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Into song: Elijah Bisbee
In this new episode with Natali we talk about:
RESOURCES
Inquiries about coffee samples or future Fermentation Training Camps: info.luxiacoffee@gmail.com
Support the show on Patreon to join our live Discord hangouts, and get access to research papers, transcripts and videos.
And if you don't want to commit, show your support here with a one time contribution: PayPal
Sign up for the newsletter for behind the scenes pictures.
To connect with Natali:
Instagram
Website
Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee
Hello, and welcome to episode 58. before we get started today, I just have a little bit of housekeeping. I want to remind you guys that I have a fermentation training camp. the December one is sold out, but I opened up a spots for February. So if you want to come and hang out in Guatemala with me and learn processing and do fermentations coffee fermentations and meet other kick ass coffee people then check out my website. That's lucia.coffee/ftc, and you'll see all the dates. Uh, pricing and everything else that, that includes so hope to see you guys here. Okay. Back to episode 58. So in this season it's been important for me to include more voices in the podcast. Usually the focus is copy producers, but today I wanted to share a conversation with someone on the other side of the value chain. That's Ellie and her partner Martin have the challenging task of converting conventional coffee drinkers into specialty coffee drinkers. I find that if we love coffee, we often don't think much beyond how much we enjoy it. It's a pleasure. It's a fun thing that we do. It's a ritual it's part of our everyday life. And it's usually a pleasure that is kind of on in the background. I find that often to convert people from conventional coffee, into specialty coffee. You generally have to share a lot of information about coffee prices, um, labor shortage about the working conditions for coffee pickers and processors. You always have to bring up colonialism to get people to realize that their favorite morning ritual is maybe not so wholesome. My focus in this podcast is to share basic microbiology principles so that producers can have positive fermentations that are consistent and reproducible. And I realized that I don't spend too much time thinking about the people who actually drank the coffee. And not that he helped me think about this. She attended a few discord live sessions and that's how I got to know her story. And just as a side note, I really love our discord live sessions because I get to spend time with you guys. And it's really fun to hear your questions and discuss all things, coffee. So if you want to join our discord talks or as I like to call them the podcast after the podcast, uh, check out the link in the show notes. So anyway, it was during these discord sessions that I learned that Natalee and her partner fell in love with coffee and wanted to have a coffee business. I think that many of us can recognize ourselves in her story of learning more about something that you enjoy and then falling head first down the rabbit hole. But she found it quite challenging to bring Colombian coffees to her corner of the world in Germany. She found that it wasn't enough to have a tasty coffee. Because where she is in Germany, the price of coffee roasted coffee is pretty expensive and she had to spend a lot of her energy educating our customers and evangelizing the gospel of specialty coffee. And that's how she got introduced to the world of marketing and how coffee is sold. She went through the exercise. I've tried to source directly from farmers and found how difficult it can be. And then she started looking around at how much coffee was being sold as direct trade. And it just didn't add up. Which is quite a common story all along the supply chain. For example, there's way more Antigua Guatemala, coffee being sold than can possibly be grown in Antigua Guatemala. And I have crossed the Guatemala Honduras border on foot and by car a few times. And let me tell you, it is a really, really easy. Hunter and coffee can be moved across a border and be sold for significantly more with the label of Guatemala. Which yes is deceptive, but I believe many geographical borders are arbitrary and imaginary and anything that gets producers better pricers for hard work. Is not something that I care to challenge. And if you've been a longtime listener of this podcast, you know, that I like to question labels. Uh, usually processing labels. But not that he reminded me that we should also question labels, like direct trade or single origin. Which I realize I'm being hypocritical. I don't care if Honduran coffee is being sold as Guatemalan coffee, but I do get annoyed when roasters claim direct trade, when they purchase coffee spot from an importer's list. And I'm not saying one is okay. And the other isn't, they are both deceptions. But I am sharing with you. My personal moral tolerance. I work with producers. So that is where my bias lies. We all have arbitrary boundary lines. But I think few of us pause to identify where exactly those boundaries are. I really liked this conversation because it helps me think about the challenge in communicating authenticity. Which is, especially on my mind because I just finished reading the candy house by Jennifer Egan. The follow-up to a visit from the goon squad. And the candy house is about identity, authenticity, and technology. Anyway, not anything to do with coffee, but it's a book that I highly recommend if you're questioning what to read next it's it was a fantastic book that I really enjoyed. Okay, let's get you to meet Natalie.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:Natalie, welcome to making coffee. Thanks for being here,
Natali:Thank you, Lucia. It is really a pleasure and an honor to be here. Like really grateful that, uh, you're interested and also that you are taking your time for talking with me.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:Of course. First I wanted to try to pronounce the name of your company, and I have no German background, so this is a difficult word, so I'm gonna try and say it and then you're gonna tell us how it's actually pronounced. So, my, my, uh, attempt is
Track 1:Perfect.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:All right,
Track 1:You, you just nailed it.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:So tell me about your coffee company.
