A Coffee Lover’s Journey Through Germany, Prague, and the U.S: S8E3

Travis lived in Germany and the Czech Republic for 20 years and podcasts about history on podcastnik.com. After talking about alchemy and witches as a ghost-tour guide in Prague, he teamed up with Pete Collman to figure out podcasting as a medium to tell stories from history. Travis has a long and complicatedly long adoration with coffee that started in his childhood upbringing in Germany. Now, he now lives in Oregon, where he partakes in specialty and 7-11 coffee.

Original publication date: June 19, 2020

More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Coffee does not grow in Paris, it does not grow in Vienna, right? So they have an old tradition from colonial days of importing coffee, even green beans, and then roasting it themselves and mixing it themselves so that like dalmaya always tastes the same, you know, or you know, whatever coffee brand. So that's that's like a 150-year-old tradition. Because I went to hotel school and I grew up in Munich and all, like there's there's the idea of like an apprentice and a master that we don't really have in America. Like we just we we think we know what we're talking about when we say those words. In Germany, it's so systematized and really truly from the medieval ages, kind of like, or at least the Bismarck reforms, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Welcome to the Geopats Podcast, where we have conversations with people that like to learn about culture by using book, language, podcasting, and in this case, coffee. We are for the globally curious, and I bet that's you. And I am so excited that you are here for us for this very special coffee episode of the case. This episode was recorded just before lockdown in Germany. On March 1st, in fact. And it is now mid-June. So, uh the information is still valid because it's mostly stuff that's in the past or stuff that is still perpetually wonderful in Germany or Czech Republic or whatnot. We are talking to Travis Dow, who has 10 podcasts. I could do not the easiest way to tell you where he is is to tell you that PodcastNick Productions, which is a beautiful name, podcast and then N-I-K. PodcastNick Productions. He's on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook under PodcastNick, as well as podcastneck.com. So that's the easiest way to find all of his wonderful podcasts, like history of alchemy, history of Germany, a podcast, and so much, so much more. But this is not a podcast episode. So we're going to focus on his coffee aspect should be a word. So Travis lived in Germany and the Czech Republic for 20 years. He has a long and complicatedly adoring history with coffee that we'll go into throughout this entire episode. He now lives in Oregon and is not afraid to drink 7-Eleven coffee as well as go to the specialty coffee brewers as well. So he is an all-around coffee lover. This conversation was such a delight to have. So you will be hearing a bit uh here and there from Travis uh throughout the year on different snippets of other things connected to Germany, the Czech Republic, and other stuff. So without further ado, let's get to the slurpy goodness of the conversation with Travis Dell of podcastneck.com.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Are you ready for the slurp?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Okay. Anytime you're ready, it has to be really obnoxiously loud. Ready? Go.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

It's hard to slurp out of a bottle.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

I tried.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

It is. I just learned that for the first time in my life.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

That is a challenge. I'm impressed you got any sound out of that. So, Travis, can you tell the listeners both a little bit about where you are and what you do content-wise?

SPEAKER_01 3:32

I just I just moved to Oregon. I don't even I don't really live anywhere yet. I just moved from California like six months ago, but then I was in Germany for for like four months into 2019. So I'm in Oregon now. Before California, I lived in Czech Republic for 10 years, and I've also lived in Germany, or I grew up in Germany for 10 years. Uh I have like 10 podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

Travis, googling you with the challenge because I would there was so much content and there was so much stuff written on you. Like I found a medium article on you from Laura Studder, and I love how she said you were a podcaster between two continents. That was just a beautiful thing, and then how she described like your back and forth.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Is that was that a German article?

SPEAKER_03 4:14

No, it's in English. I can't read that much German yet.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

It was in English. But she's she's an expat. She's Swiss living in Germany, but I've known her over the years too, yeah. A podcaster between two continents. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

Yeah. That wasn't the title. That was just a a phrase that I picked up on because I I love I mean the geopaths is basically about people that have so many different l uh cultures like running through them. It's that cultural confusion/slash beauty is something that I find super fascinating. So when I read that, I was like, yes, he is so the right person to be on this podcast. And when I heard you on Sean's Germany Experience podcast, there was one brief moment where you mentioned coffee, and I loved how enthusiastic you were about it. So here we are.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

