Half Mile Coffee Podcast

Better coffee at home, skip the line, and still taste wild cinnamon-roll notes from experimental lots

• Season 1 • Episode 4

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We dig into why brewing at home delivers better quality, value, and ease, then zoom out to Big Coffee’s shifts—Starbucks’ wobble, Luckin’s app-first push—and finish with a clear guide to experimental processing that unlocks bold flavor. Along the way, we share practical gear we love and how to build iced “espresso” drinks without an espresso machine.

• quality and convenience gains from home brewing
• cold brew concentrate as an espresso stand-in for iced drinks
• simple syrups, filtered water, and easy gear wins
• Ethos Kalita-style brewer and leak-proof travel mug
• Starbucks as simulacra and the market wobble
• Luckin’s gamified coupons and race-to-the-bottom risks
• competing at the top with objective cup quality
• value through traceability, direct trade, and fair pay
• experimental processing: anaerobic, selected yeasts, co-ferments
• flavor-forward lots from Pepe Hijon and Diego Bermudez

Go ahead and subscribe to us on YouTube if you want to see our videos and know when they come out. Share this podcast with your friends. Any recommendations or anything you want us to talk about, go ahead and shoot us an email at contact at halfmilecoffee.com


SPEAKER_01:

Welcome once again to Half Mile Coffee Podcast, our monthly podcast where we talk about coffee. We talk about coffee and stuff. And so three topics today. Yes. Brewing at home.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Big coffee. Mm-hmm. And we're going to talk about experimental processing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So people know what that is, because that's becoming a big third-wave coffee thing. Or fourth wave, really. We're into the fourth wave now. So let's start with talking about home coffee brewing. I know you have a lot to say about that. So what yeah, what what do we want to say about home coffee brewing?

SPEAKER_00:

So I think you get a a number of advantages by brewing your own coffee at home, regardless of whether you have equipment or not. So I think you can increase your quality, you can increase the value, and you can increase your enjoyment of your coffee. So the quality aspect of it, you can buy higher quality coffee for your home than you can when you go out. So the coffee that you buy from us at Half Mile Coffee is probably, you know, three or four times higher in quality than uh the drive-thru that you're stopping at. It's definitely higher quality than what you would buy at Starbucks and at Dutch Bros. So I'm pretty excited about that, that we can bring that to you in your home. Uh and so that's one important factor.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. So it's so you're saying it's the advantages are price. Yes, prices. Quality, quality, and convenience. Right. Now, some people would argue about the quick convenience part of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. I and I think you create your own convenience. So you can subscribe to a coffee, it shows up at your door, you can prep it ahead of time, you can buy like a cold brew kit and cold brew your coffee so it's ready for you without any equipment. Um, you can set your coffee machine to brew it for you in the morning. You can buy grant pre-ground coffee. There's a lot of ways to make it convenient.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. I'm going to hit you with a few different drink recipes or coffees, and you tell me how you could make it at home the most convenient possible way. Go for it. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Iced mocuccino.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, okay. So you have your cold brew kit, you you make enough for the week, you end up with a concentrate, you put in like two ounces of concentrate, two ounces of water, Hershey's syrup, milk, stir it, ice, done. Out the door.

SPEAKER_01:

It was kind of a trick question. There's no such thing as an iced cappuccino. Thanks for playing.

SPEAKER_00:

No.

SPEAKER_01:

So I won twice then. No, I think that's right. So I you just went twice. So uh I guess the point on that is uh people like iced espresso drinks. It's becoming really popular. Right. And you're saying you can make that at home. And just to slow down, because you like everything you said was right, but I think it was a little bit fast. So if even if I don't have an espresso machine, I can make um an espresso shot for a cold drink using cold brew.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And obviously it's not an espresso shot, you know, but what we're what we're moving towards is the idea of an espresso shot, right? The the the flavor and the presentation of a highly caffeinated, highly high quality, delicious coffee drink. So if you start with a cold brew concentrate, it's essentially a uh you know substitute for the coffee itself, the espresso, the you know, traditional espresso.

SPEAKER_01:

And I would say, just going back to higher quality, I think a condensed coffee from a cold brew, a cold brew concentrate, is sometimes better than a shot of espresso and a cold drink. It's a little smoother.

