Experience Good Coffee Podcast: Recent Episodes
Nick & Linda Castle
Life’s too short for bad coffee. We all need those moments of self care or connection with others over coffee. Coffee Roaster Linda and husband Nick talk all things coffee; from growers in Uganda to stories from their background running cafes. They discuss serving coffee well both at home and in a commercial environment. Including interviews with lots of people from the industry, cafes frequenters and churches all in the pursuit of creating a moment for people to experience good coffee.
Jo Enright is very funny. We wanted to know the person behind the TV characters and what inspired Jo to get into the comedy circuit.
Jo speaks honestly about her route into comedy via a childhood passion in acting and the moment a tutor introduced her to stand up and some of the most iconic stand up comedians who used comedy not only to make but to communicate a message.
This fascinating chat with Jo shows us how she juggles TV work with The Job Lot, After Life and Phoenix Nights, with the Stand up circuit. How she is inspiring her son to find his voice and we discuss the serious mental health benefits of knitting.
“I was surprised I would enjoy performing stand up Comedy and I was surprised someone would pay me for it” Jo Enright
Jo discusses how she loves to find a script with a new character that she can portray on TV, but also her love of writing her own material and her voice in the stand up arena.
Catch Jo on tour this Autumn including at the Constitutional in Farsley (Leeds) on Sat 1 Oct 2022 @theconstitutionalfarsley on Insta.
Follow Jo at https://www.joenright.com
“I believe you don’t need a stage to impact others, you can start right now impacting the lives of others”
Nick & Linda are joined by Tim Schurrer in this Podcast where he discusses his new book ‘The Secret Society of Success’ and gives us the tools to redefine what success looks like in our life.
It’s a game changer.
There’s a message getting a lot of airtime these days. It says to be successful, you have to step into the spotlight, climb the ladder, become the boss, or chase whatever version of success that’s been dangled in front of you.
But what if there’s another way? What if fame, money, and power aren’t all that we should be chasing?
In The Secret Society of Success, Tim Schurrer invites you to reevaluate your definition of success and learn a new, freer way to go about achieving it.
Simon Thomas, TV Presenter (Blue Peter & Sky Sports), has been through quite a journey in his life, from dealing with anxiety and panic attacks whilst working, and then losing his first wife very suddenly to a rare blood cancer.
“We went from [my wife’s] diagnosis at the start of the week to dying on the Friday” TV Presenter, Simon Thomas talks openly about how he and his son got through losing his first wife to acute myeloid leukaemia; a rare form of blood cancer. Navigating grief, and finding hope.
Simon made a big impact on our lives through his book; ‘Love, Interrupted’, his social media video blogs in the midst of some of the hardest times of his life, and his ‘Life, Interrupted’ Podcasts.
We wanted to discuss with Simon, what inspired him to share his struggles and story so early on, which has been such a lifeline to so many following his open and honest story.
Its a privilege to hear Simon talk honestly about his journey again and what motivates him each day to find hope, recovery and happiness.
If you want to hear more, tune into Simon’s Podcast “Life, Interrupted”. And you can buy his book ‘Love, interrupted; navigating grief, finding hope’ at all good bookshops.
Wetherspoons, Bastille, La La Land and Ubermilk. It can only be the experience good coffee podcast is back.
Today we chat to Theoneste Ndagijimana from Rwanda about his life, and how he connected us to the incredible coffee from Twongerekawa Coko Washing Station.
Also Phil Schluter - a guru in the coffee world, and a joy to have join us to tell this story of the challenges and realities of commerciality alongside social impact vision.
Nick and Linda, co-founders of CLO Coffee host.
Dan from Incredible Edible joins us for today’s episode to tell us how this game-changing community project began in Leeds. Nick and Linda also chat about new BBC drama ‘Us’.
We caught up with NOTDEC manager, Annah to find out how the most vulnerable children in her coffee-growing community are coping in Lockdown.
Head Roaster for CLO Coffee; Linda Castle, talks us through the roasting process and how to brew a different Aeropress method, for a longer drink. These are the best bits from the CLO Facebook Live at 11am every Morning in Lockdown.
18th March 2020 was a very strange day in the UK - Lockdown was starting. Nick & Linda Castle had made the decision to close their CLO cafes, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that all ‘unnecessary’ interaction should be avoided. It felt the right thing to close up shop immediately. Then began the 11am Facebook Live (and soon Instagram) to bring the cafe antics to your home. This week’s highlights: brewing a good cafetiere, first days of lockdown, starting homeschool and reflections 6 weeks in.
We catch up on the Coronavirus situation in the UK after closing their CLO cafes last week, and then we switch focus as Nick & Linda chat bad customer service experiences, and how to create a great coffee moment at your home, with Dale Connelly of Storybrand.
Nick & Linda are joined by Paul to discuss what we can learn from the recent journeys of speciality cafes in the UK.
Paul Meikle-Janney has been in the coffee industry for over 30 years, and has become one of the leading voices in good practice and creating a high quality coffee. We discuss all things from batch brewing, to writing barista standards which are now recognised across the world, to creating coffees for different tastes. This week is unmissable.
The Washing Station is opening up trade channels for many of the smallholder farmers in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda.
