Third Places: Their History and Significance with Lani Kingston - Ep 80

Lani is a well known coffee-writer and global food industry consultant, and has has published best-selling coffee books in the USA, Finland, Sweden, China, Korea, Thailand and the UK. In her work, she has written about the history of what a third place is through the lens of the coffee shop. She has over a decade of experience in every corner of the food industry (and every corner of the world), including serving as a barista in London.

This interview is a lot of fun and shows how important third places are in our lives. After talking with Lani, we would even say that to fully live this human experience is to include finding your own Third Place.

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www.lanikingston.com

In addition to writing books about coffee, Lani has written culinary articles for a range of print magazines and newspapers; set-up and managed London’s largest bean-to-bar chocolate factory; headed up a cooking school run entirely with ‘food waste’; worked as one of Chef Dan Barber’s senior managers at his World 50 Best Restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Upstate New York; judged food and coffee for the UK’s prestigious annual Great Taste Awards; set up food brands and retail stores in Singapore; and traveled and researched food production and preparation all around the world.

With over a decade of experience in every corner of the industry (and every corner of the world), Lani saw first hand where food businesses were most in need of support. In response, she started a global food and beverage support agency, Four Seasons of Food, offering on-call, highly experienced and affordable staff for the movers and shakers of the food world.

What Lani loves most about her work is that she never stops exploring and learning. Throughout her career, she's been lucky enough to bake pies in English bakeries, learn about hunting reindeer from Fäviken’s gunsmith, tap maple trees in Wisconsin, mill flour in an 1800’s Lincolnshire windmill, cook Peranakan cakes with Singaporean grandmothers, eat rattlesnake in the Arizona desert, forage for wild food at River Cottage, spend Swedish Midsummer on a potato farm, venture deep under the streets of London to harvest herbs from disused Air Raid bunkers, harvest cacao with local farmers in the hills of Kerala, India – and much more!

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The Third Place Podcast is a weekly podcast that invites listeners into the hard conversations that we have a tendency to avoid.

We “go there” on things such as…

• How anger is beautiful
• How to find presence amidst chaos
• How to have difficult conversations
• How to be an ally
• How to live with grief

The Third Place is a safe place where curiosity is encouraged, differences are welcomed, and empathy is embraced through healthy dialogue.

We've forgotten how to talk to each other… Life has become polarized and dualistic - you’re either with me or against me. To embrace the complex human experience is to see the world through other’s eyes. The Third Place podcast helps with the disconnect. This looks like less conflict and tension and more like a peaceful existence with others. The Third Place podcast restores the art of dialogue.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-third-place/donations