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03 The Language of Cofee and Connections with Obed Santos
247 Plays2 years ago
Like any good business - we're starting the day with a great cup of Joe. Meet international roaster Obed Santos from Idioma Coffee, who teaches Dave and Trygve the language of Coffee. Special bonus - the guys dissect the entire Starbucks menu so you know what's actually in that thing you drink.
In this episode, we cover:
+ The power of food and drink in building relationships
+ How coffee is made, sourced, and poured
+ Hot takes about the BEST coffee
+ Dissecting the Starbucks Menu
And more...
…
Dial It In Podcast is where we gathered our favorite people together to share their advice on how to drive revenue, through storytelling and without the boring sales jargon. Our primary focus is marketing and sales for manufacturing and B2B service businesses, but we’ll cover topics across the entire spectrum of business. This isn’t a deep, naval-gazing show… we like to have lively chats that are fun, and full of useful insights. Brought to you by BizzyWeb.
Socials:
Website: dialitinpodcast.com
BizzyWeb site: bizzyweb.com
Connect with Dave on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dave1meyer
Connect with Trygve on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/trygveo
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Transcript
Introduction to Dial It In Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Dial It In, a podcast where we talk with interesting people about the process improvements and tricks they use to grow their businesses. I'm Dave Meyer, president of BusyWeb, and every week, Trigby Olsen and I are bringing you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations.
Selecting Podcast Guests
00:00:24
Speaker
So Dave, as we were trying to figure out who to have for podcast guests on our new Dial It In podcast, I thought
00:00:32
Speaker
Well, you should start at the beginning. And so then I thought about, well, the sales process. And then I thought, well, no, there's probably the marketing process.
00:00:40
Speaker
And then I sort of devolved it quite a bit further. And so I found a great first guest.
Meet Obed Santos
00:00:47
Speaker
He is a classically trained chef and has a great business that I'm really excited to have him tell us about. And it's all around what should be the start of everything, everybody's day as you're being an entrepreneur, which is a really obscenely good cup of coffee.
00:01:07
Speaker
Very much so, yes. Love it. So our guest today is Obed Santos from Idioma Coffee Roastery. Thanks for joining us, Obed. Yeah, thank you for having me, gentlemen. Tell me, what is the meaning behind the Idioma Coffee name? Oh, yes. Idioma translates to the word language in Spanish.
00:01:28
Speaker
So Idioma, there's a lot of dialogue. As a chef, when I would listen to other chefs speak or watch them do a demo when it's making, let's say, a chicken noodle soup, there's no language barrier because I can tell that they are chopping vegetables. I'm telling that they're heating the stock up. I know exactly what they're doing without them even having to speak. But in a sense, that is a language. It's the language of food.
00:01:56
Speaker
I'm talking to Idioma, the language of coffee.
Obed's Culinary Journey
00:02:00
Speaker
So similar to what wine connoisseurs do when they talk about wine, they can tell the smells, the feelings, what they have going on in their mouth, in their nose, in their tongue. That's exactly the same thing as it is with coffee. So when it comes to talking about coffee and wine and food, yeah, everybody can geek out on it. And it's a language that it should be celebrated and shared. Yeah. The universal language. I love it.
00:02:25
Speaker
You are a classically trained chef. Yes, trade me. Tell us about that. You went to La Cordon Bleu, right? Yeah. Yeah. La Cordon Bleu out in Pasadena, California. It was very, very eye-opening. I know that I used to cook for my wife and I when we met in college. And I went through the business ranks of Enterprise Rent a Car and then ended up
00:02:48
Speaker
going to the culinary field because they let some people go. Well, not through enterprise, but that's another story.
Transition to Coffee Industry
00:02:57
Speaker
But I went to culinary school in order to start my own business, which was going to be a private chef company. So once I graduated with highest honors in California, I opened up my private chef company in California and
00:03:10
Speaker
A year and a half later, we moved to Chicago, where I pretty much picked up my company, went from Los Angeles to Chicago. Chicago was a private chef for one family, the Crown family, billionaire philanthropists, the family of Chicago. It was me and one other gentleman, and that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to express
00:03:33
Speaker
my creativity through food. And the people that on the receiving end of it get the instant gratification. And that puts a smile on my face. So yeah, so I did that for five years and met some pretty cool people while doing that. Yeah.
00:03:49
Speaker
Very cool. So what got you interested in transitioning from being a private chef to all things coffee? And the pinnacle of private chef, right? I mean, you were crushing it. What led to the
QGrader Certification Process
00:04:06
Speaker
change? Oh, great, great question, guys.
00:04:10
Speaker
culinary school in California, there was a coffee class, coffee program. And they had you taste the coffee, pair the coffee with pastries, chocolates, candies, foods, all this other stuff. You had to be able to talk about it just like you pair wine with food.
