Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#23. Meet Namisha and Raghunath, the coffee couple behind ārāmse
91 Plays2 years ago
Watch a lot of coffee videos on YouTube? If yes, you may have heard ārāmse.
In this episode, we invited Namisha and Raghunath, the couple behind ārāmse.
Though they had very different careers prior to this, their foray into starting a YouTube channel for a shared passion, music, led them to discover they had complementary skills and really enjoyed working together.
After 13 years in financial markets, Namisha decided to leave the fast-paced life for one with more balance and purpose. Coffee has been an excellent medium for Namisha to connect the disparate dots in her life — finance, markets, coffee drinking and interest in the grassroots.
Raghunath, having spent over a decade in design, found coffee to be the perfect way to combine all that he is passionate about — photography, design, product and of course, coffee.
ārāmse's mission is to make coffee more inclusive, and to showcase Indian coffee for its unique attributes. They want to challenge popular assumptions and preconceptions about what qualifies as specialty coffee, which brewers are popularized, how we think of naming drinks, all with the ultimate goal of having producing countries like India and others, be more central to the dialogue around the next wave of coffee.
--
https://aramse.coffee/
https://instagram.com/aramsecoffee
https://www.youtube.com/aramse
https://twitter.com/zencoffeemom
https://www.patreon.com/aramse
Learn how to make Kaapi coffee with Raghunath
Traditional South Indian Filter Kaapi (Coffee) Guide
Support the show
In this episode, we invited Namisha and Raghunath, the couple behind ārāmse.
Though they had very different careers prior to this, their foray into starting a YouTube channel for a shared passion, music, led them to discover they had complementary skills and really enjoyed working together.
After 13 years in financial markets, Namisha decided to leave the fast-paced life for one with more balance and purpose. Coffee has been an excellent medium for Namisha to connect the disparate dots in her life — finance, markets, coffee drinking and interest in the grassroots.
Raghunath, having spent over a decade in design, found coffee to be the perfect way to combine all that he is passionate about — photography, design, product and of course, coffee.
ārāmse's mission is to make coffee more inclusive, and to showcase Indian coffee for its unique attributes. They want to challenge popular assumptions and preconceptions about what qualifies as specialty coffee, which brewers are popularized, how we think of naming drinks, all with the ultimate goal of having producing countries like India and others, be more central to the dialogue around the next wave of coffee.
--
https://aramse.coffee/
https://instagram.com/aramsecoffee
https://www.youtube.com/aramse
https://twitter.com/zencoffeemom
https://www.patreon.com/aramse
Learn how to make Kaapi coffee with Raghunath
Traditional South Indian Filter Kaapi (Coffee) Guide
Support the show
Read more coffee stories on
https://notabarista.org/
Order Coffee Wristbands and support I'M NOT A BARISTA's charity work
https://notabarista.org/product/notabarista-coffee-wristbands-2023/
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the I'm Not A Barista podcast. We're here to talk about all things coffee from industry careers, brewing tips, community support and more with some really incredible people who love coffee as much as you do. We hope their stories inspire you because humanity runs on coffee and together we can empower all the people behind every cup.
Balancing Creativity and Parenting as a Couple
00:00:26
Speaker
By the way, are you guys a couple or?
00:00:29
Speaker
Yes, we're married. Just make sure that it's a couple channel, right? Yes. How's like working together? Well, it's, it's great. The challenge is obviously we have a kid now. So that throws like a new dimension into the mix.
00:00:48
Speaker
I love it. We had a little bit of an idea of how it is to work together because our relationship started with making music together. That's a creative endeavor where you have different opinions and then you come to a consensus and then you create something together.
00:01:10
Speaker
So we sort of had like a gist of how it is to work together. So which is why we decided to do actually work together. Yeah.
Work-Life Balance Challenges During Pandemic
00:01:19
Speaker
But yeah, no, I mean, like, no complaints. It's just the usual challenges of having a small business and sort of trying to grow that and having and being in the middle of a pandemic. So, you know, the challenges.
