Episodes

  • Meet UC Davis’s Bill Ristenpart: Chemical Engineer, College Professor, and Coffee Scholar

    Meet UC Davis’s Bill Ristenpart: Chemical Engineer, College Professor, and Coffee Scholar
    Sep 23 2024
    Join U3 co-founder Kristi Ross and her co-host Greg Hess as they chat with Bill Ristenpart, professor of chemical engineering and founding director of the UC Davis Coffee Center, a groundbreaking multidisciplinary academic center focused on research to support and improve the coffee industry.

    What started in 2013 as 18 engineering students in a freshman engineering seminar has now served more than 250,000 alumni around the world and attracted partnerships with some of the biggest names in the coffee industry, including Peet’s, Probat, La Marzocco, and Toddy. Bill shares how a single cup of coffee changed the course of his career, how academic research can help optimize coffee from farm to cup, and why he says “the coffee industry is special.”

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    This podcast is created by U3 Coffee for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, opinions and representations of facts are those of individuals and not necessarily U3 Coffee.

    Copyright © 2024 U3 COFFEE, LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use on u3coffee.com apply. Reproduction, distribution, or public display is prohibited. Download for personal use is permitted.

    'U3 COFFEE' is a trademark owned by U3 COFFEE, LLC.
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    27 mins
  • Fairgrounds’ Michael Schultz on Craft Coffee, Choice, and Community

    Fairgrounds’ Michael Schultz on Craft Coffee, Choice, and Community
    Sep 16 2024
    Join U3 co-founder Kristi Ross and her co-host Greg Hess in a conversation with Michael Shultz, founder of Fairgrounds Craft Coffee & Tea, a café experience founded on the principles of diversity, choice, and community.

    After two decades working in the restaurant industry, and with his first child on the way, Michael started to think about the legacy he wanted to leave behind. He wanted to find ways to make systemic change, touch the lives of other people, create opportunities for others, and make people happy. So, two days before his daughter was born, Michael took the leap into entrepreneurship with his first café

    In 2016, that journey, and his focus on making positive change, led him to create Fairgrounds Craft Coffee & Tea, a café experience founded on the principles of diversity, choice, and community. As part of Infuse Hospitality, which services more than 40 million square feet of custom food and beverage solutions across North America, Fairgrounds allows customers to choose from a dozen coffee roasters, a variety of brewing styles, coffee flights, and chef-created food options. Today, Fairgrounds is thriving in four cities across the country, and meeting the wide range of needs that bring people to their cafés.

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    This podcast is created by U3 Coffee for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, opinions and representations of facts are those of individuals and not necessarily U3 Coffee.

    Copyright © 2024 U3 COFFEE, LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use on u3coffee.com apply. Reproduction, distribution, or public display is prohibited. Download for personal use is permitted.

    'U3 COFFEE' is a trademark owned by U3 COFFEE, LLC.
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    22 mins
  • How Tim Coonan Is Nurturing a People-First Coffee Company at Big Shoulders Coffee

    How Tim Coonan Is Nurturing a People-First Coffee Company at Big Shoulders Coffee
    Sep 9 2024
    Join U3 co-founder Kristi Ross and her co-host Greg Hess in an inspiring conversation with Tim Coonan, co-founder of Big Shoulders Coffee, a hospitality-driven company that prioritizes their customers, their team, and their producers.

    When Tim and his wife Patricia, both accomplished leaders in the restaurant industry, were starting to think about their own coffee business fourteen years ago, there were very few cafés in Chicago that were as focused on customer-centered service as their restaurant counterparts. So they set out to change that with Big Shoulders.

    Today, Big Shoulders Coffee is an award-winning coffee roasting company with six cafés across Chicago, a booming online retail shop, and a thriving food service wholesale. Their long list of accolades includes being named Small Chain/Franchise Champion in the 2024 Golden Bean World Series and being named the #1 Independent Coffee Shop in the US by USA Today in 2023.

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    This podcast is created by U3 Coffee for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, opinions and representations of facts are those of individuals and not necessarily U3 Coffee.

    Copyright © 2024 U3 COFFEE, LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use on u3coffee.com apply. Reproduction, distribution, or public display is prohibited. Download for personal use is permitted.

    'U3 COFFEE' is a trademark owned by U3 COFFEE, LLC.
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    31 mins
  • How Connie Blumhardt's Roast Magazine Is Helping Roasters Thrive

    How Connie Blumhardt's Roast Magazine Is Helping Roasters Thrive
    Sep 2 2024
    Join U3 co-founder Kristi Ross and her co-host Greg Hess as they sit down with Connie Blumhardt, the founder and publisher of the award-winning Roast Magazine, one of the coffee industry’s best-loved and most well-respected publications. Discover how a job in ad sales helped her fall in love with the coffee roasting community and why their passion for coffee inspired her to create a publication focused on the art and science of roasting coffee.

    Connie shares some of the secrets to Roast’s incredible success and the advice she gives coffee lovers when they ask about her favorite coffee brands—and unveils their big plans for their 2025 coffee event in Portland, OR, including the details on a surprise announcement!

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    This podcast is created by U3 Coffee for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, opinions and representations of facts are those of individuals and not necessarily U3 Coffee.

    Copyright © 2024 U3 COFFEE, LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use on u3coffee.com apply. Reproduction, distribution, or public display is prohibited. Download for personal use is permitted.