SPEAKER_00:

I think it depends. You know, if if you're pulling a if you're pulling legacy, our legacy, it it and you pull it properly, it is the most amazing espresso shot. It is so rich and so complex and amazing. You should absolutely try it um by itself. I I'm super in love with this. But uh not everybody is gonna be able to do that at home. And cold brew is amazing because it pulls all of the bitterness out of the coffee. Not and our coffee doesn't have a lot of bitter bitterness to begin with. And so it it's even smoother and it's even more just caught that coffee flavor that you really are looking for in as the base of your, you know, your coffee drink.

SPEAKER_01:

So Okay, so cold brew, uh cold brew concentrate as your base for an ice drink. You can buy one of our kits, right? We have a cold brew kit, um, which makes it super easy. You don't even have to own anything, you just have to throw this filter bag into a pitcher for 24 hours with the water, and you're good. And then people have to buy a few syrups, right?

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, you can buy syrups or you can make syrups. I can I'll give you my secret recipe for syrup. It's just two to one. So two parts sugar, one part water. Add some whatever flavorings you want to that. I mean, it's really like an extract, like a vanilla extract. Vanilla extract, maple extract, whatever. Cinnamon. Yeah, cinnamon, what whatever flavorings that you want. Peppermint, it's all the same.

SPEAKER_01:

So if you don't want to do that, you can buy them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, right. Definitely buy them.

SPEAKER_01:

You can buy them in the store.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, by 1883. I mean, Torini has a lot of uh you know, in bad ingredients. Not bad ingredients, ingredients that I don't prefer in my coffee store.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, and then milk, right? Just milk. So so that's a cold drink, very easy. Yeah. Right? With if you do the cold brew. You could do that every, I mean, with our kit, you could probably have a couple weeks' worth of drinks, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, honestly, and or you can just brew a whole pot of coffee and throw it in the fridge.

SPEAKER_01:

So that's what we do sometimes. We'll batch brew and then throw it in the fridge for our kids.

SPEAKER_00:

In the summertime, too. I it's so amazing. And you know, it's just so easy. Coffee can be really easy. You do not have to overthink it. And I think there are those of us who love to overthink coffee. It is like so much fun to get into the nuance of like, how many microns is my coffee, you know, ground for this particular, you know what I mean? Like we get really, really into it, like maybe too much. So, but it does not have to be that crazy. Like you can you can brew simple or you can brew complicated and and both ways you can get a great cup of coffee if you are starting with good coffee and good water.

SPEAKER_01:

So, yeah, I think that's a good point. If you pay attention to the water you're putting into, say, you have a coffee machine. Yeah. Like a drip machine. Yeah. If you you're concentrating on putting filtered coffee in that and not tap water, filtered water. Right? Filtered, what'd I say? Filtered coffee. Yeah, filtered water into that and not tap water. And then a really high quality, fresh, freshly roasted coffee, you can get an amazing result just out of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what you're advocating for. Yeah, the basis is start with good water, start with great coffee.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. And then um, there's a couple of things that we have uh here that we're we've been talking about a lot. Um, talk about this uh Kalito Wave brewer.

SPEAKER_00:

So it is not a Kalito Wave itself, it is a Kalito Wave style brewer made by um Ethos. So it is called an Ethos brewer. And here it is. Um The cool thing about the Ethos is that it is metal. It's all metal. So this is your metal filter basket that you can just rinse out when you're done using it. And this is your metal brewer, and there's a a little space. There you I don't know if you can see it in the frame, but there's a little space at the bottom, and so your filter basket is flat. And so it's not gonna get stuck in the bottom. That is the coolest part of this brewer, and it just makes it brew very um consistently. The water doesn't uh it doesn't get stuck in there. Uh, and then you have this this great cover, um, and you have this glass pitcher. So the glass pitcher also has measuring lines on it, which is so handy to see kind of what you know what you're putting into it and you can see what you're getting out of it. Um, and it's in ounces and milliliters. And this is borosilicate glass, which means you can actually put this on the stove on low and it will be fine. It is super sturdy, excellent for travel, excellent for every day. Um, I make uh I oh the other thing about borosilicate glass is that it's also heat safe. So that means you can put ice in it and brew hot coffee into it and it will not shatter. Love this thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, for those of us are who don't watch our YouTube channel, our YouTube podcast, you can see it on our website, or you can go to our YouTube channel because there's a lot of people that listen to our podcast that don't watch it.

