For many years, when asked about typical origins of speciality coffee, one would usually think of East African and South and Central American countries. It’s hard to count the number of times I’ve had a conversation about how delicate and floral an Ethiopian can be; how juicy and mouth-watering Kenyans are, or how a Colombian is an everyday sure shot. It always left me wondering about the Asian continent however, surely a big place like that would have something to brag about? As time went on, it seemed that wasn’t the case with Asian coffees continuing to be a rare sight on speciality cafes’ shelves and in their hoppers. Fortunately, this seems to no longer be the case, with more...
Louisville, KY is an interesting place for a few reasons. It’s the birthplace of the Louisville Slugger, for one thing, making it pretty much a household item so you should think twice before doing any burgling around those parts. It is also home of the Lebowski Fest, which alone puts it on my list of ten places to visit before I end up in an empty coffee can from Ralph’s. Most importantly though, it has one of the most interesting and diverse music scenes out there, as I’ve had a chance to discover over the years. Interestingly, I’ve never set out to check out the “Louisville sound”, but rather I noticed time and again that I’d discover a band or...
The current state of affairs can be a little overwhelming and I personally noticed that lately I’ve been drawn towards media that explore different, more extreme scenarios of what we’re going through at the moment. Whether it be re-watching films like 28 Days Later, or returning to the more apocalyptic, early entries in Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s discography, I found a particular fascination in these “what if?” scenarios. Revisiting the late 90s, Montreal-specific branch of post-rock, one of the lesser-known bands caught my attention in the context of possible alternative scenarios, namely Fly Pan Am and their first, self-titled album. You see, just like Godspeed, the band went on hiatus in the early 00s – unlike Godspeed, however, who came...
Hey Louis, thanks for taking the time to have a chat with us. Let’s start it off by you introducing yourself in a few words So, as you may or may not know my name is Louis Vinet and I create things and also work in coffee, and I have a pretty good interest in both of these things. That’s great because the next thing I want to ask is how did you get involved with specialty coffee? What were your first steps like? Before I actually started working in coffee there was that time in Timberyard [a specialty cafe in central London]. I think what started an interest in the whole thing was seeing the kinds of people working...