Let's get into the coffee part. Are you drinking coffee right now or have you had coffee today?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

I have had coffee because I just woke up and I I guzzled some down, but I regret not drinking coffee right now.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

So how would you compare German and American coffee?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

I don't think I've ever actually had that conversation on on a podcast, but yeah, I l I love that topic. Germans always complain about American coffee, always hunt 100% of them, all the time, every time they have American coffee. It's kind of 50-50. Like my my the older generation, like my aunts and uncles, they're all they'll all or my grandparents especially, they would always complain about that European coffee is just too strong, but it's not. I mean, so German coffee is the way it should be, right? I mean that I was raised there, so that's that's what I would tell you. But I don't complain about American coffee either, because you just it's horrible, it's awful, but you just load, you just you know, load in American creamer, which we don't have in Europe, and it's the best thing ever. And you get free refills at a diner. How can you have a bad coffee? I can either have a dozen coffees with like vanilla creamer or whatever, you know, just out of a bottle, like way too. It's just Germans don't even know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

And I'm glad that they don't. Creamer is a nasty creature.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Well, but if you're drinking like watered down folgers, what what are you gonna do you drink that black?

SPEAKER_03 6:14

So drink that. I have friends.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Yeah, okay. Because like I I go into a diner, I order a coffee. I don't complain about my coffee. I'll I'll drink whatever's in front of me. Coffee's coffee. But of course, like I got a buddy in Prague that he hands roasts espresso, and I mean he would slap me if I put milk and sugar or anything.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Travis just mentioned a friend of his, Pavel, and I promise you, coming up later in this episode, you are going to pee in your pants because he has a really, really funny story about that friend and coffee. So do stick around for that.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

I mean, that is so good. It's like the perfect espresso. It is so creamy right out of the out of the machine. You wouldn't mess with that. Yeah. But I'm not gonna hate on, you know, watered down weak American stuff because it's cheap. I don't know, like it's everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

So you're you're on the West Coast. There are specialty coffee places. Do you tend to go to those?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Or do you Oh for sure. So there's there's the big gourmet stuff, but I'm not above a 70 cents 7 Eleven, you know, I do because because part of it is that I drink I do drink quantity. So I can't spend, you know, five dollars on a on a cup every day. Or if I make it, if I make it myself, it it ends up being pretty good. Like I buy good stuff. Doesn't matter if I'm in Germany or here or whatever, it all comes from like South America or whatever. Um in that case. I don't I don't just like coffee. Like, I'm not I'm not judgmental if somebody has a favorite or like oh I only like espresso or Americano is a is a you know heresy. I'm like, whatever. Okay, that's fine. I'll drink it.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

But if you were to have your favorite coffee, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 7:50

I definitely gotta say, just from where I was raised and the the coffee experience growing up, I want double or triple the size. That's always there's there's always pros and cons. Like European coffees are small, no matter how strong they are. So I want an American cup filled with uh like like a Viennese, like an Austrian blend.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

So what is an Austrian blend?

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Vienna just has their own style of coffee. It's probably, I don't, I'm gonna kind of just make things up as I go here, but I'm gonna say it's a little bit darker, it's a little bit stronger, and it's different than say a Parisian blend. And probably, probably if you blindfolded me, because coffee does not grow in Paris, it does not grow in Vienna, right? So they have an old tradition from colonial days of importing coffee, even green beans, and then roasting it themselves and mixing it themselves so that like dalmaya always tastes the same, you know, or you know, whatever coffee brand. So that's that's like a 150-year-old tradition. And those I get because I went to hotel school and I grew up in Munich and all, like there's there's the idea of like an apprentice and a master that we don't really have in America. Like we just we we think we know what we're talking about when we say those words, but in just in Germany, it's so systematized and really truly from the medieval ages, kind of like, or at least the Bismarck reforms, whatever. Um, but it really truly is like this this um like you have guilds and you know, which is kind of a union these days, but you have an apprentice and a master, and you do your apprenticeship for three years, you get a certificate, it's you know stately recognized, like you go to a university. Long story short, this idea of like a master, his whole his whole job is blending coffee. Every year the crop in Brazil is different and the crop in Ethiopia is different, and whatever, but this guy makes the same coffee every year for 150 years, like over you know, so many careers of these coffee tasters. Like that whole idea, this is something we don't have. It's and it's always gonna be the same. You know, there there is better coffee than Viennese, like if you go to the best farm that year in in uh Costa Rica or something, you're gonna get a better coffee, but it won't be the same year over year. It's very German of me.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Wait, the Viennese coffee you had, was that in Austria or was that in Germany?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Both.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Would you say that coffee in Germany that's not Viennese coffee and Viennese coffee in Austria are very different from each other?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

