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S3E8: Steaming Controversies: Unmasking the Coffee Industry with Jo Lopez
200 Plays1 year ago
Our guest is none other than Jo Lopez (@link_is_not_the_princess), the head of coffee at a coffee company in London, who spills the beans on the recent drama brewing in the coffee industry. A rising storm in a coffee cup, the controversial Paragon chilling tool, is the hot topic; with big players attempting to freeze out smaller competitors like Squeaky Coffee with legal threats. Jo, however, isn't one to shy away from controversy and gives us the skinny on this contentious tool, just like 50percentarabica, leading us to a humorous discussion on memes that have sprung up as a form of protest against corporate bullying.
Trust us, the drama doesn't stop there. We rip back the curtain on the power dynamics at play in the industry, revealing how well-established companies are making bold moves to protect their market share. The dark side of innovation, we discuss the pattern of big companies trying to patent everything, and the ripple effects this has on small companies. Buckle up as we navigate the murky waters of influencer culture in the coffee industry, questioning the authenticity of reviews amidst sponsored content, and how this can leave consumers with a bitter taste.
So, whether you're a casual coffee drinker or a seasoned industry player, this episode promises a full-bodied blend of controversy, drama, industry insights, and personal experiences. Join us as we roast these hot topics!
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:06
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. All right. Now it's recording. Okay, good. Excellent. God. What a morning.
00:00:35
Speaker
What time is it there? Right now, it's 5.9am. Okay. Yeah. How are you feeling? Yeah, good. Day off after a while. Finally, it was overdue.
00:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, chilling. Just cool to have a chat now. This is kind of nice. I have my coffee ready. Okay, good. Cheers. Happened to come out quite nicely, actually. And yeah, very good. I think it's the first time I use the podcast microphone with somebody else. Just myself. You look professional. Oh, thank you.
00:01:16
Speaker
All
Role of Head of Coffee at Intermission
00:01:17
Speaker
right, Joe. Joe Lopez, right? You're a bass in London. Yes. I am bass in London. What do you do? Are you a barista? I am technically not a barista. I am head of coffee off, um, the place I work at, uh, intermission coffee here in London. And basically do every step as well as
00:01:40
Speaker
that complained by one of the owners in the roaster, basically everything from selecting what greens we're getting till, you know, to up to when you get sort of your flat white or dry soy cappuccino in all those steps.
00:02:00
Speaker
Okay, so what is that position called? So that's head of coffee? Head of coffee, okay. Great, so now burst that. You passed the first question. Thank you. Yes. We got to know you through the lately coffee drama in a community. What do you call that, the coffee meme? Yeah. It seems to... You're doing similar things to 50% Arabica.
00:02:26
Speaker
Um, yeah, you know, I love Alan. I love, I love the guy and definitely, um, it was, it was an inspiration, you know, uh, I've got to met Alan in person a few times. He's not just like super funny, but also like a super kind, you know, true guy. And then he's just basically share the same value in terms of like, we just.
00:02:51
Speaker
try to look for social justice by creating memes and laughing at things, like exposing how ridiculous some things can be.
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have never met Alan in real life, but we've been following him for a long time. And we know that all brands, no one can escape. No. I mean, earlier we saw a lot of posts about 90 plus coffee, you know, swimming in the river and brewing coffee.
00:03:22
Speaker
I felt that you also have a few posts about it. So those are mine. Those are actually mine. I just share the posts with Alan, but those actually, if you check the posts, it's actually uploaded by me.
00:03:39
Speaker
Wow. Wow. It's really that's your daily dose of happiness actually. Just check the pose in the morning. You have a good day. You have a good life. Yeah.
Legal Conflict: Nucleus/Paragon vs. Kwiki Coffee
00:03:50
Speaker
All right. So the reason why we watch it today is we want to know more about what's really happening lately with the Sasha and the metal ball Paragon and with this is creaky coffee from Thailand, I guess, or Vietnam. I don't know what's really going on. Yes. I believe they're from Thailand.
00:04:09
Speaker
Yes, so basically what happened is the guys at Kwiki Coffee by the way, which by the way happened to be like these fantastic human beings. They have created a tool that attached to the bottom of your bottom less border filter.
00:04:26
Speaker
that you can set a metal whiskey bowl that you would normally do it raise the bowl and then put it in there and that will chill your espresso acid brews. This is being done for like
00:04:45
Speaker
decades like these these have started being done like 30 years ago with people with like frozen cups or like tried just whiskey stones from the freezer to cool down the espressos
00:04:59
Speaker
But what's changed now is that Nucleus and Mr Sasser have created Paragon. What is Paragon? Paragon is a tool, a brewing tool. It's basically a stand that has different levels and one of the levels holds a frozen ice bowl.
00:05:21
Speaker
And then in some other level you will put a cup, you will put a brewer, a colicle brewer, and then they call in chilling extraction parabung.