00:01:34
Speaker
I think it's also when you're a couple and then you're working together. And then on top of that, you had COVID, which means you've been isolated. It sometimes feels like you're always working, but then you're never working. So it's like, you feel like you want to talk about work a lot, but then you also feel like, oh, are we not doing enough? Like, you know, are we slacking off? We should be doing more. So it's this.
00:02:02
Speaker
really weird sort of like there's no real like distinction between a workday ending and your personal life beginning everything just like merges into one. Yeah I think the challenge has been for us to sort of demarcate and say yeah like after this time we don't work that's personal time and then we take Sundays off because we actually then know what time of like what date it is and like when the week is finished because otherwise time just goes by and like the blur so
Corporate to Entrepreneurial Transition
00:02:30
Speaker
I think I understand the situation guys because I also work at home and my wife's at home since the pandemic. I remember when it was in Denmark, one thing we highly evaluate life is the balance of between work.
00:02:46
Speaker
How do you guys handle that? We take Sundays off and we do something different. In the evening, you wind down and then you don't work after a certain time. We're still experimenting. We were terrible at it and I would say we're a little better in the last few months.
00:03:06
Speaker
And I also think like initially when you're like you know for me especially I left a very you know like rigid corporate framework in terms of work and so then when you start your own company with especially with your like with my husband I was like I don't want any rules like you know let's just have it be so super organic because I'm so fed up of all of this
00:03:32
Speaker
corporate BS, but then like you kind of come to this middle ground where you're like, if you don't have any kind of distinction, then you don't know what day of the week it is. You don't know if you should be working or not working. You don't know if you're not working, whether you should feel guilty about that or not. So then I think we like backpedaled a little bit and try to find like a
00:03:54
Speaker
middle ground.
Daily Structure for Productivity
00:03:55
Speaker
So even within the day, like we kind of now discuss in at the start of the day, okay, like what do we need to accomplish? What do we want to get done this week? And then, like you say, we're working from home and we have a young child. We now say even during the day, we're like all 4pm because it like works for her with her schedule. Like that's when we will go to the park or go out or do something a bit different so that we like spend a bit of time with her as well. So I think
00:04:24
Speaker
For us, it's just it's still a work in progress. But, you know, we're trying to figure out some little rules and like boundaries so that we we have some balance. It's not super balanced, but it's interesting because even these small changes have sort of seen like an improvement in productivity.
00:04:43
Speaker
I felt like I was working all day, but I was getting less done than I'm getting now. So there's definitely something to be said about sort of like structuring like work time and then like personal time. And then I mean, that was just, uh, that's just like interesting to see. I remember you said you were, you were a designer. Yeah. Um, I'm still hopefully, but, uh, I used to do a lot of client work, but now like all of this stuff that I've learned or whatever have done professionally, sort of do it for the business.
Design Background and Digital Content
00:05:12
Speaker
Great. Could you tell us more about your background, what you were doing before? I've been in India for the bulk of my life in South India and Bangalore. And I went to school here, and then I went to college for design. I did retail and experience design, ended up liking the experience side, and then switched to digital design and branding. And then I did that for close to, I would say, 10 years.
00:05:39
Speaker
I ran my own company and finally we sort of run our arms say in India under that parent brand. Like developing brands for clients, like logo design, coming up with a corporate identity website and then having like a cohesive like a brand image. Photography is something that I've been passionate about and done on the side and professionally for a small period of time. Yeah, that's kind of where my journey
00:06:06
Speaker
I guess that's the reason why we see your YouTube channel. Actually, I'm just watching your YouTube channel now and then see all of those images you use.
00:06:15
Speaker
It's really clean, minimal and reminds me of Scandinavian design or minimal design somehow. How many videos have you uploaded so far? We have around 25 videos. Around 24-25 and the early couple of videos were a little
00:06:36
Speaker
different because I think that was we weren't thinking about a YouTube channel
YouTube Journey and Content Adaptation
00:06:40
Speaker
then. So the first two or three videos was mostly about like a Patreon and like what we had to do. And it was pre-COVID. Yeah, because when we initially started, we wanted to be tech free. We didn't want to be on social media. That's sort of ironic. But yeah, we started with Sunday half day in-person workshops where we showcase two Indian coffee roasters and two different brew methods.
