Philadelphia entrepreneur, adventurer, and humanitarian Todd Carmichael, co-founder and CEO of La Colombe Torrefaction coffee houses, travels to “some of the most fascinating and unseen places in the world” in search of the highest quality and rarest coffee beans. Travel Channel viewers can go along for the ride.
The new eight-segment show debuts on Monday, Nov. 5 at 9 pm CST. Destinations for the eight shows include Haiti, Bolivia, Madagascar, Borneo, Cuba, and Vietnam (please let this episode be about the Dak Lak civet cat-poop beans!). As for the dangerous part, previews tease us with shots of him sliding-dangling across a very deep ravine on a thin cable, and this line: “Oh…there’s a dead body.” He’s described as sleeping under his truck to avoid armed robbers, and having to MacGyver his engine to keep it going in the middle of nowhere.
To his credit, Carmichael is searching for the rare beans with a big wad of cash, bypassing middlemen, and buying directly with the growers. The tease is a good one, and the show looks like it might be stimulating (intended), especially for the caffeine freaks in our midst. The show will move to its regular time slot on Tuesday, Nov. 13, 8pm CST.
Preceding the premiere of Dangerous Grounds, tonight marks the final episode of Tony Bourdain’s No Reservations at 8pm CST. After eight seasons of gustatory globetrotting, the sharpest-tongued, most entertaining, and wittiest food personality on the tube performs his swan song in Brooklyn before moving on to greener pastures (CNN, ABC, and his own publishing imprint with Harper Collins). The two shows combined should make for some fantastic and captivating viewing, and a welcome relief from mind-numbing campaign coverage.
This article appears in November 2 • 2012.