Track 1:Okay, so it's side business. So this is not a full-time, full-time business. I'm not living out of it. My boyfriend, like we together started the company, uh, and we started the company because we were hunting, hunting, the coffees here, but no hunting US green coffee hunter is more like we were looking for the good coffees and we just didn't find the good coffees. Right. And
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:So tell us where here is. Where are you? Okay.
Track 1:So here I'm located in, uh, a small town called Ling. It's called next to Kart. So it's like 20 minutes, um, like distance from here to the center city of this area that's called Baba. It's in the south of Germany. So here, there are many coffee places. There are, there is a lot. But here in Europe it's more about espresso. So you find everything about espresso, but it's really hard to find filter coffee. And we just started our coffee journey. I mean, I started drinking coffee really late in my life. everybody thinks I'm from Colombia, you know, coffee, you know, you've been there. It's not true. Like nobody knows anything about coffee. This is only something of the recent years. So I grew up not drinking coffee. And then when I moved to Germany in 2013, at some point I met my boyfriend late that year and he was always drinking coffee and then it became like a social pressure thing for me to drink coffee
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:But you grew up in.
Track 1:I grew up in ine, so born and I lived my whole life in Mein till I was 21. But I was zero related with the coffee culture. With the coffee, uh, production. Like coffee for me was something that I know we exported, right? it's super important. They say it is amazing. But, uh, my parents at home will drink neca, right? And in different variations. So like they had the instant coffee if they were lazy, uh, or they have the coffee already grounded in powders, coffee, c Rojo, maybe you saw it, you know. And then my mom, yeah, my mom will, put the water to, to boil. When the virus is boiling, they put the coffee on top like the grounded, like the powder or grounded coffee. And then they turn off the, the gas and then they just wait until the coffee goes down and then they drink it. But this is like the coffee my parents drank and I never really drank coffee. Just started very late. And then you will probably wondering like, but then how are you, how now? A coffee brand, right? So I was really embarrassed at some point, when my boyfriend was gonna go to Columbia for the first time in 2014. Um, he wanted to go and visit the coffee area and all these beautiful places and I know nothing about coffee, so I was like, let's better do some research first. And the research was too much. So. I just learned too much about coffee. And so he did. And, and then we fell in love there. We were in Salento, we were in the mountains, we were there. And I told him, I mean, of course joking, uh, let's get a coffee farm. Let's just get a coffee farm and let's just do this. This is amazing. Like I love it. Um, and then we went, like we came back to Germany, right? uh, and they just kept doing our lives. But then we went into coffee, we go to a commandante grinder, and then we were just grinding coffee. Grinding coffee, and trying and trying and then learning and learning and watching Hoffman videos every night to the point that I couldn't hear his voice anymore. Then we got to the point that we realize what we're drinking here is not that good. And they're telling us this is a good thing. And of course there are many places with great coffees, but it's not that many compared to, you know, all the other ones that are saying that. So I was in Colombia in 2021. after we could trial again. And, um, things changed so much in like really through, through the Corona thing. It changed like hugely. It was last time I was there before, that was, uh, 2019 in March. And I was there with my boyfriend. We were going around, he's always in the hunt for coffees. He always wanted to go search for coffees. So daily we will go to three, four coffees, like normally in the past. I went this time alone because I really wanted, just needed to see my family after such a long period. Uh, El Lucia, it was like coffee shops everywhere, specialty coffee everywhere, everybody talking about coffee. And I, I'm so in love with this city again. It is like I just wanna come back. And, um, I was there, went to a concert with my family. And then after that we went for a coffee. And then a friend was like, I was asking about suggestions for coffee. Um, I, uh, Perino was the name of this coffee shop. So I was there like asking for some suggestions. I'm looking for a coffee of this type, but for buying the coffee bag to bring to my boyfriend so he can try again. And then he was like, how do you know about coffee? Why, why are you asking those specific questions? I was like, because, um, I just want to know what am what, what I'm buying here. And I'm really looking for specific things. And, then he say, I've been, uh, picking up my coffee myself in the farms and I'm bringing it to a friend that has a roasty for roasting coffee. I was like, no way. Get me some coffee now. And I told him that that day. And at the end of the trip, so it was only two, two weeks there, I brought 10 kilo of green coffee in my hand language.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:So you didn't have any problems
Track 1:From No, I thought it was gonna be like super problematic. I was like shaking. You know, it's like as a Latino, traveling
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:you're coming from Columbia with 10 kilos
Track 1:Yes, yes. No, like my suitcase was heavy. Right. But it's not even that. It's like you as a Latino, wherever you travel, and I dunno if it's like maybe for people from Argentina, Brazil, they don't have those issues. But if you come from Columbia, uh, and they see a young woman traveling alone, they always think the worst about me. So I'm always like going through all
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:Extra scrutiny, extra pressure.
