Join us for our latest podcast where we speak with Kellen Gorbett, an Angels' Cup subscriber who was inspired to start his own blind cigar tasting club.  Standard & Twain is a blind cigar tasting club where subscribers receive two cigars with the wrapper removed, a set of tasting note cards to record your notes, and a card to reveal the details on each cigar. As soon as I heard about this service, I signed up, and in this episode Kellen will be waking me through a tasting of two of the cigars I’ve received so far.  Our favorite quotes include: It will be interesting to talk about the differences in cigars and coffee. In the way they’re tasted, in the way the whole process from seed to the when you’re actually smoking or drinking. Because cigars hopefully you’ll be able to pinpoint some flavor in there. And then with this cigar in particular, hopefully it will change a little bit and that’s complexity with a cigar. Sometime it will start creamy and pick up spices as you go. Sometimes the opposite.  You have the wine spectrum of flavors, you have the coffee spectrum of flavors which is massive. Cigars are probably going to be a little more limited. It’s going to be more on the brown and green and yellow spectrum. Occasionally you’ll get maybe like a cherry, something like that. One of my best friends is a roaster in Dublin and when he smokes cigars he sends me the most amazing description of the flavors he’s getting. I think the coffee industry is next level in the intricacy and palate. It started because a bunch of my friends, several years ago, would get together. This was after college and we had gone our own ways. And around Christmas time we’d get back together and cigars are such a cool thing. For example I’ll smoke a cigar with a friend on the back porch at night and the lights will be off, and his wife will walk out there. And we’ll just be sitting out there in the dark with these cigars. And in any other scenario she’d be like “what are you guys doing out here”. But we have a cigar so it’s perfectly normal. We sit around, we catch up, talk about life, and have a cigar. But we wanted to take it to the next level. So we’d have everyone go to a cigar store, find the most unique cigar you can find, remove the label, set them all out on the table, and select which cigar you want. Then you smoke it and whoever bought the cigar tells you what it was and you learn all about it. And that’s kind of how Standard & Twain evolved, because you would learn more about cigars that night more than we would smoking cigars throughout the year. So I thought why don’t we do this all the time and make it something other people can do. Big thanks to Kellen. I had a ton of fun doing the cigar tasting, and I’m sure you would too. Conveniently, Kellen has offered a totally free box and a cigar cutter to listeners of this podcast. Use coupon code "FIRSTBOXFREE" at standardandtwain.com to receive your first shipment totally free. That’s a killer deal, but it expires October 1st so act fast!      The post An Interview (and Blind Cigar Tasting) With Kellen Gorbett – Founder of Standard & Twain! appeared first on Angels' Cup.

Angels' Cup Coffee Hunters

An Interview (and Blind Cigar Tasting) With Kellen Gorbett – Founder of Standard & Twain!

Join us for our most recent podcast interview where we talk to Bianca Bosker, New York Times Best Selling author of Cork Dork: A Wine-FUELED Adventure Among The Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste. We talk about Bianca's journey writing Cork Dork, the myths about being a naturally talented taster and ways to improve your sense of taste, and how to buy wine to impress. There is also a live blind coffee tasting! The perfect thing to listen to if you want actionable ways to improve your palate or just want to know more about wine and how it relates to coffee. Our favorite quotes include: I embrace a philosophy that I’ve applied to wine and it’s something that I learned from Paul Grieco who runs Terroir and I ended up working for him. And he used to make people promise to never try the same wine twice and when I first heard that piece of advice, I thought it was crazy. You know, like people collect deep into specific vintages and winemakers, but, the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized that he was actually completely wise...I’m always trying something I haven’t had before.  I’ve always been obsessed with obsession so it was really for me, I think I started obsessed with the people that obsess over wine and by the end of it, I was a person obsessing over wine and I continue to be and that was something I hadn’t expected.  You go back to that two pieces of information strategy: what do you want to spend, what flavors do you want, and if the answer is that you don’t really know what flavors you want or what flavors your host might want, get something with a story.  I think you’ve answered your own question. Now I’m really not going to be able to drink coffee the same way, right? I think that’s so exciting. It’s all just words unless you have your own association. Now I’m going to be on the looking for “what is the natural Ethiopian”. We have whole parts of the world who’s coffee I haven’t tasted and I want to. Big thanks to Bianca for joining us and being open to new experiences, we had a great time enjoying wine, coffee, and cheese together! Bianca's book is beautifully written and great fun to read. You should grab a copy before you forget, it's $9.02 well spent.      The post An Interview (and Blind Coffee Tasting) with Bianca Bosker – NYT Bestselling Author of Cork Dork! appeared first on Angels' Cup.