I would actually say they're pretty similar. I would actually say Germans are trying to copy copy that that Viennese roast.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

Oh if it's really consistent and good, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

So when I was in Germany this last time, again, like I'm not a snob, I bought the Ya. Have you come across the Ya brand? It's the cheapest like signature brand in the States. Uh I don't I it might be Aldi, I forget. It's one of the supermarkets, but it's just it's just a white, it's just a white product. It says Ya, like yes, exclamation mark, and that's it. It's the most, and I remember it from the 80s, it's just the the the poorest, you know, most cheapest stuff you can buy. Yah eggs, ya milk, whatever. It's almost like socialist in its packaging. It's so simple. And for the last four months, like from August to December, I was drinking Yah brand coffee just out of you know, French press. So not instant coffee, but and I loved it. It was great. And that was just like the cheapest German coffee, and it was still really good. Just the white packaging.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Yeah, it almost looked like an Oval Teen package.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah, and it was really good. If you tried it, I'd be curious to see what you think, because that is the cheapest you can buy, and it's still ten times better than I mean, I'm drinking some crazy, I don't know, Honduran whatever right now from from some specialty store, and I'm like, it's not Yahwas better or the same. I'm like, yeah. So German just kind of no, yeah. For never having grown coffee, they're pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Hey there. I just want to pop in very briefly and tell you a few quick things about uh what is happening with my website, my company, and all of the things that is included in that. We are now officially here at our productions. We have Global Podcasts, which I do right now. We have podcasting events like Pod Rev Day, which is on the 8th of every month, and we have podcast accountability group. I also now do editing. I am taking on a few editing clients. So if you need help with your podcast editing, or you know someone that does, or you know someone that wants to start a podcast but doesn't want to deal with the editing at first, send them my way. I've got all that stuff on stefffuccio.com, S-D-P-H-F-U-C-C-I-O. You can always find me on the socials at Steph Fuccio. That's my handle everywhere. S-D-P-H-F-U-C-C at O. Oh, and of course, if you want to buy me a coffee, because you absolutely love what we're doing with all of the services and products and things and podcasts, then please head over to our Buy MeACoffee site and buy me a coffee. Because I love coffee. Thank you so much. And um thank you. Let's hop around geographically. So you've clearly had coffee in the US, you've had coffee in Germany and Austria. What other countries or or regions have you had coffee in?

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Well, so my my ex-wife is Costa Rican. Costa Rica probably really does have the best coffee or some of the best coffee in the world. Um at least the at least Central America for sure. So my my my former in-laws' house is right across from a coffee field, like a coffee plantation. And there it was kind of so even my my Czech uh buddy, his wife was Costa Rican, so he learned how to um well he he would source the coffee from Costa Rica from everywhere, but he knew his in-laws were like coffee farmers, and all of that, all that experience is like hard to beat. Like when it's freshly roasted, when it's it's from some farm that their quality is way better than your average Viennese blend, you know, and then and then you just have a coffee from just the best, like, oh yeah, for sure. You don't put milk and sugar in that either. I mean, you can't, and it'll be super strong. Czech Republic, obviously. So, Czech Republic, everything we said about quality and good coffee and everything. So I was always curious what it'd be like to live in the in the other half of Europe, like the communist, you know, the former s socialist part. And so I did do that for 10 years. And especially when I first moved there, they would drink Turkish coffee. They would call it Czech coffee. So it'd be like, oh, we you know, we drink Czech coffee, and it's just grounds and the water, no filter, and you're wearing it between your teeth the rest of the day. And it was pretty abysmal quality. Like I it was just bad, you definitely have to put sugar in it. It was just bad experience, my first couple of years. But then they've kind of dropped it. I don't think, I don't know if anybody really actually drinks Czech coffee anymore anymore or pretends that Turkish coffee is Czech coffee. But in communist days, they were really proud of it. And I don't know if they were sourcing it from Cuba or what, but Czechs were a pretty well-off socialist country as far as that goes.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Question for you on that, because Turkish coffee, Greek coffee, and it sounds like Czech coffee are made the same way. Now, when I went to a Greek restaurant a few times, they tried to tell my fortune with coffee, uh coffee grounds. Do they in Czech? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Yeah. It's definitely a thing. Like I've I don't think I've ever seen that done to me in a coffee shop or anything, but yeah, yeah. Like re reading tea leaves and reading coffee grounds and all that. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Wow, okay. Yeah. I just I did it once because I'm I'm a sucker. I'm like, you know what? This this could be interesting. It I don't remember anything about it, but it was having coffee grounding with I would do that.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah, if someone wants to read my fortune or like tarot cards or something, I'm like, yeah, sure. You know, it doesn't matter if I believe in it or not, like I'll be done.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

