Fellowship Around the Table
Great conversations about life, faith, and the Bible from Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma (www.fbctulsa.org).
Fellowship Around the Table
The Culture of Coffee w/ Josh Mitchell
Have you ever wondered what lies behind your morning cup of coffee? Prepare to be transported into the alluring realm of coffee, where we traverse history, culture, and the transformative power of this beloved beverage. Joined by our high school pastor, Josh Mitchell, we discuss the multifaceted world of coffee. We also unveil the thrilling news of our church's venture into the roasting scene.
Gregoron Coffee Roasters
Cafe Kreyol
https://youtu.be/ZnhR02FWNqc?si=ZGkZmYKGHdeP7BKl
You are listening to Fellowship Around the Table.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Fellowship Around the Table, where we endeavor to have great conversations about life, faith and the Bible. I am your host today, heath Casey, and today around the table I have our high school pastor, josh Mitchell.
Speaker 1:Hey, good to be back.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, josh. Coffee is the second most valuable legally traded commodity in the world, just behind oil. Wow, and it's estimated that 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day worldwide. Makes sense. Last year, the world production was 176 million 60 kilogram bags of beans. Yeah, josh, what is the deal with coffee?
Speaker 1:I mean it's good man Of course it's so funny you were talking about like the second most and for some reason I thought you were going to say drug, because it is caffeine it is caffeine. And Daniel Rhodes jokes about that all the time. He's like oh, you're the church drug dealer, it's legal hey, come to my office and have some drugs.
Speaker 2:Caffeine drugs. Coffee has a history of certain times and periods where people have outlawed it and called it intoxicating. Yeah, yeah If.
Speaker 1:Scott was in charge, I think that would happen.
Speaker 2:Is that right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's got a principle where he is, he only has like one cup a day, and sometimes he purposely chooses not to drink because he doesn't want to get addicted.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you're talking about Scott Rudicell, our middle school minister.
Speaker 1:But pretty bold move in the office when, out of the office every Friday, he has a habit of going to Summer Moon and also taking a picture of it and posting it every Friday. It's like a ritual. At this point, it's a ritual for him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so funny. Well, you have a hobby that you've turned into kind of a tent making pursuit and roasting coffee and a love of coffee. And we have a real love of coffee in this church and a real history with coffee. Before we were known as the Big Letters Church, we were known as the Coffee Break Church. Yeah, yeah, our services. We used to break right in the middle and have a 15-minute fellowship time and we've always had great coffee here, but we just keep upping our coffee game. A few years back we got all new equipment and started working with a local roaster. It was delicious, yeah, but we got some exciting news. We're taking another step. Yeah, what's on the table?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, we just about a week ago, two weeks ago, we got a big like man I lost it A big, not crate pallet. There you go, Pallet of coffee beans, and you were talking about kilograms of coffee. I don't know about the kilograms, but we have 165 pounds times four. Whatever that amount is of green coffee that we got. How many pounds? 165 pounds? There are four of those bags, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:How many pounds of coffee do we go through on a sunday morning?
Speaker 1:about five is what? Okay, we've been estimating that's yeah, that's not bad, I had no idea like yeah I don't know if it was 50 or two. Yeah, yeah, so we have about getting that amount of green coffee is probably about a year to a year and a half worth, unless we start doing more. You know even more things with it. Okay, we might. We.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, let's get a little nerdy. I learned a lot about coffee through going to church here, because there's so many folks that really have a passion for it. It's obviously a big part of our culture. There's coffee shops. It felt like on every corner everybody's serving coffee. So a coffee bean is a seed from a coffee plant right. The pip inside is a red or purple fruit, and this fruit is often referred to as the coffee cherry right, and so it's a fruit with a pip grown on like an evergreen shrub right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 2:It looks crazy. Where is it grown?
Speaker 1:out in the world. Oh man, for the most part soil that has some volcanic amount to it. It can kind of vary, but higher elevation tends to be a location too, but it doesn't always have to be. It usually is higher elevation because of the volcanic soil. So in theory you could grow, we could grow coffee in Oklahoma Okay, in theory. But we probably need like some form of greenhouse type thing for more of the outside climate.
Speaker 2:And because it tends to grow between the tropic of cancer and Capricorn around the world right and that kind of belt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's way easier in the more of the equator realm.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like in the range there, like you said. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so where did we get our green beans? The green beans have not yet to be roasted, right Okay?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'll. I'll start with locations and then maybe talk a little bit about the business we're working with too, Cause that's exciting as well. Yes, Location wise, we got four different places. One of them is decaf. I know some people are like, well, why do you even talk about that? But the awesome thing about roasting your own decaf. People don't realize this. The decaf they get, especially if they go to a restaurant or anything like that. I'm not going to fully shame it, but their decaf is probably something like folders. It's probably been roasted like six months ago and at this point it's just really stale. And the only reason it's even drinkable is because people have like a natural, actually drawing to that bitter taste and especially, like some people will joke, I like my coffee tastes like motor oil. What they're really saying is I like my coffee really bitter and kind of out of date.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what they got used to drinking. I always make the joke that in World War II in England, when they were at war and struggling for food, we were sending them a lot of food, including spam, but we were sending powdered eggs and there was a generation of kids that grew up on powdered eggs and preferred them their whole life over natural eggs. That is crazy, because that is what they got used to having.