00:07:06
Speaker
We sort of taught people how to brew coffee and appreciate the nuances of coffee and just good conversation over half a day. But just as that was starting to pick up some traction, I think around the fourth workshop, which we had to cancel because of COVID. So that's when we got on Instagram, started creating content.
00:07:28
Speaker
How do you do tech-free during a lockdown? So we had to pivot entirely. I think the good thing is her background is completely different to mine. I really like your channel. So I guess everything you've done at home, all the shooting, editing, right? Yeah.
00:07:46
Speaker
Wow, I guess new YouTubers especially who want to do coffee YouTube, they should learn a lot from you guys. Do you have any tips for barista who want to do their YouTube channels? In terms of I mean the quality and the quality of the content I think will come with time. If I had to say two things, one would be like get your audio right.
00:08:07
Speaker
and just like create content that sort of has a unique voice. So for us, for her it's sort of like, I would guess like the background, the connections between finance and coffee and then just basically making people think differently about coffee. And my side I've always been more like nerdy and sort of
00:08:24
Speaker
like the science behind things. And so that's why coffee really got me hooked, because there's so much science. And yeah, I can drive you crazy. But I also like the challenge. So which is why the videos that I'm on are more like, like detail breakdowns and like workflow breakdowns, those sort of things, what like draws me
00:08:44
Speaker
And I think the other thing is at least like we have found makes a big difference. And maybe this isn't YouTube specific it's any platform but it's just really to be consistent. And it's something we are like constantly learning and trying to like keep.
00:09:00
Speaker
we try to keep telling ourselves as well but you know I think it's just through all of like the drudgery to just like say oh I'm gonna do x videos and then you just keep doing them like you just make sure that you kind of do the work I guess.
00:09:16
Speaker
You guys, none of you is barista, right? How do you get your customers engaged?
Engaging Content Development
00:09:22
Speaker
That's a work in progress. So even now, we're writing a new script for a product review that we're doing. So we're trying to think of how we can tell the story differently to have it. Because on YouTube, it's always average watch time.
00:09:36
Speaker
And so you're constantly trying to improve that because it's sort of the direct metric that shows how engaged people are with your content and how long they view your video. Now, I think we're going back and actually starting script writing because while our content is researched and the products that we review, we've used it for a couple of months. We've really used them and tried to do a lot of stuff with it.
00:10:00
Speaker
to the point of like almost breaking it, but to take that content and put it onto a video format and have that be engaging in a world where there's so many distractions is probably the biggest challenge. We're playing with new things and while we like the content that we have and we're sort of happy with that, we're still not happy with how we present it in a way that is both engaging and like has like higher audience retention, if you will.
00:10:29
Speaker
And I think if I, I think I did understand your question in the sense of, correct me if I'm wrong, you were saying our background is not as baristas. And so in some ways we are outsiders to the industry, right? Because there's a lot of baristas that become professionals. Yes,
Non-Baristas in Coffee Community
00:10:45
Speaker
you're right. Because it is a very strong community of even though baristas are different parts of the world, they kind of like,
00:10:52
Speaker
have this very strong community and and and lift each other up and then you know potentially move on to become content creators and we obviously are not that's not our route. But i think rather than see that as a disadvantage we were like okay we don't.
00:11:07
Speaker
You know, there's no point if we try and compete with that skill set, right. So it's sort of to say, we are different. We're approaching it in a different way. How do we highlight our difference rather than like, you know, like hide it away or like shy away from it. So to actually use the fact that we have a very different
00:11:28
Speaker
way of looking at coffee and and to see say that that's actually complementary to what all of these what all of the barista content creators are making because obviously that's amazing content and then this is just you know it's like a complementary way of looking at
00:11:46
Speaker
of looking at coffee through like maybe a slightly different lens. And I think because of that, because we're not trying to pretend to be someone we're not, I think that community has been very receptive
00:12:01
Speaker
to it as well.
