Monday Morning Coffee Industry Check-in - Ep #442

About this episode

The episode covers coffee industry updates, upcoming events, and discussions on specialty coffee's challenges and culture.

Cat & Cloud Podcast Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Monday Morning Coffee Industry Check-in - Ep #442 Summary In this episode, Chris, Jared and Casey cover a wide mix of coffee-industry updates, behind-the-scenes projects, and big-picture reflections on what makes specialty coffee compelling. They preview upcoming events including a Bay Area roundtable with Coffee Futures Fund, their plans for World of Coffee in San Diego, and Chris’s upcoming Cafe Imports panel focused on the real challenges business owners are facing right now. The conversation also dives into the design and philosophy behind the new third version of the Chris Baca Dial Tamper, exploring how tools can become expressions of craft, ritual, and identity. From there, they wander into a thoughtful discussion about trade shows, coffee culture, Blue Bottle’s evolution under corporate ownership, and the tension between hospitality, scale, authenticity, and business reality—while still keeping the whole thing loose, funny, and very Monday-morning Cat & Cloud. Chapters 00:00 Coffee Futures Roundtable on Cafe Business Ownership 06:00 World of Coffee in San Diego: Why This Year Feels Big 10:00 Chris’s Cafe Imports…

People in this episode

Hosts: Chris Baca, Jared Truby

Topics covered

• coffee industry
• specialty coffee
• trade shows
• coffee culture
• business challenges

Keywords

• Coffee Futures Fund
• World of Coffee
• Cafe Imports panel
• Chris Baca Dial Tamper
• Blue Bottle
• Nestle
• hospitality
• business reality

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Dial Tamper, Chris Baca Dial Tamper, Blue Bottle

Books & works: Monday Morning Coffee Industry Check-in, Cat & Cloud Coffee, World of Coffee in San Diego

Places: Bay Area, San Diego, Santa Cruz

More episodes of Cat & Cloud Podcast

• From Soil to Service Part 1: Inside the World of Green Coffee - Ep# 449 · May 11, 2026 · 60 min
• Build a Café - Ep# 448 · May 4, 2026 · 51 min
• The World of Coffee 2026: Observations, Stories, and Lots of Love for the Community of Coffee - Ep #447 · April 27, 2026 · 55 min
• Coffee and a Danish Barista Champion, Christopher Hoff - Ep# 446 · April 20, 2026 · 49 min
• Taking Care of the Pack with Leah Wolff in HR - Ep #445 · April 13, 2026 · 1h 5m
• What We Think Matters vs. What Actually Matters w/ Chris and Casey - Ep# 444 · April 6, 2026 · 55 min