
Making Coffee with Lucia Solis
Food & Cooking Podcasts
A behind the scenes look at what goes into making one of the world's favorite beverages. Lucia is a former winemaker turned coffee processing specialist. She consults with coffee growers and producers all over the world giving her a unique perspective into the what it takes to get a coffee from a seed to your cup.
Location:
United States
Description:
A behind the scenes look at what goes into making one of the world's favorite beverages. Lucia is a former winemaker turned coffee processing specialist. She consults with coffee growers and producers all over the world giving her a unique perspective into the what it takes to get a coffee from a seed to your cup.
Language:
English
Website:
http://luxia.coffee
Episodes
#77: The Most Challenging Harvest We've Had
12/24/2025
Roasterkat IG Reel about rain.
YouTube version of the Q&A portion
James Hoffmann Healthy Coffee Video
The 2025/2026 Harvest has not gone according to plan.
Nick and I have found ourselves with some down time and therefore have put together this casual, end of year update on how the season is going so far. Spoiler alert: not well.
I've combined a harvest update with listener questions about fermentation.
Questions featured in this episode are:
info.luxiacoffee@gmail
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
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Duration:00:30:49
#76: How Commercial Microbes Threaten The Coffee Industry
11/15/2025
Sprudge Best Of Panama Article
Remanence and survival of commercial yeast in different ecological niches of the vineyard
Responses, Inquiries, & questions about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
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Duration:01:16:03
#75: Getting Great Water for Coffee
8/14/2025
Water massively impacts your coffee's flavours. But most of us struggle to fix our water because water science is confusing...
Join me and James as we go step-by-step through:
Resources:
#44: Are Wine Making Techniques the Future of Coffee?
Responses, Inquiries, & questions about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
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Duration:01:13:39
#74: Supply Chain Reflections: Consulting Insights from Farm to Roaster w/ Luke Waite
7/14/2025
Resources:
Responses, Inquiries, & questions about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Get a ticket to FTC-10 December 2025
Luke's Website: Pomelo Coffee Consulting
Luke's Book: Pre-Order Pomelo book
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
Office Hours with Luke: 9am (GMT-6) Friday July 18th 2025
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
Support the show
Duration:01:10:54
#73: Cultivating Identity: A Life Forged by Migration and Fermentation
6/18/2025
This episode developed thanks to Nick, who thought it would be a good time to revisit a bit of my history in coffee to reconnect with long-time listeners, and to share a bit more about myself with new listeners. We started this podcast about 6 years ago, and if you've been through all 72 episodes, you probably have a good idea about my coffee philosophies.
But I also know that not everyone enjoys, or maybe even has the time to go back and start at the very beginning of a podcast. So we thought it would be a good opportunity to give you a bit of my coffee origin story, and a manifesto of sorts, all under one roof.
Resources:
Inquiries about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Intro song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:01:04:30
#72: Planning Your First Coffee Fermentation Trials? Start Here.
5/26/2025
Today's episode offers a behind the scenes view of how I approach a coffee producer's first time using yeast for their coffee fermentations.
We run through all of the potential variables to pay attention to when designing your first trials with commercial microbes. From cost of production to work-flow and data collection.
This conversation was recorded during a recent Office Hours session through our private Discord community. If you would like to be a part of this community, join Patreon and come participate in the discussion.
View the decision flow-chart here
Resources:
Inquiries about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:00:42:33
#71: How to De-Funkify Your Naturals and Get Them to Dry Faster.
5/1/2025
Resources:
Inquiries about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:01:00:20
#70: What do coffee cascara and rose wine have in common? Roasted coffee labels, batching your cherries over multiple days
4/14/2025
Some of the questions in this episode:
Resources:
Inquiries about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:00:44:26
#69: Whole Coffee Cherry Fermentations—The Multiple Paradoxes of Naturals
3/29/2025
This episode is a final harvest update and the behind the scenes of performing whole cherry fermentation with various microbes in an attempt to create a Dry Process/Natural coffee that I want to drink.
Resources:
Inquiries about coffee sales or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:00:48:22
#68: Fermentation vs. Germination: A Look at The Seed From The Inside, Out
12/2/2024
I have wanted to make this episode for a long time, but I wasn't sure how to make it work. Finally some research for Dr. Flavio Borem helped crack the topic for me and the result is today's new episode.
Things we discuss on this episode:
Duration:00:36:59
#67: Addressing Climate Collapse & Coffee Labor in Brazil with Ana Luiza of Fazenda Mió
9/4/2024
In this episode we talk about:
Resources
Ana's Precision Agriculture Presentation on Coffee Knowledge Hub (you will need to make an account but it's free!)