An Interview (and Blind Coffee Tasting) with Bianca Bosker – NYT Bestselling Author of Cork Dork!

Join us for our most recent podcast interview where we talk to Brian Wang (@brianmwang), the co-Founder of Fitocracy who has now transitioned into becoming an Executive Coach for other start-up founders at Dashing Leadership. We talk about the problems many start-up founders face like how to deal with problems between co-founders, being vulnerable, how to get more out of social media when it seems like it is not going anywhere, and nonviolent communication. An important conversation for anyone who is starting a coffee shop or interested in launching their own business. Our favorite quotes include:   If you view it more like a channel of having a conversation with customers and understanding them better and helping them succeed more in their lives with the product you're offering, that may actually derive some insights that you may not otherwise get. Once you're able to say, 'You know what? This is what I'm feeling. I own this.' And then you kinda kick up that reaction within the other person who is invited to do the same and then you start to remove some the daylight between those two people, that's when, ultimately that trust starts to get rebuilt. If starting a business is the best way for you to live a life that will bring you a sense of purpose and help you live your values: things like creation, independence, challenge and so on, then sure, go ahead, start a business.      The post Getting Down to Business with Brian Wang – Fitocracy Co-Founder Turned Executive Coach appeared first on Angels' Cup.

Getting Down to Business with Brian Wang – Fitocracy Co-Founder Turned Executive Coach

Throughout the years, we've had about a dozen people reach out to say that Angels' Cup has changed their life. I can't imagine a greater compliment. Our mission has never been about coffee, our mission is to help subscribers develop a sharper sense of taste. That's a personal journey. In this episode we meet Josh Puckett, who's early experience with a Cupping Flight from Angels' Cup inspired him to become a coffee q-grader. Josh reached out to enquire about sending us samples from the brand new coffee shop he's roasting coffee for, Peach Coffee in John's Creek Georgia.  We've since received samples and they're spectacular. Here are some quotes from the interview. It was the first time I ever tried coffee blind. I never tried anything like that. And just the whole experience of trying this coffee and just seeing what I can get from it was just an intoxicating experience. To be able to try and translate that and wrestle with what I'm feeling about the coffee. It was just really cool to be able to talk together and connect in such a different way. I tend to prefer the slow route because I love just the investment you kinda get to have in the community. I think, you know, whenever you have that 1st customer that comes in and you just get to build that relationship with them and just kinda have that intentionality of like, maybe you don't know that much about them in the first six months they come in but then the conversation you have that they have some kids or grandkids, just the slow process of getting to know someone over hundreds of 120 or 60 second experiences is a cool way to put down roots for a coffee shop.        The post How A Coffee Tasting Flight Changed Josh’s Life (and could change yours) appeared first on Angels' Cup.