SPEAKER_00:

But we're yeah, and go to my Instagram, go to our Instagram because we've we've demoed this on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we we really like this brewer. Um, and so this is the one we recommend. I think it's it actually brews easier than a V60.

SPEAKER_00:

For sure. I agree a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01:

So it doesn't clog as much for some reason. Yeah, um, it's very consistent. It's very consistent. It's a it's a really good brewer, and like Nicole said, I mean, the fact that you can flash brew in it, you can put that on a you know, that glass silicate on a stove and hold it at warm if you want. Yep, which is so cool. Because you can make two cups in that thing. It's just great.

SPEAKER_00:

Um a little bit more than two cups, six hundred mils. Yeah, so half a liter.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And so that's another, that's just an easy way to brew uh pour over coffee and uh make it really, really good.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and really coffee shines in that in that uh in this brew method. It really does.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And then so there's just another brew method that's super easy uh with a device you can get on our site. And then um, let's talk about this coffee mug that we have.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I like to call it the coffee capsule, and it is um stainless steel, double walled on the inside, and it's it's really leak-proof, which is the the biggest plus about this particular capsule. So you can just flip it upside down, you can shake it, and it does not leak. And it will keep your drink cold all day or hot all day. And so this is a great thing to throw in your backpack. It's perfectly shaped for your little backpack side pocket. And um, you can make your coffee to go, and it's ready for you for lunch. So it's 12 ounces, which is the perfect size for your morning commute or your afternoon pick-me-up.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think that's what I really like about that um mug, is you know, my last job, my last corporate job, the coffee wasn't good. Um, and so I would bring a latte for after lunch. So I would drink my coffee in the morning at home, and then after lunch, I would have a latte because I would just throw that in my backpack and I didn't have to worry about it getting cold. I don't have to worry about it spilling. So it's it's just a really good um drink mug um or coffee capsule, I guess you could call it, or coffee pill. What about that? So a coffee capsule, but it also fits in a drink cup. So these are just some of the things that we like and we've kind of curated on our site um intentionally, because these are things that we we as we've bought a lot of things in coffee, these are some of the things that we think really work well. And so we wanted to provide them on our site for you. Not just a big infomercial, but just uh talking about brewing and and convenience, right? Because that's the one of your three is convenience.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And I and I would argue that it's more convenient to brew at home than to go out, just because you're not standing in line. You don't have to spend time on an app, you don't have to, you know, suffer all of the, you know, crowded coffee line or, you know, just it it can get a little crazy. I I know like I my daughter loves to go as a treat to go to Dutch Bros. And that can be, you know, we have to budget that. It's like, okay, we need 30 minutes because it's gonna be a little bit of a wait, you never know, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

So and some of us just aren't prepared for that level of extroversion.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Too much fun.

SPEAKER_00:

Like, what are you gonna say to the barista when she asks you, you know, what fun thing are you doing today? Yeah. You have to be prepared. You have to come with an answer.

SPEAKER_01:

There's too much. There's too much. I love too much pressure. Too much pressure. I just want my coffee. I love it. Um all right. So anything else you want to say about home brewing? I think we've yeah, I think home brewing is economical, right? That wasn't one of yours, right? It was just quality, convenience, and what was the third?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't I didn't write it down. I have no idea. You're three bullet balls. This is not my day to remember things.

SPEAKER_01:

You need an alliteration for it. Uh convenience, quality, something else, you know. But so I think economical too. I mean, we didn't do the math, but if you buy 12 ounces of coffee, you get it's a dollar a cup, it's yeah, it's a dollar a cup because you get a bit cup versus five dollars a cup for coffee that isn't necessarily um that good.

SPEAKER_00:

It's not good, it's not healthy, it's not convenient, it's it's really like it, it's really nothing.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And we're talking to the people that want to make a quality cup of coffee, not caffeine's a utility.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a I mean, you could take caffeine pills and that would be way more efficient than drinking a monster. Probably cheaper.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So so bad for you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I have I have opinions about separating coffee from the plant. Separating caffeine from the plant, I should, I mean.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, yeah, and then you just get further and further away from a natural product, right? So it's just never good. Yeah. So speaking of maybe not the best quality, but um convenience or uh I wouldn't even say cheaper. I mean, there's some coffee companies that are kind of that are coming right now that will talk about they're trying to make your coffee in the morning cheaper.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So first we should talk about stuff that's going on in big coffee.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So let's we're going to our second top topic here. Big coffee. Big coffee. What do we want to talk about about big coffee, Nicole?