See if I'm gonna die tomorrow or not. Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

You'll probably say something good, something bad, and something to make me pay you more. Yeah, but I'm okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah. You already have coronavirus and don't know it, but you ever had any weird coffee elements?

SPEAKER_03 15:35

Because like Vietnam does egg in their coffee sometimes, some places do condensed milk and espresso. Like, what's the weirdest thing you've ever had in a coffee?

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Oh, weird stuff in coffee. Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

We are different or just unique to one person.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Well, the flip side is people when people ask me what what's weird things that because I've you know, the whole beer culture, I get asked about beer in Germany a lot. And I'm like, yeah, like Americans put coffee in beer, and I don't know what's wrong with like I can't figure that out. So the the you know, like coffee-flavored beer, but that's not putting beer and coffee, that's putting coffee in beer. The thing with coffee is that I'd be less picky. With beer, so if it tastes good, it tastes good. I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not I'm not that kind of a snob, I guess. But with beer, I still like I was raised in Munich, so that there is no such thing as the Beer Purity Act. And I'm like, whoa, if I can taste strawberries in here, you better have some really magical yeast, or don't call it beer. Call it a strawberry ale, you know, whatever. It could be super delicious, strawberry drink, but it is not beer. Like as a as a Bavarian, it is it is not beer.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

Wait, let's back up. What is the Purity Act?

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Uh the it's saying you can only have uh bar barley, malt, hops, and water to make beer, and then now yeast, because they didn't know about yeast, and that's that's from like 15 something. So you you don't mess with that. There's like Budweiser has rice and corn. Most, you know, now nowadays craft beers follow the German Beer Purity Act, but yeah, like you can get a banana wheat beer from using the yeast, but if you have a banana flavored beer from adding banana syrup or bananas, that's no longer a beer. So I'm like, that's really cool, that tastes really good. It's just not, just please don't call it beer, because there's a legal definition where I'm from. It's not beer, but it's a really good banana lager, banana ale, I don't know, uh, whatever it is, or or malt, and not even lager, but uh malt, malt uh liquor or something. You could call it that. Like Budweiser is not beer, it's a malt liquor, just by the German you know, legal definition. You can't call it beer. But I'm like, I'm you know, I'm not hating, I'm not if that's your favorite beverage, that's cool. You're not a beer drinker, but that's totally fine. I'm not judging, even if it totally sounds like I am, it's just a judging. Yeah, it's a legalistic thing. Yeah, it's just a it's a technicality. It's like, and and so, but with coffee, I do not feel that way. I'm like, you give me a really good coffee that tastes like, I don't know, some blackberry crazy I I'm not a pumpkin spice person. Like I kind of draw the I draw the line somewhere. Even then it tastes good, I just don't think of coffee when I'm drinking it. I'm like, oh, this is a liquid, you know, pumpkin pie. I'm like, I don't know. I just don't think of coffee, yeah. But otherwise, yeah, with coffee, yeah. Like, of course I appreciate the quality stuff that you can drink black or or just a really good espresso, but that is kind of rare. I I mean there's hipster places, it's it is Oregon, you know, that we're filled with really good coffee roasteries. I was trying to get a job at one or thinking about starting one here. But yeah, otherwise, yeah, I'm just not that I'm not that picky. Here's a different story. We're like, you can't in Munich.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

Did you have a favorite coffee shop?