How A Coffee Tasting Flight Changed Josh’s Life (and could change yours)

Interviewing for that first barista job? Want to be a better barista? Responsible for hiring baristas for your coffee shop? This podcast is for you. In this episode, we are talking to three people who are experts on how to get hired, and what will get you fired from your first barista job. Our guests for this episode include: Ashley Gardner, General Manager at Gotham Roasters Matthew McShane, Director of Education at Think Coffee Mike Jones, Director of Retail at Variety Coffee We're talking all about how to get a job as a barista, how to perform your job as a barista, what to expect on your first day of work and where the career path might lead. If you've ever been interested in becoming a barista, this should be a valuable resource for you and also if you've ever had to interview baristas, we hope you find this podcast helpful. It's also an interesting look into how the coffee industry works and what makes great coffee possible. Some of our favorite quotes from this podcast episode include: It's our job really, I think more than anything to be hearing what people are saying and let them speak to us and sort of be vessels for that without forcing anything upon them. -Matthew McShane It's kinda a mix. It all depends, so we'll hire if someone has really great experience and they interview well and we vibe, then we'll hire them. But, I also do like hiring someone who has no experience but has a passion for coffee because I can't force someone to be passional at all about coffee, but I can train everything else. So, it's a balancing act between the two. -Ashley Gardner There's definitely room for growth in coffee. I think you just have to tough it out a little bit...I think everyone gets restless and you want to stop being a barista and do something else because you wanna grow but like, I want to tell a lot of people to just chill. Being a barista is pretty great. -Mike Jones      The post Looking to become a barista? Nail your first barista job interview, with advice from 3 hiring managers at top NYC coffee shops! appeared first on Angels' Cup.

Looking to become a barista? Nail your first barista job interview, with advice from 3 hiring managers at top NYC coffee shops!

This episode's guest K Keener is a schoolteacher by day, Cabaret performer by night. Or maybe marathon runner. Or no, maybe a graffiti artist. No no, she's definitely doing some blind coffee tastings to set the mood for the coffee shop walking tour she's hosting in SoHo this weekend. You see, what makes K extraordinary is that every year of her life is devoted to setting an audacious goal in some new field of interest. Fortunately for us, three year ago K devoted herself to learning everything she could about coffee, and that's when she found us at Angels' Cup. Part of the magic of K is that she's not only a gifted learner, but also a gifted educator, and she's fearless when it comes to teaching the things she has only just learned herself. Her mission in coffee is to expose people to specialty coffee as For more K Keener: Follow her coffee journey at nycundergrounds.com Join our NYC meetup group at meetup.com/NYC-Coffee-Hunters Connect on Instagram at instagram.com/nycundergrounds We have these sommeliers of coffee, who rather than leading coffee tours and coffee tastings and going by restaurant tables and discussing differences of wine and writing in ways that people can read about the great things about wine, they just kind of stayed out and talked amongst themselves. So that's what happening in coffee. We have really great coffee people who are largely  just talking amongst themselves and no one understands that this beautiful cup of coffee is not the same thing as their Dunkin' Donuts coffee. The genius sense that the things we love and goals that we pursue take us to these very strange practices that people have no idea of the behind the scenes of trying to master something. Food photography a lot better than coffee. So when I think about the wine industry, a lot of that education in terms of wine is happening at the local shop level. It is encouraging people to taste wines. Have conversations about wines, visit wineries. And we really have not had that open door, "let me teach you about this thing that we think is wonderful" kind of outreach in coffee.        The post Meet K Keener: The Most Interesting Woman in the World appeared first on Angels' Cup.

