlington, Vermont? Should you find yourself on route 22 there there's a tiny town tiny town or Well, Connecticut? Sorry, Vermont tiny. Is your driving past 22 doing 75 and a 50. Right? You'll see a small handwritten sign on the side of the road that says maple syrup. $40 a gallon. It's like my car must have done three 360s When I hit the brakes, and I saw that sign spun out. You can't find it. So like I had to go into a post office and be like, Yo, the maple syrup sign on the highway where is it? Come on? And the guy was like I don't know what's his family guy? I don't know Misty maples. And so like it's 61 Raymond Road write that down if you're going to get $40 The gallon the gallon anyway. Also got John customer service extraordinaire here and how you doing doing great thanks how's the how's the customer service doing?

It's going Yeah, I mean, you know, just peachy appreciate everyone being patient with the delay of the series LoPro some people have been changing their addresses but yeah,

yeah that's gonna happen people move that's what this what people do in our I guess DC booth Jackie molecules How

you doing? Back in LA ah,

world traveler Jackie molecules. He just like in the ether like molecule and good about nice. How's that? Is la Yeah. How's that treating you?

It's great stars. I was in Stanford this weekend, too. Thanks for the invite. Oh,

oh. Oh, that hurts. I was gonna I was gonna leave that like the lid. I didn't know. I didn't know I Okay, yeah. Okay. Okay. Someone's got some something radio in the background or something. And work in the panels. As usual. We got Joe Hasan, how you doing? I'm doing very well. Thank you very much. Nice, nice, but let's get right into it. Fewer fewer tangents more stuff just because he was supposed to be on the show before and we had to cancel and I apologize for that. But we're very excited to have James Hoffman Coffee. Coffee. Like how do you go by this magnate? Influencer influencer matter. Guru. What do you like? What's your bad? Yeah,

yeah. None of it? I don't know. Coffee guy. Coffee. Weird, weird coffee person,

you weird coffee person? All right. Yeah, you're supposed to many people who I guess aren't from the UK because you're based in in the UK are going to know you from your youtubes. And what's your YouTube channel so that everyone knows shout out?

Just my name James Hoffman. And

worldatlas of coffee now in its second edition, right? I guess most people are going to know you who don't know you from the UK are going to know you. From those two things we actually first met, I was doing a cocktail class when the first edition of your book came out in 2015. So that's kind of how we met the one time and very happy to have you on the show. Sorry that we had a little bit of confusion beforehand. But before we get into the 8 billion questions that people have for you, and that I actually have for you, this is go through like a quick rundown. So you got into the coffee business in 2003. Right. So you must have basically just been out of college a year or two at that point, right.

Pretty much. Yeah, just trying to find something to do for money.

Now, in 2003, obviously, on the west coast of the United States in you know, north northwest, not in LA Jack. But like, you know, in the north of California and specifically also Seattle, obviously there was there was already great coffee at that point, New York City, kind of a hellhole for coffee, and the rest of the country pretty much a wasteland for for what you would think is good coffee. Right? What was the UK like back then?

Oh, it was bad. It was really bad. It was much worse. Really. It was like maybe some Starbucks. And that was kind of it. It was it was just bad.

Hmm. So I think people should take note that like, become interested in something that's not yet really good. If you want to make a mark, you know what I mean? Like, honestly, like, if you're young, like, it's great to get into something that you know, someone like James has been working on for that for the past 20 years and try to get really good at it. Or you could try to find something that you could pour a life into. That's interesting, that hasn't been covered and smothered by other folk. I'm just saying, as a piece of advice. What do you think about that, James?

I think that's pretty good advice. I think it was, you know, we started roasting coffee in London and trying to sell fancy coffee when no one was drinking it. And for me, that was the opportunity. But everyone else would kind of look at London and be like, well, no one drinks good coffee. So why would you? Why would you try and sell good coffee? You know what I mean? It's just, it's just like a mindset thing.

