The global production of coffee is falling every year, due to climate change and geopolitical factors. However, our demand for more coffee and higher quality coffee is ever-increasing. World Barista Championship finalist and founder of Gorilla Gear, John Gordon writes about innovations in technology and how the future of coffee may depend on them.

How did your personal journey through coffee (barista to competitor to equipment/technology) occur? Were there any driving forces?

The moment I started in coffee, I remember being so curious about the equipment and how it all worke. However, my first introduction was asking my boss at the time if I could open up the grinder and give it a good clean – we cleaned everything else but the grinder and I was curious as to why it wasn’t done. So after pulling apart the Mazzer Super Jolly that really was put through hell everyday and really giving it a good clean, it then took me about 90 minutes to put it all back together again. It sounds ridiculous, I know. But from then on we cleaned the grinder every week after the Sunday shift and it was the beginning of my deconstruction of coffee equipment.

What does technology mean in the context of coffee?

I think there is probably a high percentage of people that will reject technology advancements in the coffee industry and argue that all throughout the chain there is an artisanal aspect of what makes it so special. However, we are at a point globally that we need to make huge changes for the longevity of our planet and sustainability of the industry, not to mention the sustainability of coffee businesses.

Technology can provide crucial information to producers, importers/exporters, roasters, cafe owners and baristas to help make things better, more consistent, more efficient.

Greater consistency and efficiency means businesses can be more profitable – big companies didn’t become big through doing everything manually. Implementing the best technology to do the right job or to help someone do a better job along with traditional skills is a winning combination. I don’t believe [technology] should replace everything we do, but I do believe it will help us be around as an industry for generations to come.

What are, in your opinion, the pitfalls of our industry at the moment (in terms of technology and its implementation)?

With the rapid advancements of technology we rely too much solely on the not so perfect iterations of the equipment as manufacturers roll new ideas out or new equipment developers come up with some new innovation. We take these developments or innovations as perfection the moment they come out or ignore the possible error tolerance that components come with.

Relying solely on technology will just blindly lead us into misinformed drones that produce mediocre outcomes. Teaching someone to roast relying 100% on the digital information provided by new tech or software is totally flawed. I believe to be a true coffee professional we need to be competent in both the artisanal aspect and also the modern aspect, dialing in a coffee without scales or to be a roaster and confidently roast using an analogue temperature gauge and pen and paper but then roll out all the gear, bells and whistles and step up the game is much more valuable.

What are some examples from the past decade that can show us how technology has fundamentally changed the specialty coffee industry?

PID Temperature controlled boilers for espresso machines may have started more than a decade ago but have really helped pave the way for further advancements and developments. It was really the beginning to changing espresso machines in to the high tech things they are today that heat up water and make steam more efficiently and consistently.

Likewise, profiling software for roasting machines have given us more insight in to what is happening inside the roaster, it is now becoming the standard as a micro-roastery to have the software.

A more affordable array of testing equipment like colour meters for roast degree, water test meters and the Refractometer have also provided us with some guidelines that we can begin to learn from. Outside of specific coffee equipment the general technology advancements globally have bridged a gap between producer and roaster which has lead to developing relationships and further developed the sharing and development of experimental processing techniques.

You currently operate your own business, Gorilla Gear which specialises in coffee technology. What made you start this company, and what do you have planned for the future?

Gorilla Gear started out from originally wanting to build my own grinder to then learning more about grinder burrs and realising that there was a gap in the industry for high quality aftermarket burrs for grinders. One of the major factors was just wanting pre-seasoned burrs as a standard thing and knowing how it could be done in a sustainable way so that people wouldn’t have to waste coffee and time with seasoning burrs for themselves or their wholesale customers was just something I really wanted to do.

The future plans for Gorilla Gear will be to keep expanding the range, continue to improve the burrs we already have and develop close relationships with companies that want better, longer lasting consumables that will in turn extend the life of the equipment and increase the output capabilities.

Are there any defining moments in your experience of coffee that reinforced the importance of innovation/technology?

There were two moments, the first was when around 2011/2012 when I was really pushing hard to be involved in equipment development with some manufacturers but wasn’t really being given the opportunity to show what I could do, even though some of my ideas made it in to machines that we see today. It was when I first started working with Sanremo that I saw a potential to be able to unleash the madness that was in my head and that we could really push the boundaries of what an espresso machine could do, being involved in bringing weight based delivery systems in espresso machines was pretty cool.

The second was by far my trip to Ethiopia, the complete opposite to everything I was used to. Seeing what was actually possible with little to no modern technology was amazing and it was in that moment I started to imagine all the possibilities that even the slightest introduction to modern technology could do to coffee on a producing level.

Why was it important to you to deliver your message this year in Amsterdam?

Even though I have been heavily involved in equipment development over the last 6 years, it has really made me start to wonder how much more can all this equipment improve. I think we are pouring monumental amounts of money and resources in to the tail end of the coffee industry and seeing the tiniest of improvements every year. I think if we put even a 10% of that into the beginning of our industry we will see larger gains and also a more sustainable future for coffee production and the people involved.

I also think if we were to dedicate some of the resources to improving the sociological development of producing countries and empowering communities to be stronger economically we won’t see things like shocking C prices that are so far under production costs that producers lose money. There was a lot that I wanted to share on stage that is so much more relevant to the true message of sustainable energy, water filtration and modern processing techniques and equipment that just couldn’t be done in 15 minutes – but after all it is a barista competition and there is a game that needs to be played in a certain way.

What are your future plans regarding technology?

I would like to expand the range of burrs and develop more for other companies. I’d love to build a fleet of high tech coffee roasters and most of all work with people on developing renewable energy systems for remote coffee producers and communities, help produce efficiency plans for processing stations and develop new processing equipment. In the end the more collaborations with companies and people that want to see the entire coffee chain have a future the better.

Learn more about John Gordon and his work through Gorilla Gear at www.gorillagear.coffee