EP-174 Nick Cho of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters

Today’s guest is basically one of my personal hobbies. He’s one of my
windows into coffee culture, and following him on twitter has given me
insight into so many of the social, business, product, and values issues
within coffee that I find highly relevant to beer. It’s not always a
straight-forward translation - of course - and much of what we talk about
today is about the gaps between the two. Coffee and beer, and
craft-oriented niches, has so much in common, but the differences are
meaningful and instructive.

Nick Cho has been there for much of it. He’s served as director of the
Barista Guild of America’s Executive Council, the SCA’s board of directors,
World Barista Championship board, and chaired the US Barista Championship,
among many other roles.

He’s also opened his own roaster, called Wrecking Ball, has been a guest
lecturer at Berkeley, Dartmouth and UC Davis, and used to have a podcast of
his own.

But this all pre-dates how I came to know Nick Cho - and that was as a
#coffeetwitter personality that people either get excited about or roll
their eyes at - but I found him to be a fantastic window into it all, with
a point of view few others are willing or able to offer in public. And,
like me, he hates cold brew.

So at the most recent SCA Expo in Seattle, basically the coffee world’s
GABF, I took a brew from our Uppers & Downers floor show and saw down with
Nick to united these forces for better and worse. Better for me, I think,
but I’m not sure about him. For coffee folks, the beer world is just weird.

This is Nick Cho of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters, listen in.