Coffee People ft. James Shepherd, Bombora Coffee + Wine Supplies.
James Sheperd is the North American Sales rep for Bombora Supplies. We chat about how a spilled latte led him down a career in the coffee industry.
Full video posted below, or watch and/or listen to Coffee People on:
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Guests: James Shepherd, Bombora Coffee + Water Supplies
Role: North American Sales
Based: Dublin, Ireland
Find online at: https://bomborasupplies.com/ and on social media, including Instagram, and YouTube.
On their website you'll find barista gear, brewing equipment, water supplies, and much more.
SPONSORED
Roastar Is Awesome! They support this podcast, and make a great coffee bag.
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What Bombora Supplies does: "We are proud distributors of these internationally recognised brands: Rhino Coffee Gear, Bruer, Comandante, Cafetto, Nucleus Coffee Tools, Toddy, Vivreau, Caffeworks and many more, trusted by thousands of cafés, roasters, and professionals worldwide.
From barista tools and café accessories to cold brew systems, drinkware, machine cleaning solutions, spare parts, and water filtration, our products are designed with direct input from coffee professionals to solve real-world challenges. This focus on practical innovation, durability, and consistency makes our brands highly relevant to fast-growing coffee markets."
From barista tools and café accessories to cold brew systems, drinkware, machine cleaning solutions, spare parts, and water filtration, our products are designed with direct input from coffee professionals to solve real-world challenges. This focus on practical innovation, durability, and consistency makes our brands highly relevant to fast-growing coffee markets."
Help people. Help others. Generally, there are so many times when people try to crawl over others, but its a good thing to help other people.
• James Shepherd, Bombora Supplies
PODCAST TAKEAWAYS
- There are a lot of James Shepherd's in the world, but only one commuting across an ocean to connect directly with his clients in the coffee industry.
- He competed as a barista and then judged nationally for the World Coffee Championships.
- Bombora is kind of like the Switzerland of supply companies. They don’t judge your coffee skills or roasts, they only provide the means to produce and serve it through the numerous brands and products they develop, manufacture, and distribute.
- James is based in Ireland, but the company is based in Australia, although it was founded in New Zealand. He travels back and forth to North America about every 5 weeks. It is an old fashioned approach to seek out face time with customers. Still, it seems as if the business is heading that way as customers crave more service in an era of technology making everything "easier" for us...cough...cough...
- It is easy to say no to an e-mail. In-person connections are a priority for Bombora.
- The value of competition—like barista events or coffee roasting—is the creating of industry standards, pushing innovation, generating excitement, and providing a platform for coffee professionals to express themselves. However, that doesn’t mean all the standards set are the right ones for you, or your business. The educational system creates foundations for you to tangent off onto your own ideas and styles. There is no one right way, but there are a lot of wrong ways!
- Learn more about Cup Tasters here: https://uscoffeechampionships.org/cup-tasters
"U.S. Cup Tasters Competition challenges competitors to test their sensory skills by discerning taste differences in a “triangulation.” Tasters receive sets of three cups where two cups are identical and one is different. Competitors are challenged to taste, smell, recall, and choose the unique cup in each triangulation. The Competitor will have 8 minutes to taste and identify the odd cups in 8 triangulations! The person with the most correct answers in the shortest amount of time wins!" - "Talk about it until the cows home!" is a great old expression.
- Bombora is continues to innovate in an attempt to be the first to bring a new product to market, because everyone wants “What’s next…”
- Being a salesman, for James, is more about listening than talking, but I think he did a pretty good job!
- Off-air, James suggested we check out Arcadia Green Coffee at: https://arcadiacoffee.ie/.
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Coffee Smarter: As you evolve in an industry try not to get cynical. Be an optimist. Be grateful for opportunity. Coffee people are supportive and diverse as an industry. Support each other. (Paraphrased from James Shepherd).
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Brewing Up Sustainable Coffee Practices.
This case study article from Roastar.com examines the sustainable practices of one of our favorite Madison, WI coffee roasters and shops.
Ryan Woldt
COLLABORATION COFFEES UPDATE
The educators at Harvard are finally focusing on something important. "Harvard linguistics expert explains perfectly logical reason we say 'Yeah, no' and 'No, yeah'"
Which reminds me, check out our Yeah, No...Yeah coffee collab with our friend Bryant at Relative Coffee Co. Better yet, buy a few (hundred) bags.
Yeah, No...Yeah Coffee
A collab coffee with our Midwestern brethren at Relative Coffee Co.
OTHER BRANDS WE USE & HAVE PARTNERED WITH
The partner links below enable us to generate some affiliate revenue. As always, we don’t partner with brands we don’t use, coffee we don’t drink, or a brand we don't strongly recommend.
NEXT WEEK:
We laugh, a lot, with Delanie Thurlow, of Grounded Co. about sustainable packaging, and visit a few old haunts in San Diego, CA.
Just for fun-ish: I'm staring at my face a lot during the editing of this podcast. There is a reason it is in black and white beyond us just liking the aesthetic! It made me wonder if I should start reusing my coffee grounds in some sort of health and wellness way.
I found this post with coffee ground face scrub recipes on Stylecaster.com. That post led me to the video below. My only complaint, what do I do with the other 600-ish grams of grounds I'm tossing every morning?
Register to become an organ donor at: https://registerme.org/.