SPEAKER_00:

So I think the biggest news this week is the wobble of Starbucks. So Starbucks has closed its reserve roastery. It is closing certain certain coffee shops, and it has uh let some people go. And I and they're trying to do a big revamp. So you know, and I and I think they they really want to try to be your neighborhood coffee shop, but it's not something that they ever were. So they're trying to become something they never actually were.

SPEAKER_01:

So why don't you explain that? Talk about this term simulacra. Yes. And and and talk about what that means with respect to Starbucks and what they are trying to become and what like they never were.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. So simulacra is a copy of an original that doesn't exist anymore. So um, so the way I've heard it explained was so imagine a pumpkin. A pumpkin is a real thing, it grows in the ground. It there's nothing, it's an original, right? So then from the original, we can create pumpkin pie, which still has some elements of the original pumpkin in it. So it's a copy, a kind of revision of the pumpkin. So then from pumpkin pie, we get a pumpkin latte. And so the pumpkin latte doesn't have any pumpkin in it anymore. It just has the idea of pumpkin pie. So it's a copy of a copy at that point. And so then from the pumpkin latte, you get pumpkin creamer. Okay, so pumpkin creamer doesn't even have the element of pumpkin that it doesn't taste like pumpkin pie. It just is kind of the idea of fall flavors or, you know, pumpkin pie. It's it's really so separated from the original pumpkin. It's it's a copy without an original. So there's nothing, there is no, there is no real thing. There is no real pumpkin creamer, right? That is that doesn't exist. It's created. It's a copy of something that never existed. So another example of that is downtown Disney, not downtown Disney, Disney's Main Street. So if you've ever been to Disneyland or Disney World, there's a Main Street and it's supposed to give you the idea of an old-fashioned main street. But it is not a copy of anything that ever existed. It is an ideal, it's like an ideal um creation of that idea. So it's a copy of something that doesn't exist anymore. So that is kind of Starbucks is is not really coffee. It's not really your neighborhood cafe. It is the idea of your neighborhood cafe. It is the idea of a coffee, but there's there's very little coffee in the coffee, you know. So, and there's very little like neighborhood in that cafe. And so they're really, really trying. And I would say that their biggest asset is the barista in that scenario. So they are starting to wobble, they're changing their menu, they're doing a lot of things to try to regain a customer base because they've had losses over the last few quarters, which has never happened before. So, um, so they're really struggling. We'll see what happens and what impact that has on the greater coffee community and if they survive this, because they have a major competitor coming. Do you want to talk about the major competitor?

SPEAKER_01:

Just to talk a little bit more about the Starbucks issue. What do you think is impacting that market? Where do where do you think their customers are going?

SPEAKER_00:

So I think that there might be a shift into having uh a lot more traceability and a lot more um control over ingredients. I I don't know that as many people are interested in the 2000 calorie Trenta Mochacino, the invented coffee drink, that then as there was 10 years ago or 15 years ago. I think there's d sugar has been really demonized and there's so much in their their drinks. So I think maybe there's a a little bit of an awareness happening that that's not healthy. Um, and also there's there's a little bit of a cooling off of people wanting to spend money in big corporate spaces. So um, you know, do you want to give your money to Starbucks? Or, you know, maybe you do, maybe you don't. But there's I'm not sure exactly what is causing their wobble, but they absolutely are wobbling right now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that's what what and that's what makes the Luckin' coffee coming into our market just that much more fascinating to me. Um you don't know, yeah. If you don't know a Luckin' coffee is, so Luckin' Coffee is a Chinese-owned um coffee company. Now we could split hairs about who owns it, China or this person. I don't remember the gal's name that created it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I don't either.

SPEAKER_01:

But um, most businesses in China are backed by the Chinese government or somehow helped, right, because there's there's an interest there. Right. Um a collective interest. And so the first Luckin coffee shop was put in in New York City, and Luckin' Coffee essentially is think of uh anime meets Dunkin' Donuts, really. I mean, you know, uh like an Asian Dunkin' Donuts is the best I can describe it.

SPEAKER_00:

They have an excellent logo, which is a stag with great line.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I like their branding.

SPEAKER_00:

Great Alex.

