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Book biography

Coffee for the Mildly Obsessed, grew out of the need for a decent barista manual for the staff at Artisan Roast in the UK and Malaysia, the staff at Three Little Birds Coffee and all the cafes that the Artisan roasteries supply. Through years of getting it wrong with paper and long-winded workshops, baristas can now learn the theory and practise at their own pace, freeing up workshop time for fun, practical demonstrations and practice.

The book took four years to write and one year to edit. It's the culmination of learning from many courses and sources including the works of John Thompson, Peter Dupont, Klaus Thomsen, Michael de Renourd, James Hoffmann, Emma Sage, Tim Wendelboe, Scott Rao, Christopher Hendon, Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, Matthew Perger, and Socratic Coffee.

The learning methods used in the book are influenced by the British Army training methods, which emphasise humorous, casual, and engaging training packages that cater to every learning style. This method works well for people who haven't found academic learning to work for them.

The manual was written using iBooks Author and was converted to EPUB and MOBI. It is available on the iBooks store and through this website.

Author short biography

Michael Wilson (b. 1977) has been hunted by the Syrian Secret Service, won the Commando Medal and escaped from Beirut. He also set up 13 cafes, 7 coffee roasteries, 1 coffee brewery, and 1 bean-to-bar chocolate factory. He has a passion for learning and a passion for getting others to learn too.

Author long biography

Michael Wilson started working in cafes during his student days in New Zealand. He studied Mandarin, history, and genetics, none of which was very helpful in his subsequent careers. After leaving University, he lived in Syria working as a rock star for 1.5 years where coffee was a compulsory ritual of every social gathering. After being accused of being a Jewish spy and escaping from Syria, and subsequently Lebanon, he joined the British Army where coffee came NATO (white, 2 sugars) as standard, but tea was preferred. After leaving the Army, he ran a construction company in Edinburgh where coffee was fuel for working long hours in cold conditions. The conditions were terrible, but not as terrible as the coffee. Finally, fed up with the state of coffee in Edinburgh, he teamed up with his tango-dancing compadre, Gustavo, to build a cafe and roastery on Broughton Street, called Artisan Roast. Artisan Roast in the UK now has four cafes. All the cafes were set up on a very small budget using wood scavenged from skips and various salvage yards. It also has a roastery and warehouse and leans heavily on John Thompson's expert advice for roasting and coffee sourcing.

Amirah, Michael's wife, while also being a roaster and the in-house experiment advisor, gave birth to three sensory judges and the Malaysian operation. Together they built up Artisan Roast Malaysia and subsequently, with Joey Mah, Three Little Birds Coffee.

Michael currently lives in New Zealand with his family in sunny Dunedin, where he drinks coffee at Dog with Two Tails.

Author's blog: Coffee for the Mildly Obsessed

publishing information

The coffee manual is published by Ac-cent-tchu-ate Ltd, a company set up by Michael to publish learner-focussed multimedia textbooks and online courses. Coffee for the Mildly Obsessed is the publishing house's first publication. More of the story behind the publishing of the book is at the Ac-cent-tchu-ate website.