00:05:34
Speaker
Right, so Mr. Sasson, the guys of created Paragon and new clues, didn't really like the idea of somebody else creating another tool that could work really well, but on Espresso rather than filter.
00:05:52
Speaker
So what they try to do here is scare the little guys with lawyers and you know taking legal action as you know as as they do and basically try and ask them to stop production immediately or otherwise it will wow recur to.
00:06:13
Speaker
to take legal actions, which is the classic story where she's seeing the bullying somebody that
00:06:24
Speaker
seemingly below you will work and that the whole thing will end there. What happened really was that the coffee community, as fantastic as it is, took part in this and me as well as Alan, 50% of Africa, or as well as many other people, started to criticise in this and obviously fight in this.
00:06:48
Speaker
Basically about making means to make it sound and look as ridiculous as it really was. Because someone really saying, I've invented this stand with literally just a whiskey rock that happens to be a sphere. And for him to say like, no, no, no, every method that you use to chill your coffee,
00:07:13
Speaker
It's covered by a patent. Wow. And you should stop production right now. You should not be doing these at all. Um, otherwise we're going to take legal action and take you down. And these are the messages from like sassing themselves from new clues or from Paragon. Like the big guys, the big companies, the big Instagram accounts asking for emails, asking for everything. What happened in the background and what Paragon didn't say is that they actually haven't yet got patent.
00:07:43
Speaker
So they have applied for it. It's still pending patent. Yes, it's pending. So it will be now a shame if suddenly all the coffee community agreed to go and vote against that patent and they couldn't get it, which can still happen. So we all were to agree to stop Sasa from getting patent. We could do it. So, you know, it'd be a shame for him.
00:08:13
Speaker
I do think that will be like the greatest meme of all time. Who is a champion? I mean, I know that's really bad news for him, right? Well, he had everything just because he got greedy. He could lose it. And I think I do think it will be like the greatest meme of all time in terms of coffee. Like I had everything and I wanted more and now I got nothing because they got against me. So basically what squeaky coffee has been doing, like,
00:08:40
Speaker
They've been checking the patent. So I have I, uh, I actually got the email with all the documents and everything. I checked everything. And so technically what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what the patent says is that they have, they have applied for a pattern that will only cover that specific apparatus, like that specific gadget and all the conical brewers.
00:09:07
Speaker
that's it not even expressed that's really all that he says not even and so what they are which country i believe they are from let me say i don't want to i don't want to say it wrong anyway it's not taiwan which is the one squeaky off he's from um yeah this is it well you know the whole thing just reminds me uh what happened earlier that we
00:09:31
Speaker
We're supposed from onesie presser, right? Someone else just saw them that you had to take down all your products from European shop because the hand grinder paid and stuff. And then I even remembered that Lance Hendrick made a post about it, right? But then after that, just we didn't hear anything. I don't know what happened after that. But yeah, they just went quiet. And they always do this. It was like, ooh, we made a mess. But the whole thing about this paragon now is
00:09:59
Speaker
It's all OK now, right? It seems because we saw the post today that they sent... Yeah, so in my opinion, by the way, Nucleus
Community Support for Kwiki Coffee
00:10:11
Speaker
is from Poland. Just checked. OK. So the patterns will only be...
00:10:18
Speaker
valid in Poland. So yeah, what basically is happening is now they saw the flames going up and they saw everyone like taking part in these, everyone like siding with squeaky coffee, obviously, because they're just like a small company. They're just trying to make certain things more accessible. And they're doing, I don't know if you've seen the actual thing, but it's super cool. This is a super cool idea.
00:10:44
Speaker
It's super simple because you can use it. It's like a cron, right? It looks like the Pope's hat. It's great. And you know what, I'm sorry, but you can buy whiskey bowls for like ยฃ16 in like $20 in Amazon.
00:11:03
Speaker
They were invented before this and so what happened is now. Paragon and nucleus and sasa realize how bad they're looking right now so they saw okay well let's. Let's make a statement let's say we sorry let's say that some people in our company and taking.
00:11:20
Speaker
matters too far or whatever, that we're really sorry that we didn't mean it to go this way with some means to understand it, which is not true because it was like these accounts are probably directed to any message that comes out of these accounts probably go through SaaSaa first.
00:11:39
Speaker
I don't think someone that has created this much of an empire. It's so dumb to just go like, yeah, yeah, you message whatever you want, make my company look bad. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. I don't need to know what you're messaging. That's completely okay. We're not stupid, man. We know you're behind this. And yeah, I'm happy to see that just by some humor and some memes and getting coffee communities together.
00:12:07
Speaker
all of us acting together as one, which is the beauty of this industry. We managed to, in only two days, make them, as we say in Spain, put their tail in between their legs.
Impact of Patents on Coffee Industry
00:12:20
Speaker
It was a big bully move from them.