SPEAKER_01:

They're very smart. They're leaning into an app. You have to order on an app. You can't order like at the counter. Their app is like a big video game of coupons. So eventually so a$5 latte really costs you about a buck 25 because of all the coupons they throw at you and all the incentives. So they've really taken the point of sales incentive system um and put it on steroids and tried to tap into the same psychology that TikTok is using for content consumership and then moving it to product consumership. And so you're that's so so they're looking to grow in the market in the US. So I think both of these things are very interesting because luck in coffee is basically their customer, is the person that wants a utility, the utility of coffee, but is not interested in traceability or where their coffee's coming from, um, or any of those things. Meanwhile, Starbucks, which is the largest coffee company, or you know, probably chain coffee company in the US. And I haven't verified that. I don't know if that's 100%.

SPEAKER_00:

They're big enough.

SPEAKER_01:

But so they're they're backing away from that model a little bit, right? Right. Because it's still they're still chasing the bottom. And so that's what is what I mean by that is there's less competition at the top of coffee than there is at the bottom. That's true, right? So if you're gonna chase, um buy the cheapest possible coffee you can and serve it with lots of sugar and try to do gimmicks to bring in customers and try to beat everybody's price, right? Because that is a retail strategy, beat everybody's price or entice them with coupons or whatever, make it about every anything but the product, then you're chasing the bottom, which means you're chasing where most people are. Right. And that can be that can be a good model because although your margins may be a little bit less, like the luck in coffee is you know, basically saying they're gonna lose money for a couple of years. They will, yeah in this market, but they're they're betting on volume increasing to the point where they will make profit off off their low, you know, they'll be profitable over the low profit margin that they're they're gaining. So to our so my advice, or I guess why I'm saying this is so we have some of our wholesale partners that watch this, and I would just say, um, I think we don't have to worry about that. I agree. I think we're in a whole different um category. Category. We have different customers, right? And so I think we have to continue to focus on those things that are scaring Starbucks or moving Starbucks into a different category, which is high quality coffee, traceability. Yeah, they really don't have any of that, right? They own their own coffee farms in Indonesia. Um their quality, I'm not gonna say that their quality is bad because they do some single origins, like they had some reserve stuff that was good. I don't understand closing the reserve roastery.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't either. That was a cool place.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I think but I think most of where they're putting their their roasted coffee is into the category of super dark with a lot of flavorings and a lot of milk. Right. And so it's it's its own choice.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. I think that's a choice. That's intentional on their part.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it's a choice. And so us, if we're gonna, if we're gonna be in the specialty coffee sector, right? I think we really have to focus on quality. And we talk about this all the time. Quality in specialty coffee is not just objective quality in a cup from a cupping sheet. But quality, but what gets valued is not just the quality. The value, so I try to split it up. Here I am. I'm just like, I'm going to fall into this pit again of what is quality? Is quality the story or is the objective quality in the cup?

SPEAKER_00:

Come on, come on, give us your manifesto.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it's value, right? I think value comes from um and not quality. I think conflating quality with the traceability aspect or the farm aspect is not right. I think that's value, but the quality aspect to me is the objective value of the coffee on the cup, I mean, on the on the cupping table.

SPEAKER_00:

I agree. Right. I like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Is the is the green coffee free of defects? Yes. Is it is it have the sweetness, acidity, balance, all the things that you want? Then it's and it and it scores really high in those categories. Yes. That's your quality. And I think people should pay for that. But then there's also this aspect of traceability of where's my money going? Is it going to an importer or is it going to the farmer? What's the farmer doing with that? Is he reinvesting in his farm? Is he investing in his people? Um, is it a cooperative?

SPEAKER_00:

What is the cooperative doing with the money that they're making?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Are you making coffee and the world a better place by paying a little bit more from people that actually care about what they're doing? Right? Right. That aren't aren't machine stripping their coffee plants. Right. So I think that's value. And so if you're in the specialty coffee sector, section sector sector, talking is hard. So if you're in the specialty coffee sector like we are, I think you've got to you've got to really be able to um gain valuable product, like get really good coffees, right? Be able to talk about them, be able to talk about why they're valuable from a uh a farm standpoint or a procurement standpoint from your roaster.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's so many points of value to talk about.

