Filter Stories - Coffee Documentaries9 Juni 2025

Why one Colombian farmer chose specialty, and the other walked away

I travel to Colombia’s Huila region to answer a question that’s puzzled me for years: if specialty coffee pays more, is better for the environment, and brews tastier cups—why don’t more farmers grow it?

I speak with two producers in the same region whose choices couldn’t be more different. One stakes his future on specialty. The other opts out.

Their decisions come down to more than passion or a hard work ethic. Instead, I uncover two starting conditions—often invisible to us buyers—that strongly shape whether a farmer chooses specialty at all.

If we want to see more speciality coffee grown, we need to bring down the barriers to specialty. But first we need to understand what those barriers really are.

The answers might surprise you. They surprised me.

Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee! Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story Write a review on Apple Podcasts

Discover how I make these Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to my Substack newsletter

Find your next favourite Colombian coffee from The Coffee Quest

Taste coffees from Erick Bravo’s award winning farm, Finca El Chaferote

Nerd out on my farm profitability estimations

Season 3 of The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organizations:

The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat

Check out Standart, the award-winning coffee magazine. Get a free magazine and a free bag of coffee by clicking here. How does Perfect Moose detect what kind of milk is in the pitcher? Click here to find out. See the Mikafi countertop roaster at the Thermoplan stand (6637) at World Of Coffee Brussels. Not attending? See it here. What does the Marco MilkPal look like to you? WALL-E? Something Steve Jobs would be proud of? Check it out here.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(78)

What Is Good Science? Part 2: How to think like a scientist

In the last episode, I discovered that rinsing my Chemex filter papers was a waste of time! As a result I’ve managed to claw back over seven days of my life left on earth. But why stop there? The ...

8 Apr 202455min

What Is Good Science? Part 1: How to brew coffee like a scientist

Should you rinse your filter paper before making a filter coffee? Almost everybody in coffee internet says you should. But what if most of coffee internet was wrong? In this episode, I show you how...

25 Mars 202446min

Organic Coffee, Part 2: Why don’t we see more organic coffee farms?

Farming coffee organically is amazing because soils are more alive, birds and insects are more plentiful, farmers avoid getting sick with agrochemicals. But, if it’s so great, why is less than 10% o...

13 Mars 202441min

Organic Coffee, Part 1: The magic of soil

The world’s farming soils are deteriorating quickly. Conventional coffee farming where plants are grown using agrochemicals allowed farmers to reap huge harvests these last 70 years. But these agroch...

26 Feb 202438min

Coffee Roasting, Part 2: Roasting made easy

Roasting coffee can be maddening. Just 4° Celsius is enough to make the same green beans taste distinctly different! And there are so many things roasters can play around with: temperature, time, fan ...

12 Feb 202446min

Coffee Roasting, Part 1: How heat transforms coffee beans

What flavours do you want from your coffee? Every coffee bean begins its life green. And if you brewed it up without first roasting it, you’d get a yellow-green cup of grass-flavoured water. But, as...

29 Jan 202437min

Smell and Taste, Part 2: Are you and me tasting the same flavours?

Ever wonder why you and your friends can taste the same coffee, but you can’t agree on the flavour notes? Join me as I explore this metaphysical mystery! I speak with leading scientists and ask: are...

15 Jan 202439min

Smell and Taste, Part 1: How to be a better coffee taster

So you’ve just taken a sip of a very rare coffee, and flavours of passion fruit explode in your mouth. But here’s the thing: that flavour of passion fruit is not coming from your mouth. It’s not even...

8 Jan 202444min