From Fungi to Flavor: The Mushroom Coffee Company's Unique Story PART 1

In this exciting podcast episode, we delve into the world of Mushroom Coffee with Alejandro and Laura. Alejandro takes us on the journey from the company's inception in December to its mission of creating a community for health-conscious individuals. The collaboration with NFL legend Fred Taylor adds a fascinating twist to the story, emphasizing the complex process of selecting mushrooms like Lion's Mane, Cordyceps, and Chaga for their various benefits. Laura sheds light on the coffee development process, from overcoming challenges in flavor blending to the importance of quality assurance. The hosts and guests discuss the company's growth strategy, including organic expansion and future marketing plans. The episode explores upcoming product launches like chocolate espresso beans and mushroom ice cream, emphasizing the company's commitment to intentional consumption.

📻 Tune in to learn more about the fascinating crossover between mushroom health benefits all squeezed into your coffee mug!

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Transcript

Alejandro: 0:00

You know, funny stories as we're as we were just trying to get our name out there initially, one of our first big moments in the, you know, creating the name and buzz for a company was when Fred Taylor, one of our founders, introduced the mushroom Coffee Company to Pat McAfee in front of a live audience on ESPN and Pat McAfee back being the personality that he is it you know, just a very raw and yeah, just very raw to the you're gonna get what he's thinking unfiltered. He started asking for psychedelics like air straight off the bat, and you know, we had to quickly explain to him, you know, that that's not, you know, where we are, we actually have functional mushrooms, which are very good. You can find them you know, they're regular, regulated and, you know, Lion's Mane Cordyceps and Chaga. Very good for your health, brain, cognitive function, immune system, then we have amazing coffee too loud. Being a coffee expert. She is. That's, you know, that's, that's what our product is. So yeah, that was a crazy story that we that we had. Starting out. It's something completely unexpected, but we'll navigate it is so yeah, my name is Alejandro. I'm In Miami, Florida in Miami issue is due to the insurance

Craig Pretzinger: 1:25

dudes are on a mission to escape be handcuffed by our agents

Jason Feltman: 1:30

powered by uncovering the secrets to creating a predictable, consistent and profitable agency Sales Machine.

Craig Pretzinger: 1:38

I am Craig Pretzinger.

Jason Feltman: 1:39

I am Jason Feldman. We are agents. We are insurance. Yeah.

Craig Pretzinger: 1:51

Yeah, go ahead.

Jason Feltman: 1:52

I mean, what it's called the mushroom coffee. would imply that right? Like, I'm sure a lot of people think like 100%

Alejandro: 2:02

Yeah. It's so funny.

Craig Pretzinger: 2:06

Why? That probably happens all the time. Hmm. People are asking crazy

Alejandro: 2:10

habits. You know, when you hear the word mushroom, it still Oh, it has a very bad connotation. You know, when it comes to psychedelics, he's still you know, that's, that's another subject that we don't really want to dive associate ourselves with. Maybe not just yet. But our Yeah, but our product is definitely something that everybody can take our top athletes right now. All over the NFL MLB soccer players boxers are diving in to and from them to regular mothers, insurance dudes every day they love.

Craig Pretzinger: 2:57

So

Jason Feltman: 2:59

I love coffee. I love like it's drinking all day long. And I came across like the whole, like the mushroom trend has been huge over the last like year and a half like everything from protein powders with it and stuff like that. So it's something that I'm really interested in. How did you guys start off with this concept? I

Alejandro: 3:19

founded this company in December, I was just the idea of creating a product that, you know, we wanted initially to work with mushrooms, right? How can we work with mushrooms and incorporate that into a ritual that everybody already takes part in every day? You know, it's not, it's not something that we have to teach is not something that everybody loves coffee, whether it's in the morning before you work out, wherever you know, the perfect time is for you. So how can we incorporate them for a no and blend those two? From that idea, I went on to be blessed to meet amazing people along my path including Lauder, who is a amazing coffee expert from Colombia, a manufacturer. A lot of people like Fred Taylor in the future Hall of Famer, future Football Hall of Famer and start that up, develop close relationships with the goal is just to develop a product that's, you know, a game changing elevator rate or daily ritual. You know, that's that's, that's that's our model as far as what we do. So many

Craig Pretzinger: 4:35

cultures have been using and been familiar with different mushrooms like over IPE for 1000s of 1000s of years. Right. And, and we've sort of our diet, especially in the US has gotten away away from that kind of healthy, you know, intentional diet. So it's really interesting. How did you come across the various mushrooms I see like some of them have Lion's Mane some of them have Chaga like where did Where did you identify these things? How did you realize that they had benefits? And why don't you talk a little bit about the benefits of of these types of plant medicines? Sure.