SPEAKER_01:

And then how do you communicate that to your customer? And that is, I think, become a cliche almost, which is a but a tragedy. Yeah. In the specialty coffee world, people say, Oh, you gotta educate the customer. And like as if we've been doing that for 20 years and it's over. I I talked to so many people that have no idea what the difference between commodity and specialty coffee is. Right. That we've got to continue to to build relationships with our customer and educate them so they can see the value. I think once people see the value in coffee, it stops becoming um just a choice between a cup of coffee at 7-Eleven and a monster, and it becomes something better, something that they want to consume, that perhaps is an affordable luxury, that gives them a bigger perception or picture of the world uh that they're living in, because there's something cool about knowing the story behind the hands that put the little coffee plant in a little tiny cup when it was a baby, raised it for two or three years. Five years, five years, sorry, five years, and then handpicked the fruit, right, carefully dried it and processed it, right? And then it and then gets it to us, and then all the care that we put into it. I think there's something really cool about that. And I think that takes educating the consumer, it takes a knowing your business and knowing what you're about and where you're getting coffee from. And that is so far removed from what Starbucks and Luckin is doing that I don't think their competition. For your your mom and pop or your your third wave cafes or any cafe that actually is looking to serve a customer really good coffee and not focused on just making a buck.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Because there's lots of people in coffee that are looking to just make a buck. Could care less about the coffee.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's a lot.

SPEAKER_01:

I talk to them all the time.

SPEAKER_00:

That can happen.

SPEAKER_01:

I talk to them all the time. So that's what we talk about, this big coffee thing. I think it's interesting news. I think we've got to continue to watch it.

SPEAKER_00:

I I agree. I mean, and the thing is, there's only so much coffee that can be grown in the world. And, you know, we're trying to the specialty is trying to to grab, you know, the the best of the best, you know, and and there's just so many factors involved in that. And what Starbucks does matters. What Luckin does matters to us, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

So what importers does matters, right? Because you know, I mean, there's lots of coffee farmers that aren't that are getting out of the specialty coffee market just because people aren't paying them.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a that's a whole nother conversation, you know, how hard it is to be a farmer.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, and yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I like to say the closer you get to the actual coffee cup to the customer it gets to the customer, um, that's where most of the profit is. And if you think about the how backed up the farmer is, and then um it's you know, that's why, yeah, direct trade relationships are really important. Um, and you know, being able to pay a fair fair price to for coffees really important to us.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. We're really we're really proud of our, you know, direct trade coffee, which right now is our Pepe Hijon. And, you know, we know we know, you know, how he runs his farm, we know how he treats his workers, we know what a what a tremendous like positive impact he has on his community. And we're so happy to have his coffee because you know, beyond that, it's the cleanest coffee that I've ever seen as far as green coffee goes. And it's also the most interesting coffee that that um tioxy, by far the most interesting cup I've ever had. And then also the sioxy is just a real beautiful, fruity, you know, uh, treat of a coffee.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, yeah, and this moves us into our third topic. Oh, yeah. Right, which is kind of the cool thing about him as well, is he's an innovator. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about experimental process and why that's important in coffee and why we think that adds value to a coffee as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So experimental process coffees are when someone does something to the coffee after it is um picked. So it's called post-harvest. So you in in the normal process, you would um you'd pick the coffee and you have to ferment it to get all the mucilage and stuff off of the coffee seed inside. It's not really a bean, it's a seed. So you have to get all of the fruit off of the seed. It's very similar to a cherry. So imagine eating a cherry and the fruit part is the stuff they're trying to get off. And the seed is the coffee. Um, and then the coffee has to go through a process to in order to get to the point where it's dried enough to be roasted. So that might be, it might it might ferment in its pod, in the inside the fruit for a while. It might get washed immediately and ferment in that washing process. And then it might go through a a completely um a completely different process, and this is where the experimentation is happening.

SPEAKER_01:

So a we start with what are the the three normal processes? Just the natural washed and honey process. Yeah. So just start with that and then use that kind of as a springboard for what an experimental process would be.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um, I'll just really quickly very basically explain each process. So the natural process is when a coffee cherry is allowed to ferment completely whole and then it gets separated after a fermentation process from the fruit, and then it's or it can be completely dried in the coffee cherry um itself. So that's a natural process. The wash process is when it's completely separated from the coffee cherry and then dried. Uh, and then the honey process is when the skin is taken off and there's some of the pulp left on the coffee seed and it's allowed to ferment like that. So those are the three processes. Within each of those processes, there are a lot of other nuances that can happen, but that's the those are the three basics.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Those were the three historic basically ways that they would process coffee. Right. And you get different characteristics for each, right? Like in Africa, a lot of them are natural process because they don't have a lot of water. Right. And that's why, you know, your your Africans tend to be more floral and fruity, right? Because of that process.