00:04:26
Speaker
And so knowing that I was able to control the final product again, the creativity part of it, I started roasting with a little a little a little home air popper for specifically for coffee. And that was about the time where Intelligentsia was starting to kind of make waves in the world and there are companies so
00:04:46
Speaker
Starbucks was already established, but the intelligences, they were the Kraft coffees. And when we tried it, it was like, oh, my goodness, this is really good. I bet I could duplicate that. And so I got the air popper. I started getting coffee from Sweet Maria's. And sure enough, yeah, it was awesome. It was great. I was able to control everything from the seed to the cup.
00:05:04
Speaker
And when we moved from Los Angeles to Chicago and then we moved again from Chicago to Iowa, that's where it happened. The food I was making in Chicago did not translate properly to the people in Iowa. I was making world-class food.
00:05:21
Speaker
I was making world-class food, and the people that were there loved them. Bless their hearts. Great people in Iowa. They just don't have that creative side to explore different things, different textures, different colors, different proteins, different vegetables, different everything. And so I leaned back onto my experiences in culinary school when I was roasting coffee. Let's say,
00:05:43
Speaker
Let's see what we can do with coffee because if we were to move again, I don't need to reinvent food. So coffee was a way to do that, still be creative, still apply fire to a product, still get that instant gratification. And then the further we dug down to the coffee industry, we realized that there were farmers that needed a lot of help. And so if I can do what I love and help people at the same time, everybody wins.
00:06:11
Speaker
I want to talk about the farmers because I think that's a really impactful part of your business. But before we leave your bona fides, I know you have a very unique classification and accreditation in the field of coffee. So can you talk about the tests that you had to take when you had to smell? Yeah, because that's an amazing thing that you went through and the standard that you have.
Ethical Coffee Sourcing
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's something I'm very proud of. It's called QGrader certification. QGrader.
00:06:40
Speaker
Some may say it's similar to a sommelier for wine. You have to be able to dissect the coffee down to its core. There were 21 tests that we had to go through all vigorous, everything from
00:06:53
Speaker
One of the harder ones was there were 50 vials of little Dixie cups, 50 vials, and they each had a component of bitterness, of sweetness, and sourness. And you had to correctly identify the intensity of each one. So it could be a three sweet, two sour, two bitter.
00:07:12
Speaker
or it could be three sweet, one bitter, one sour. You have to be able to identify these things using everything that you were equipped with naturally in your mouth and you had to guess them all correctly. So if you got a 50 out of 50.
00:07:29
Speaker
You have to get 50 out of 50. The other one, the other question, the other test was a lot of these are done in the dark. So you can't go by color or anything like that. So there's a coffee one where they put three out there and you had to determine which one didn't belong. So they could have put out two dark, one light, two medium, one dark, and you had to pick which one didn't belong. And that was all in the dark and it was timed.
00:07:54
Speaker
And that's just one. So those are two tests and there was 21 tests similar to that. 21. So how many of those were you in the dark for? I mean, I just I'm imagining you sitting there in the dark and a whole lot of people with those night vision goggles bringing you food.
00:08:13
Speaker
I would say more than half. More than half of those tests were in the dark. There was another test where you had to correctly identify. It's called the Lenez. Some yeas use this, and it's where you have to sniff a little while. I know that sounds bad, but there's like chocolate, there's lemon, vanilla, earth, medicinal. You have to identify all these different scents, and again, those you have to get 36 out of 36 in the dark.
00:08:42
Speaker
Another one. That's unbelievable. So how, when did you get that certificate? How long ago was that? Yeah. So that was 2007? No, no, no, no, no. No, no. It was late. It was like maybe 2013. And then on 10 years. Yeah. When people take that test, only 33% of the people that take that test pass.
00:09:04
Speaker
At the year I took that test, there was only 300 Q Grade certified people in the country. When I took the test, there was 15 people total, and this was in Portland, and there were people from all over the world. There was a roaster for Ely, there was a barista from California, there was a lady from Australia, and all these people were getting calibrated to this Q Grader certification, and the people who came and flew in and spent all this money to take this test and pass that didn't,
00:09:31
Speaker
I felt very bad for them. But they got the information, they got the knowledge, even though they don't have that certificate.
Idioma Coffee Subscription Model
00:09:38
Speaker
There's still aces in my book. Wow.
00:09:42
Speaker
We sort of skipped over the farmers and I want to come back to that because I think this is a really impactful part of your business. And as we're talking about the evolution of transitioning from chef to being a coffee connoisseur, you decide you're going to start getting into the language of coffee, as it were.
00:10:02
Speaker
then obviously you had to start sourcing product. So I want to talk, I want to ask about your, first of all, about how you go into it, but then I've got follow up questions because I want to talk about what it takes to get it from the tree into my, into my mug, my morning mug. So where do you find, how do you get your coffee and what are the important things that you look for specifically when you're buying coffee from people?