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Oh yeah, so for sure. But so the last year I lived in Munich, I was 19.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

And when you when you said that, I got a picture of like teenager version of me going on dates with teenage girls to the local like cafe. Because there was there was definitely a place like in my in my suburb that was like the center of town with the fountain, and there was the the coffee shop and the ice cream place next door. And I st they had like a ladybug theme, and I when I still walk by it, like I they're still there, and I was like, and now it's like 20, 20 years ago or more, and I'm like, oh wow, yeah. Because I think my dad used to get cappuccinos. So the first time I worked in a coffee shop myself, then I realized that was probably the last time I ever ordered a cappuccino. I don't need the foam that much. I just want I want the milk and the this and that, and cappuccinos take more time. But as a kid, I didn't know all that stuff. And I just, you know, Germans order cappuccinos, and so I'd go there and I remember it cost three marks fifty. This is four euros. And then and sometimes I'd get I'd get a spaghetti ice or something, which I don't do we know what that is. No. It is it is ice cream, it is ice cream pushed through almost like a play-doh toy, you know, that makes the spaghetti. Yes, right? So you you get it, you get a plate that looks like spaghetti, but it is ice cream, and it has something in the middle. Maybe use strawberry jam or strawberry jelly or something, and then like whipped cream and or no, the outside it had straw, it had to look like like tomato sauce, you know. So outside it had strawberry jam or something, or strawberry syrup or something. There's a there's a sweet cheese used in European desserts. I do not know what that is in English, but a sweet cheese sprinkle to look like uh Parmesan and stuff. And I used to love that when I was a kid. Like you just brought up, you just brought it all back, yeah, and then like you know, order two or three cappuccinos while you're there. Well, I was gonna say in Czech Republic I definitely had my favorite places. There was like off the there's always the touristy places, and they had Starbucks that they opened like five Starbucks overnight. Like literally, they bought a bunch of places, were secretly running them under a false name, closed them all down one night, reopened them as Starbucks. So it's just they popped, there is no first Starbucks in Prague. Prague, there's 10 of them. But um Prague was not destroyed by the wars. So unlike Berlin or Munich or Hamburg, Bremen, all those, all those cities were like really unfortunately just kind of leveled. But if you want to look look at what Munich or Berlin looked like before the war or in the 19th century, or the 17th century, or the 14th century, or the 15th century, go to Prague, because Prague has all that. Prague has a thousand years of history that you just see walking down the street. And so you're, you know, there'd be like this thick, like four-foot uh just like mason work arch that used to be a part of some ramparts or who knows, like just really just like this crazy uh brickwork. And then they'd opened a coffee shop in between the arches or something, and it'd be like these cute couches and a bookshelf, and people that knew what they were doing, like they roasted their own coffee or whatever, and they would never kick you out because it was there was like two people in there at all times, and you know, in this huge thing, and then they had like an inner court with a garden you could sit outside to this day. I'm like, that's still my favorite coffee shop because I've never come across anything like it. But like we can't have that in Oregon because we don't have 15th century ramparts, so that's just you know, so there's like those kind of things. Another uh place, I for some reason it's a coffee place, but I always got hot chocolate. I think I think just because the first time it was super cold and I ordered hot chocolate and it was so good. But I I tie that place with hot chocolate, but going up to the castle, that place I could point out on a map, no problem. Like every time, because it's uphill, and then there's this cute little uh cafe with all the walls painted with murals of the Czech countryside, or I don't remember. I'm pretty sure it's the owner that works there and only. Her and she's super polite and kind of quiet and she's super nice. And we just go up there and order a hot chocolate and then keep marching up the hill to the castle. Um and it's like where all the embassies are, like there's a Romanian embassy right next to it and stuff. Cobblestones, like yeah. I love Prague. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Prague's pretty great. One of the first people I interviewed for the coffee show actually is in Prague. She's an ex-pet in Prague. I forget how long she was there. She's the one that actually came up with the term peak coffee experience. And she was like, You need to ask me what their peak coffee experience is. Because uh, yeah. Because apparently there's a lot of good coffee shops in Prague, and I was like, okay, I'll ask.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