00:12:24
Speaker
So now what's happening is they're trying to make it look like, oh, it was a misunderstanding, but I'm sure in the background, they are still working on how can we get the monopoly of chilling extraction. And I'm sure this is not the end of it. There's no way.
00:12:39
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think it is the end, right? It can't be. Because it seems too quick to have a conclusion already. Because he escalated very fast. Like, they were serious about this. It's not. Yeah. So they obviously now are like, you know, we were joking. You need to be mad at us. I promise you, please continue buying our stuff.
00:13:02
Speaker
But then in the background, they're probably still talking to lawyers. And then I'm showing within a week, we'll see more things happening. There's no way they're going to stop here. Because he's shown before he's a greedy man. OK, tell me more about it. I really don't know much about this. There is. And I could say, obviously, I'm not going to compromise anyone.
00:13:26
Speaker
but I could direct you to people that work for him say like yeah he's got big plans like this or he's not the first time he's done this he's done it to even smaller guys that hadn't had a chance because at least squeaky coffee has like a big account well big account yeah and he's got they gotta be follow and they happen to have done the right thing and take it or everything public everything to social media but there has been
00:13:52
Speaker
some of the companies that had very few followers or they had hardly any money like and they whatever they had they were investing it on creating these products and they have been shut down. Which I'm happy to you know reach and direct to you if you want to speak to them but this is not the first time this is just the first time that has been done public.
00:14:14
Speaker
This is like, and same with, as you said, commandante grinder. I'm sorry if I'm giving brands, but I don't think nobody listens to these, that doesn't know what happened. So commandante basically started suing, threatening with lawsuits, certain companies that were also doing grinders. They were, and they were saying that they had the patterns for the shape of the crank that commandante does, which isn't true.
00:14:43
Speaker
You know there were many attempts or many companies doing that type of crank or a type of grinder. Comandante just happened to do it better at some point and they got bigger. But again they got greedy they probably saw some threats from some of the companies.
00:15:01
Speaker
And what they started doing is doing the same thing that these gentlemen's assets been doing. It's sending message privately through email or through Instagram accounts and basically saying, if you don't stop production right now, we're going to lawsuit you.
00:15:17
Speaker
And that's that. No, no, please no, thank you. But I guess this is the only way they can protect their own products or market, right? Because Hanggrinder, I mean, since we talk about Commodendent now, we know that there's a copycat is like the same as Commodendent. I don't remember the name of that one. I don't know. I think that's the best meme ever in the COVID world. Absolutely. Every dude is like the same grinder. Absolutely. We'll just change the name and like 10 times cheaper.
00:15:45
Speaker
And I heard that grinding works very well. Yeah. And I love when things like this happen. It's great. Because not long ago, there was another company, Gabby. So there is this thing called the Gabby Brewer.
00:16:01
Speaker
It's a three-part brewer that you basically pour water on the top in like a cone that distributes it to like a shower screen and that goes onto a calita sort of thing and that goes to a brewer, to a carafe. It's very good, I have one, I really enjoy it. But then I think the same company that was making them for them, they started actually also just not branding them and then selling them
00:16:29
Speaker
like AliExpress and Wish and pages like this and apps like this for like a third or fourth of the price, a fraction. So things that were costing like 30 pounds, 40 pounds, 50 pounds were costing 10, 5, 10, and they were exactly the same thing. Except for like maybe some design arrangements or like some, obviously the branding wasn't there, that would have been stupid.
00:16:57
Speaker
And the Gabby came out on Instagram saying like, they bought, which I think is hilarious. So they bought the fake one and they put it side to side with their products to compare and say, this is the fake one. This is the, uh, the real one. Um, what I thought he was hilarious is that they only shown packaging because the only difference really was the package. Anything else was exactly the same.
00:17:23
Speaker
So they were like, don't buy this one, because the box is different. It's not good. The box says different things, do ours, then get this one. Get ours, get the expensive one. Which is fair, because they've created a product, and they obviously did so. Invested loads of money on that, and then some branding. So it's very upsetting. But this is different. This is like, I'm doing something that is very unique, like Paragon Inst.
00:17:49
Speaker
that I'm never kind of like the whole idea of the whole set. I think it looks nice and all that. I never understood the whole set. But again, it's a very interesting idea. It's probably, I have tried Bruce with Paragon and without Paragon.
00:18:06
Speaker
Yeah, I guess you can identify certain differences. But however, you cannot expect the world to stop just because you've done that, and people to not try and attempt to get better versions of what you've done, because that's progress.
00:18:22
Speaker
That's why we drink Arabica and not Robusta, because at some point someone said, by the way, this is better. And Robusta didn't come out and say, yeah, you can't do that because we've been doing it for a long time. You better stop that. Stop drinking your nice coffee and get to this black stuff. It's called progress. And some people are going to try to copy you. That means you're doing something well, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Even though one copy you means there's no market, right?
