Cup North 2015: "The 3rd Wave Has Stagnated" | Mat North

Unless you’re located in the UK or happen to be a fan of beautifully printed tiny books (Coffee - A Modern Field Guide), chances are you’re not super familiar with the very clever man that is Mat North, despite his extensive background in all things coffee.

After over a decade in coffee, Mat has experience within the full gamut of the “brown” side of the industry: he’s worked in both specialty shops and chains as well as consumables and engineering. Two years ago, Mat opened Full Court Press, a small specialist multi-roaster coffee shop in the heart of Bristol, known for its excellent customer service. His team’s ability to articulate their extensive knowledge in an approachable way that has ensured Full Court Press not only serves exceptional coffee, but has sparked an interest in specialty coffee among their customers.

Mat’s Cup North talk is a short and sweet look at the importance of context and feedback, on both sides of the counter, in not only growing consumers interest in specialty coffee, but in our own work. Mat gets meta, referencing recent statements and conversations dominating the coffee twittersphere, and demonstrates a beautifully crafted baseball metaphor as to how best we can “get out of the umpire’s way”.

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Want to hear more? Mat references talks by James Hoffmann (Asia 2014) and Brian Jones (Asia 2014). Cosimo Libardo, another clever coffee guy that Mat references, gave a talk at our first-ever Tamper Tantrum.