00:10:28
Speaker
Yeah, when I first started out and I was new to the coffee industry, when we took that Q graded course, it was my wife and I, we took the Q graded course on Portland and one of those people was an importer out of New York. So they do a lot of cupping because they bring in all the coffees from all over the world. And so I had a direct relationship with him. Once I told him what I was going to be doing,
00:10:51
Speaker
He said, let me know when you want to try coffees. I'll give you samples. And I'm like, well, you know, more importantly, I want to make sure that one, the coffee is good, but two, the money's going directly to the farmer's site. I got you. So he would go, he would be the one to go to Kenya, to Colombia, to all these places. He'd see it firsthand. He'd take photos for me and he'd tell me exactly what it is that the money does. So for example, the Kenyan, the Kenyan coffee that I've had,
00:11:18
Speaker
since I started this company in 2017, it was meant to help give ownership to women. And they're at 33% female ownership in Kenya. That's huge. That's unheard of. It's a male dominated country. And so when they get the money, they
00:11:37
Speaker
They hire the females and give them ownership and I asked his name is Jonathan as a Jonathan So what do these women do now that they have a new sense of self? Well, they buy fabric they buy fabric so they can make dresses so they can go out and have a good time I'm like, you know what? That's
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. All right. Give me bags of that. Let's do that. So that was my first taste of what money does for the people down there. So my next step was to actually go to there. I wanted to see it for myself. It wasn't Kenya, but it was Guatemala.
00:12:12
Speaker
So when I went to Guatemala, I was right there elbow deep in coffee beans with the farmers. And their kids were right beside me. There was a whole family thing. Every member of that family has their duty. And you get to see all of that from the trees that they're taking the beans off to them putting in baskets. The baskets then go into bags. The bags go onto the truck. The truck goes to the cafetal, which is where they get the coffee weight out. And that's when they get paid.
00:12:42
Speaker
So when they get paid, when we buy the coffee after it's been dried, the Guatemalan coffee is strictly for schools, hospitals, and houses. Houses meaning
00:12:55
Speaker
flooring. I helped a little bit with making cement or concrete out of sand, water, rocks. Stoves get built for that because the women, when they cook, they don't have access to ventilation. So just a matter of giving them the resources to be able to live a little bit of a better life.
00:13:18
Speaker
But using the same export that I'm buying, well, shoot, let's help them too. So every single one of my coffees has a story similar to that.
00:13:29
Speaker
And it's on your website too, which is neat. So you talk about the coffee flavorings you get and all these really sophisticated notes that you get, but then you also make sure that you tell the story. So anytime anybody buys from you, what I think is so amazing about it is you're just this great pass-through for all of these stories and these compelling
00:13:49
Speaker
reasons to buy, which, you know, this is what Dave and I do for a living is try and figure out compelling reasons for people to buy. You've got it everywhere on your website. Just amazing. Yeah. The story behind everything. And as I was looking at your site and
Coffee Processing & Roasting
00:14:04
Speaker
the pictures of the beans and the backgrounds are just gorgeous. And was that all stuff that you sourced personally in your visit? Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Some of the photos are from Jonathan, but a lot of them are mine.
00:14:20
Speaker
Most of them are mine, but the others are from Jonathan, the importer who actually does a little bit more traveling than I do. I'm jealous of that a little bit, but he doesn't know how to roast. And tactically, do you take the beans after they're dried and ship them home and then roast them here? Exactly. Yes. Let's talk about it because I think a lot of people don't realize that coffee looks on the tree
00:14:45
Speaker
looks like fruit. It's cherry, cherry and red color, right? Exactly like a cherry. Exactly. If you put them side by side, it's just a bright red cherry instead of the deep dark cherry that we come to know. But yeah, it's exactly like a cherry. So walk us through from on the tree all the way to your roastery. What are the steps involved in doing that?
00:15:07
Speaker
Yeah. All right. So the tree can go up to about 20 years. It can't harvest it for at least the first three years. It's got to get used to what it's going to produce. And it's a coffee tree. What's that? It's a coffee tree. Yeah. Technically, it's a shrub. They're probably about a little taller than me, so about 5' 7", 5' 8". They're about that size. But each one of them can harvest up to about 20 years, and they only harvest one time a year.
00:15:35
Speaker
So once these cherries are picked and they only take the ripe ones, that's the difference between machine picking and hand picking. All my coffees are hand picked. So they're not overripe, not underripe. They're perfectly ripe, so it's all uniform when they go to dry it. Once the coffee gets picked, it gets put through a machine that takes the skin and the flesh off of the fruit to be left with the seed that's inside.