Right? And you but your, your, your, I guess your point is another interesting about your kind of style. If people haven't, you know, read your book, or, you know, wash your stuff is that you you're very explicitly say, and I think maybe this is why you could be successful in an arena where people didn't already want the product, right? Is you're like, Listen, I'm not going to tell you what the best of anything is. There's no best like, you don't want to pick your favorite child when it comes to styles of coffee, or types of coffee. I mean, you have certain things you don't like you clearly don't like robust a in any form. But are you saying, you know, why would you do that when you could drink something else instead? But what if that's fine. But my point is, is that you you're very much about helping people enjoy the product on their own terms, which is, I think, a very kind of inviting way to get people to enjoy things now.

Yeah, I think I probably went through the youthful arrogance phase of like, this is the good stuff, and you're tricky. The bad stuff, and I've got the good stuff, but I think I got a little older, a little bit calmer. And yeah, I just I feel like telling people that doing it wrong doesn't help.

So what's the like? Do you even have like, are you even willing to admit that there's a go to style that like is your comfort or not? Not even?

Yeah, I mean, I would just drink I drink a lot of drip coffee, like pour over. That's just like espresso is just too, too much. So yeah, I drink a lot of drip coffee. I'm very happy.

Nice. Alright, so we should have a couple more things. So you have released be going back to espresso, though. So you you've you've released a couple of machines in kind of concert with Victoria Arduino, which for those of you who aren't like coffee stop people not related to Arduino, the microcontroller people. Victoria, Arduino and Arduino the microcontroller people, two different sets of people. But yeah, totally different thing. Yeah. I don't think they don't have a lot of penetration. I don't think in the US market. I think their sister brand. Nova Simonelli has kind of more penetration here in the US, but you want it how long? Have you been working with those guys?

Oh, like, maybe, maybe like 10 years, like, like, the brand is really old. It's from like 1905. But it kind of no one did anything with it for a really long time. And then maybe eight, nine years ago, we started working on stuff. And that's kind of been the kind of specialty coffee brand for that company. And that's why I've worked with them on the kind of moodier, end of espresso, like commercial espresso machines.

I mean, I think that, I mean, like I think I've never owned one of their machines. I think they're fantastic, though. I remember like so the two cups of espresso that changed my life. Right. And it made me realize how little I knew about anything on earth. The first one was at in 2001 at Cafe valachi, which is Schumer's place back when they were, you know, the highest form of coffee in the US. And, you know, I had, you know, I had a couple years earlier bought my first commercial machine and an auction which I don't have time to tell that whole story where like, you know, I got a drug dealer to drive me home for money. He only referred to me as white boy, I accidentally left the proton pump in his trunk and had to track him down and knock on his door. He was very curious why I was knocking on his door anyway, long story. But so I thought I knew about coffee. I had that cup of that espresso shot at the VA Chang was like, Oh, I don't know anything. I know nothing. And then the second was actually at McCormick Place, which is a nightmare. Freaking trade Hall in Chicago, like just just a crap show of a place to have to hang out like just as bad as the Javits here in the United States. Any trade show floor sucks. And I was at the National Restaurant show and Victoria Arduino had a booth. And in that booth, they had a level of Victoria between a Liverpool machine. And whoever was working the floor that day. This is I don't know maybe 2011 Maybe 2008 2009 2010 Whoever was working the floor that day in Chicago, pulled a lever shot changed my life. I was like, oh my god, the lever. Oh my God could have been as early as 2007 or eight anyway. So I'm a big fan of their stuff. Is there stuff still really good or no?

I mean, I would say yes, I'm still I'm still working with them. So yeah.

And wasn't um wasn't Simonelli one of the first companies to move to lever lever valves on the steam and water ones

Ah, that's a good question. I don't even know about that stuff. I feel like, like, the kind of mechanical leather stuff I'm trying to get away from actually, I'm just moved to like solenoids because they're just they last longer. But I don't know the history of that stuff, actually. So

it's either them or was it lesson mark? I thought it was similarly. I love the the lever so much more than a knob. I hate the knobs so much. The knob is the worst. Am I right? Man, obviously, you're moving with the knobs it

works and all this very stupid. Yeah, I'm always the worst. Yeah, it's just pointless. Have you

ever met one that didn't start leaking? Right away? Like when you're using it? No, right? No. Yeah, no, no. And for those who are into measuring things, right, you the coffee machine you helped to design for them was like the was like the first one to weigh that way the shot as it was going as opposed to just measuring the number of millimeter milliliters that was going through the through the unit. Right.