Speaker 1:Makes sense. There you go, yeah, there you go. So all that to say, I think us roasting this decaf will be different. I think that we'll have a little better ability to keep it fresh for people who want decaf, but we got a Swiss washed Peru and so I'm actually pretty excited about it. I think it'll taste good for people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that decaf process is way more natural than the chemical process that probably happens in those other ones you were describing. Yeah, yeah, and let's break a myth Decaf does not mean zero.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, yeah it. It's really low, but it's not zero okay, yeah I was just looking at this because I've been drinking some green tea too, and you know, a typical cup of coffee is about 80 milligrams of caffeine, the green tea is anywhere from 20 to 40 and decaf is anywhere from like 1 to 20, probably okay, so so, yeah, and to give some other context, like a can of Coke is probably what 60, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then when you get into those energy drinks, they tend to break a hundred just because they sell them in such big quantities. Yeah, but yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:And now, while we're at that, I'm going to go on just a slight rant, man. Okay, okay, espresso, okay, real quickly. Espresso does not mean it has more caffeine, it usually has less. Yeah, a lot of times people are like oh, I got to get that double shot espresso from Starbucks. What they're not realizing is it's about the same amount as a normal cup of coffee. It's just theoretically it's smaller. So if you got all espresso only and you filled your cup with that, which most people aren't doing then technically you're getting more caffeine, yeah. But when you get the little shot of espresso with a lot of milk or a lot of whatever, then that's not really yeah.
Speaker 2:You would need two to three shots to get to a cup of coffee in terms of equivalent caffeine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, equivalent caffeine, yeah. And then the last thing, because I really judge companies that do this. There's two different companies that say either like the strongest cup of coffee or the most caffeinated, and there's two things that they're doing. One, they're using Robusta beans, not Arabica, and that Robusta just honestly has maybe like 10 to 20 more milligrams it's not like crazy higher or two, they are actually chemically altering it.
Speaker 2:And that's a different ballgame.
Speaker 1:When they say that, they're really misleading people. It's not that crazy stronger. But if you roast it a lot of times, people equate it's more caffeine with feels stronger. But, that's two different things. You can have a really bold cup and actually not have as much caffeine.
Speaker 2:Right, so the darker the roast has nothing to do with really the caffeine levels.
Speaker 1:Technically, yeah, and I say technically because there's enough stats out there to say light roast tends to have more caffeine. But that one is like a five milligram difference. So people think, oh, if I get light roast I'm going to get more caffeine. It's barely not enough to really notice in the scheme of you're having three cups a day anyway.
Speaker 2:Three amateur hour, so go back. You've talked about where we're sourcing our green beans we talked about. We're going to really up the game on the decaf. What else are we getting?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that one's from Peru. Then the three that we have we have one from the Dominican Republic. I'm excited about that one for multiple reasons. I've had that in my own shop before and I've loved the taste of it and I think that it's really versatile. Then we have the traditional. We're going to get one from Ethiopia that we're going to roast light and it's going to have blueberry notes.
Speaker 1:And that's that's one of those really exciting ones. I think a lot of people really love the blueberry notes and we got a huge bag of it. It's exciting.
Speaker 2:Nathan Cozart's love language, exactly.
Speaker 1:So that one's from Ethiopia and then we've got one more which, by the way, the Dominican is washed, and the Ethiopia one is natural we can talk about process. And then the last one is a Brazil natural. Okay, brazilian naturals tend to be very nutty. Typically, people use for the most part they use Brazil naturals for espresso blends because they just even out things, but on its own a lot of times you get like an almond granola kind of taste and that's really appealing.
Speaker 1:I think I've had a lot of people whenever I roast Brazilians. They've tended to like it a lot.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, having some different options and not the same thing. Sunday morning, if I show up and I'm getting a couple, I know which one you've roasted and what we're having that morning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so our goal is to have and that's why we haven't released it yet, honestly is our goal is to do some roasting. We haven't done that yet. With these ones, we're going to do some roasting test them out test them out, and then we're going to make some labels to go on our crafts, or next to it, depending on kind of our game plan there.
Speaker 1:So when you go up to that, you should be able to go okay, this is from Ethiopia and this is roasted on this day, and here is what I might be able to taste from this.
Speaker 2:Okay, so yeah, that's fun.
Speaker 1:That is exciting.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like you know we're stepping up our game even more than we have and kind of our love of coffee here and sometimes that sounds like, oh man, that sounds even more expensive. But what's interesting about coffee is buying in bulk, especially the green beans that come and they have a long shelf life. Talk about more where we're getting these beans and how we actually this is going to be cheaper than what we've been doing.