00:16:03
Speaker
that seed then after it leaves the machine, it gets put on patio beds, concrete, concrete patios outside. And depending on the climate and everything like that, the rain, climate, sun, all of that, it's a good 20 days, anywhere from 12 to 20 days, 20 minute intervals
00:16:28
Speaker
around the clock where it gets raked. It'll get raked up and down, then it'll get raked left and right, then it'll get raked in a circle to keep the beans moving so the moisture doesn't cause any mold. Because once you get more than... Every 20 minutes for 12 to 20 days. Yeah. Yeah. And the beans are probably stacked
00:16:49
Speaker
a good four to five inches high on there. So just imagine fields and fields of cement patios. And you got one guy just walking with the rake. Yeah, just in the house. And you know, they get paid, you know, 50 cents an hour. And then he's got to turn around and go back and start from the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep them moving and they're ideal.
00:17:15
Speaker
The reason they do that is because there's moisture content inside that seed and they need to be around 11 to 13% moisture content in order for it
00:17:24
Speaker
to perform the way it's supposed to when I get it and put it in this roaster. 11 to 13%. Yeah, if it's too dry, it'll be brittle, it'll break. If it's too wet, it'll take too long to roast and you get the mossy, moldy, gray, hay, flavors. So yeah, you can't have too much moisture, you can't have too little. 11 to 13% is a sweet spot and they are surgeons when it comes to that.
00:17:51
Speaker
Wow. So then it all gets bagged up to you. Yeah, then it gets bagged up. It's bagged up and stored in the warehouse from the warehouse on a truck, on a truck to the port, from the port on a boat, on a boat to port here, port to truck, truck to warehouse, warehouse to the seller, seller to me.
00:18:12
Speaker
Got it. And then what do you do to it? I know adding fire is a big part of it. You mentioned that a little earlier. How do you take the raw bean and turn it into a roasted coffee? What's the process behind that? Yeah. So I take the raw bean, I put six pounds of raw beans into this hopper right there. Then I drop the beans and it goes, falls into this drum where there's a drum that spins in circles. And down underneath here,
00:18:40
Speaker
There's four or five different units where flames come out. And I control the flame, I control the fan, and I control... I don't control the speed of the drum, but it's continuously moving. So the fire is coming down from underneath while the beans are inside, rotating. And yeah, it's a very, very sensitive process of roasting the coffee because kind of like grilling a steak,
00:19:05
Speaker
If you put a steak on the grill, if that grill isn't preheated, you're going to take forever on that steak and it's not going to be good. If that grill is way too hot, then you better be good enough to know that, okay, some of that heat is going to continue to cook that steak. And if you leave it on there too long, it's going to be dry. You're going to have a well done steak and that's not good. So the ideal temperatures to have it when you first put the beans in is different than the heat when the beans have to come out.
Benefits of Coffee Subscriptions
00:19:31
Speaker
So it's very, it's very tricky because it's kind of like baking in that sense to where, again, if you don't have a preheated oven, you can't put cupcakes in there until it's at the right temperature. You know, 200 degree oven is not going to make a cupcake, a 400 degree temperature oven is going to burn that cupcake.
00:19:49
Speaker
One of the things that we're noticing a lot, Dave and I noticed a lot in 2022, is the idea of buyer awareness that people want it to be as easy as possible. And there's this sort of Amazon effect where people are realizing that if they can get on a subscription, then they don't have to worry about things.
00:20:08
Speaker
So like i always need contact lens stuff and you know it's been the kiss of death for me is that anytime i take my contacts out i'm i'm almost universally out of contact lens solution so the way i solve that was like you know i have a service now and a lot of people have those kind of services where.
00:20:26
Speaker
they're just getting things sent down on a regular basis. And that's something you do, the subscription model. So how does that work for you? Oh, yes, exactly. That was the whole idea, the whole concept behind Idioma was a subscription-based
00:20:42
Speaker
coffee delivery system. When I was going through culinary school in Chicago, that's when the Ubers started coming out and that was brand new. You could summon a car from your phone before you had to walk out to the street, wave in the cold, get a cab and you're good. But with Uber,
00:20:59
Speaker
You use your phone, right? They come to your house, you're not in the elements for more than 30 seconds, just what it takes to get leave the door into their car. And so I thought, well, shoot, if you can summon a car from your phone, why can't you summon coffee? So yeah, I just stole that idea. So the whole the whole premise behind Idioma was have it be ready on your handheld device. So just a few clicks away, you're getting coffee delivered to your house.
00:21:28
Speaker
And that was the whole concept. And with the farmers in mind, people get good quality coffee, they don't have to worry about going to the store running out of product. That same issue that you had, Trigby, is the reason I started this. Because yeah, you don't have to worry about it. It's just going to show up. That's what subscription is. Yeah, everybody
Coffee Flavor Pairings
00:21:49
Speaker
wins. Everybody wins. Farmers win, customer wins.