Anacafe Presentation on Price Volatility (by Albert Scalla in Spanish)
Picture of Mechanical Harvester
Instagram
Duration:01:00:19
#66: Winemaker Tools for Coffee Producers: Sugar & Acid Additions, Co-Fermentation w/ Fruit
8/23/2024
I was going to create a new episode about Infused vs Inoculated Coffees, but much of what we established back in Episode #39 is still relevant. So I am pulling a Taylor Swift and going to re-release a new version of episode 39, keeping what still works and adding some new perspectives from the last 3 years.
In this episode I talk about:
Inquiries about coffee samples or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:01:06:18
#65: To Blend or Not to Blend? Wine Vintages, and Harvest Update.
7/24/2024
On today's episode I will be updating you on the coffee we made this harvest season and speaking of the importance of blends.
If you’ve listened to even 1 other episode of this podcast, you’ll know that I'm usually trying to discourage the coffee industry from blindly adopting wine culture. Usually I share my thoughts that adopting a wine model benefits consumers more than producers and further accentuates inequality between the coffee buyers and coffee producers. Usually I believe the wine mode does more harm than good.
But here is a rare occasion where I think coffee could truly benefit from the wine model.
In this episode I talk about:
Inquiries about coffee samples or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:00:37:48
#64: What Kind of Coffee Lover am I? How Much am I Willing to Pay for a Cup of Coffee?
7/4/2024
This episode also comes on the heels of our recent trip to London.
Our very first stop was the Nagare coffee shop in Shoreditch in North London. Nick and I do what we usually do when we step into a coffee shop and order the pour overs. They had 2 different coffees on the menu for a pour over so we got one of each and sat back at our cute little table in a cozy cafe, and it was only when we looked down at our empty Kinto ceramic cups that we finally realized we had paid 18£ ($23 dollars!) for 2 small cups of black coffee.
I experienced sticker shock because we have been living on farms in Colombia and Guatemala for the last 4 years and we are very out of touch with big city prices. I knew London was going to be expensive but I was not emotionally prepared to spend $11/cup on our daily coffee.
Nick and I needed more coffee that morning but if we got 2 more cups at Nagare, we would be close to $50 and we hadn’t even had breakfast yet.
In my head, a voice was saying, dang $11 is an expensive cup of coffee. And then immediately another voice said, hold on....
"don’t we want the price of a cup of coffee to rise?"
Aren't low coffee prices a big part of the problem with our supply chain?
The conversation about the price of a cup of coffee is one I have often. What should coffee cost? Who gets to set the price? How does price reflect value?
The conversation about price and value is often at the forefront of my mind because there is such a disparity between what a coffee producer gets paid for growing and processing the coffee and what a consumer pays for a cup of coffee made from their raw material.
Resources:
https://www.macrotrends.net/2535/coffee-prices-historical-chart-data
https://ourcountrygarden.co.uk/british-gardening-statistics/
https://www.carelink24.org/doctors-prescribe-gardening/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/21/headway/peat-carbon-climate-change.html
Inquiries about coffee samples or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:00:35:02
#63: Terroir For Busy People
5/20/2024
Inquiries about coffee samples or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:00:37:14
#62: The Commercial Yeast vs Wild Microbes Debate w/ Pranoy of Kerehaklu
4/30/2024
Today I bring you a third installment with Pranoy from Kerehaklu.
In this new episode we talk about:
And much more...
RESOURCES
#56: Finding Work/Life Balance as a Coffee Producer w/ Pranoy Thipaiah from Kerehaklu in India
#34: Robusta, Tropical Fruits and Mechanical Drying. Visiting India w/ Pranoy of Kerehaklu
Inquiries about coffee samples or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
To connect with Pranoy:
Pranoy's Instagram
Kerehaklu Instagram
Website
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:01:36:06
#61: Coffee Fermentation Review with Ashley Rodriguez of Boss Barista
4/22/2024
RESOURCES
info.luxiacoffee@gmail.comBoss Barista Substack
Boss Barista Podcast
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:00:52:19
#60: Thermoshock, Where Does Citrus Flavor Come From & How To Find Your Fermentation Soulmate
12/15/2023
In this listener Q&A episode we talk about:
RESOURCES
info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-8158/11/13/1920 for
Effect of Six Lactic Acid Bacteria Strains on Physicochemical Characteristics, Antioxidant Activities and Sensory Properties of Fermented Orange Juices
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740002021000538 for Production of volatile compounds by wild-type yeasts in a natural olive-derived culture medium
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter
Duration:00:49:17
#59: What's Altitude Got To Do With It? Microbes & Meters Above Sea Level
11/20/2023
In this new episode I talk about:
The Altitude of Coffee Cultivation Causes Shifts in the Microbial Community Assembly and Biochemical Compounds in Natural Induced Anaerobic Fermentations
RESOURCES
Inquiries about coffee samples or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:00:41:29
#58: Direct Trade & Other Misleading Labels w/ Natali from Nachteulen Coffee
10/5/2023
In this new episode with Natali we talk about:
RESOURCES
Inquiries about coffee samples or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
To connect with Natali:
Instagram
Website
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Duration:00:49:21