SPEAKER_00:

But that's part of it, and part of it is the varietal itself.

SPEAKER_01:

That are so yeah. So now that we know what the normal processes are, um how what how does innovative process come in or change that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So an innovative process might mean that right now there's a lot of um processes where they're putting the coffee into canisters or into bags and they're allowing it to ferment without oxygen. Um, and that's one thing. And sometimes they're doing that and they're putting in different yeasts that don't naturally come from coffee. So they might come from wine or they might come from uh, you know, a different fermentation um product that they're putting into coffee. And so that is, oh, and then there's another really, really, really cool um processing method they're using where they're putting different fruit into the co-fermented. Yeah, the coffee um into into the fermentation tank with the coffee. So, and that has an even more impact on the flavor of the coffee. So you can get really kind of crazy flavors like banana or grape or strawberry. So it's really kind of fun to try those. Yeah. And experimental processes are going to be the most flavor-forward coffees. So if you have a chance to try one and you are the person that was that's like, oh, you know, I've always purchased coffee and I look at the flavor notes and I can never taste them. Try an experimental because those flavors are so uh usually so pronounced that you won't be able to miss it. You will be, you know, really excited to taste them.

SPEAKER_01:

So let's talk about the process of our two. We have two innovative processes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Processed coffees right now. We have the Hector Bermudez.

SPEAKER_00:

Diego Bermudez.

SPEAKER_01:

Diego Bermudez. Oh man. So I had it used to have a friend named Hector Bermudez, so I always go to that. Is he a coffee farmer? No, he's not. So Diego Bermudez and then um Pepe. So do you want to talk a little bit about those processes specifically?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. I mean, so um I already talked a little bit about Pepe, but I didn't tell you what his process is. And he's he's really, really trying to figure out, you know, how different environmental factors affect his coffees. And so he'll spend, he'll spend time allowing them to ferment, he'll put them in the dark, he puts them in a really controlled environment. Um, he'll do a process where he gives them light and then he takes the light away. I mean, there's just, he's just really, really um curious about coffee. And so he's got several different uh coffees that he's created, and we have we have two of them. So uh those are those are really fun to try. So um, yeah, and so the experimental process is just that it's new and people are experimenting and it's really bringing out it different and interesting flavors. And so for the Diego Bermude's coffee, his coffee, uh the M3 Castillo Thermal Shock, ends up with a real cinnamon spice um flavor, which is which is definitely more pronounced than um what you might normally get in just a regular washed or um natural process.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't prepared for the taste of that because I had heard cinnamon roll, and I'm like, come on, cinnamon, cinnamon, come on. And then I tasted it and I was like, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's truly unique and really interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, because he puts a different yeast on the um fermentation. So, and it's got a long scientific name that I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I I definitely think that was worth trying and uh yeah, get it before it's gone. We have a real low amount right now. We have 10 bags left. Yep. So um okay, great. So I think we covered enough here today.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_01:

And so as always, we appreciate you for listening. Um, go ahead and subscribe to us on YouTube if you want to uh see our videos and know when they come out. And then uh anywhere you follow podcasts, um you can catch us on Spotify or Apple. Those are the two biggies. Definitely. So you can catch our podcast anywhere.

SPEAKER_00:

And share this with your friends. It's it's really helpful for us if you if you like this podcast and you have a friend that likes coffee. Definitely share this podcast. There's a lot of coffee podcasts, and it's funny that a lot of them don't actually talk about coffee.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that is weird. That is weird, right? So we yeah, so if you for whoever the coffee geek in your life is, you can go ahead and share this. And then uh any recommendations or anything you want us to talk about, go ahead and uh shoot us an email at contact at halfmilecoffee.com.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, we would love to get a real email.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

On that email address.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. We'd any email that doesn't have uh you know someone telling us how they can help us to sell coffee. Boost your sales. Boost our sales. Um, all right. Well, thanks, and we'll talk to you next month. Okay.