00:21:52
Speaker
Medioma wins. Absolutely. But it seems like one of the things that you do as part of building the relationship that leads to the subscription is you tell an amazing story. I mean, obviously you're a storyteller. We've been captivated already by just listening to you tell us how all of the beans come to be. And as I'm perusing the website and looking at your social media, it's clear that
00:22:15
Speaker
your gifted with sharing what the flavor and that's probably part of your Q certification right where you can say you know this is where it comes from and this is what it tastes like and this is the craft or the personality that goes into it. How did you do that to build the narrative of your business while continuing to grow and and kind of connect with customers.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. Yeah, no, great. Thank you for asking that, Dave. The culinary school, it was a lot of food and wine. Wine, pairings, wine, everything. Why does a certain wine taste the way it does with a certain, another element you put onto it, whether it's a steak, a fish, whatever. But then when you just talk about wine, there's so much language that's being translated through wine. So if you have a Napa Valley Cabernet,
00:23:12
Speaker
and a Cabernet grape from France, those are two completely different wines even though they're exact same grape. So what's different? Well, the terroir, right? So that means everything around those vineyards, the rain, the sun, the slope, the soil,
00:23:29
Speaker
Everything that is around it makes a difference in the taste of that wine, even though it's the same exact grape. So when I get a coffee from Central America, they're pretty similar. They're going to be all your nuts, your chocolatey type flavors. Your Colombians are going to be your dried fruit, maybe a little bit of chocolate in there. And then East Africans are going to be on the sweeter side. It's your berries, your honeys.
00:23:52
Speaker
And that's just based on their terroir. It's the exact same thing. So when it comes to talking about different coffees, it's getting closer to how people talk about wine.
00:24:04
Speaker
Well, people are geeking out. They are very passionate of the wine that they drink. Like some people say, I drink red wine, I drink white wine. Well, no, another saying, no, I drink a Cabernet from Napa, or I drink a Riesling from Germany. They're getting specific as to what they are drinking. And that's what's happening in the coffee world right now.
00:24:23
Speaker
I suppose there's just as much geekery about preparation as there is sourcing beans, right? What's your recommended? Is it pour over? Is it French press? Is it percolator? What's the best? That's like asking who the best superhero is.
00:24:44
Speaker
Like, you can't say that out loud. Or do you actually like to pair specific coffees with specific preparations? Yeah, for sure. Everything from the roast. I did a cupping earlier today, just because I had a Guatemalan honey that I got in this year's harvest and it looked different. The actual bean before it was roasted, it looked different. So I cupped it.
00:25:06
Speaker
And I had it roasted a certain different... I had it roasted to 401 degrees, 413 degrees, and 414 degrees, just to see how that changed. Now, when I go to grind it, well, if it's going to be in a French press, it's going to be a coarse grind. If it's going to be in a percolator, it's going to be a medium grind. If it's going to be in an espresso, that's going to be a finer grind. All those different things matter. You can't put a coarse grind coffee into an espresso machine and vice versa.
00:25:36
Speaker
And that's just the grind. Then you got temperature of the water. Are you using 204 degrees water? Are you using 212? We all know it boils at 212, right? 212, you're boiling it. That's too hot. You're going to burn the coffee.
Business Growth & Community Impact
00:25:51
Speaker
You don't want that 204 is where you want to be. And then you go to the quality of the water.
00:25:57
Speaker
So is it tap water? Is it reverse osmosis water? Is it water that you boil three different times to try to get all the impurities out of it? All these things make a difference.
00:26:09
Speaker
All those different attributes to making coffee, it's going to be on an individual basis. Okay. I can speak to that because I called him one day and I've been a long time subscriber and that's how I met him. I said, hey, coffee's a little weird and he's like, well, have you tried better water?
00:26:31
Speaker
So I was like, what do you mean better water? He's like, yeah, I need better water. So I went to the store and I was one of those guys with the empty milk jug and got the gallon of distilled water. My wife's like, this is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy. And then she drank it and went.
00:26:47
Speaker
We're getting water on a weekly basis now, aren't we? So we actually get four gallons of water every week because he's right. There's such a market difference between the two. Yeah. So dig down a little bit deeper on that question, Dave. Drink what you like. If you like French press, if you like AeroPress, a percolator, I mean, shoot, whatever you like, do it. If you want to take your sweet time and do a pour over,
00:27:13
Speaker
By all means, knock yourself out. The character of the coffee is going to be however much effort you put into it. On the weekends, me and my wife, we take our time. We do a pour over or we'll do a French press. During the week, we have a machine that does our espresso. It's an automatic espresso machine. It's just a matter of how you want to drink it. It's good. Sure.