Meet K Keener: The Most Interesting Woman in the World

Wowzers, two new podcasts in two months?! The Angels' Cup Podcast is chugging along, this week with special guest Rachel Northrop. Rachel is the author of When Coffee Speaks: Stories From and Of Latin American Coffeepeople. In this episode, we chat about eating local foods, coffee tourism, writing books, and traveling the world. For more Rachel, you can find her on Instagram @whencoffeespeaks, and on her website http://rachelnorthrop.com FAVORITE QUOTES I went down to Latin American interested in where coffee came from based on the interest that I saw among people in the US for where all of their food came from. Again, that was seeing I had been just freelance blogging about sustainable food and I was noticing people were very interested in what was called the "locavore" movement. Which was only eating food that was grown within a 50 mile radius or 200 mile radius or whatever they decided on and that was partly because one of the biggest carbon contributors for food supply is the amount of fossil fuel used to transport it. I was curious... being a very regular coffee drinker on coffee and the locavore movement. If this is something that is always going to have to be imported from a significant distance, what is actually going on where it's grown? Is there coffee that is more sustainable than another one? Is there coffee that is somehow superior, inferior, and also just the same way that you have conversations at the farmer's market, about whatever it is with the people who are there offering different products. I was hoping to have those conversations with people involved in coffee production at origin. So that's what the book is, a collection of stories with people involved in coffee at all points along the chain. It's that exchange of getting to welcome someone from another culture into your home that is truly incredible. I would say that my first advice is to go.        The post Award Winning Author Rachel Northrop on Eating Locovore and Coffee Tourism appeared first on Angels' Cup.

Award Winning Author Rachel Northrop on Eating Locovore and Coffee Tourism

Join us in our newest episode of Angels' Cup Coffee Hunters podcast where we talk about coffee, taste and everything in between. Today we are talking to Spencer Aidukaits from Peixoto Coffee Roasters and Ken Selby, 2018 US Cup Tasters Champion. We learn about how Spencer and Ken both got started in the coffee industry, who has influenced them along the way, how they prepare for a tasting competition, ways to meet more coffee friends and develop relationships in the industry and what is next for both of them. Want to follow along after the episode? Follow Ken on Instagram @calumnious.human and Spencer @spencer.aidukaitis. Favorite Quotes: "Starbucks was definitely just the job we were working at. It was definitely the start to everything. So where I started at, they actually for a little bit had the manual machines but segued out immediately after. So, I got a taste off it and then stopped and it wasn't until I moved to Houston that I actually started working with semi-automatic machines and actually figuring out how to dial in espresso and brewing coffee better." "It's been wild. A lot of it feels like I'm a business owner. We're thinking of like, what to do next, all the time. When we first started, we were all kinda clueless about specialty coffee. It was all of our beginning. So, we've been really just growing together and just try to do the best we can." "There is such a wide swath of descriptive terms that are borderline synonymous but then sometimes very different from what it would taste like and I think that you would get bogged down if you were like, 'Oh, I'm looking for a tangerine flavor because that's what the first coffee gave me.' So when I actually taste it, I work by the finish."      The post 2018 US Cup Tasters Champion & Peixoto Head Roaster – Live! appeared first on Angels' Cup.

2018 US Cup Tasters Champion & Peixoto Head Roaster – Live!

It's been almost two years since our last podcast, and it took a very special guest to get us back up and running! Join us for our revival episode where we speak with Steve Cuevas, 2017 US Cup Tasters Champion, roaster for Black Oak Coffee, and winner of numerous other coffee competitions including:   2017 Golden Bean Champion Two Golden Bean gold medals and 8 silver and bronze medals America's Best Espresso Want to follow along after the podcast's over? Give Steve a follow on Instagram @dreadfulvegan, and to try his coffee visit Black Oak. Favorite Quotes: Whenever I do cuppings, let's say I have 20 single origins on the table, by the time I get to sample 8 everything is just acidity, bright, juicy. Not very differential. So I have on the back bar, a darker roasted coffee, because having that dark coffee will put it in contrast. So I'll put that in my mouth and swish it around my tongue and then when I taste the light origin again, everything is more vivid and it pops. My attitude towards coffee has changed, and the biggest influencer was Cat & Cloud in particular. You know, the first year we won the Golden Bean, the second year we're competing again and we're doing great. Then I wanna go check out some people I really admire, Chris Bacca and Jared Truby. I go there with the premise of evaluating the coffee they're preparing, and I end up seeing all their customer interactions and just seeing how everybody was left smiling ear to ear. And it hit me, when we focus on quality of coffee, we're only focusing on points, what the coffee tastes like. But in reality we're cafes and we're an experience. Single origin coffee is like a seared ahi tuna, you know you just sear the outside of it and you're good to go. A medium roast is more of a medium well done steak. You're letting the heat penetrate more into the center so it's not as pink. And then when it comes to french roast, you're adding a lot of heat to it, and so if you have a denser bean, the center of it doesn't cook as much as the outside. It's the equivalent of if I'm cooking a 6" steak, you're still going to have a little pink in the center. In coffee that rawness relates to origin character.      The post 2017 US Cup Tasters Champ Steve Cuevas Talks Tasting & Branding appeared first on Angels' Cup.