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, if nobody copies you, it means that you should be the one stopping it. Because if no one's copying you, it means there's no good. I've seen people doing like training for a brewer's cup using a metal sieve and like a whiskey rock, putting that on top of the brewer and putting a V6C on top of that. So it's like, what's that? Like a five pound setup. And they were doing the same thing. Like it's silly. So now
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah, I don't come around saying we invented this because it's not true. It simply isn't. Is that what I told you over Instagram? Like if Nike came out now and say, yeah, you can't wear socks because that's not right.
00:19:31
Speaker
If you want something for your food, you need to wear our shoes. But we invented footwear. So you can't wear socks, mate. That's a copy. You need to stop production of that. Yeah, and it's kind of silly. Kind of sad to see this, right? I mean, in recent years, we know that patent is a big deal, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, which is pandemic. And we know how much money they earn, those big brands, their own drugs. But of course, millions of people die because they could afford expensive drugs they have.
00:20:00
Speaker
But I mean, now it's in the coffee world. It makes sense for a business to use patent to protect their market. But if you say, okay, you cannot use this because we invented or we just bought the same thing for us about industry and then now you cannot use it. That's my ball. You cannot touch it. Don't touch my ball.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah, because you know, I don't know if you know that we actually, we're in China because we are producing our own grinder as well, right? We have a hand grinder. I don't know if you've heard about it. Yeah, momentum. Yeah, momentum. So I think we gotta need your help because definitely we have this to crank, you know, shape it looks like.
00:20:41
Speaker
Oh, looks similar to someone else. We need your help and Alan, you know, come together and make memes about it. Don't worry. We'll start making them now. Just put it in an archive.
00:20:54
Speaker
whenever the tie comes, we'll upload them. Just imagine that, imagine how funny it closed the circle. I go into the podcast. Yeah, I've seen it. I don't think you'd be in trouble. It'd be funny though. Yeah, but I think, you know, it's going to happen. I have a feeling that if it's not a compliment to probably someone else, we'll come up and say, hey, Mickey, you are designer grinder looks similar to ours. We're going to do a lot of memes for sure.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, I'll be there. It's all about money. It's all about money. That's the thing. And they say, and one thing that really annoys me is when they come out and to promote things is like, we're here for like the revolution and for like, but when then, when somebody else does it, it's like, no, just don't do that. No revolution for you, mate. We're the ones that do revolution. We're the ones that do new things. We did new things 20 years ago. We don't need any more.
00:21:51
Speaker
Yeah, silly. Because it's like, we want to own progress in coffee. That can't happen. There's people constantly, there's always someone that's going to do something better than you. Yeah, that is true. It's going to happen. That is why a company needs to do more, invest more in R&D and improve their product lines. Not use patent to protect their own market, but should develop better products.
00:22:17
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, it's hilarious because obviously Nucleus has, famously, has loads of money because they do all the... I don't think there's a coffee tool that they don't do or that they don't do well. They have marvellous equipment and they
00:22:40
Speaker
you know the what the NCP that me the tamper which is like hyper expensive but everyone seems to want one for some reason I don't understand that anyhow yeah they have loads of money so obviously they can pay for patents and as
00:23:00
Speaker
As Alan was saying in one of his stories the other day, which I thought it was hilarious, I'm going to try to not say some of the words he was saying because it was a bit specific. It's okay, you can say anything you wanted. Excellent. What we would say like, because if you got money, you can patent whatever you want. You can even patent the way you take a shit.
00:23:21
Speaker
And like, if anyone else does it, they're breaking your page, and you can just claim money from them. Yeah? You know, kids, if you got money, you can patent anything, the way you pee standing, anything. That's crazy.
00:23:39
Speaker
It is crazy. The fact that these guys are the world ruling the coffee industry is very scary. Yeah, but what else we can do, right, to save the community? I mean, for me, I love coffee, and I'm running on the first, we're an all-for-profit organization again, so we do a lot of things, but we raise money and a giveaway to help coffee people.
Community vs. Large Companies
00:24:01
Speaker
And then we see something like this happen in coffee industry. I feel like, what's the point of doing all of this?
00:24:06
Speaker
Like we are trying to save the coffee world and someone else ruin it. I know. It's beautiful, isn't it? It's like, I know it feels like when the barista example would be just creating like this beautiful recipe for this rare coffee that you just put in the ground there. And then someone comes in and goes, cool, can I have that with soy milk and three sugar space? It's like, why? What have I done to you?
00:24:33
Speaker
But I think I think the only way to sort of fight this is like coffee community getting together and like fighting, like not being afraid to fight the big guys. And like, like squeaky as done, take it, take it out in the public. Don't be scared of taking it out in the public. Because these big companies, the thing they're most scared of is losing popularity. Like the thing that the nucleus is more scared of is being the bad guy because they want to look good because they want to sell loads of things.