Right, right. Like if you if you get weird about coffee, then like Flow Meters are like, okay, they're not bad. But like, we kind of worked out in their sort of preceding years that measuring liquid in the cup was the kind of answer to curing the weird inconsistency that you would experience with espresso where like, sometimes it's great. Sometimes it's just not quite great. And that's very frustrating. And it turns out really paying attention to how much liquid you push through the coffee was the kind of game changing piece of information and not just kind of eyeballing it or going by feel so yeah, that was the that was the kind of idea behind that stuff.

Yeah. And so what what do you not like about? What do you not like about the flow meter? Just because they don't integrate accurately enough? Or is it because you don't know how much is retained in the puck? Or like, what is it that you don't like about flow meter?

I mean, they're pretty good at working out how much water went to the coffee, but not how much actually went through. So yeah, kind of like a couple pieces. One, there'll be some variation, because really accurate flow meters just get really, really, really expensive. And then yeah, Puck absorption or other stuff, like you'll just you'll have a slight variation in the amount of liquid passing through. And it's depressingly true that like a gram of liquid variants in the cup is testable to most people. Right? Like, that's kind of how knowing espresso is.

So the standard of ethics. Why is that? Why is that? Why is it? Is it a fuzziness that actually makes you prefer to just hang out with drip? Or is it a lack of fuzziness? In other words, or is it really just that you prefer the drip as your just your comfort coffee?

I think I mean, it's all of it, I think I can kind of switch my brain off more with drip and just just be a normal person and drink for coffee and be happy to have had a cup of coffee, whereas espresso, I feel like I'm much more likely to just nitpick it, or like, try and work out why it's not completely perfect, or whatever's kind of wrong with it. You know, it's just, it's, I think it's healthy to try and you know, detach from the obsessive kind of diagnostic brain that you can easily get if you work in food. And just remember that stuff is supposed to be fun to eat and drink. Yeah,

and by the way, if anyone wants to see James's videos on how to do like, you do tons of like, long, nice in depth, like, good to watch videos on, like, how to how you why you choose the techniques you do and how to do them. So we won't go too into depth to that here. Because what's the point? They could just watch the stuff you've produced on that right? Wouldn't it be easier? I think I think it'd be easy. It would be easier. Yeah. One of the questions so that way, as you're telling me the paddle wheel flow meter that I have in my in my loss, and Marco is kind of a trash can flow meter, they're kind of garbage in general.

I mean, they're okay, they'll just be a reasonable amount of variance in the output. You can measure it pretty easily and see,

oh, God, don't send me down a rabbit all. Over Okay, so let me get to some of the Oh, one more thing. So when you first came out with, with the world Atlas of coffee, it was pretty interesting in that you, you go through some of the stuff, you know about coffee in general, the history, everything. And then it's mainly like by by region, right. And then when you came out with the, the new edition, right? You there's new regions. I mean, it's kind of interesting, like you came up in coffee in such an interesting time, such that you could be in the business for over 10 years, write a book with over a decade behind, you know, under under your belt, and then six years later, or whatever it was have to come out with a new edition. You want to talk about that?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's definitely been incredibly interesting, like 1020 years for coffee, with the whole boom of the specialty thing. And then I guess as suddenly there's roasters everywhere, looking for something interesting. I think it'll lead them to be more interested in unusual origins, and sort of invest and go hunting there for interesting stuff. So I'm trying to think of a good example, I feel like Uganda is a pretty good example, right, huge coffee producer historically, but traditionally, a lot of Robusta or kind of commercial coffee. But in the last 10 years, out of nowhere, there's been these kind of small amounts of these super interesting things starting to pop up. And I think that means you should start to talk about a country in a book designed for people who are looking for some guidance in how to explore this big confusing world of coffee, where there's suddenly just just infinite choice. You know, in the past, coffee was simple, you know, and I mean, like, it wasn't complicated. Maybe you picked roast or something like that. But now, there's like, endless options for everything. And that's, I think, kind of confusing. So, yeah, I'm trying to give some guidance. And that's why I think, including these kind of fringe places.