Speaker 1:To start where we're getting it. We're using a company called Cafe Creole Creole, I think, it means something in French like Haiti, because that's one of the main locations that they started in and that's why they have a lot of Dominican too, because they kind of go back and forth those are the same Island. So, anyway, this company was started by and there's a really cool maybe, maybe even we'll put it in like the link yeah, we'll put them in the show notes.
Speaker 1:His testimony. He's got a video about 11, 12 minutes where he talks about basically this is the CEO, the person who started it.
Speaker 1:He found himself not a believer, found himself getting into the drug realm, getting into like best way to put it growing weed and he was learning new ways to make it better. Okay, then, from his business dealings, in that he got in jail as you do, yes and picked up a Bible in jail, started reading it, wow, and God changed his heart and he placed his faith in Christ and literally went out of that and I think it took a while for him to find where he needs to go, but he ended up finding himself in coffee and actually has been like he's done. There's a specialty coffee expo, like this weekend that's coming up, and he has done teaching in those before where, like he's kind of TED talks of coffee, where he's talking about new processes and new things that can help make coffee even better.
Speaker 1:A lot of them really deal with the producer of the farm, which the best way to put that is one person is kind of supervising how they go about picking the beans, how they go about processing them, and one of the major ones that you even see in the video is him talking to a guy about bean size.
Speaker 1:If you go to a general place, they're just going to pick the cherries, do whatever process with them, throw them in a bag.
Speaker 1:Pick the cherries, do whatever process with them, throw them in a bag.
Speaker 1:But specialty coffee, which is actually what we have, is where they pick the cherries and they separate them by size, and so you get all similar size when you get a bag, and the beauty of that is when it's roasted, it's roasted perfectly even, whereas if you get different sizes I mean you could probably experience that with anything you heat up like the smaller piece just gets roasted and then the other piece might not be as done, and so that's what happens in coffee, and so just something as small as that can change the game on man, it's all roasted evenly, it all tastes the same, it's really smooth, and so that's a really cool part.
Speaker 1:But all that to say, this guy, becoming a believer, getting into that realm, actually uses that as a platform when he goes to these farms, as he's teaching people these ways to make their coffee more sustainable, because a lot of his stuff is organic as well. So as he's teaching people, he's also teaching them about Christ. And then in the evenings, while he's there, he's helping churches plant, doing a lot of work in that realm, and so supporting him is not just getting coffee. We're actually supporting underground mission in the coffee world, which is really cool.
Speaker 1:Very cool and I think it's a lot of things people dream. I wish we could do that more because the reality is there's so much room for that, but this is a great starting point to be, able to support someone who is doing it and, at the same time, get good coffee in return.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you buy in bulk and you buy the green beans direct, you can get them at a great rate. I had no idea. Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1:No, we probably don't want to talk too much about where we did it before, but I will say one. They have been amazing. Oh yeah, One of the two things that we're really doing is we're saving some money. We're also committing to having closer roast dates, because that does make a difference. All that to say, we got a really good rate before for roasted coffee, which is about 10 a pound, I mean that's a great roasted coffee which is about 10 a pound, I mean that's a great roasted coffee like, especially specialty grade.
Speaker 1:That's a really great rate. But when you get green beans green coffee beans then you can get anywhere from. The majority of ours were between four and $6 per pound, and so you're saving that much money per pound, which is pretty amazing.
Speaker 2:Pretty amazing, yeah. When you think about me being a consumer and buying specialty coffee from the store and what it is, I mean I feel like I don't even put it in pound size bags. Like everything in the store, the bags are getting smaller and the price is going up.
Speaker 1:I say that I laugh because that's even my own. I know mine's a half pound and I sell for 15.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, there's a quite a bit of markup in the roasting process, especially when it's local and really fresh and really custom.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, let's talk a little bit more about the bean. You mentioned the two main types. What are those two main types?
Speaker 1:yeah, that you might see on packaging so originally washed was the the the main thing that people did and it it was done for multiple reasons.
Speaker 2:There was clingliness, was a big one, especially so.
Speaker 1:It is like a cherry, like a fruit and there's a bean in there, yeah so yeah, how you process that exactly, so like you to basically washed is putting those in a thing of water and flushing out the cherries essentially, and so it's, and it's immediate thing, like you pick them, you get them all piled up, put them in there and wash those cherries out.
Speaker 2:Wash that pip and fruit away from the bean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then after that, then you take out the beans and you dry them. Okay, natural is essentially taking those cherries and going straight to the drying process.
Speaker 1:And so putting them on the rack or putting them out. I've seen this actually most in Peru because we walked in some farms whenever I was in Peru several years ago but like they would have like just tarps out in the street just lined with these beans, just thrown on the tarps. You know, natural process is a little newer than washed and the idea is to get more of the natural flavor out, because that cherry kind of ferments and it leaves some residue behind.