But it yeah, it depends, it depends on how I how I define that. Yeah, if it's like sometimes it's not actually about the coffee, it's like who you're with and and the place and everything. But if it's the coffee itself, I don't want to overtell this story, but but my buddy that was learning how to roast coffee, it was so good. It was definitely just the best coffee. Maybe it's just I mean, he knew what he was doing, but also it was just and he was really sourcing the best beans. He was really trying to learn really good, really well. But also just the fact that it was so freshly roast. It would come out of the roaster, he'd grind it, and we'd we'd drink it pretty much. There was no comparison to that. And I remember one time where he's just learning how to do it, and and me and my ex-wife were coming off the metro or the subway, whatever. And like blocks away from his apartment building, he lived in this old communist, like no elevators, you know, fifth floor. And like blocks away, you can already smell the coffee. And I was like, That's I smell coffee, and I'm like, Oh, that smells like good coffee. And then you get kind of to the street, and it's like, oh whoa, like where's the cafe? And then you get to the front door of the apartment, and then going up the stairs, you're we're like, oh, Pavel. Oh no, oh no, because it was just like overwhelming. And he opens the front door and he's like, Oh my god, Travis, thank you here! So and then he shows me this tray of already poured, already, you know, like in little shot glasses, some getting cold, you know, and he's like, This axis, like, this is the dark roast, medium roast, light roast, this axis is finely ground, medium course, you know, coarse ground, whatever. So this I was thinking this should be my ideal espresso, this should be my ideal like drip coffee, blah blah blah blah blah. And I mean he has caffeinated out of his mind. You know, he's already like, he's 10 cups in. Fast forward like 30 minutes, and I'm like, I don't know, Pavel, I think this one's really good for this, blah blah blah. Like we're just both just sitting there all day, just I, you know, countless coffees. 50, 50, you know, taste testing, like, you know, medium dark roast, fine medium course blend with medium dark roast, you know, like coarse course blend, and like, oh no, this is the this is it, this is well if you did this and this, if you put this in the French press, if you, you know, put this as espresso, like, oh yeah, that was that was peak coffee experience by just definition of best coffee, most coffee. I'll never beat that. You can't, I mean, I can't beat that, yeah, unless I start roasting myself.

SPEAKER_03 24:43

Did he end up opening a shop?

SPEAKER_01 24:45

So if you go to Prague, you'll there's a good chance you'll buy his coffee. He bought a used industrial roaster, like not much bigger than like a meter, maybe. And he just had it in his kitchen, which is like way too big of a device to and it, I mean, that's why it reeked like five blocks away. But he went off to London. I forget which is which. He went off to London to do a roasting course and Vienna to do a barista course, or vice versa. It might have been roasting in Vienna and barista in London. And then he started at a farmer's market, and he was selling shots of espresso for 50 cents. The best espresso you've ever had for 50 cents, let's say. So there were two or three other coffee vendors at that farmer's market, and on day two, they kind of, you know, meekily like swing by his thing, going like, hey, Pavel, uh, you know, we're charging three euros. Can you at least go like 250 and we can go 250? And and he's like, Yeah, sure. You know? And when they all when they all went the same price, so he was making$2 profit a cup, extra his 30 cents he was making before. He's like, Yeah, sure, you know? And he still had a line around the around the uh farmer's market and the other the other coffee vendors shut down after a bit. And then he hired a kid to run that one while he opened up at the second coffee place. I don't think he has a cafe yet. So if you go buy uh espresso at a farmer's market, you're probably buying Pavel's coffee. He c he called he called it allegre coffee, like ha like happy, happy coffee in Spanish. I made his first logo and all that, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

So let's let's backtrack to your coffee history. When did you start liking slash needing coffee?

