Up-close with James Hoffmann

When we talk nerdy about coffee, James Hoffmann will be the first to come to mind, with his prominent blog jimseven.com being the go-to source of information for many baristas and café owners since 2004. Big thanks to Dankoff, we got the chance to meet James in person and hear out his insightful sharing at his book tour/charity event.

Question marks surrounding one's career path in the coffee industry is ubiquitous amongst baristas, especially in cities where specialty coffee culture just started emerging. James, however, sets the perfect example of making a respectable and fascinating career out of coffee. The co-founder of Square Mile Coffee, London debuted into the global coffee scene as the world barista champion in 2007.

Naturally, he didn't just stand behind bars after winning the title. A great deal of the Nuova Simonelli/Victoria Arduino's new technologies on their recent machines (the Gravimetric Black Eagle espresso machine and Mythos One grinder) were developed with James's help and contributions.

His most recent achievement would be authoring the book "The World Atlas of Coffee". His purpose of publish was not to make money, but to fill an obvious gap on the specialty coffee book shelf. The popularity of his book had granted him exclusive tours around the world; signing autographs and spreading the specialty coffee culture to different cultures, what a life! The potential of a coffee enthusiast is limitless, and, if you'd asked James, he would tell you the potential of any enthusiast is limitless, as long as you put enough focus on one big thing, and that thing meets a demand or solves a problem for people out there.