00:27:40
Speaker
My first reaction with Obed's coffee is I was like, okay, well, I'll try this because my wife finally said I'm sick of all the coffee. So we got some, and I had been drinking a 32 ounce coffee every morning and I was like, okay, fine. So we did the normal thing. We put the beans directly in and then I had the 32 ounces of coffee and then about four hours later, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
00:28:07
Speaker
Because the caffeine differential from what I was drinking, from what I did, I literally took the dog for a walk and I was in the middle of February in a Minnesota winter screaming like Ric Flair.
00:28:20
Speaker
just going, whoo, because I had to get it out of me because I had so much. So the direct-to-consumer route, I mean, this is really farm-the-cup. The difference maker is not only worth the value, but to be able to turn around and help farmers, too, is amazing.
00:28:41
Speaker
So Dave, you're going to ask a question. Sorry about that. And Obed, you have a fantastic story. You have an amazing pedigree on where you've come from. And one of the key things that we try to do and dial it in is elicit from our guests how they're improving their business and where their goals are for growth.
00:29:04
Speaker
So where are you going and how do you make those small adjustments to keep improving? Oh, for sure. There's two prongs to that. The first one is coffee is ever changing.
00:29:18
Speaker
just like wine. The example I gave earlier today, the Guatemalan honey that was harvested this year was different than the one from last year. And I was able to kind of mimic the same profile of last year's harvest just based on the control I did with the roaster. So the customers that I have right now that prefer that the deeper flavored Guatemalan honey, I can duplicate it even though
00:29:39
Speaker
It was from a different harvest and everything was different about it. That's keeping me experimenting with the coffee beans. I'm not going to get bored with it. It's going to change every year, every single time. And then the second one is that's on my side.
00:29:55
Speaker
I have an opportunity with what I'm doing to bring people and share with them what it is I'm doing, and I'm giving them first-hand experience by taking them to Origin. So in January, I'm actually taking 15 people to Guatemala.
00:30:13
Speaker
and it's going to be a coffee immersion trip. It's going to be coffee tasting, coffee cupping, coffee picking. We're going to talk to the farmers. We're going to do a couple of hikes up a volcano. We're going to be there eating the food and the money that like the Guatemala coffee that I have here, you're going to see where that money goes to. There's actually a woman center that we're going to be visiting
00:30:34
Speaker
And they teach young females at an early age to be self-sufficient, teach them how to cook, teach them how to sew, teach them all these things. And when you see that firsthand, it's different than anything I can say to you. So I'm taking 15 people down on the
00:30:51
Speaker
just on my passion that they will come back and be not necessarily as passionate as me, but become ambassadors for what it is Edioma is doing. Not necessarily just Edioma, but for all coffee farmers throughout the world. Because it's the same story everywhere you go. They're not getting paid. They need help. And they're producing a crop that is the second most commodity trade behind oil.
00:31:16
Speaker
And that money hasn't gone up. I think they're still around $1 right now. It's crazy.
Guatemalan Honey Coffee
00:31:22
Speaker
So opening that eyes, that's how I'm going to grow. I want to take people down there and have ambassadors for me to help us grow, help the farmers grow. And it's bigger than you and I, Dave.
00:31:32
Speaker
and building a community of people that care about certainly the mission and helping you forward that. So I love that you're taking it three steps past. I just want to make more money. No, I want to impact the world. And that's really what people resonate with.
00:31:53
Speaker
It ties in with your brand, you know, Idioma language, and it ties in with how you're connecting and the descriptions of the coffee and the different products and the subscription. I mean, you're really inviting people to join your family.
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, awesome. Thank you. Yes, that's the growth is to kind of bring this to the forefront. And yeah, yeah, the crusade. I want to do a couple of cheap pops before we take a little break because I and then we have a rapid fire quiz. Yeah, we're through what Dave and I are both really excited about. So you've mentioned Guatemalan honey.
00:32:28
Speaker
twice now. And I have the privilege of being the first in line for the Guatemalan honey. So can you tell Dave and tell our listeners, when you say Guatemalan honey, what is that? Because it's amazing. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. Alright, so Guatemalan honey, when they pick the coffee off the tree, they put it through the machine, the machine takes the skin off, and then it takes the flesh off and you dry the seed. With Guatemalan honey, Guatemalan honey, they take the skin off, but they leave the flesh on to dry it.
00:32:58
Speaker
So that means all those sugars are going to be dried with the seed intact. So when they're raking the coffee, and at that point, it's only two inches thick that they do it. And that's every 12 minutes for 20 to 30 days.