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Oh, you want to know what's interesting? That's actually a way more complicated and interesting question than one might think. My my parents are both coffee drinkers, and you know, at some point, you know, you're a kid and you're like, oh, let me try that or whatever. Or they'll like I remember I remember like like eating the foam off of my dad's cappuccino, right? Like all the time when I was a little kid. And he'd always order a cappuccino. So my first coffee memory is is before I made memories. I don't I don't even remember. I definitely remember like taking sips of coffee going, like, oh, this is bitter, and then you know, like cappuccino foam, and eventually, like, oh, I want a coffee. So I always kind of fought that. I was drinking so much coffee, like pots a day. So I I started drinking a lot of tea to drink less coffee, and then I started drinking more coffee because I was drinking way too much tea. And then I took a d uh DNA test at some point, like one of those 23andMe, actually, they were a sponsor, yeah. And so we we all kind of a couple of podcasters took a 23andM test and then talked about it. But what I found out was kind of a life changer was one of the questions was do you drink an above average amount of coffee or something? And it was like a ridiculous amount, like a cup or two every couple of days or whatever, and I'm like, yes, like significantly more. And it turns out there's a genetic component to that, to like to like wanting caffeine. And I and the funny thing is, is that if if coffee is just not there for like three days or whatever, if it's just if I go somewhere, there's just no coffee, that that that's actually fine. I don't get headaches, I don't start, you know, murdering people despite how much coffee I drink. Like, I don't feel like I'm super physically addicted to caffeine. But as soon as I found out there's a genetic component, I was like, okay, yeah, no, this is me. That explains why my parents drink so much coffee. Like, and then I was doing more research and like, yeah, it's it's not that harmful. Like, you know, caffeine is a psychoactive drug in a way, but I'm like, yeah, that's fine. Just do it all you want. It's caffeine, you know. Coffee's pretty good for you.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

So I was curious what uh Travis was talking about with the coffee gene for 23andMe, because ironically, and this is why I'm breaking in here, ironically, I did my 23andme when my husband and I came to Berlin about two and a half years ago on vacation. Because it was really, really difficult, if not impossible, to get it sent to us in China where we were living. So we got it sent to our hotel in Berlin and in a coffee shop bathroom, did the whole spit test thingy, uh, secured it, and made it to the post office about five minutes before they closed and sent off my 23ME a package. A package of spit are disgusting. But it's a very cool thing to do. I don't know, it seemed cool. I didn't remember having a coffee component in there. So I dug into my report. Now, I actually use Rhonda Patrick's uh plug-in or what what do you call it? Program. I think you pay like$10 or$20 or something, and it basically makes sense out of your 23andE data. Well worth it. And if you don't know Rhonda Patrick, where have you been? She is amazing. The way that she does the uh uh information for 23andMe is really beautiful. It's well worth it. Anyway, I did find the coffee thing. I literally just did control F and I found the coffee thing. And I apparently have a slower caffeine metabolism. What? I could not be more surprised by this. I don't fully understand what that means except for that they mention that here, let me read this exactly. Yeah, it's slower to get rid of chemicals in the body. In this case, the chemical they're talking about is caffeine. So they uh re suggest that people like me that have the CYP1A2 uh gene, I guess, that we um that we only drink one cup a day. And that if we don't and we drink a lot more, it can affect uh our hypertension and some other things. Thank you, Travis, for reminding me that there is coffee information in my 23ME information. Wild. And if any listeners out there, if you uh have uh 23ME information and you dig it out and you find your coffee information, please do share it with us either on the socials or over at stefffuccio.com. You can leave a voice message. I'd love to know what your coffee profile is. Oh, see what I did there? I'm so jealous. Day two, I get massive headaches. So I actually, when I know I'm not gonna drink coffee for a few days, I'll have some just sitting in the fridge and I'll just take a sip to avoid the caffeine headache.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Yeah, I've never had that. That's really weird.

SPEAKER_03 31:07

So, so, so, so jealous. So, wait, so are you saying that you've you've drank and loved coffee your whole life? Is that is that the takeaway from all this?

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Pretty much. That's the that's the short version of the story, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

Do you make your own coffee? Oh yeah, you do make your own coffee. You drink coffee.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

I I make my own coffee and I now mostly for the last like probably over a decade or so has just been French press just because it's the kind of the simplest and it's still good. No machines to clean, just that's a pretty easy thing to maintain. But in in high school, I worked at a a kind of a Starbucks-like uh coffee place on on campus uh here in Oregon. The whole thing was a blur because it would be like a a quadruple shot of and and we would tell people our shots are twice espresso shots. So, like let's say eight espresso shots of you know, 20 ounce full of espresso with with like whatever just to make it kind of like drinkable, like uh vanilla syrup and and white chocolate powder and just crazy concoctions because they had everything. Three different kinds of chocolate and you know, 20 different syrups and whatever, and uh and different specialties that would come through in the house blend, very much like Starbucks. And in that time, it was like off the charts. I could not even tell you how many coffees I drank because I just there was always a coffee in my hand between customers, and it was always like 20 ounces of espresso. So just like 10 espresso at once. And yeah, definitely, I definitely love coffee.