Positive Community Experiences
00:12:02
Speaker
Because you were saying like, you know, even the coffee professionals and ex baristas and baristas, yeah, they they kind of know about us or follow us. And I think that's why. But I have to say, like, from from our like, obviously, it's a sort of a smaller experience because we haven't been in coffee that long. But the community has been amazing.
00:12:22
Speaker
Like just generally the people that we've met have been super supportive and there's a lot of sharing of knowledge and it's very like open sharing. There's no, like at least for the people that we've spoken to, right from people who are like, like probably the most famous person, James Hoffman, to people like Lance Hedrick, to people like you, and people are much smaller that you don't know. It seems to generally be that people are like open to sharing and like want sort of the industry to do like progress together. So that's been great.
00:12:52
Speaker
And I don't think we felt any snobbery or like people saying like, oh, you're not a barista. You don't know this. So how come you do at least like as far as who are you to talk about this? Yeah, we haven't had any of that. That was that was one of my concern. That's why I name it. I'm
Handling Product Reviews
00:13:10
Speaker
not barista. So don't ask me anything about coffee. I find you someone else.
00:13:16
Speaker
Interesting. Interesting that you know your position in this coffee industry and how we can help others and play a role. That's important. We're not competitors. We are the promoters of those professionals, I guess.
00:13:29
Speaker
I have a question about your review videos. Do you guys buy those gears or they send it to you? How does your, this so far, your YouTube works? So for example, the Nanofoamer, we back them on Kickstarter. So we actually bought that. And then we're reviewing another product now, which we bought. And there are a bunch of, like the first flare review that we did is the pro two that we bought with our own money.
00:13:53
Speaker
And subsequently we review the new and fifty eight which plays and does the review so it's kind of a mix we obviously want to get to a point where we can buy every single product that we review because it allows us to be like allows us to say whatever we want.
00:14:07
Speaker
We still try to be as unbiased as possible, but realistically, it's harder to rip apart a product if someone has sent it to you. So to overcome that, we would like to get to a point where we can buy all of the products that we review. But for now, we're really grateful to be able to work with brands like Flare and
00:14:31
Speaker
Nomad, like Uniterra, and like Karl from Crue, all of these people have been like super receptive, have seen our content and been happy to send products to us to give them honest feedback and even review it for our channel.
00:14:46
Speaker
I guess that there is a milestone, right? You reach a certain amount of followers and then those brands say, Hey, you know, they could be good promoter for us. So I would like to send your get up, you know, a product to review how this influence your finance situation, because I know coffee gears, they're really expensive.
00:15:07
Speaker
If you buy everything yourself, it's a disaster. I mean, you're not going to use all of them, right? You're not going to have to get rid of them, but then yourself take a hand, it's not the value. I don't know how you guys handle that. Which is why it's been really helpful. So one, we work with a brand called Bankkeep Brewing Tools in India.
00:15:27
Speaker
who are one of the largest coffee equipment wholesalers in the country and so the owner Suhas is a good friend and has been super helpful we couldn't have made like most of these videos without his help because importing to India is quite challenging in terms of paperwork in terms of the customs duties and stuff like that and because he does that for a business he was happy to to sort of help us you
00:15:52
Speaker
get like equipment and he also like send us equipment that he wants us to test and give him an opinion on before he buys or like makes a bigger order. So that's been really helpful and the other side is obviously I think after creating the Flair video is when Flair noticed us.
Favorite Videos and Their Impact
00:16:11
Speaker
So that's when Andrew from like Flair reached out and said that he really liked this content and then
00:16:17
Speaker
We actually asked them if we can review some of the other products, so they were happy to send it to us. Andrew is a good guy. Yeah, agreed. And he's very honest. I like him a lot. Awesome guy. Very honest, very helpful, like super knowledgeable. So yeah. So far, which video do you guys love the most? All of our own. We are babies, right? You have to choose one now.
00:16:40
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, so for me, it would be, um, like the, the first flare one, the, the manual espresso, because it's sort of the first time where we got a reaction, like a good reaction to a video. And then, uh, the, the sea market one, because that was super insightful for me, because I didn't know any of that before she wrote the script for it. So I would have to say for me, it sort of forced me to think of coffee completely differently. And that's.