Speaker 2:It leaves some oil behind on the bean, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so natural on its fullest level is letting those cherries rot completely and then eventually just kind of picking them and putting them to the side. There's also honey process, which is basically a little combo of it. You let them sit for a little while and then you flush them out, okay.
Speaker 2:It's kind of in between maybe, so on the wash side you get a real natural earthy flavor profile right. And then the natural. It's going to be brighter, fruitier, where you get a lot more of those kind of notes. So you're blueberry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and I think that's the interesting thing about it is you both are great, in their own sense, for different things, four different things. And washed coffee tends to be better for espresso or drip coffee because it's just more. It's not complex, right, it's more. You're going to get some chocolate notes. You're going to get the traditional roasted type of taste that a lot of people like, and those two go well with all sorts of milk drinks, right, and so the most common thing you're going to see is a wash process like darker roast, and it's just because those go well with milk drinks. And so for a lot of people that like it black, it changes what they want. And you might want something really nutty which is like a natural Brazilian. You might have something fruity, like the natural Ethiopia One in my own shop to a little, you know, toot my own horn there is.
Speaker 1:I've got a Nicaragua natural geisha, and geisha is basically a. It's a form of Arabica, but it's just like a hybrid that was created in certain areas in Central America, and geishas tend to have a lot more floral notes, and so this one at a light roast has like chamomile kind of taste, which is very unique and some people really, really like that, and so it's wild what can happen with coffee and how you process it. That plays a big role into how it tastes in the end. And then there's a middle ground there that a lot of people don't talk about too much, where they're milling it because there's an outer shell on it too. So after the initial washed or natural or whatever they're going into, it's parchment coffee and there's an outer shell that has to be milled away. I remember just recently I'm in several like roasters groups and someone posted in there and was like why is this coffee like it's not?
Speaker 1:you know it's burning and it's not. It seems really really hard to grind and someone like he, someone's like, post a picture. He posts a picture and like it's parchment coffee, you can tell it's like more circular and round and basically the outer shell wasn't fully done. He had like a buddy had sent him beans, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And yeah it turns out it's like everybody's like, bro, you need to mill that man Of course, do you even know. Yeah, someone was joking. I guess this has happened to people before, but someone was joking about, like you know, a parchment removal party where you're just getting a bunch of people together and you're trying to peel this away. Yeah, so there's that process. That happens as well. That's actually what's funny about that. That's the preventer. I've got a buddy in Hawaii that has coffee trees on his farm and we've talked about like oh, pick them and send them some my way.
Speaker 1:And the one hold up is like the parchment phase. It's like none of us really know or want to deal with that.
Speaker 2:Is that usually done by machinery? I?
Speaker 1:think, yeah, there's a type of mill that cranks it out, I guess. So, yeah, so that happens, and then you get the traditional green coffee that is then roasted.
Speaker 2:Okay and yeah, so that's a great transition. Talk about how you got into roasting and then walk people through what that roasting process looks like.
Speaker 1:My first experience of seeing coffee being roasted was in Ethiopia, on a mission trip, and we anytime you go there during a meal, you're going to get this thing called injera which is like a sour I describe it as a sour pancake and then they come with like some dipping sauce.
Speaker 1:That's really spicy and I did not like it. But when you go on a mission trip and someone's like here eat this, you eat it, that's right. So, anyway, when you go on a meal you're going to get something like that. But when you go to someone's house that's non-meal any time of the day you're going to get a coffee ceremony and what they do is they literally go from the green coffee all the way to your cup.
Speaker 1:They have that green coffee, they put it on a skillet over a fire and they're you know, they're roasting it on the skillet, kind of flipping it. And then after they roast it, then they take like a literal mortar pestle kind of thing and like crush it up. After they crush it up, they put it cowboy style. So, like you know, you've got the water mixed with the beans and kind of a big kettle type of thing Brew it that way and then pours it into our little cups almost little teacups or little things like that and passed around to everyone. And then you make sure you don't down the bottom portion because it's going to be all beans. It's gritty. Yeah, I love the ceremony because to me that was a just a really's going to be all beans. It's gritty. Yeah, I love the ceremony because to me that was a just a really cool way to be hospitable.
Speaker 1:I thought a really cool way to like build some community where you're doing something and serving them. Just there's something really beautiful about that and I love that idea of it, and so I actually grabbed green coffee at a grocery store. I saw it and I was like I'm going to do this, so I take, you know, in my apartment and you can guess it, I I set off the fire.
Speaker 2:Smoke was everywhere.