That's the nice thing about the book, I guess, is that it's, you know, it's about trying to get people hooked into it, rather than just throwing a wall of information in front of them, and you know, freaking them out, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I think I'm trying to do the opposite. Like, you know, I've watched people try and buy coffee, trying to order coffee and coffee shops and realize that it's like, we're not, we're really pumped on all the information we have, we want to tell you everything. And I think a lot of people kind of these days, probably I roll a little bit at the endless information that comes with a cup of coffee now. But, you know, to sort of make sense of that and try and answer the question of, okay, here's my money will I like this thing. That was the kind of bigger goal of the book and mostly what I do, like, I just want people to buy in, enjoy coffee and kind of see value in it in this thing that historically wasn't worth very much to people. It was like super cheap, it was a loss leader in supermarkets. But it has value, it needs to have value to be sustainable. So that's kind of that's the idea behind most of what I do.

And I said, I said, I was gonna go back to the questions, but I'll ask one more my own sorry. So do you think there's a big or do you see a big age difference in preference so like people so like, I'm, you know, 51 or 51, or whatever. So people my age versus people who are younger in terms of acidity. I know a lot of people my age really don't like like a bright, acidic cup, not sour, nothing sour, but like something with a lot of assists acidity. Whereas I feel like a lot of younger people kind of like like an acidic cup, do you see an age difference? Or is it really just person to person?

Yeah, I think it's probably an age difference, because it's kind of what you started drinking is your benchmark. Right? And I think it's rare that your preferences move too far from that initial benchmark without some effort, if that makes sense. So, you know, when you started drinking coffee, there wasn't a ton of super light roasted, super acidic, kind of coffees out there. Whereas if you started drinking coffee in the last five years, that's most of what you seem to have access to in the kind of nice coffee shops. So yeah, I don't think it's age as much as the first coffee you drink and you kind of benchmark as coffee, good coffee. That's, that's kind of gonna stay with you for a long time.

Alright, let me get to some people's questions. My first coffee drink. So I it's interesting. I grew up not liking coffee, even through college. To stay up I would pound tea. And then I forget why I decided I was going to make myself idols like, I was 20 something I was like, I'm gonna make myself like this stuff. And if I'm going to do it, it's going to be espresso black. That's it. You don't I mean, I'm so like, I just would go order a cup at Starbucks because people crap on them, but they brought a lot of people to coffee. Let's give them the credit. They brought a lot of people to drink the milk actually, right. They brought a lot of people to drinking milk, let's be honest, but like, so I would go to Starbucks and get the they're incredibly over roasted, like, incredibly better shots. They were still using real machines back then. I think though, and, you know, this was in the late 90s, or whatever. And yeah, I would just drink one every day until I wanted it. Until I until I actually desired to have it. And now I can drink black drip as well, but I still am an espresso guy. You know what I mean?

Okay, yeah, yeah.

So that's how

I did it the same way I started working in coffee and and forced myself to like it.

Why did you choose coffee if you had to force yourself to like it just because it was like kind of Uncharted or?

No, they paid weekly. I needed the money. Like it was that like, I didn't want to work in coffee. It's just an opportunity.

So like, one of the guys in my college band one of my college bands. He the same way he took a job and coffee wasn't a coffee guy and he was also a heavy smoker. So he was already like a little bit kind of like twitchy like a heavy smoker. And he said he took to drink If he took to drinking coffee constantly on the job and eating because there's an ice cream shop next door, they would trade him ice cream for coffee. So he would just set the machine on Turkish grind and grind coffee directly out of vanilla ice cream and eat it. The man he was a jittery, jittery, dude, a jittery, jittery, dude, you know what I mean? Nice guy. That's not good. That's not healthy. That's not healthy. Alright, let's get to some questions so that because people have been waiting for your questions for a long time. All right. Jason gray writes in with a question for you, James. I'm working up a decent collection of manual coffeemakers. Less so espresso. So the Hario v 60. Is that their standard small one or what is that one?

