Nicholas Cho

Nicholas Cho

Nicholas Cho

co-founder & co-CEO of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters, San Francisco • proud immigrant from Korea • he/him • @nickcho on Twitter

Medium member since April 2020

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Hospitality during coronavirus

Those of us in the hospitality industry are experiencing a new reality. Providing great hospitality means something very different from…

Mar 24 · 14 min read

We turned into a walk-up window cafe

When the Bay Area ordered an area-wide ‘shelter in place,’ we’ve stayed open as a designated ‘essential business’ serving takeaway only…

Mar 20 · 9 min read

Replacing the front bearing on a Probat L12 coffee roasting machine

So here at Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters we’ve been roasting on this hotrod little 2003 Probat L12 for about 3 and a half years now, and…

Sep 22, 2019 · 9 min read

My immigration story

“I lost you for 30 minutes. I thought I was going to lose my mind.”

Jul 26, 2018 · 3 min read

My review of “Death Note” 2017 (Netflix)

Trish and I binge-watched the anime about 5 years ago, and we loved the experience. I’m actually one of the rare folks who tries not to…

Aug 27, 2017 · 3 min read

On barista competitions, from an employer’s perspective.

There are many reasons I’d taken an intentional multi-year break away from the competition-side of barista and brewing competitions…

Jan 25, 2017 · 6 min read

The only “How to make good coffee at my relative’s house” tip you need

(reposted from my Tumblr)

Nov 21, 2016 · 3 min read

That One Time I Didn’t Hang Out With Sofia Vergara

My Ninja Coffee Bar infomercial adventure, and my honest review of the best home coffee brewer I’ve used.

Oct 11, 2016 · 9 min read

10 Reasons Don Schoenholt is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

I am a fan of Donald Schoenholt, owner of Gillies Coffee (New York) and co-founder of the SCAA. During a trip last month to New York City…

Jul 1, 2016 · 12 min read

Do I taste notes of George Howell in your espresso?

It was when an airline called “Independence Air” ceased operations. To promote their picking up of those routes, JetBlue held a fare sale…

May 3, 2016 · 6 min read

On designing new coffee equipment

Walking past the gyroscopic 2-wheeled car and some sort of Erector-set whose purpose wasn’t visually apparent, we got to the back of the…

Mar 28, 2016 · 4 min read

We’ve got a third coffee flavor wheel now

My friends at the Specialty Coffee Association of America just dropped the new ‘Coffee Tasters’ Flavor Wheel’ this morning.

Jan 19, 2016 · 4 min read

Now That We’ve Got Our Pitchforks Out, Who’s The Mast Brothers of Specialty Coffee?

I’ve tried multiple times to put all of this together in a coherent way, but I’m giving up. Being Christmas week, there’s enough work…

Dec 24, 2015 · 11 min read

Hack Your Mr. Coffee

Is it possible to make actually great coffee from the most mundane of coffee machines? What if we took an old stalwart–that Mr. Coffee…

Dec 20, 2015 · 8 min read

On dialing-in dark roast coffee (for light-roast fans)

Background: There’s a guy I’ve encountered on Twitter who has a coffee review site. He tweeted this morning something about how he reviewed…

Dec 18, 2015 · 3 min read

Don’t hire people based on experience and performance, if you can help it.

Being someone who’s run specialty coffee businesses over the years, without question, the one thing I’m proudest of is the growing list of…

Dec 13, 2015 · 3 min read