00:17:07
Speaker
That's really interesting. And since we've been trying to see how we can push the boundary and make content that's interesting, but also insightful from another perspective, if you will. What are my favorite videos?
Community Collaboration and Coffee Recipe
00:17:24
Speaker
i think i really like the manual espresso as well because i feel like as as far as content and a product and in our own values as a company it was very aligned so i really like that obviously he made the video and
00:17:39
Speaker
And then this is not like a super popular video of ours, but I did one on meditation and brewing. And I really enjoyed that because it reminded me a lot of how we started as a company and why we even started. So like he said, we would do these workshops with people. And obviously that was amazing to be able to interact with people in real life, which we've all forgotten now.
00:18:03
Speaker
But then this video sort of came, for me it was very special because it reminded me of why we started, how we started, what coffee really means to us beyond just the drink every day. I really liked that one because it reminded me why I'm doing this.
00:18:25
Speaker
There is one of our first videos, which is like a detailed recipe of the South Indian filter. I don't know if you've seen that one, but that's very close to our hearts. And it's something that I'm itching to update. But yeah, that's also like definitely up there because it's one of the first like detail, like full length videos that we put out.
00:18:44
Speaker
The video that I like most, how I find you guys is through the Universal Coffee Recipe Builder, because at the time we were building the brewing guide, you know, looking for inspirational ideas, how we can make this work. And then I find you guys and then I read your article, it was like, wow, this guy's amazing. Those articles on your website are really, really helpful and help us understand. Yes, the Universal Recipe Builder is
00:19:10
Speaker
is awesome also because we nearly didn't make that video. We were like, you know, where people actually, we put out a lot of content on it on Instagram. And like Agunath said, like our foundation in terms of us as a couple has been in music. So there's a lot of times we sort of like revert to music to think about
00:19:33
Speaker
you know, work stuff or coffee or just life. And so the recipe builder, we have some interesting stuff coming out soon. But then, yeah, we also want to do a few more collaborations with people, like something with you guys would be amazing. But yeah, we sort of want to work on it as a community, I guess.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was an initial idea and the response has been good, but then now we need like the community to sort of help it like help shape it become if it has any chance of becoming sort of like a standard tool that people use to share recipes across the industry, then obviously we need more people like on board, which is why we've consciously made it open source as of a few months ago.
00:20:18
Speaker
And so we're just getting like a like a fundamental web app ready so that people can actually build recipes quickly online. And once that's done, we want to like open it up and see where it goes. I got to know Indian coffee community through barista on bike, right?
00:20:39
Speaker
You know him, right? He's a cool guy. Awesome one. I like his traveling, traveling around with his bike and into different people. And then that's the time I got to know coffee. India is a thing that I never thought, you know, always, oh, African coffee, Colombian coffee, Indian coffee. I never tried it. What is the Indian coffee community
Specialty Coffee in India
00:20:58
Speaker
like? We got here end of 2019 and there were about three or four specialty cafes.
00:21:07
Speaker
or specialty coffee roasteries, if you will. And so it was very small and they were just sort of starting to experiment and one or two like good coffees coming out. But in the last two, two and a half years through the pandemic and stuff, it's kind of like exploded the movement within India.
00:21:23
Speaker
And also here, like I said, it's hard to bring stuff in from abroad. So as a community, we've been forced to drink Indian coffee. So the feedback loop has been really strong. So it's even pushed, whether it's the growers, the farmers, or the roasters, to really elevate the quality of coffee in the country. And while we are a fair distance behind very mature markets like South America and Africa,
00:21:51
Speaker
I think we're catching up pretty quickly and as long as we don't try to be then like another Ethiopian coffee or another we have like a unique flavor profile in India and then Indian coffee has great texture it also has like some unique tasting notes that you wouldn't find in other parts of the world you have like rich terroir like all of our coffee is shade grown it's like it's like all intercropped and then so there's like a uniqueness and there's a story to tell about Indian coffee so
00:22:21
Speaker
That's kind of why we got into coffee because Indian coffee is anonymous. Like you said, you didn't even know about Indian coffee. That's not an uncommon view at all. I mean, I left India in 2004.