Speaker 1:And it legit, like this is not a joke for two weeks Everybody had two roommates. Everybody's shirts in their own rooms smelled like coffee, like cause the coffee had spread so far the smell and it was good, like I remember like it. What's funny is the amount I roasted was so small, like like man. It just felt like that was a lot of work, a lot of trouble, yeah, almost lighting the place on fire for the small amount of result, and so I really didn't try it very much again. I was like I need to figure out a safer way to do this, so I really kind of left it alone, didn't go back to it for a long time. And then one time, shortly after Ramsey was born, I was looking at finding some new hobbies that did not weren't just like mindless. I guess Some of the mindless hobbies I had at the time was just playing video games, Video games.
Speaker 2:I remember you saying that, yeah.
Speaker 1:I actually I like playing musical instruments. I do a lot of the more stringed fret instruments, and I had a mandolin that I honestly never really learned how to play well, and so I was like you know what, I'm going to sell my mandolin and I'm going to buy a little tiny home roaster. And it's you know, the home roaster I got is, I mean, maybe eight inches to a foot tall, somewhere in that range, and it only roasts about a fourth of a pound, which might be like a coffee pot worth. So I was doing that more for fun, for a hobby. Learning that the learning phase of that was really funny because I really didn't have a community around me to ask, and so I did so many things wrong. The first one I ever did, I roasted even lighter than light roast, and what is that called Technically? There's like there's a term like cinnamon roast or something like that, but I don't know if I was even that level and you can guess it.
Speaker 1:it tasted very like plant, like grassy plant veggie. And I'm I'm serving this to people Like, I think, my college group group. I had a college group that I like hosted on sunday nights and like, let them, let them drink it. And everybody was pretending like, oh, this is cool, but nobody, nobody really liked that I didn't like it and I was trying to like, like it, but I was like, oh, this is on cutting edge.
Speaker 1:So it was a learning process. And then I realized another thing. This is a fun tip for people wanting to get into coffee and like I don't know where to start. The main thing I learned was actually, once I started getting the roast, good was grinding. I had a blade grinder and you're going to get all those people that are really stuck up about their coffee. They're like you got to get all those people that are really stuck up about their coffee. They're like you got to get a burr grinder. Yes, and you might roll your eyes and be like sure, bro, but the reality is like and I'm trying to be as humble as possible- in saying it, the blade grinder.
Speaker 1:It's never consistent, and that's why a burr grinder is good, because it has like a. You know, you can tighten it and open it up so that you can get the exact size you want, and what that does is every single ground is the same size. So the result is when water goes through it, water disperses evenly. Okay, if you have a blade grinder and you get a chunk of really coarse stuff with a chunk of really fine stuff, what happens is the water takes the path of resistance and you end up getting a really weak cup of coffee.
Speaker 2:Okay, I've never heard that explained. I knew that I should have a burr grinder.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I do have a hand one, but okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that's the thing that is will, like, really change the game for a lot of people. If you're like I get a whole being and I thought this was better and now it seems worse it's because it's because you're not using a bird grinder and you can get. You can get fairly cheap ones like that. Still do a pretty decent job. Okay, like I would say on amazon you can find one for 40 dollars maybe something like that.
Speaker 2:We'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then you can go. You can go way up from there, obviously, but, but but I think that's a great starting point. If someone wants to be like I want to start doing whole bean. So anyway, I say all that to say that's learning. That was really fun and I got to a place where I started sharing my coffee with people and then some people being like can I, can I buy some like from you? I want to give to this other guy, you know, and when you improve past the cinnamon roast yeah.
Speaker 1:So when that started happening I was like, oh sweet, what I can do is sell this enough to kind of keep funding my hobby, you know, and so that was my idea.
Speaker 1:And then in 2023, after doing this quite a bit, right at the end of 2022, I was like man, I probably, income wise, probably had like 700, five to $700 maybe throughout the year from just like people buying from me just because they wanted some, and I was like you know, I need to like a thousand dollars is the report limit for taxes and I was like I need to actually make this a business. And so I made it a business and it's obviously still really small. I'm not like trying to make it anything crazy big, but it is cool to see how it's grown in the last year it's been a little over a year now and cool to see that, like some of those 700 in a year is something I might turn in the month which is really cool, and what's the name of the business, Greg Ron, which you're like.
Speaker 1:okay, how do I spell that? It's like Greg G-R-E-G-O-R-O-N, so Greg O and then Ron. So if you know people named Greg and Ron, there you go.
Speaker 2:Where did you get the name?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the name actually means wake up. In Koine Greek, which is the Greek in the New Testament. It's different than current Greek. It's, like I describe it, like you're reading Shakespeare in English, right, you know you can kind of understand it, but not really. Yeah, it means wake up, and it's actually where jesus in the garden tell us the three disciples hey, stay alert, I'm gonna go pray. And then they obviously fail at that because they didn't have coffee. They didn't have coffee, so that's where I got it. What's neat is because of the unique name. I mean, if you type it in right, then it's going to pop up first, which is really cool, yeah, so you have an online store, but you've got a few retail spots, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So one in Owasso that's where I live, it's called OK Roots and then with them they like me giving them variety so you can go there and find variety. But I off both stores. I only do ground because of the current demand, like almost everyone, like anytime I have whole being that I bring there, it's like it stays on the shelf for like two months.