SPEAKER_03 32:30

So I usually ask at the end, what's missing? We're talking about coffee in different places in the world, different coffee experiences, the atmosphere of places, making your own coffee, all those kinds of things. What questions are missing? Anna added that peak coffee experience question. What question would you like to add?

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Best coffee recipe? You're you're you kind of asked that in a roundabout way. If someone if someone's peak coffee experience was a was a perfectly like mixed latte with something crazy in it, then they'd tell you, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 32:59

But I didn't ask you the latte art question because you didn't seem like a latte art person, so I kind of skipped over that one. Have you seen 3D latte art?

SPEAKER_01 33:08

No.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

It's really weird.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Is it like a topographical map?

SPEAKER_03 33:11

Like people are just putting in peaks and valleys or no, it's it's different animals usually, because I think it might have started in Japan, so it's like cats and dogs and stuff, but it literally lifts up from it's like sculptural.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

Basically, it's like sculp exactly, yeah. Okay, so I don't want you to miss out on the visualness of what Travis and I are talking about with this latte art. So I kid you not. If you just open up Google Images, Google Images, and you type in 3D, three letter D, latte art, L-A-T-T-E. Hey, if you're listening to this, don't you know how to spell latte? But anyway, okay, look. Just do it. 3D latte art. And I'm doing it right now, and despite the fact that this interview is a couple of months old, the same pictures are showing up on here. You'll even see about three-quarters of the way down what a normal page would be the octopus one that he's talking about, and the doggy ones that I'm talking about. So I think you really, really need to do this. So if you're listening somewhere on your phone, pause for a second and type in 3D latte art into Google Images. You will not be disappointed. Okay, back to us talking about latte art. I had one in Los Angeles at a Japanese place, but then I looked online because I'm like, this exists? Why does this exist? I'm not sure I need to eat a cat in my milk, but but it was kind of fun to wiggle the cup a little bit and see it move and then go, okay, I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

It's still weird. Yeah, I've never heard of that. I wonder Yeah, I wonder if they'd have to do something weird to the foam. When I when I worked in a coffee shop, we would be like, Okay, who can get the foamyest cappuccino? So, you know, using all the best like whole milk and all the best ingredients to, you know, cheat it as best as you could. Yeah, it's like you can't order a skim version of that 3D sculpted latte, probably. Or but you know, who knows, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:01

Oh wait, here actually can show you this right now.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Should we The best I could ever pull off is like a leaf, so I'm not or a heart or a leaf.

SPEAKER_03 35:09

Every every attempt I do or I did, because I gave up. Every attempt I did at uh latte art turned into just a lot of milk.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Oh yeah, there we go. Oh, whoa, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Except crazy. Except you have to get past the the cute little animals to drink it. So it's a little creepy.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

So I wonder if they have a totally different tool to do like a syringe where they where they squirt out the foam or something.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

That's what was the most surprising to me.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Yeah, it does look like regular cappuccino foam now. Now that I The octopus, see how the tent the tentacles are hanging down? You'd think if that was regular, regular foam, it would it would start to drip down. But I wonder.

SPEAKER_03 35:55

Maybe there's something in it that makes it stay, but it definitely tastes like it definitely tastes just like.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Some trick. Yeah, make it really sugary milk and then it'll s it'll just stick together. That's interesting. I like the cow. I like the cow.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

So yeah, it's a it's a it's a slippery uh Google image search to do.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Oh man, I kinda wanna I kinda wanna learn how to do that just because it would freak out my boyfriend if I gave him a weird treatise.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

I'd probably figure it out. I'm not terribly good at at all that, but you worked in a coffee shop. You probably have some tricks up here.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

So, first of all, you have to know something is possible because then you're already like, oh, okay, I can Google it. I can I can do this, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like I I paint like oil paintings and knitting and stuff that I'm just like, well, I people do this, right? Like somehow I can figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

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