00:33:13
Speaker
because there's so much more moisture content. It's a lot more invasive process, a lot more sensitive because there's more activity for mold to grow. And that sweetness, you can taste it in the cup. That sweetness that sticks to the seed, and then it gets sent to me. I wish I could show you a photo of it. It's completely different than what the other coffees look like, but you can taste it in the cup. And there's a saying in the coffee industry, the truth is in the cup. Just, yeah.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yes. So second thing I wanted to ask you Obed was about the trip. And this is such an amazing, immersive experience to be able to expand the community and create that ambassadorship and see directly how something as small as where you buy your coffee from makes such a huge difference. Somebody wants to know more information about that trip or go on that trip with you. How did they do that?
Exploring Coffee Drinks
00:34:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah, super quick, super easy. Go to my website, hit contact and shoot me a quick note and I'll get you everything you need. All the information. EdiomaCoffee.com, right? EdiomaCoffee.com. Yes, sir. Awesome. All right. Now, let's see how good this guy really is, Dave. We have pulled up the Starbucks menu.
00:34:25
Speaker
And we're going to ask you about all their specialty coffees and see if you can. I got to admit, I know what I like when I go there, but I don't know what any of these other things are. So hopefully this is educational and helpful. Because I think what's amazing is it's coffee, it's milk, and it's some variation flavor. But let's do this as our lightning round. So what is a Cafe Americano? Americano is equal parts coffee and water.
00:34:56
Speaker
A little bit more hot water, but yeah, for the most part, yeah. It's watered down coffee. It's watered down coffee. Yep. Yeah, that's it. Just watering coffee. Okay. All right. What's a Cafe Misto? Cafe Misto? Misto? M-I-S-T-O? M-I-S-T-O.
00:35:15
Speaker
Ah, that's probably something they do. I don't know. Okay. All right. Well, we'll skip over that because we don't want to advertise for it. So what's a cappuccino? Oh, cappuccino. That is where you put the coffee at the bottom of it and then you put water. Actually, you know what? No, it's foam. It's foam. It's foam in the cup and then your special shot over the top.
00:35:37
Speaker
Oh, okay. And as opposed to a latte? As opposed to latte where you put the shot of espresso on the bottom and you put not foamy milk, but steamed milk over the top.
00:35:50
Speaker
Espresso, for those people who don't know, everybody kind of knows that espresso is a massive caffeine injection. But what's the difference between that? How does one get to espresso as opposed to just traditional coffee? Oh, sure. Yeah. So a traditional coffee is going to have a certain grind size. And there is extraction that is done by adding water to those beans or to those grounds. And the amount of time you add to it, that's what you extract.
00:36:18
Speaker
Whereas an espresso is a finer grind and they use pressure to push that water through and that's how you get the espresso shot. So if you think about it, if you have the same amount of rocks and you pulverize those rocks and you pour water over the exact same weight of rocks and you add the same water to it, you're going to have a watered down
00:36:44
Speaker
coffee when you go over the boulders and you're going to have a really, really concentrated water when you go through the pulverized rocks. Right? Yeah. And you're like squeezing it like a lemon or something to get more juice out of it, right? Yes, exactly. All right. What's a flat white? The flat white is espresso with steamed milk.
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's creamy, rather than, it's not frothy, like the cappuccino, and kind of like steamed milk from the bottom of the jug instead of from the top. When you're up barista, yeah, it changes up a little bit. Okay. What's a macchiato? Macchiato. Long macchiato.
00:37:36
Speaker
It's just steamed milk and an espresso, kind of the same, right? But a lot of times there's syrups that are added to it.
00:37:46
Speaker
Oh, sure. Yeah, that makes sense.
Roasting & Flavor Impact
00:37:48
Speaker
So like flavored syrups. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a it's a it's a cappuccino with flavor. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. So what's a mocha? That's what I that's my that's my drink. Yeah, it's just you add chocolate. You can add chocolate, you know, cocoa powder, you can add chocolate ice cream. Oh, that's that's a good one. Starbucks, I don't think has this. It's called an affogato.
00:38:16
Speaker
And this one is you put a scoop of ice cream with a shot of espresso over the top of it. Oh, Lord. Sounds amazing. Right? Yeah. Hot espresso or cold espresso? Hot. Hot. Uh-huh.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah, I'm gonna get a little elementary for you, I fear, but what's the difference between dark roast and medium roast coffee? Is one more caffeinated or what are the differences in roast? Yeah, I get that question so often.
00:38:53
Speaker
The caffeine content is the same, whether it's light, medium, or dark. There's a misconception that people say, yeah, well, it's the darker the being, the more caffeine. It's like, no. What happens is the weight.
00:39:08
Speaker
when the beans first go into the hopper, they have a certain weight. I'm going to lose 18% of the bean content just by the roasting process. So it's going to release moisture. It's going to release its outer skin. So that weight becomes a little bit lighter. So by weight, it has more caffeine because there's less weight coffee. When it's first in there, it's a heavier bean with the same amount of caffeine. But if you take a little bit of that weight, it's going to
00:39:36
Speaker
The misconception is that it has more caffeine, but it's just that there's less coffee by weight to the same amount of caffeine.