Nick & Linda Castle of CLO Coffee went to Uganda to visit the people who grow speciality coffee which we import and roast. The washing station was started just 3 years ago as a way of connecting small holding farmers to the biggest exporter of coffee in Uganda. Ensuring that with good processing the would get paid a good price.
In 2019 Nick & Linda Castle of CLO Coffee visited the coffee farmers who are growing the coffee they roast in the uk at their roastery in Leeds. The Kisinga Washing Station in the Rwenzori Mountains, was established only 2-3 years ago. Generations of people have been growing high altitude arabica coffee throughout the Rwenzori mountains. So the coffee is high quality speciality, but until recently wasn’t being sold for a high premium due.
The main reason the coffee wasn’t yielding a high premium was because all the coffee is being grown in really small lots (back gardens) of all the people living around the mountains. The coffee drying and processing in small lots in their gardens meant the consistency of the quality of the coffees brought together wasn’t as high as it should be.
The coffee in the area was known historically known as Drugar. Which was all because of this poor access to processing high grade coffee.
When the Kisinga Washing Station opened by Jonny Rowland and a group of local people connected in Kisinga, they saw the potential of the coffee with a good processing facility. They talked with the biggest exporter of coffee in Uganda, and agreed that if they buy and process the coffee from hundreds farmers in the area, they will export it all through their channels.
Three years on, and the quality of the coffee is consistently mid 80s (speciality grade) and farmers are being paid more than ever before, in cash when they pick their crop.
After running coffee houses for over 10 years, Nick and Linda continue to spend time remembering some amusing stories of interaction with different customers. To finish they do some quick questions with a former barista, Sally.
Living and working in a community public space means coming into contact with many different people from a variety of walks of life. One of the delights of humankind is our diversity. Too often we celebrate similarities and uniformity. However there is something occasionally amusing when we come together in a mutual space such as a cafe.
With hundreds of mums and Dads who frequented CLO coffee houses in Leeds, there was only one Messy Mum. For some reason, even though there were so many parents hanging out, one mum would come in regularly and hang out with her son, and no matter how little food she had, there would always be a trail of food around the seat, table, floor and probably crumbs leading up to the door. The funny thing was that whenever you mention messy Mum to other staff, everyone would know exactly who we were talking about.
Then there was Holiday Dad. The terrible assumption that because a Dad came in on his own with his two girls, would mean that his story would follow that of Jude’s Law’s character in the Holiday movie. We all assumed he was a widow, and that he brought his girls into the cafe to treat them to the simple things, and put a smile on their faces. Naturally his working wife appeared after about 6 months down the line but he still remains holiday dad 10 years on.
After running coffee houses for over 10 years, Nick and Linda spend time remembering some amusing stories of interaction with different customers and some bare neighbours. To finish they do some quick questions with our current duty manager Christina.
Guests (customers) are the heart of every cafe on every local high street. It is the reason cafe exist and why they are so endearing. The fact that you can get people of all walks of life, sitting sometimes at the same table (Wagamama helped pave the way for this to be more acceptable for us more private Brits). Its fascinating as the cage manager to watch interactions and the generally different characters in one local community.
Nick & Linda Castle, have been running CLO (Cielo) cafes for over 10 years in and around Leeds. Because it can be inappropriate or invasive to find out customer names, the staff team naturally default to describing a regular customer by their drink. “Nutmeg cappuccino”, “skinny, wet, mint mocha”, and “Dry cappuccino” are all genuine customers, which most staff would know when discussed.
Some customers went beyond their drink - Wee customer (not because she was small), was the affectionate name of an elderly lady who used to come in for her small latte and unfortunately more often than not would leave a wet patch behind, which we took in turns to clean up. It was always more bearable knowing she had really appreciated her visit to the cafe, and seen chatted with whoever she saw.
One morning, on opening, the shop was quiet and our manager happened to say “look at the window in that building opposite”. In hindsight I wished he hadn’t said it. There in front of us was the bare frontal of a large woman stood right up to the bedroom window, staring across the road. Fascinatingly she just did not move. It was one of those memorable moments in the ‘running a cafe’ life which you can’t unsee but wish you could. We never saw her again… fortunately she were saved the awkwardness of her ever turning up to order a latte.
Christina, a Duty Manager at CLO, also tells a story of when we had an issue with a wasp that wouldn’t go away, one hot summer’s afternoon. Working with so many staff and volunteers, you are never short of a laugh, but on this occasion, it was a fine line. Of course, the wasp was pretty annoying and some customers were a bit concerned, so one of our volunteers decided they would take the situation into their own hands. No, they didn’t reach for the glass and paper method, or the fly swat. They decided it would be a good idea to spray it with our table cleaner spray. However they also didn’t think about the fact that the wasp was in our cafe, and Christina looked up at the moment that the volunteer squeezed the trigger of the spray. Aiming at the wasp, they actually sprayed the entire face of one of our regular customers. No exaggeration. It went all over them. Fortunately the customer was fine and saw the funny side (after an initial awkward situation).
Starting a Social Business in 2008 with a local community cafe on their local High Street. What were their key motivations and why choose a Social Business.
Nick & Linda Castle, co-founders of CLO coffee have launched their Experience Good Coffee Podcast to celebrate the good moments that happen over a simple cup of coffee.