Yeah, that's like that's the most common little pourover cone. Yeah.

The Yama vac pot, the Aeropress. The Moka Pot, the vintage atomic coffeemaker, the double wall, stainless steel, French press, and a bribe. What's a bright?

Red bright is a coffee brew pipe. And it's bright, it's bright. It's like a it's like a copper pipe that you kind of cook coffee in and then drink a bit like a portsip.

Why would I want coffee to touch copper? it for a long period of time. Is it tinned right?

I assume it's coated? Yeah. Yeah. What's the word is passivated is something else. Yeah. It's kind of fun. It's ridiculous. But it's really fun.

So I should try. I should I should break one day, one day, I should bribe

or get you a bribe.

All right. All right. Oh, by the way, I noticed that on one of your one of your videos, or was it in the book? I can't remember where you're actually like, Listen, I don't drink mocha coffee. But if you're going to do it, here's how. I love it. It was what I love. You're like, let's look at this thing that people like and try to make it as good as we can. Right? No, that was you wasn't it? I think it was. Yeah, absolutely. That was probably Yeah. People love their Moka pots. People live their Moka pots. I don't really understand it. Alright, so that was Jason graves list of of Moka pots on the list. There it is. I read it. I didn't even see it. The only item on my wish list is the Yama slow dripper tower. What am I missing? What is Jason missing with that list? In terms of unique processes or fun brewing devices? I have room for one or two more before I run out of wife allocated shelf space. So to start say you love that Stasi loves that. PS she does not love that. If there's time for two questions, any idea on how to clean the atomic so it's safe to use, I got new seals, but shabby worried about the old aluminum or anything or just run it a few times first? I don't know what that means is that the one with it like that looks like a juicer is the atomic, the one that looks like a juicer where you pull the two handles down?

No, no, it's like it's like a Moka Pot but fancier. It's like a kind of weird bulbous pretty Moka Pot thing that kind of runs at slightly higher pressures, but not much.

So what what? What weirdo thing should Jason get? He's got space for one or two more before he runs into trouble with his spouse there.

I would say I know he's not really sounding like he's into espresso, but I would probably feel like a lever espresso machine of some sort in there. Like a little manual one that doesn't need power or anything like that. That would be fun. He has no cold brewing stuff. So yeah, like some sort of cold dripper. But I don't know I'm personally not a huge fan of cold brewed coffee. That's just me though. Some people like like it a lot more than I do. But yeah, I would say like a little fun. Manual lever espresso machine would be would be joyful and kind of beautiful. Something like a robot. Or like a flair or something like that.

Oh, not like one of the older ones that could Pavoni or like, what's the what's the actual spring small one? I actually own one of them. What the hell is it? It's with the spring? Yeah, there was a small one made by

a spring by the fire Amina?

No, it's made by a full size company. It was like the Liverpool version of like the Silvia. But it wasn't, it's older, much older, it's small, it's red. It's got like enamel and like a lot of chrome on it like a small God, it has to separate. Oh my god, I can't remember the name of it. I have one. It's still in parts. I think I tried to sell it and I couldn't. Whatever. But I like lever. I told you I like lever lever is great. But you don't go with a new one, not with like a Pavoni or something like Pavonia. That's the old one. Right? Those ones don't work like a commercial level.

Right? Like that direct pressure. So you're compressing a spring you're compressing, you're pushing down on the coffee with the lever. They're just kind of cheaper. They're kind of a little bit more fun. You can play with them a little bit more if you'd like to mess around with this stuff. And you can get them but they don't need power. You just pour boiling water in them. And so they're a little bit cheaper and kind of fun to play with.

Are you an enjoyer of the have the pressure gradient going down like a lead like a spring would do or no or do you not enjoy your of that?

Yeah, yeah. Broadly. Yes. I think that you know, if you get into the whole pressure profiling thing, then yes, decreasing pressure. Towards the end of the shot especially, is broadly a good thing.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's why the old levers made such good shots. I mean, it's I think it's just a, you know, that's the way they could produce pressure and just so happened and made something delicious and that was lost in the era of protons. Protons are nice, they easy but whatever. Okay. And, and on the atomic, you think he's good to go safe to use?