    'U3 COFFEE' is a trademark owned by U3 COFFEE, LLC.
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    26 mins
  • Ana Velloso: A Brazilian Architect Redesigning Her Family’s Coffee Legacy

    Ana Velloso: A Brazilian Architect Redesigning Her Family’s Coffee Legacy
    Aug 26 2024
    Join U3 co-founder Kristi Ross and her co-host Greg Hess as they sit down with Ana Velloso, a third-generation Brazilian coffee producer and a champion for the unique flavors and high-quality beans Brazilian coffee offers the world. Find out why Ana never envisioned a career in coffee—and what led her back to her family’s coffee business after 10 years working as an architect.

    Today, Ana runs the commercial side of São Luiz Estate Coffee, a true family business and a pivotal player in Brazil’s coffee history and legacy, serves as an ambassador for the Cerrado Mineiro Designation of Origin (DO) region, where she champions the unique flavors and high-quality beans Brazilian coffee offers the world, and is the co-founder of a new consumer-facing coffee business designed “to reach all the customers in Brazil with a very good coffee.”

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    This podcast is created by U3 Coffee for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, opinions and representations of facts are those of individuals and not necessarily U3 Coffee.

    Copyright © 2024 U3 COFFEE, LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use on u3coffee.com apply. Reproduction, distribution, or public display is prohibited. Download for personal use is permitted.

    'U3 COFFEE' is a trademark owned by U3 COFFEE, LLC.
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    24 mins
  • Laura Sommers, Empowering Coffee Lovers to Brew the Perfect Cup at Home

    Laura Sommers, Empowering Coffee Lovers to Brew the Perfect Cup at Home
    Aug 19 2024
    Join U3 Coffee co-founder Kristi Ross as she chats with Laura Sommers, a thirty-year veteran of the coffee industry and the designer behind the innovative SimplyGoodCoffee brewer.

    Discover the story behind Laura’s incredibly successful first coffee business—Espresso Supply, Inc—and how she preserved when people told her she was wasting her time, because there was no way coffeeshops in the States would stand the test of time!Today Laura is challenging the conventional wisdom again, betting her innovative automatic brewer can bring more at-home coffee drinkers to the specialty coffee market—and help that market continue to boom—by adhering to the SCA’s rigorous brewing standards and allowing coffee lovers to brew barista-worthy coffee with a simple, straightforward system.

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    This podcast is created by U3 Coffee for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, opinions and representations of facts are those of individuals and not necessarily U3 Coffee.

    Copyright © 2024 U3 COFFEE, LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use on u3coffee.com apply. Reproduction, distribution, or public display is prohibited. Download for personal use is permitted.

    'U3 COFFEE' is a trademark owned by U3 COFFEE, LLC.
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    39 mins
  • From Volunteer to Visionary: Yannis Apostolopoulos on Revolutionizing Specialty Coffee with the SCA

    From Volunteer to Visionary: Yannis Apostolopoulos on Revolutionizing Specialty Coffee with the SCA
    Aug 12 2024
    Join U3 Coffee co-founder Kristi Ross as she sits down with Yannis Apostolopoulos, beverage-industry veteran and CEO of the Specialty Coffee Association. As CEO of the SCA, Yannis leads a team that’s taking a global approach to supporting and promoting specialty coffee through in-depth research into all things coffee, education initiatives that serve coffee entrepreneurs across the value chain, and building a thriving community within specialty coffee, all with one goal: “make coffee better.

    Kristi and Yannis dive deep into the SCA’s initiatives to develop innovative tools to improve coffee standards, provide continuing education across the specialty-coffee value chain, and support research into all aspects of specialty coffee—from consumer trends to the science of roasting. Yannis shares how the SCA’s new Coffee Value Assessment System creates a more holistic, objective system that goes beyond taste to capture a “high-resolution picture” of the value of coffee.

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    This podcast is created by U3 Coffee for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, opinions and representations of facts are those of individuals and not necessarily U3 Coffee.

    Copyright © 2024 U3 COFFEE, LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use on u3coffee.com apply. Reproduction, distribution, or public display is prohibited. Download for personal use is permitted.

    'U3 COFFEE' is a trademark owned by U3 COFFEE, LLC.
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    29 mins
  • Jeremy Hardy, An Apple Inspired Coffee Roaster Working to End Poverty, One Cup at a Time

    Jeremy Hardy, An Apple Inspired Coffee Roaster Working to End Poverty, One Cup at a Time
    Aug 5 2024
    Join U3 Coffee co-founder Kristi Ross as she digs in with Jeremy Hardy, executive director of Vigilant Hope Inc, a nonprofit working to end poverty in Wilmington, NC that’s roasting incredible coffee to fund their important programs. Today, Vigilant Hope Roasting not only helps finance their work, it’s also a way for the organization to connect with their community and share their story.

    Learn about Vigilant Hope Roasting’s commitment to “good coffee, good purpose” and why they’re embracing the opportunity to support both coffee farmers and members of their community facing poverty, empowering customers to be the heroes who facilitate that social change.

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    This podcast is created by U3 Coffee for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, opinions and representations of facts are those of individuals and not necessarily U3 Coffee.

    Copyright © 2024 U3 COFFEE, LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use on u3coffee.com apply. Reproduction, distribution, or public display is prohibited. Download for personal use is permitted.

    'U3 COFFEE' is a trademark owned by U3 COFFEE, LLC.
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    31 mins