2017 US Cup Tasters Champ Steve Cuevas Talks Tasting & Branding

Devin Chapman has an extraordinary resume. He started his career in coffee as the first employee at Coava, then moved to Verve, and then La Colombe. All three of those roasters have been featured by Angels' Cup and we love working with them. Perhaps even more impressive, however, is the fact that Devin began competing after only 6 months on the job at Coava. His list of accomplishments include: - 5th Place, United States Barista Championship Finals, 2015 - Northwest Regional Barista Champion, 2013 - 4th Place, United States Barista Championship Finals, 2012 - Northwest Regional Barista Champion, 2012 - Northwest Regional Brewers Cup Champion, 2012 - United States Barista Championship Semi-finalist, 2011 - Northwest Regional Brewers Cup Champion, 2011 Now Devin is working for Tartine Bakery, known for their exception breads, and launching a coffee roasting operation within Tartine called the Coffee Manufactory. In this interview we chat about all the things Devin has learned as his career has progressed, what coffee competitions like the Barista Championship mean to average coffee consumers, and what makes Tartine and the Coffee Manufactory special. Want to follow along after the podcast's over? Here's where you can find Devin on Instagram @devchap, Twitter @devchap, and the Manufactory on Instagram @coffeemanufactory. Favorite Quotes: I think coming in as the solo employee amongst the owners also meant that as they started to get pulled away to focus on other things, as roasting volumes went up, it opens up opportunities for me to step into more responsibility at an accelerate rate. Based on my personality, that was challenge for me to get as good, as knowledgable, as dialed in as possible, as quickly as I could. The first 6 months at Coava was this very intense incubation period for me to learn as much as I could with almost any resource at my fingertips. One of the most brilliant things about the coffee industry at large is that for those of us that are obsessive learners, there's infinite opportunities to keep growing, to keep learning, keep discovering new things. And that's so exciting. It gets me out of bed in the morning to be quite honest. Competition definitely taps into that, but I would say that's one of the biggest things that I've learned is that there's an immense amount of growth opportunities. And the hard and humble work of thoroughly owning every thing you say and do really stimulates me. The #1 word that I use to describe what it's like to taste Tartine bread is that it is "alive". There's tartness from the fermentation of the dough, this incredibly gooey texture, it's sweet and the way that the taste experience from start to finish, especially if you get it when it's hot. One of the best meal I had last year was a hot loaf of Tartine bread in Dolores park and just like ripping off hunks of it and just eating plain bread. Cause it's crispy and crunchy and soft and chewy. As our customer base is informed and educated, and as they fall in love the same way that a lot of coffee professionals have, the value of coffee in their mind continues to go up and up and up. Maybe 2 years ago people would have been reluctant to spend $12 for 12oz of coffee, and now maybe they're excited to spend $18. All of this is funneling toward having more people think that coffee is more valuable than they think it is today. To me that's what everything connects to. If people look at coffee and see it as more valuable, it means there's willing to give more money and that goes back to farmers. And that improves the quality of life for people around the world that really need it. A lot of coffee professionals truly connect with that. But man, I think about how much we're learning now and how much we'll know in 20 years, while still pushing ourselves to learn and grow. It's going to be an amazing journey.     