Yeah, it's just, I mean, like, people freak out about aluminium. And I don't really think they should. So I would just keep it clean. Just scrub it clean. Now, people let maca pots and things like that accumulate that kind of patina of dirt as if that's a good thing. And it's, it's, it's not a good thing. Yeah, I'm a big fan of just clean it properly. Detergent. Keep it clean, beautiful.

Don't dishwasher aluminum, it's fine to use steel wool pads on get rid of the calcium and salt deposits on the inside. They build up and that's nasty. Okay. Pain MJ? To you, James, do you have much interest in tea? And will you ever produce content on it? I did search your YouTube channel for tea, but it seems to just bring up coffee videos that perhaps he's interested in it, but there's not the same depth of technique, equipment, etc. When it comes to brewing tea, so it just doesn't fit your content. So the question is, do you feel a deep dive in your life on tea coming coming in any point?

I love to but it's I can't lose more of my life to stuff. I can't I can't go down one more rabbit hole. I can't do it. I like to I want to drink the tea. But I kind of refuse to learn about it meaningfully. So that's kind of my weird thing with tea and whiskey. I like them both. And I refuse to get weird about them because I just can't. I can't do it.

You know what? I think this is healthy. I think this is healthy, healthy attitude. Yeah. Cotto writes in Good morning, I would love to hear James's thoughts on green coffee beans that are aged for an extended period of time. So I guess like, I guess there's other stuff happening besides just the old school monsoon thing that I'm not aware of. I never have had it. But I've read about some roasters in Japan that use decades old age green beans, I would also love to hear your thoughts about Nell drip brewers i, which I don't know anything about. So go for it.

Okay. He's really just one cafe in Tokyo called Cafe lambri. And I went there. They, they sort of aged out these raw coffees. And I chose the oldest coffee on the menu, which was from Colombia and picked in 1952. At the time was like 2012, maybe so like, it was old, old. And I'm very, you know, they're lovely people and they care deeply about what they do. The most terrifying and alarming cup of coffee I've ever consumed in my life. It was the moment where took a sip. And you were reminded that your sense of taste is primarily there to stop you dying. That was like a real alarm going off in my body. Like don't swallow this. But it was really expensive. And I'm there with like two hosts. And I'm like, oh, it's it's pretty COVID So I can pass the cup around. We're like, no, no, you should try some you should definitely. I don't recommend it. I think I think coffee does not age well. Unless you're freezing it like really cold. It's kind of fun and interesting to taste. But I don't think coffee degrades quite notably in flavor, sweetness complexity, it starts to taste like jute bags, even if you don't keep it in jute bags. So I'm not a big fan of eating out green coffee, but I wouldn't. It's not. I wouldn't say it's good. It's interesting. It's not it's not necessarily good.

You know, when I got into home roasting in like the early 2000s. You know, back when everyone was using popcorn poppers, you know? It was hard getting green beans. Most of the green beans you got were terrible, right? And back then one of the selling points was that Oh, green beans. They last forever. Right? And I, man, they don't oh my god. So like at the very beginning of the pandemic when I thought that maybe no one would ever deliver anything to New York again. I bought a bunch of green beans and got them shipped to me. And I found a pack that was two years old recently and it had been in in plastic sealed. Oh my God, it was bad. Oh my God, just like you say it tasted like a bag. It was flat. It tasted almost like baked like a black and Rose fault. You know what I mean? It was just a nightmare.

Yeah, you can keep it in the freezer if your freezer runs really, really cold. And it's okay. But yeah, it's just gonna age out and taste bad.

Yeah. What do you think about the home roasting movement? Do you like it or not? Like it? Makes kind of broad question but everyone's like, what do you think roasters?