00:25:02
Speaker
So the moment they start looking bad, they obviously go back and say, oh no, sorry, we sorry.
00:25:07
Speaker
We didn't mean it that way. Sorry, please don't bully us like we were bullying you. I guess that's
Influencer Honesty in Coffee Reviews
00:25:13
Speaker
real. But I also concern that the bigger brands, they have more resources, money, and better network because they have money, so they attract a lot of champions. And champions use their products as ambassadors. And so when things like this happened, those guys with the voice, bigger guys, famous guys, champions, whatever, using their product or ambassadors, they will keep quiet all the time.
00:25:35
Speaker
Yes and this is something i see daily and i and i have seen in competition as well and in the and in the instagram sorry in the coffee instagram world see many influencers would like.
00:25:51
Speaker
hundreds of thousands of followers of, or even like dozens of thousands. And they have been sensed like the last thing from, I don't know, fellow, or I can't think of any more brands for some reason. Anyway, from any company, they get sent things. And they're like, yeah, I love this thing. Like, oh my God, have you seen it? Have you seen how nice it looks? Let's test it. Oh, it's my favorite thing ever.
00:26:19
Speaker
And then you never see them using again. So like, oh, Malconic did this. And I have to say, I have a Malconic myself. It's beautiful. I love it. It's great. But what Malconic did is send loads of Malconic X54 to big influencers rather than relevant influencers. So what they did is they took big accounts and I've seen some horrific videos like
00:26:46
Speaker
of great reviews of very thorough reviews. But then I seen some terrifying ones. I've seen some of the hashtag more conic partnership. There was this girl literally taking it out of the box and dancing around the house with it. It was like cool review. Like it's liked enough so you can dance around the house with it. Great. Thanks more conic or like.
00:27:07
Speaker
Yeah, or just taking it out of the box, putting it there, putting it around the toaster and then someone will do like a shot in a small set, not seiche.
00:27:19
Speaker
What's the Delongi? Oh, Lord. Sorry, the brand is so bad that I forgot the name. And the Delongi machine, and it will put like super coarse coffee. You make a shot with it. The shot will be like 12 seconds and the cap will be like super full. And it'll be like, Oh my God, what a great grime there. I mean, you could have done that with.
00:27:38
Speaker
a pestle and mortar, to be fair. Big companies should be careful to what they send to the home. And influencers should know their responsibilities as well towards the follow. Because, you know, if you see this world champion or this national champion of this massive TikTok influencer, who for whatever reason, and they are always saying, Oh yeah, I love this product. I love this grind. This is the best grind I've had. I love this. All this machine is amazing.
00:28:08
Speaker
There's obviously no trust from your following. They just, you're just entertaining them. But nobody trusts you. It's like, I do like Justin, Daddy got coffee. I love Justin. He's amazing. And he's really thorough with his reviews and he gets free stuff from his partners. And he will say bad things if he has to.
00:28:30
Speaker
He's very thorough in his videos, he's honest, and he does a like so. He did a review of the Pietro hand grinder, which I have tried. Goodness me, it's like grinding with a brick on your hand, but he did a review that it really is. He did a review of that, and he basically said that there's many things I don't like about this grinder, and that there's good things, but all the bad things are a much bigger pile.
00:28:55
Speaker
And I respect that, like Lars Hedrick is an absolute example of this, like he's honest to his own criteria. He took a year to make a review of the Niche Sero just because he wanted to be thorough about it. So for a year he used it. After a year and one day he did a review on that and he was like, okay, so this is why I like it. This is why I don't like it. Make up your own mind.
00:29:20
Speaker
James Hoffman actually has people reviewing stuff for him and then he does a video. How far can that really be? Do you have people reviewing stuff for you and then they tell you if it's good or not? But you can actually take, I understand he's a very busy man and he's got many things in his hands right now, fine.
00:29:39
Speaker
But then be clear, be honest with your followers, because he's, I believe, the biggest YouTube coffee people in the world. And, you know, he should be clear with his processes. He should be clear with his decision making.
00:29:57
Speaker
criteria like why I like this, why I don't like this. His videos are getting a bit crazy in my opinion. I have sort of lost interest. He just posted the one yesterday like trying every creamer for coffee. It was like, do we need this? Do we need this really? And it was for Bigger Mark and all for you, all for me. Yeah, it was like.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah, especially coffee people really care about creamers. Thank you very much, Hoffman. And then you've got people that's doing very well and is not really doing coffee content. Like Morgan drinks coffee, Morgan extra. She's fantastic. And she does, she's doing very well in the industry. Although she doesn't really post much about her opinions and she keeps it very just funny, TikTok related things. But she's doing massive thing. She's done so well in the world and burst championship.
00:30:47
Speaker
So there's no need to be posting silly things and she could. Do a good job, but she likes to keep her image just as a Tiktoker and then coffee is more like a profession, but she doesn't really involve that on her socials.