00:22:38
Speaker
or 2003, but I left India a long time ago until we came back. And in all of those years, like 15, 16 years, I was always drinking coffee. And I don't think in, I lived in the States and then in London. And I don't really think I saw more than like three or four cafes that ever highlighted India as a single origin coffee. And a lot of the work that we do has actually been to, how do we think of interesting ways to kind of de-anonymize
Marketing Challenges of Indian Coffee
00:23:06
Speaker
Indian coffee. There's been this very strong association with Indian coffee and Robusta. And of course, we do have a fair amount of Robusta, 60% of our coffee approximately is Robusta. But then there's been this association with either exclusively Robusta or a lot of it is about Monsoon Malabar, which is the, you know, if people have heard of Indian coffee, they usually associate it with that.
00:23:32
Speaker
But like Raghunath was saying, there are a lot of interesting unique characteristics about Indian coffee. And really, I think a big issue has been our marketing, like we've been so closed off to what's happening in the rest of the world. And we've never really like
00:23:51
Speaker
as a, I guess, as a, I don't know, as a country or as a coffee community said, look, you know, like, how do we highlight the things that are good about us? How do we showcase the best things about this to a global audience? And how do we think through it strategically? It's just been all over the place. So the only thing I would add is the perception of Indian coffee from outside India and then Indian coffee and the community within India are just very, very different.
00:24:21
Speaker
So for us, it's been really interesting because, you know, I don't think I can go as far as to say, I'm like an insider in India. You know, I'm also discovering the coffee in India because it's only been two years since I really come back and spend time here. And it's been eye-opening, like it's.
00:24:38
Speaker
You know, we have a long history of drinking coffee in the south of India because we obviously grow coffee here. But then to see sort of specialty coffee really take hold even in like the sort of urban populations and like younger millennial, you know,
00:24:55
Speaker
populations in the north of India has been super interesting and COVID has really, I think it's really accelerated that people have been kind of stuck at home, a lot of young people still live with their families so coffee is like a very easy
00:25:12
Speaker
thing to get into when you're like, oh, what am I going to do with all my time? You know, I hope we can see more videos about coffee in India. And you're right about how we see Indian coffee, we hear about it. And what is really happening in India is a different.
Indian Coffee Brands and Quality
00:25:29
Speaker
I mean, I know Indian produce exports coffee, I just never tried them before. It's hard to find. And it's usually white labeled.
00:25:37
Speaker
So you likely would have tried it, but, you know, it would have been part of a random blend, part of some blend or, yeah. Tell us what is the best Indian coffee you would recommend us to try.
00:25:48
Speaker
Well, the other issue is access. Even if we recommend something, the big issue right now is it's not easy, like you said, to get Indian coffee outside of India. So something we've been trying to figure out is exactly that. It's like, how do we showcase amazing Indian coffee outside of India? But I mean, I don't know if you have a favorite that you want to talk about.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't I wouldn't say favorite. I mean, especially because of like how subjective coffee is. But in terms of quality, yeah. So we have a subscription platform on which we have around 10 roasters and all of the copies we send out we cut. So I mean, off the top of my head, there's there are roasters called Quick Brown Fox.
00:26:31
Speaker
And then there's Corridor 7. Glutokai is one of the first players in the specialty market. Then there's Marks Coffee, which is in the south, Oroville. And Gloom Coffee Roasters. And these are guys who started very recently, but have like exponentially increased like the quality of their roasting and stuff in the last two years. So yeah, I mean, those are a few brands of the top of my head.
00:26:55
Speaker
If you ever plan to come down to India, we'll be happy to take you there. Definitely. I'm going to stay there a bit and visit the farms and visit the guys. That'll be awesome. Yeah. So tell us about your 2022 plan, YouTube channel. So far I have 7.3 thousand followers. Where do you see yourself at the end of this year? In terms of followers, it's hard. We try not to look at numbers.
00:27:21
Speaker
But yeah, obviously like 10K is a big milestone. And so both for Instagram and YouTube, hopefully like surpass that significantly this year. And in terms of content, I would say regularity, right, right now we're just about able to put out two videos a month. And we want to make, we want to try and put out a video a week at some point, see if we can do that and then still like maintain the quality and the kind of content that we're happy to put out.