00:39:43
Speaker
Ah, okay. So when it comes to light, medium, and dark, there's certain points in the coffee where when I'm roasting it, there's a first pop that sounds like popcorn, sounds like this. And that's the beginning of the light roast. And then after that's done, it takes about maybe a minute or so for that to be finished. And then it goes through, and then there will be another. It'll sound like Rice Krispies. And that's a
00:40:10
Speaker
Sounds like Rice Krispies, right? Instead of popcorn, real loud, it's Rice Krispies, but it's still another pop. And that's the beginning of the Dark Roast. So it's the matter of... And then medium is right in between those two. Okay. First crack, second crack, medium roast. I didn't really realize... I'm just in awe of how complicated it was. Yeah. Hey, it's my language, train me. Absolutely.
Cold Brew & Nitro Brewing
00:40:36
Speaker
You speak it well.
00:40:38
Speaker
All right, I think what is a cold brew as opposed to a hot brew? Oh, yeah. So coffee has natural oils. Yeah, it just has natural oils. So if you heat your water up, let's say you heat it up to 204 versus 212, you're going to extract more oil with the hotter water. And sometimes if it's too hot of water, you're going to burn those oils. So those oils come out and they're going to come out quick.
00:41:06
Speaker
With a cold press, which means you add just room temperature water, right? You add it to the beans and you steep it kind of like you do a tea. So it's a subtle way of extracting those oils. And because you're not extracting out all the oils, it's going to lead to a sweeter cup. Because it's not going to be as bitter. Oh, yeah. And is nitro brew just basically attacking it like a Guinness and and throwing nitrogen in it?
00:41:32
Speaker
That's exactly what it is. I work with a brewery that has the coffee on tap, a nitro cold-pressed coffee, and that's exactly what they do. I roast a coffee because what they do is they can add a shot of the nitro-pressed coffee, and then they put a lit beer over the top of it, so it's a coffee-infused beer.
00:41:57
Speaker
When I roast it, I got to be sure to not have so much acidity that it fights with the acidity of their beer. So I got to be careful to not overdo it, but definitely don't underdo it because that's where the acidity lives. So I got to be somewhere between here to where they can actually taste the good coffee, not be too acidic for their beer, but be acidic enough to where somebody can taste it straight up. And that nitro process gives it that Guinness body. Yes, it's a great way of drinking coffee. Fantastic way of drinking coffee.
00:42:26
Speaker
Because it's cold-pressed, it's diluted.
Bourbon-Infused Coffee
00:42:30
Speaker
It can hit you. It can hit you.
00:42:35
Speaker
And I want to talk about one last thing before we go, because I've been privileged to enjoy some of your bad scientist coffee. Talk about the bourbon coffee that you made. Oh, yeah. All right. Yeah. So that one was fun. There's another brewery that I partnered up with, and they were interested in doing a bourbon infused coffee. And so yeah, this was maybe about two, three years ago. And at the time, it was only about a three year process.
00:43:03
Speaker
We got some local bourbon barrels from a local distillery and I ordered some coffee from my guy. It was a Rwandan coffee and we chose a Rwandan coffee because it had notes of tobacco and chocolate in there. So the bourbon barrel is empty. There's no booze in it. And so I loaded the barrel with these Rwandan coffees. They would turn it every so often for about maybe 30 to 45 days.
00:43:34
Speaker
And then once that process was done, I would roast it and it took on the bourbon notes. So you had bourbon flavored coffee and yeah, that would be a good affogato right there. It was one of the most unbelievable taste experiences I've ever
Final Thoughts & Community Impact
00:43:52
Speaker
had.
00:43:52
Speaker
So I do woodworking in my spare time, but it actually gave me the barrel. I tried to honor the coffee and honor the idioma process. So what I did is I turned those into table settings in the middle and then I gave them all to a local television station's cancer fund. And he actually, even after the barrel was all deconstructed and I created these table stakes
00:44:22
Speaker
that people bought. We sold the barrel for hundreds and hundreds of dollars and all the money went to cancer research. So it was a full blown experience from the tree all the way to deconstructing the barrel. Yeah. Oh, awesome. Awesome. I love that. Love that story. Obed, thank you so much for joining us. And I don't know about you, Dave, but I think I kind of need a refill right now.
00:44:43
Speaker
I'm so glad I topped off my mug right before we started. But yeah, I need to re-brew something better, I think, because I just did my normal drip. And now I got to have some real good coffee. So I'm going to subscribe today. Awesome. Obed, thanks for joining us. Thank you, gentlemen. If you'd like to learn more about Obed and the language of coffee, visit him online at idiomockcoffee.com.