00:31:02
Speaker
I like that too. I think we've given up too much power to people with no criteria. That's bad. But that's the trend of the nowadays coffee industry or the whole everywhere. I mean, everybody wants to be an influencer, right? So you can get free stuff.
00:31:18
Speaker
I mean, all the names you just mentioned, they're like the
Challenges of Brand Partnerships
00:31:21
Speaker
big guys. Everybody knows them. They have a lot of followers and companies will call them and email them. Hey, can we give you this? You can make a review. Here's $2,000 or $3,000. I don't know how much they charge for a video. But for the small influencers, like mini tiny ones around the world, let's say we have one or two guys from Azerbaijan.
00:31:43
Speaker
You know, the coffee community probably very small. You never heard about it. But probably one or two guys are big, but cannot compare with James Hoffman or someone else. They want to get freestyle as well, so they can review. Maybe they want to share with their local coffee community. But for the smaller ones,
00:31:59
Speaker
is hard for them to get free stuff. And they don't have enough money to do reviews like the bigger ones. So I think they kind of got stuck in the situation. I want something, but I cannot say my complete thoughts about it, right? Because if you say something bad about this brand, maybe the other brands, be careful that guy, he talk truth. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we don't want anyone honest in here. So who, what do we trust nowadays? Like we see, suddenly we see a new brand coming in the market. Everybody's using it, all your friends around you.
00:32:29
Speaker
they use it, because they just send these small samples to everyone for free. And then everybody using it, you think, oh, you should have got one, right? Yeah. That is such a problem right now, because so many things. I'm just going to set an example here. And I want to say I'm neutral in this class. I haven't tried it myself. But the new Fellow Scale, I can't remember the name of it. It's the sort of round one with a square base. I don't know. It looks ugly.
00:32:59
Speaker
That's all I can say. However, that's just my perception of it. Doesn't mean it's ugly. It just looks ugly to me. Fellow is famously known for doing very nice things. They'll be too pricey. It's fine. They can afford it. But they do very nice equipment. Very nice glassware. They do very nice, you know, kettles are probably
00:33:23
Speaker
still number one till this day. I prefer Barista or Felicita because I like wider spouts because I agitate a lot. But for someone who has to like slow, poor and more gentle, fellow is the way to go. But yeah, they did the scale. They chipped into the scale game and they started sending scales to a few influencers.
00:33:45
Speaker
You have a few guys here in the UK that got one, a few I know, not personally. They both got big by buying followers first and then sort of suddenly the following dropped down. And it's so easy to tell because you just need to play people that follow them and then see how often you see like a fake account.
00:34:13
Speaker
It's normally like no profile picture, weird name, no followers on that account. Yeah. So they've just been buying followers, which is fine. If that's what you want is just loads of followers. That's fine. But then they got the scale, they reviewed it, say, this is so beautiful. This is so nice. I love this. It's super nice. Then post the video. I don't know if they get paid or not. I don't think so. Cause you know, they're not big enough to yet get money from that.
00:34:41
Speaker
and I have then spoke with a few of them say what you really think of this and they're like yeah I don't really like it or I don't like the way it looks or it feels clumsy it it feels cheap
00:34:55
Speaker
And I'm like, why not just say it on the review? Oh, no, I can't say man. I can't say that man. Cause they won't send me more stuff. So you just doing this for, you know, you're just doing this for the free equipment. Like how greedy can you get? Did you just want free scales? Did you want free grinders? Like how many do you need really?
00:35:14
Speaker
I do get free stuff just because I work as a content creator for certain companies. I do stuff for Hario, I do stuff for Comandante. By the way, I have been teaching on them, so I hope that doesn't... Sorry guys, it's okay, they know me. And I do get things for that.
00:35:36
Speaker
And obviously, I try to not brag about it like, look at what commandantism, you know, because it's just a pay for work. But I don't need to say nice things about it because I've done my work. My work is just to do a video. My work is not to lie about what I think about the product. I don't think you can trust influencers anymore. You can trust people like Lance Hedrick or you can probably trust
00:35:59
Speaker
Hoffman tries to stay sort of neutral in terms of reviews, which is kind of nice. Then you got people like, my God, I forget the names. Her name's Kate. There are a few good ones there. And also the coffee shelter, they recently doing review videos, you know? I think pretty good. The first time I saw the guy's face, like, wow, you look like Kate.
00:36:24
Speaker
You know what's really funny? You know someone that I like watching reviews from. I don't like the guy. I really despise the guy. I don't like him. Okay, tell me about it. What was it? It's Patrick Rolfe. I don't like him. Why? So serious?
00:36:40
Speaker
I don't like Patrick. It's arrogant. He's all about... He's Danish. Come on, he's Danish. Anyway, this is... You know, that's a culture to have a poker face to everyone. Because I live in Denmark for 11 years. I know their culture so well that how to be a Dane, like when you're happy, you know, have a poker face. You're angry? Poker face.