Alejandro: 5:10

It were, like you said, mushrooms have been around, you know, and as in you know, it used to be called by Greeks and Chinese culture, the food of the gods,

Craig Pretzinger: 5:19

there was the original plant on the on the earth, right? is the

Alejandro: 5:23

oldest, you know, I guess you could say living species. organism is very smart. It's very extremely, it has properties that are, you know, out of this world. Me personally, I follow that alkaline diet, that finding electrifying food pretty much easy to bake in basic terms. And that's why I ran into Lion's Mane used to take another one called the copia, but developing our our product, we wanted to just create a product that is very well rounded, right, so we found the three best mushrooms that take care of, for example, lion's mane is very good for your cognitive function, you know, for your focus, if you are an NFL player, or if you are a nine to five worker, or if you are somebody that needs to an account and then needs to work with a bunch of numbers, or some, most of them are hard to drink five, three to five coffees a day to stay up. So with the quarter says we were able to achieve that, bringing that extra energy level that it that it gives you. And then with the chaga it's meant to help you with your immune system and anti inflammatory properties. So blending those three, along with finding the best Colombian coffee that we could find for our mixture. In our blend is our goal. We have the best tasting mushroom coffee in the market. And if you don't believe me go try it out yourself. And that's that's our goal, you know, to create a very good tasting, and very good product that helps you well rounded you know.

Jason Feltman: 7:18

Laura, how did you get into coffee? I know you're the you're the coffee expert. Yeah. Yeah.

Laura: 7:26

I actually, I'm the fourth generation of coffee involved family. My father is a roaster in Saudi Arabia and my grandfather used to export coffee to Japan and other countries. So it has been basically my family like I learned from them. But then I found that it was actually like, the the thing I liked the most. So I started getting involved in tasting, then roasting. And that's how I got into the coffee industry. It this was almost 10 years ago now.

Jason Feltman: 8:03

Wow. That's awesome. How did that and how did you two meet through

Laura: 8:08

friends. We are from the same city actually here in Colombia. We have a small group of people that we all know that we both out. So cool. It's like that. Yes, yes. Yes. So we got into this beautiful project that I was also working. Without knowing him. I wanted to bring some extra let's say richness to our products here in Colombia with coffee. I wanted to help some coffee gorg coffee growers. So that's our level and I met a me looking to get a very good coffee from Colombia and him looking for something to to blend. So that's how we actually ended up with this this project.

Craig Pretzinger: 8:54

So what being a coffee expert of coffee purist, right. What were your thoughts? Initially, when this concept of mixing coffee was mushrooms? How what did you think?

Laura: 9:06

I think it was going to be a little bit difficult to keep a good flavor as coffee's very sensitive. And also as mushrooms they do have a specific, specific flavor. But I think we've done a very good job on mixing those things and making actually an instant coffee that tastes like coffee. So I'm very happy with the results. And it was it was a challenge at the beginning. I was like okay, guys, it's very important for me as a coffee expert as a coffee taster to make this work in the coffee way but in the flavor flavor way. But yeah, we did it. I think we did a great job on this.

Craig Pretzinger: 9:46

I'm just curious what that process was like, like what what did you do? Like how did you you just start mixing stuff like okay, we'll put two parts of this. Now gross, okay, that you know, like how many times does it take what what was the

Alejandro: 9:59

so to go based on that, you know, we found a very good flavor playoff profile from Colombia that combines with the amount of mushrooms and this is taken care of by food scientists that are certified and professional in essentially gave us certified and certified in Pat in Formula dot only we hold right in that goes through them. So it was trial and a bunch of samples actually have a sample right here. These are what used to get the samples because the company you see the date right there. So oh, we used to get these ones just to remember these one forever. These are just getting a bunch of these ones over and over from the food scientist until it tasted perfect. Then that boom, we got the certify formula. And then from there just developing there in our package and then like a bunch

Craig Pretzinger: 10:57

of split testing, right like you just get the thing you get some people you say taste it once

Alejandro: 11:03

Yeah, it was it's not just the taste also it's in louder. I can speak on this as well from the coffee part better than I can but it's aroma. It's it's a look. It's way the coffee dissolves. And mushrooms dissolve. You know in hot water. It's a lot of things that go into it to create an actual good product is not Jersey tasting well. It was a very challenging process, as he said, but it's we created an amazing product he tastes is very well it's really you know if you are somebody that drinks coffee every day and you're looking to nourish your body in a simple, automatic way, way to go