Speaker 2:Cause they don't have a burger right.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people that, yeah, there, yeah, you don't want to really figure that out, you just give me the coffee I can put in my pot. So. And then the other one is called Salt and Soul and that's in Cuida, so put them both there, but also online. Anyone in the Tulsa area? I'm pretty much like where do you want to meet up? Or for some people it's like if you're on my way to work, like I'm going from Owasso down to South Tulsa, if you're down 169, somewhere in that branch, like I'll turn off, throw it in your mailbox and you know so, or you can come to me and pick it up.
Speaker 1:You know that kind of thing. And then I've got locations like our very own. Caleb Bryan has a city, cycles and Jinx and so and I work with him and that's a location that someone can say I want to pick it up there, and so I might take your bag there, and then you go pick it up, cool things like that. No storefront or anything for myself, and that's just because I don't want to figure that out, not?
Speaker 2:right now. That's a lot of money, yeah Well, talk a little bit about the roasting process. I mean the art and what that looks like. I think for some folks does that take 10 seconds or does that take two days? Yeah, like I have no concept for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Somewhere in between. So basically there's different types of roasters out there. I mean, the most old school ever is you're going to have a fire. Actually, it's, someone sent me this George Washington's like roaster or something like that, where it's like a metal, you know metal cylinder that they've got on a rotisserie type of thing, where someone's cranking it while there's a fire underneath, you know.
Speaker 2:It's like a bingo thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly so like that's happened for a long time. And actually probably one of the cheaper ways to do it. That's not skillet, is actually there's ways for you to do something like that on a grill. So like you, could heat up a grill and do that so there's people who can do that.
Speaker 1:The roaster I got is an air roaster. Basically, air flows up through a thing. It also has, like heat come through it too, and so you're you're basically alternating heat and air to have the right temperature of the bean. Got a new roaster now and that new roaster is technically a drum roaster, but it's right, in this middle ground ground drum roasters are tends to be. You know, you got this big metal drum that's turning it around and heating it, so you control things like airflow and heat levels and things like that.
Speaker 2:And I've been at your place while you do this. I mean, you have the computer hooked up to this thing and it's reading all these temperatures and air flows. It's pretty technical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of smoke that comes out to got a ventilation for it. And then there's on the computer. You've got really three main things. You've got the temperature of the bean, the temperature of the, the drum itself, and then the. The rate of rise is what they call it, and so it's the idea of, like per minute, how many degrees is this bean gonna be rising? And essentially you don't want to burn. The main thing as a roaster is just don't burn the beans. So, like if you have anything, slower is not a big deal, it's just going to be more time consuming, okay, and sometimes slower can actually make it less bitter and less acidic.
Speaker 1:And so I do tend to roast mine on the slower end. But the key number is 10 degrees. 10 degrees rate of rise is what you really want to chill at, and so if you can keep it level at that and some roasters like to drop it at the end, where that smooths out on its own, that must be where Starbucks turns it up and burns it.
Speaker 1:Honestly, honestly, it's very possible. But all that to say, yeah, I tend to keep it pretty level at 10. I do let it go a little bit at the end where it's dropping some, or at times I'll do like seven to eight. Um depends on the being and what.
Speaker 2:I'm going for. What temperature are you trying to get it to?
Speaker 1:Like, oh man, so I used to. My current roaster works with Celsius, which is fun, so I'm still like trying to like it's so hard, I'm always trying to like go in my head. Okay, what is that? If I remember right, 410 degrees is the where you're going to hit first crack. So that's then the heat level you want for it to get to a light roast. While you're roasting, there's a crack yeah. And there's actually two.
Speaker 2:So so there's, and it sounds like popping popcorn in the way it's an audible thing when you're roasting, okay yeah, and so you'll hear.
Speaker 1:You'll hear first crack about 410 degrees and and that kind of is the marker for a light roast, yeah, so once you hear that, that's when it's like I would say, taking it off before first crack is never really going to be that good that's your, your cinnamon, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Different roasts, like different coffees. You might take it off right at first crack. You hear that pop and you're like, boom, I want this light roast, I want it really really light. My Nicaragua is close to that. I get it really light because you want to bring out that T note and that those other things, but different coffees. You might let it keep going and so essentially that all those beans are going to pop once some of them don't make audible noises.
Speaker 1:I used to have talking about an Ethiopian natural. I had a Peaberry Ethiopian natural, which Peaberry just means. These are the small guys that did not make very audible noises, and so I had to really just look at it, pay attention to the temperature level, Cause a lot of times when you hit first crack, the temperature pops a little bit and you get like, oh man, I went up three degrees All of a sudden. It's. It's usually because you're hitting first crack and so there's a little bit of extra notes with that, but it's way better when you can hear it, that's where, like I've seen you, this process and it looks super technical, but there's still just an art to it.