As a people or

equipment as a people, I think they're It's fun, right? Anything that increases the anything super fun. Yeah, it's fun, right? It's like they're going to take your job away as long as you

No, no, no, no, no, no. Like it's it's enough of a pain. But most people won't do it. You know, like it's not. It's fun, but it's kind of annoying at times as well. But yeah, I think it's as long as you're not trying to like save money or something doing it because they but just doesn't work out. But if you just want one more hobby and coffee is maybe not easy enough for you or difficult enough already, then then yeah, like level up the complexity and start roasting yourself and it's just a giant rabbit hole. I would say of pain but that's because it's you know, I have a kind of commercial mindset for that stuff. But um, yeah, homeless thing is huge fun. Very satisfying to the house smells good. Even if it doesn't really smell of coffee.

Yeah, well, except for like, if you live in an apartment like me that the oil settles all over everything. It's kind of and if you have a son who's nervous that the fire alarms are gonna go off. He now I don't know. It's it's hard in my house. Anyway. James, we're gonna go to a commercial break. And we'll be right back with more cooking issues. Today's episode brought to you by or a king salmon, everybody's favorite fish. And today we have Michael Fabbro from or king salmon to talk to us more about how its raised and bred. So I don't really thought about this. But when you're raising wheat, you're raising just like kind of like a bunch of clones, right? Or you have a specific variety, not a lot of diversity. So how do you make sure that there's going to be enough diversity when you're raising the salmon?

I'm not a wheat farmer. But I think a lot of the farming in the United States they're actually buying the seeds. So one thing that's different about us is we have our own hatchery. So we're not buying eggs, definitely a lot of the aquaculture industry sources eggs from hatcheries, but we have our own hatchery, and we have for many decades. In fact, we're on our 10th generation of salmon. And this is traditional husbandry, this is selective breeding. You know, some of the traits we look for are fat content, or skin color, flesh color, but there's a lot of science behind it, you know, we have well over 200,000 individual broodstock salmon in our database that they can go to and look at the characteristics of each one. But it's really critical, like controlling your own breeding and hatchery really helps you develop a very unique salmon in the end.

Awesome. Or a king salmon. Everybody's favorite fish. And we're back. So we have a caller, but before we do, Jordan wants to know what's your guilty pleasure to coffee shop? James.

There is no guilty pleasure. That's another thing. Yeah. Just fine.

Oh my god. I love that. Why be guilty about what you're drinking right? Now? Nice.

There's no I've no guilt.

I love it. That's the correct answer. Everyone for everything in life. We're back with James Hoffman, talking coffee. And we have a caller caller you're on the air.

Hi, James. My name is Ray in New York. immensely grateful for all the information and coffee that you put out there. I have a quick question about commercial roasting. The 15 or 20 kilo? How do you mitigate smoke and smells to keep your neighbors happy without going full blast on a on a macro burner. But seemed vortex out there. But the internet has very mixed reviews on it. I just want to get your stuff.

Sure. Okay, treat treating smokers one of the most frustrating and irritating parts of coffee roasting. So like there's not there's no good answers to this question. There are some like sort of hybrid systems that do like a ton of filtration, like a little bit of HEPA some of the particulate stuff and then like a little bit of I think catalytic oxidizers in there too. I think Probot makes a system that's relatively small for like up to 15 kilos. You've seen some people use like misting systems and those kind of stuff to try and just like use water in the air to capture stuff and sort of wash it away. None of it really works as well, as afterburners, do. And afterburners are the least elegant solution to a problem in history. In that I have some smoke, the answer is just to burn the smoke, and then it's gone. They're ultimately net beneficial to the environment, which is sort of depressing, compared to just letting the smoke go. But yeah, there's there's honestly, sadly, just not that many options out there. Still. We did try electrostatic precipitators. At one point, we sort of pass the smoke through these charge plates. They will take a little bit of the sort of particulate out but you'll still get a lot of aroma that way. So there's not a good answer to this question still until ultimately if you want to fix the problem, it's an afterburner.

At home I use a fake afterburner you do well when I'm doing 400 grand so it's nothing right. So I just use one of my so many toys because my torch business that I just hold a torch in front of the thing and well it's going and it eats all the smoke. Otherwise, all my alarms would go off because my ventilation is not as good as it was on my last apartment anyway. As you say not elegant. T dubs asks, question. Have you ever tried a staccato espresso shot where the fine mid and coarse grounds are separated and then layered? Is there a way to get a similar extraction without all the sifting equip Is there a reason to do so?

