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Hello! I’m Michael and I am Oil Slick Coffee (OSC). My goal with OSC is to provide useful and relevant information for coffee professionals, afficianados, geeks, lovers, etc. I provide information to help improve one’s knowledge and awareness of what coffee is, what it can be, and what it means to the many people who help produce it.
Across my various channels of content, there are over 100 articles, more than a dozen, archived, audio files, a podcast, more than two dozen videos, dozens of photos, all provided with completely open access. In addition, I publish a vast majority of my training material for no set fee or price. Producing this much content takes time and money. If you’ve found value in the content I have provided here, I ask that you send me the monetary equivalent of that value through ko-fi or my bitcoin wallet. Did a how-to guide save you time and money installing a thermocouple or configuring Artisan? What is your time worth? I hope you return this value to me in monetary form.
Why I am producing this content…
Coffee production is still a bit of a black-box for many consumers and professionals alike, namely because it is only produced within the tropical belt and largely in hard-to-reach, mountainous places. A majority of the world’s coffee is produced by smallholders1, farmers with around 2 hectares of land—land on which they also likely graze livestock and grow other crops such as cash crops and sustenance crops. Therefore there is a large social impact of the coffee industry on a large population of the world (around 125 million people1). According to the FAO2;
Among the largest coffee producing countries, many still have more than 10 percent of their populations living below US$1.25 a day. However, change is on the way, and coffee plays a pivotal role in this process. Coffee production and the proceeds from it have allowed a growing number of small and poor farmers to escape the poverty trap. By adapting new technologies or by switching to better varieties, many now harvest higher crops of better quality beans.
I do believe that coffee can not only aid smallholders out of poverty, but as former President Bill Clinton said about developing economies; coffee can also be an anchor toward economic development.
Part of my strategy to help producers is to educate buyers and consumers about coffee production so that they may have a better understanding of what it means socially and economically to produce coffee. All of my content feeds (Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and this site) contain a lot of informational/educational content. I want to empower the buyers and consumers to make a more-informed decision around the coffee they buy.
What I’m offering…
I have several free resources for the aspiring coffee roaster that range from foundational knowledge all the way to advanced topics such as the Maillard reaction. Many of my resources are directed towards the coffee industry, making the information relevant and actionable almost immediately for coffee professionals.
I also share information from various coffee conventions and forums I attend, such as The World Coffee Producers Forum. Resources from these events include audio archives or on-camera interviews. Recently I have also started a podcast .
Why I need your help…
The services and equipment I use to generate content for this site and other social media can be expensive and the money I make teaching coffee courses doesn’t always pay for everything.
By donating, you will be supporting my ability to produce better audio and video recordings, to continue to write how-to articles for this site, and research coffee-related issues facing the industry.
More importantly, by supporting me with a contribution, you help me continue to provide free information to anyone interested in coffee—no paywalls, no ads, just unfettered access to useful information about coffee!