Speaker 2:Really, you can't get away from that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what I love about it. That's what really has drawn me into it. There's two different types of roasters out there.
Speaker 1:There's the artist, and then there's the engineer, and the engineer looks at that, they look at that graph and they're going to figure out how to remove all the possible variables and manage it in a way that you can hit that same thing every time and I've literally never tried to do that because you can.
Speaker 1:Even you can program it to do the exact same roast. Okay, I don't do that, mainly because I roast in my garage and the variables are going to be changing, the humidity is different, the temperature is different. But if you can manage those things technically, you can do that, you can make it a science and there's, I mean, to be honest, the best roasts out there probably do that. But I think there is some uniqueness to that idea of small batch roasting, like this is roasted for you, and I've noticed that with some people like some people like I really I want my coffee, can I get this one, but it be a little bit darker, because I'm not good with the acidic stuff. And when I hear that and I'm small enough to know this person, know what they want, I can roast it in that way and I think that makes it even even better, and so it just depends.
Speaker 2:But so first crack you get a light roast.
Speaker 1:Talk about medium and dark rose. Yeah, I assume you just keep going, but yeah, so typically medium is when you quit hearing the popping of the first crack and before you hear the popping of the second crack. Okay, and so medium is the most complicated, because you don't know how long that's going to happen and where you want it to land. Sometimes you want it to be like medium closer to dark, sometimes you want it to be medium closer to light, and that's a lot more of the feeling it out, paying attention to what it looks like, different things like that. So medium is the most complex, but it can be some of the most tasty coffees, I think. And then dark is when you hit that first crack or the sinking crack, and from there it goes darker, darker and then maybe burnt and so.
Speaker 1:But the beauty is like almost all my dark roasts, except I think there's two out there that I take a little bit past sinking crack. Most of them I just take off right at sinking crack, okay, and so mine tend to be the lightest form of a dark roast, which some people aren't. If they want dark, they want real dark, and so. But I think that there are there's ways to do. Usually dark roast pops a lot faster and so that time period. It can be a difference between a minute from being at dark roast than burning. It's that close and that's probably why you get the more of the burnt stuff from Starbucks, as much as we joke about it.
Speaker 2:Well, when you do taste a lot, I mean, you start to tell I guess they do that to try to make it all the same. But it's probably fine with a lot of the milk and sugar products, but on its own it's tough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's exactly it, like they know what they're doing and they're doing it for those drinks on top of it, like they're mostly using a lot of coffee from Indonesia and. India that have Robusta, because Robusta is a lot cheaper as well. It's less flavorful, it's more more simple taste.
Speaker 2:Doesn't make the specialty grade piece. Okay. So one other thing. I think a lot of people are familiar with the hot coffee, but in the summer months we've been doing some cold brew around here. What's the difference in the process there? Well, you tell me, cold brew expert no expert, so yeah, Essentially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so many ways to brew and we could talk about that forever and each one brings out different things. It's fun when you get really into coffee. You go from like I think everybody's first love after the pot of coffee is some form of a pour over or a Kim X, and then it just explodes from there. Cold brew is essentially like french press, which is you've got the beans and you got the ground up beans and the water they're submerging together.
Speaker 1:French press is you're pouring that hot water on the beans and letting it sit for two to four minutes, whereas cold brew is it's cooler or normal temperature, water temperature. Some of them put cold brew in the fridge, some put some, leave it on the shelf and basically fridge or shelf. What you're doing is you're leaving it for a certain amount of time to do the same thing it does with a French press, but over a longer period of time. And what that does is it tends to smooth it out, and that's why a lot of people like cold brew it's. It does tend to be less acidic. It tends to be really smooth, very smooth and crisp in a way, and that's why a lot of people like cold brew it's. It does tend to be less acidic. It tends to be really smooth, very smooth and crisp in a way, and that's just a really good feeling for most people. And so cold brew is consistently on the rise in terms of what people want.
Speaker 1:I serve cold brew locally only and not like shipping it out, because I don't know what that all entails. Shipping liquid, but like but you do, you can make it in a concentrate right, and not like shipping it out because I don't know what that all entails, shipping liquid but like, yeah, but you can make it in a concentrate, right. Yeah, but it's in that situation. It takes more effort because you got to for me. If I want to you know Ramsey wakes up at like seven in the morning. If I want to take off my cold brew then and drink it then or, you know, bottle it up, then I'm going to need to about 2 pm the day before put it on the shelf, get it ready to go. So it takes a little bit of that knowledge about your schedule and your time and all those kind of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm pretty much a hot coffee drinker. I'm definitely a seasonal coffee drinker. I do love cold brew in the summer and one thing I do love about it is when I prepare it. It just stays great all day, like if I didn't drink it all right, then if I come back to it in a couple hours, it's still great when my hot coffee got cold. And you know, yeah, yeah, and we do have a. We do the cold brew that we serve on Sunday mornings. We do brew it here. We got a whole system back there. It's a big five-gallon bucket. We do one really big batch and then we dilute it down to the right strength and crafts and store it in the fridge.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's awesome. I think we aim for like 36 hours in that brew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, and do you put it in the fridge or do you put it on the shelf?