I have tried them I kind of these kind of weird experimental espresso things that people do really interesting as a kind of one off thing, but part of my, I'm just not that interested in them in a big way, because they're just so wildly impractical because you can't do it without the sifting equipment and you know, sifting anything as miserable as an experience, even if you get the machines that do it. So if you have someone with a bunch of serves, you should totally just try it as a one off. But no, you can't really replicate it. I don't think any other way. And I don't think it's worth the effort of doing it outside of a single ha ha interesting kind of moment. And also

who makes a SIP stack that can accurately do like 18 grams, and then get it all back?

That there is one in coffee and they do like a buttload like 10 sieve sizes and stuff. It works okay, but obviously it's you know, sieving is hard sifting is hard. Yeah. doing it by hand is like not not super effective. But it's kind of okay.

Yeah, I'm with you on sifting in general now with coffee because I haven't tried it. But in general, misplaced enthusiasm is you've tried many foods and drinks that contain coffee that should not have Is there anything that you thought, Damn, this will be good? We coffee in it? Also, I've seen many applications and specialty coffee. Have you seen many applications of specialty coffee and food? I imagine some interesting fermentations could be really good in something traditional like chocolate.

I'm kind of curious on your thoughts in this one, two days, but I think coffee is is mostly a very difficult and ugly flavor to work with. And outside of, you know, it goes really well with dairy because that mitigates the bitterness. Sugar is always friends with that. But they're kind of limited the number of foods that it truly works well with, you know, sometimes we have a bunch of made crossover. That can be like a nice flavor pairing. But again, that's, you know, it's nothing new or that interesting. You know, I think most applications of coffee and other stuff don't work. I think most coffee beers are terrible. I think most coffee, you know, things that aren't very obvious. It's fine under a desert or whatever. But like most other applications, I just think it's a very ugly flavor. When you put it up next to sort of more interesting things. Yeah,

I don't have I've never had good luck with it. I like coffee a lot. I don't like coffee flavored things very much.

How did coffee or espresso rub sticks ever become a thing? Coffee? What rubs steak off your espresso rubs? I don't know. Hey, I think that's gross.

Well, you know, like you say the traditional like you throw a shot of espresso into a cake mix. It helps sometimes you know what I mean? It's not even really present. It's just there to add a little bit of bitterness in the back of something or some richness or an in chocolate situation. But yeah, I don't have anything good because I don't use it. Don't ever do that. Definitely don't dump Turkish grinds on your vanilla ice cream and and be like, you know, lead singer of my band. Definitely don't do that. Please don't do that to yourself. Alright, Matthew Solomon writes in Hey, James, I'm an American transplant in Istanbul. I'm curious what if any, your experience has been with Turkish coffee. Specifically, coffee is hugely popular here, as is Turkish coffee, but they're mostly completely separate worlds. I've seen a few specialty specialty shops offering specialty Turkish coffee, but it's very uncommon. Grinding of fresh to order is unheard of. Because there's that one store in Istanbul that everyone waits in a huge line to buy the stuff out of the grinders, right. It's kind of cool should go to that store if you're ever there. But it's very uncommon, grinding Turkish coffee fresh to order in coffee shops and heard of so it seems like there's a huge untapped world here to explore. I'm surprised I don't see more people doing it. As an aside, Matthew likes in in cocktails and we have another person because he's hit all the Turkish stuff right away because of the week because we're gonna run out of time I'll always my family is let this Michael J. K. My family is Lebanese and it always drank the Arabic Turkish style of coffee. The Greeks call a Greek coffee. By the way, did you know that? After years of going down the rabbit hole of a third wave coffee, I was wondering if anyone in the space is attempting a more modern take on this old brewing method. And I will add for myself that I love that stuff. And I'm terrible at making it. I even tried to do a sand thing once with my you know, e brick and I can't get a good I can't make a real good cup of Turkey slash Greek coffee. So what are your thoughts James?