[I]n fall 2012, Todd Carmichael helped bring specialty coffee to a bigger stage with \u201cDangerous Grounds,\u201d a TV show on the Travel Channel that tracked him to far corners of the world. Carmichael, who co-owns Philadelphia-based roasting company La Colombe, also has a jones for extreme travel, and he combined those interests by taking the cameras into little-known coffee-growing regions including Madagascar and Borneo, and the occasional precarious situation\u2014for example, dodging armed middlemen in Haiti.<\/p>\n
But as \u201cDangerous Grounds\u201d prepares to return for its second season\u2014scheduled to premiere Jan. 29\u2014Carmichael says viewers can expect a slightly more refined presentation. \u201cThe first season of TV is full-on shock and adaptation: The gear, the reactions to the camera, the anxieties and just the challenges of being filmed 16 hours a day are pretty intense,\u201d Carmichael says. \u201cNow that I\u2019ve had time to digest it all, we\u2019re now able to tell a wider story about cultures, people, food and even specialty coffee in a more mature, less freaked-out way.\u201d
\nSeason two will venture to a few more traditional coffee-growing regions than did season one, including Mexico, Guatemala and Uganda. \u201cWe hit all the regions\u2014Asia, Central and South America and Africa\u2014and truly found some insane coffees, some of which are being served in caf\u00e9s all across the country,\u201d Carmichael says. But the show\u2019s adventurous side remains\u2014for example, one episode will follow Carmichael to Nepal, which he calls \u201ca place I had been for climbing but never coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carmichael says that the first season of \u201cDangerous Grounds\u201d was met with some criticism by the specialty-coffee industry, and he thinks the new episodes\u2019 increased focus on the core product may be more pleasing to those who work in coffee. \u201cWhile everyone in the community realizes that an hourlong show on what might keep us coffee geeks stimulated is not possible, some still think the show should gear more toward pure coffee,\u201d he says. \u201cI think we responded really well in our offering in the second season.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Carmichael wants the show to please coffee professionals, he recognizes that they aren\u2019t necessarily the main audience for \u201cDangerous Grounds\u201d\u2014that would be the average Travel Channel viewer, who may not know a whole lot about coffee. Carmichael says he\u2019s excited to walk those watchers through a deeper understanding of the bean. \u201cI think folks intuitively know that coffee is grown in foreign lands without the show,\u201d he says. \u201cThe real impact I\u2019m proud of speaks to the more geeky part of my nature, like how many tens of thousands of viewers now know natural from washed, for instance. \u2026 That\u2019s the best any coffee nerd could ask for.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the second season nears its debut, Carmichael says he hopes that nerdiness will help cultivate an appreciation in viewers for specialty coffee. \u201cAt the end of the day, I\u2019m like any other roaster or barista interested in turning people onto something better than the non-transparent C-grade stuff in the grocery stores,\u201d he says, \u201cand into a wider world of meaningful flavors and relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Todd Carmichael\u2019s Travel Channel show returns for second season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[267,120],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n