Filter Stories
By James Harper
Coffee stories with an extra shot of history and science.
Filter Stories is a podcast revealing coffee’s hidden microscopic secrets, its powerful past, and how your choice of beans impacts tens of millions of people.
See the behind-the-scenes stories on Instagram @filterstoriespodcast.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to the show and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
Filter Stories is a podcast revealing coffee’s hidden microscopic secrets, its powerful past, and how your choice of beans impacts tens of millions of people.
See the behind-the-scenes stories on Instagram @filterstoriespodcast.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to the show and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
Latest episode
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Freshness and Grinding, Part 1: Protecting your coffee's flavours
For your coffee to taste its best, it’s crucial you buy fresh roasts and grind fresh.… .….Or maybe not. When I began creating this episode, I was convinced that ‘fresh is best’. But, after delving into the science of coffee freshness, I don’t... -
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 coffee industry is full of elaborate ways of... -
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 I try to answer this question like a professional… -
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% of the world’s coffee grown organically? The fact.… -
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 agrochemicals have been at the expense of soil health...… -
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 speed, drum speed, types of probes…the list goes o… -
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 soon you apply heat to a bean, the flavour can... -
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 the flavour receptors in your nose and mouth the.… -
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 coming from your nostrils. It’s being picked up..… -
Introducing: Season 2 of The Science of Coffee
We're back with another series of The Science of Coffee! Across 10 science stories, narrative audio producer and coffee professional James Harper takes you on a journey into coffee's hidden microscopic secrets. James has spent the last year...