00:37:17
Speaker
because he's very thorough and he does say why he thinks about the product, except if he's in April. If it's something regarding April, he's going to be like, this is the most amazing thing in the world because I've done it. Anything but April, he's actually very good. I like the reviews because he's honest and he's very thorough and you can tell, you know, he's a champ. And as much as that pains me, I do like watching the reviews from him. So I'd recommend that. Then there is a
00:37:22
Speaker
I dunno.
00:37:45
Speaker
There's obviously some channels that you can find, I could not name them all. But every time I get a new proto, I watch dozens of reviews about it and I try to look for so much info. And when I try to like research recipes or like I got a sage brewer, like a batch brewer, I try to look for recipes on it, like just broad guidances of like,
00:38:12
Speaker
What's better to adjust the water flow with the temperature, like what's best to do if you want the gold cup results? There's nothing. There really is nothing, but there's loads of pictures of people posing with it for some reason.
00:38:26
Speaker
So if you're looking for people taking selfies with coffee products, there's thousands. If you're looking for useful information, it's really hard to find. Yeah, true. So you can't trust influencers. You should look at influencers. But nowadays everybody's influencer, right? I mean, I was saying that everybody's influencer now. If you have an Instagram account, you are an influencer.
00:38:52
Speaker
And they're just tiny mini influencers. Oh, you have five takes of this kind of small size influencers around you. Everything they say, you cannot believe in. I mean, you forget about Jim Toltman, but you trust your friends. Absolutely. I think that's the secret. If you know they're, I think, trust somebody that's genuinely bought something because they like it, trust them. Because you don't spend money on things you don't like.
00:39:18
Speaker
And if you do spend money on something and you don't like it, you're also going to be honest about it. We actually got some free stuff this year because we recently moved to China for the momentum grinder so we can get closer to a manufacturer,
Joe Lopez's Journey into Coffee
00:39:30
Speaker
right? So we set up a temporary studio. We're going to stay here for a while. We're going to pack everything, doing everything ourselves.
00:39:37
Speaker
And we need espresso machine and stuff. We bought our own machine, but we need some small tempers and stuff. And then we talk a few brands. We got some free stuff from the three, I don't know, top of the HVU, I don't know, three bombers. That's a really weird name. They have this espresso machines and stuff. Oh, yes. Yeah, I don't know what happened. Three MB bomber. Because like, how can they make people not find me on Google?
00:40:07
Speaker
I don't know. But anyway, we got free stuff. We tried it and we like it. We didn't pay for the products, but I think it isn't. And then there are in our review videos or just regular, yeah, daily videos. And we use our own money. We bought Kettle, the new one from Time War, if you know. We had a short review. It's the one with the really weird looking handle.
00:40:31
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah, I've seen that, I've seen that. After two months, after one month returning. But I have to say Timo has the best office service ever, really. Oh my god, I think they'll hate me so much. But we kept one kettle that we bought, and that's Barista's 5G, that's like a special kettle version, and it doesn't look like from Barista.
00:40:58
Speaker
Is that the looks a bit like an exagon? Yeah, that one is very special. I don't know why they are not in the international market. We love that one more than Taiwan, so we'll have the return because we use it. We cannot use two every day. Just one is enough. I want to know more about you. Who are you, Joe? How did you start in the coffee industry?
00:41:21
Speaker
So it was basically my mistake. I moved. I've always worked in hospitality for a while, but Spain is really different to London. I'm Spanish, born and raised. And there is more like speedy service. It's mostly like coffees.
00:41:42
Speaker
not really coffee as we know it here. It's just put some brown powder in the machine, press a button, whatever comes out, it's good. Put some really boiling milk in there. That's good to go. Put five sugars in there if you don't like it. Now, when I moved here, I and me and my wife, now wife, decided to go live together
00:42:08
Speaker
I had to find a job. I was working as a nanny, living nanny. So I had to look something for serious income. And the only thing I could apply for, because the only studies I have is either cooking or fine arts. There's no jobs for that. And I don't want to go back to a kitchen, because that's crazy.
00:42:33
Speaker
so i went into a restaurant they needed a barista i had to like relearn everything because i i have seen a coffee machine before but they had a lamar choco pb two group uh i still love that machine till these day and i was like this looks weird where is so like
00:42:51
Speaker
Where is the 50 extra buttons that mine has? And what is this you say? A coffee grinder? What's that? How do you use this? And so I had to relearn everything within a few days. For some reason, they still hired me, although I didn't have no clue. They must have been desperate.
00:43:14
Speaker
The manager there, Rodiana, I still love her till this day. She was so passionate about making a really good cup of coffee. And she will all, every day, she will ask me for one. And every day I did not do it right. She will chuck it down the drain and make herself one.
