It’s 2025! Welcome back to the coffee and business podcast, Coffee Made Me Do It. We’re starting the year with a sit down chat with the Bluebird team. Join Dario as he reflects on 2024 with Fanie, Luhle and Katie, as well as talk about intentions for 2025. They talk barista competition, rebranding, staying motivated, hobbies and training in 2025. Catch up with the Bluebird team in this episode of Coffee Made Me Do It.

Max, from BlueWater Group, dives into the advanced conversations being had about water for coffee. Questions around minerals, TDS, Reverse Osmosis and BlueWater’s answers to these questions. Water makes up about 95% of your brewed coffee, that makes it an extremely important ingredient in your recipe. Water quality is inseparable from the ultimate quality of your brewed coffee.
Dario and Max talk water, skiing, his background as a chef, sustainability focused food and what makes the BlueWater systems revolutionary.
Give it a listen on any podcast streaming platform. Live now.

Ian Kissick is the owner of Formative Coffee and 6th Place World Barista Champion 2024. In this episode, Dario and Ian dive into coffee culture, changing perceptions around coffee, putting flavour before brand name, preparing for competition and how he approached the 2024 World Barista Championships.

Ian owns and operates Formative Coffee in London, a cafe serving some of the world's best coffee, but with a creative twist. Ian has brought his competition expertise into the cafe to create an experience that puts flavour in the foreground, and prompts some subtle questions about how his customers perceive the role of coffee in their lives.

It's a long, casual chat that thoroughly explains Ian's mindset, approach and philosophies. Grab a coffee and put your headphones on, this is a good one!