Speaker 2:I can't remember the shelf for the brewing phase, and then, once we bottle it per se, we put it to the fridge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. I think I was gonna add another thing if, for those that like cold coffee, but maybe like I want something different than cold brew is what's called the japanese iced pour over it's probably like.
Speaker 1:It's one of my favorite brewing methods, so you got to get some form of pour over you can like. There's even the cheapest form is like a melita and you can get that at the grocery store for like six bucks. Okay. So there's ways to like have that fairly cheap and you can upgrade that even to a really good one. That's only 12 bucks like a plastic v60 anyway. Pour over basically you're doing it hot on the top but you're brewing it directly onto ice and so not where you brew it and then you pour ice, but you like have the ice there and it's part of your ratio of water to coffee. You already kind of have that ice calculated in with the amount of water.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And so the coffee drops directly on, immediately cools and there's something about that immediate cooling, like snap chill kind of thing, that just makes the taste really like bright.
Speaker 2:I guess yeah. So, it's pretty cool, like, try that at home with you. Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, coffee comes on the scene what 15th, 16th century, at least in great detail, but we really see it grow throughout the world. So we don't really find coffee in the Bible, right. I do have a verse, though. I'm curious if you think this is coffee. Okay.
Speaker 1:Are you ready for this? Yeah, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:It's Isaiah, isaiah 51, 17. Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, o Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering. Is that coffee?
Speaker 1:I mean cup of his wrath, Maybe I don't know. I thought you were going to go to Hebrews.
Speaker 2:Honestly, that's too easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, too cheesy. Every church cafe is named that. Well, how about this?
Speaker 2:James 1 17,. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to his change. I definitely think of that when I think of coffee.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love that you mentioned that verse. I actually was praying that last night, like thanking God for, for the little things.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and that was actually right there. That's what I was praying last night. That's really cool. Ah, I love it.
Speaker 2:Anything you want to add about coffee.
Speaker 1:For those of you that don't like it there's no shame. That's right. That's right. What?
Speaker 2:would you suggest for somebody that I didn't come to love it? Until like really end of college, I kept trying it and I didn't like it. But what I learned is that I was adding a ton of sugar because I thought that would help me like it. And then I got to a situation where I just drink it black and I was like, oh, I actually like this. Yeah, but for somebody that maybe does want to try coffee, that maybe historically thought they didn't like it what would you suggest kind of for a beginner?
Speaker 1:I really think that the big things that matter for trying it first is the beans that you get, how they're ground and how they're brewed, and I know like that means, hey, you might have to either find a friend that has that available to give you a cup of that form or do a small process like that. But like I'll give my dad as an example, For 36 years he did not drink any coffee.
Speaker 1:He drank it like crazy in college and then a little bit in early marriage and then, when my sister was born, cut it out and didn't drink coffee ever again, Really Until this year, ever again until this year. And and cause he's? He's staying at my, at my house, for a while and I was brewing some and he's like now, what's this? He was just curious about everything, tasted it and was like this is really good and I think for him he likes the Nicaragua light. He's like ordering that all the time.
Speaker 2:Can I get more scratching his neck? He's like ordering that all the time. Can I get more?
Speaker 1:scratching his neck, you know. So he's a perfect example of that. Someone who's like, yeah, it's bitter, I don't really care for that. There's different forms of it. And if you, if you were like, hey, I want to try and I'm going to start at Starbucks I know we've been dissing him a lot it really is not the right starter place Go to a specialty coffee shop and you're going to get something that's roasted newer that's really one of the big differences and not roasted so bitter, because that really is what you're going to get there.
Speaker 1:And then, once again, if you don't like it, like I said, there's no shame, there's no. That's the thing. Like too, that I think the way I even roast coffee, and even part of my on my website I have where, like coffee roasted in in the way you like it, and the idea behind that is like some people like it really dark, they like it burnt, and if you want that, I'm not ashamed to go ahead and give you what you want. There's, there's other people in that realm, that specialty coffee realm, that will be like no, we're only going to go light and you have to like what we like.
Speaker 2:And it's like no, just enjoy it yeah.
Speaker 1:Well good.
Speaker 2:Well, I enjoyed it. This is the nerdy coffee episode but it is it is a it is a cultural thing here at our church and we do love it. So I'm excited and we're just a few weeks out from our very own roast. Yep All right. Thanks for coming in, Josh.
Speaker 1:Of course, all right, All right.
Speaker 2:See you next week. Thanks for joining fellowship around the table. If you would like to learn more, go to FBC Tulsaorg.
