‘Cupping’ is the coffee industry term for a professionally scored tasting to determine quality in coffee. It’s what we do a minimum of four times a week to make sure we’re only offering the very best quality coffee. In podcast episode five, Poul gives you a walkthrough of one of our regular cuppings, and tells you how—and more importantly—why we do it.
Fresh is a word that gets thrown around a lot in food and beverage industries, sometimes without a lot to back it up. In episode four of our video podcast, Poul tackles the idea of freshness in the coffee industry, what it means to us, and what it means for the big players in the coffee business.
All about grinders. Poul discusses the difference between different types of coffee grinders and why a good grinder is the first place to invest when brewing great coffee at home.
In the second episode of transcend coffee’s video podcast, Poul talks about Hacienda La Esmeralda — the first coffee farm he ever visited, and also one of the most famous and even controversial specialty coffee producers in the world.
As part of our commitment to coffee education—and to using technology and geeky social media to spread coffee knowledge—we’ve decided to start a video podcast.
It’s Canada Day and we thought it would be a fun time to start this new little venture.
In the inaugural episode, Poul talks a little bit about how he got his start in coffee and the beginnings of transcend. He even brought a uh… prop. It was kind of weird to have it in the shop.
Here it is, episode one!
What did you think? Do you have ideas or burning coffee questions that you would like us to try to answer in upcoming episodes? Please leave a comment and let us know.
I should also plug the new video we did at Transcend Coffee on a farm in Costa Rica. Stay tuned to Transcend’s website for more video blogs coming soon.
Sorry the embedding feature isn’t working so click on the link below to see the video.
Sin Limites coffee farm, Costa Rica from Poul Mark on Vimeo.
Went to my first, “friend’s daughter’s wedding” tonight, which definitely means that I am 40! It used to be that my friends were getting married and now my friend’s kids are getting hitched. Congrats to Hayley and Jesse, two young kids who are mad for each other and have a bright future ahead of them. It was fun, to have Andrew with my camera clicking away, perhaps he has a future with National Geographic or Times Magazine?
Yesterday, that being Thursday was a wild day. I met my sister Nancy, and we hit it off pretty well I would say. We did lunch and chatted for quite a while, and then had a respite while Mich and I and Tony and Sandy went off to Andrew’s play school graduation. Really, do we need to have graduations for play school? I am not to sure about it, as it was a cute event, but the kids were happy just to run around. 
Andrew did participate in a fun little latin American dance, which was frankly a bit surprising, but apart from that, he was more into the wrestling.
Afterward Nancy came over to the house for a glass of vino and more talking. We will connect again tomorrow for some pics, and then she is back to China, to hang with her boyfriend, and ideally find some work. It is a bit strange to be honest, finding a sibling that I never knew I had, and then off they go all the way on the other side of the world, for who knows, maybe another 4 years? I am still not sure how to process it all. Work has been crazy lately too, with the possibility of Transcend II on the horizon (we should know by Monday) and all of the crazy staff drama lately, I think I am a bit overwhelmed. So, it is now almost 1 am, 
and I need to get some sleep. Although I have been uploading old pics on CD onto the computer, so that has been fun too, reliving some of the glory days.
By the way, the three photos in the post were all taken by my 5 year-old. Kinda cool.
Tonight we went to a concert. I loved the first half, and was partly engaged for the last half. The headliner for this event was the Blind Boys of Alabama. The opener for them was Ruthie Foster, who was amazing, spectacular! She brought down the house and thankfully, she gave us an hour of her time, and her “family band” to enjoy. The Blind Boys who came on later, were talented, albeit aged, but the energy was not raw, and real, but rather, contrived and manufactured. It was an evening of interesting contrast, and for that I am glad. It is always good to live through something which provides one of those a-ha lessons of life. Seriously, go out and buy a Ruthie Foster album, or look her up on iTunes, she is amazing.
It’s late, and I need some sleep, although I also need to unwind a bit. Hosted another City of Edmonton, extension course Coffee 101 tonight. This isn’t a tasting like we normally do, but an introduction to a wide spectrum of information about specialty coffee. Tonight’s class went well I think, although we didn’t do a very good job at following the Keynote presentation. I started off by giving a tour of the place, which got us completely off the mark, and then we moved to the roaster. We tasted a number of coffees on the Clover, and watched a video of Chad and I at a farm in Costa Rica earlier this year. In short, everyone seemed to have a good time, and asked lots of questions, but by the end of the evening, I hadn’t even worked through even half of my Keynote presentation. Goes to show that you can be over prepared. I am at home now, installed a new dishwasher today too, and got it working. I have a little red wine to polish off, and then this tired puppy is off to bed. Everyone else in my house is asleep.
Oh, and one more significant thing happened today, I received a phone call from my newly discovered sister Nancy. We talked for about 30 minutes this morning, about a lot of things. To be honest, it is a bit hard to find things to talk about with a new sibling, considering that I don’t really know them. Having said that, it was fun to talk with a stranger, who is in reality not a stranger at all, at least not according to my DNA. Next week we get to meet face to face, and I am actually really excited about that. For those of you who know me, you will know how strange this is, but I can’t explain it, it just is, and for that I am happy.
Good night world (or more likely you three people who are aflicted with insomnia and read this to try and fall asleep).
OK, I am cheating now, and re-posting a blog post that I just did on the Transcend Coffee Blog site. Nonetheless, it is a post about me, yammering about coffee, so if you are in the mood to actually hear my voice, and not just read the text that I type, check out the coffeecrew podcast.
I had the pleasure of hanging with Colin Newell of Coffeecrew this past weekend in Victoria. While we were drinking fine coffee at Habit, on Pandora, Colin used his funky techno amazing mic to record a conversation. He has now posted excepts of that conversation on his website as a podcast. The entire recording is about 20 minutes long and covers a range of topics including how to ensure quality when traveling; my first encounter with a coffee country; issues facing the coffee industry in light of global warming, and more. Check it out. You will find the podcast on the middle of the home page of www.coffeecrew.com and it is labled June Coffeecrew podcast in red typeface. Stay tuned to transcend’s own blog and webpage for upcoming video and podcasts of our own. Drink less more often.