00:43:32
Speaker
And I took that as a personal challenge. I was like, I'm not leaving this place until I make you a decent cup of coffee. So I tried to get better. I started to get familiar with dialing in and with like, you know, how the coffee should really taste because I didn't like coffee by then. I just saw it as like this brown, bitter liquid that sort of wakes you up and want to make you run to the toilet very fast. That's why it was for me then.
00:43:59
Speaker
But then i saw that if you tune in the right recipe and like you follow the patterns and you know different coffee tastes different i always decided to get interesting at some point i took enough i took it seriously enough to actually. Coming early like try to dial in a perfect coffee and then do it exactly the way she wanted until one day she told me these are very nice cup of coffee and she drank and i was like cool.
00:44:23
Speaker
What's my next challenge then? And so I started- You're fired. Yeah, you're fired now. Because you've only been doing this, the bar looks a mess, go clean it. And so after that I started like trying different coffees and like, well, I left the restaurant because it was crazy, like shifts were like 6am to 1am sometimes, so it was like proper mentalist.
00:44:47
Speaker
So I left and I went to a specialty shop where I was a supervisor. I didn't get much coffee, play around. Then I left there and I went to an actual specialty coffee shop where I was head barista. And I started playing with different origins. I could get my, my own guests in. I could do filter coffee, which for me was like mind blowing. Then COVID happened.
00:45:11
Speaker
I started getting more into like home brewing. I literally just had like a blade grinder, like one of them spice grinders, a French press. That was pretty much it. At some point I bought a one cup B60, which I still have. But this was only like four years ago.
00:45:31
Speaker
And then I started getting really interested in it. And I started experimenting with different flavors. I started buying coffee from a supermarket, but I started going to the nicest one that I could find in the supermarket. Then I started buying online. So that sort of escalated into me wanting to try the nicest coffee we had.
00:45:55
Speaker
experimenting with waters, experimenting with espresso and fills of coffee, different methods. I could not tell you how many different brewers I have today. So many grinders. I invested so much in coffee equipment. I have seven grinders, espresso machine, batch brewer. I got like two or three kettles. It's insane. Obviously I did Coffee Masters twice. I did Brewers Cup. I did AeroPress Championships.
00:46:25
Speaker
I'm really into it. So yeah, it started by mistake. It's just because my manager hated my coffee, so I wanted to make it good. Well, what a most beautiful mistake, right? Yeah, absolutely. The pandemic actually helped the coffee industry a lot. A lot of people were turning to home brewers, and then the whole market for selling home brewing machines, gears, best time for the business. Yeah, good times, bad times at the same time, but good times.
00:46:52
Speaker
So what is going on in your life right now?
Combining Coffee with Other Passions
00:46:56
Speaker
So I'm now involved in some of the roasting, obviously packaging and everything wholesale. I have, I currently work with this company called Broadband, which are UK based. They basically control social media for Hario,
00:47:18
Speaker
Commandantes, Sage, Felicita, I believe. And, um, so I worked with them as a photographer and videographer, um, which is quite cool because photography was my, my other hobby. I have like the most expensive hobbies there is coffee and photography. And, um, so I do that. Um, my spare time.
00:47:45
Speaker
I basically try to improve my brewing. I try to improve my espresso making. I got a decent setup here. So I can like dial in for the shop and create recipes from here, which is quite useful. So my free time is coffee related. And when you get to the point I have right now, you don't really get much free time off work.
00:48:12
Speaker
And whatever free time you do, you basically check emails, check the socials, and obviously do as many memes as I can.
00:48:19
Speaker
Well, I think that's good for you, right? When your work is too busy and not creating some mints, that's just relaxing. Absolutely.
Conclusion and Podcast Promotion
00:48:28
Speaker
Just saying that you guys are doing a really good job there about the whole case. You know, there is a while we're here today for this paragon, this whole thing. We're happy. Yeah, we're really happy. And it's obviously, I see Alan and me as the instigators, but like, what?
00:48:48
Speaker
all those ramifications that came after that. I get tagged in things daily. I just can't keep up sharing them. That's why I don't share them because they'll be too much. The amount of people that have joined the meme creation thing against Sasa, it's wonderful. It has been hundreds and hundreds. That's why I think they just saw themselves trapped and cornered.
00:49:17
Speaker
Because they saw that the entire community was going against them. And they were like, oops, great job, great job, job. So guys, listeners, if you need some help, if you're experiencing some problem with the bigger brands, you know where to go, right? Tag Joe Lopez and his Instagram is linkisnotprincey. What a day.
00:49:38
Speaker
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for today. Really love to have you here and sharing all this information. Lovely chat. It was great. It was great. I appreciate you too. Thank you for inviting me.
00:49:49
Speaker
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. You're a part of our global community where we celebrate baristas and their craft in everything that we do.