00:27:51
Speaker
But the products is something that we wanted to launch for a long time. And we have. So I'll let you talk about that.
COVID Impact on Product Strategy
00:27:59
Speaker
Look, COVID, you know, I don't want to keep blaming COVID for everything, but I want to keep blaming COVID. The product side of our business really, you know, took a hit with just supply chain. A lot of the manufacturers, we'd done so much testing with these, with small prototyping labs, a couple of them shut shop, a lot of people moved. So, you know, we had to rethink our product strategy and we finally have launched products and we have a few more
00:28:27
Speaker
In the pipeline and that's something i'm super excited about even on the products and the way we kind of think about products is how do we do something that's like fun and beautiful whatever the product might be but then you know like. I don't know the that makes the user think a little bit differently or showcase is something slightly different in terms of what they might be used to.
00:28:50
Speaker
So we've done these cups right now, the cappuccino cups, which are handmade in India. And so I think the plan for 2022 is to figure out a model where we're more able to consistently fulfill international orders
2022 Goals and International Expansion
00:29:07
Speaker
as well. Because right now, both with our subscription and with our products, we are only pretty much restricted to India.
00:29:16
Speaker
And so, you know, as things open up and we plan to spend more time outside of India to kind of also see how we can deliver those products internationally. So that's one of our big goals for 2022 is to kind of open the audience up on the product side. Yeah. And grow a subscription. And I mean, we're trying to figure out international shipping of roasted coffee, which seems to be
00:29:44
Speaker
Really difficult out of India. There are subscriptions like Tim Wendelboel and like Cafe Box, which ship around the world.
00:29:53
Speaker
But yeah, so with a multi-roasted platform, it becomes a little more challenging because I know Tim Wendt will go nitrogen flushes their bags. So even if it gets to you like three, four weeks after the roast date, it's still pretty fresh. So yeah, in terms of packing and then the shipping costs, we are trying to figure that out. So we are growing the subscription both within the country and seeing if we can expand outside.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. International shipping is a big issue, right? I guess only when COVID is over, it can be better. Yeah, let's play in COVID then. The thing is, it's always been challenging and COVID has just made it worse. Yeah. That's true. That's true. So tell us about the cup.
Design and Experience of Handmade Cups
00:30:38
Speaker
this special shape of any of you design it or how you got this inspiration behind it? So in terms of, so I wouldn't say we did something groundbreaking in terms of the design. There are like, there are other cups that we really like. So we wanted something that has like a classic sort of the Cappuccino bowl shaped cup, but we wanted it to be handmade.
00:31:05
Speaker
with local ingredients and also the finish and stuff is something that we work with closely with the artist and just sort of figure out the kind of finish that we wanted and stuff. Yeah, so in terms of design, making sure that you get the bowl shape inside for good latte art and also the thickness of the walls so you have a good feel when you're using the cup.
00:31:30
Speaker
And also for it to feel substantial so it doesn't feel too light, like you actually feel like... It's actually quite hefty, yeah.
00:31:39
Speaker
It's not heavy, but it doesn't feel flimsy. So you feel quite grounded when you're drinking your coffee. And we talk a lot about sort of engaging all our senses when we drink coffee. And the cup sort of really highlights some of that because it's really texturally nice to hold. And you kind of look forward, and it's beautiful to look at. And you kind of look forward to drinking, or at least I do, look forward to drinking
00:32:09
Speaker
my morning cup of coffee in it, so. And each piece is unique and has its own like quirk, so that makes it even more interesting. Yes, because these aren't perfect. Yeah, these aren't perfect cups that come out of an assembly line in a factory. So I guess those are your favorite cups now.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah, we use them every day. Yeah. Let's talk about something where you put in your cup.
Favorite Brewing Methods
00:32:33
Speaker
Coffee. Who's doing coffee every day? He is. She used to brew a lot before. I think and then I, you know, I stopped drinking coffee for
00:32:43
Speaker
Not not quite two years, but about 18 months. So, you know, it's fine to drink a bit of coffee when you're pregnant. I just made the decision not to. And so and I didn't drink when I was when my daughter was very young either. So, you know, for me getting back to coffee was so ceremonious.
00:33:04
Speaker
It's only been a few months since I really restarted drinking coffee properly again and in all of that time he's been brewing so I've just gotten a bit lazy and gotten used to him making me a cup of coffee but soon we'll be back.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah, for me, it's weird. Even if I don't drink coffee, I need to make coffee at least a couple of times a day. Tell us about your favorite boring recipe. I think you have this awesome recipe builder with the music and how you got inspiration for everything you found interesting. And then what is your favorite recipe and board method, of course? Yeah, for me, it would be the, I mean, yes, I love espresso and just like all of the
00:33:46
Speaker
Again, all of the science that goes into brewing espresso and pop prep and all of that stuff. But I think the real, like the real challenging one was the sartanine filter. So sort of looking at like several, like my grandparents from both sides brew it differently. My mom brews it differently. So just to see that and then have this, I don't know if you, you've obviously like used the mocha pot.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, so it's a super frustrating grower, but it can brew good coffee if you know what you're doing. I would say the sartanian filter is similar, probably even more frustrating. So to figure out like a brew method for that and then see how you can consistently brew good coffee with that, that is sort of a victory for me, if you will. And I guess when I was brewing a lot of coffee, I really enjoyed brewing the V16.
00:34:38
Speaker
It's very therapeutic. It changes every time, right? Yeah, it does. Sometimes I hate you so much. I just, I couldn't get the same flavor every time and then I have to switch in somewhat something else. Yeah. There are ways to, um, but you need to control everything, like right from your water to select the height that you're pouring to. Yeah. I mean, it's a madness. Yeah, it is.
00:35:04
Speaker
Exactly. I totally agree. All right. One last question to you guys.
Advice for New Coffee YouTubers
00:35:09
Speaker
What is your top tip for a new coffee YouTuber? A new coffee YouTuber. I'll let you take over. There are a lot of great reviewers and there's a lot of content about the science of brewing coffee.
00:35:26
Speaker
Obviously you can do that and there's obviously like a talent that's required to do that well but see if you can bring something unique like a unique perspective like either from your past life or like
00:35:40
Speaker
a different background. So if you can bring something unique and if you can shed light on problems or things that people aren't really looking at in coffee, that would be amazing because it just generally makes the entire community richer because it's different knowledge that helps us grow. That's just my take on it.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think, you know, everyone has a different story and a relationship with with coffee. It's so personal to the people, you know, even who are doing it professionally, there's so much there's like a personal story for everyone with something like coffee. And I think just.
00:36:18
Speaker
having not being afraid to kind of just really hone in on your voice. Like, what are you trying to say? Why are you trying to say it? And having that be very clear, I think comes through to an audience. But I don't know if we should be giving advice just yet. We're not like the biggest enough you copy you to us. So we'll take some advice to so.
00:36:40
Speaker
Yeah, finding your voice and then saying, like, this is, you know, what's unique about my perspective on coffee is definitely helpful. And there's more than enough room for content creators. Well, a smaller YouTuber called Brian Korn is doing something like very different. It's not super produced or like amazing B-roll and stuff, but he's producing content that's super unique.
00:37:06
Speaker
It's very nerdy and it sort of caters to the very sciency side of coffee. He has access to very high-end equipment and then he's talking about pressure profiles and then how to decipher his latest videos about deciphering a decent profile and then using it in other machines. So things like that, that's uniquely him and I don't really know of any other channels that are doing that the way that he is. So that would probably be one example.
00:37:32
Speaker
Thank you, definitely checking out. It's a lovely talk to you guys and it's so interesting. We hope we can do another one once your cup is available internationally. We'll try. Thanks for tuning in to this I'm Not A Barista episode. Subscribe to this podcast and follow us on Instagram at I Am Not A Barista for more empowering vibes and true coffee stories that connect you with coffee lovers around the world.
00:38:00
Speaker
You're a part of our global community, where we celebrate baristas and their craft in everything that we do.