Track 1:Yes.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:had that problem with Francie, our, our helper. She was coming from Cali and she flew into Guatemala'cause she was helping us and they kept her at the airport for hours. Just inter like,'cause again, she's a young woman traveling alone. And I, they were very, very difficult. Eventually she got through, but yes. You have extra pressure.
Track 1:Yeah. And, uh, I mean, I, I have like all the airport experiences in the world that I could tell you because like, I've been in abroad for a really long time now and I've been always traveling alone, right? So most, most of the time I travel alone. And then, um, my strategy was the following. So my friend got me all the coffee, like vacuum pack, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we cannot go like that. I put that in cloc bags, four huge cloc bags. I don't even know what's the size of that because it's like, you can put like two, like three kilo. I put that in cloc bags, put it like flat as possible so that it won't take so much space. And then in every security point I will be like, guys, please pay attention to what I'm gonna tell you. I have green coffee in my hand luggage. If you wanna check it out. Like we can check it anytime. We just want you to know in advance I have that. So in case that it looks weird, I, nobody checked me nowhere. I went to Amsterdam. Amsterdam is like one of the hardest airports. Like they check everything there. If you've been there, you know, like security in there is like insane. Technology is crazy. And they were like, it looks perfect. Just, just go ahead. Don't worry. I don't even know what's the proper way of explain that. But like they can see through and no, it's like, just go through 10 kilo after that. I was like,
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:Wow.
Track 1:and you could actually bring more than 10 kilo. I think like, because you know, Colombian regulations about coffee, you are exporting coffee somehow. So in this 10 kilo amount is, is okay. But if you export or, or if you bring with you more than 60 kilo, then you need to have the registration of the export. Uh, and then yeah, things start getting complicated. But this is how, how I did it and to be honest, Importing coffee from Columbia is really hard. It's really, really hard. Not here. The problem is not here. I'm registered here as an importer. Everything, uh, but in bringing coffee from Colombia is really difficult. So it's been easier really, that I go and visit my family and then I just register an extra suitcase and I bring 22 kilo, 23 kilo of green in a small suitcase. And so that's my boyfriend. Then we bring like as much coffee as possible in our suitcases.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:was that just in the beginning or now? Two, three years later. That's still how you're operating in Germany. You're still hand hand carrying it.
Track 1:So we have improved in that matter. we have done, different, logistic test. So we once got a coffee and I think I will never do that again because of the footprint. So we once brought coffee in an airplane because. We just really needed to get the coffee like now, now, now, bringing the amounts, you know, small amounts in, in a container is really hard. It's really almost impossible. However, the Coffee Federation, so the potatoes, they offer a service. Um, you can buy the coffee from a farmer there and they will take care of the logistics and they will put it, when you, where you say that they put it, they will put it in your door. They will take care of the nationalization. Everything. As soon as you have purchased that directly from the farmer and transferred the money to them, like, like through this account, the special account, um, and that they have registered the export, that sounds great. Amazing. But the reality is getting a farmer to be registered as an exporter is huge. Is huge, is a, is a lot of work and
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:and is it expensive too? is it just bureaucratic or is it also expensive?
Track 1:So see, it is not really about the expensive part, it's about the level of difficulty and complexity. So in the website of the Coffee Federation, they have like all super easy steps. You just need this, this, and this. So at some point I was like, like trying with one of the one farmers that we get his coffee, like actually we went, last time we were in April in, in Colombia. We went to his farm to pick it up directly because I really want to have that coffee. And it's not because it's like the craziest coffee of the world, but it's like everything around around that coffee that's interesting for me. Um, we went to pick it up and his daughter, I was in contact with his daughter and I was like, she is an accountant. So I was like, Hey Sarah, why don't you just get the, the license yourself? Why don't you just get the license you're saying? She was like, you know, I'm super busy. I was like, Sarah, I do the whole research and then you just do the steps and then, um, we never made it. We never made it. And then my goal now, this time that I was there, is like, I'm just gonna make sure that I can export myself the coffee. So I went there with the whole plan of I'm just gonna register myself and I'm gonna do the whole thing so I can register from here online, let my sister like a full power like full, full legal power so she can sign things for me in Colombia. Uh, and she was like, okay, whatever. Let's do it. But there is more to that. It's not only list bringing these papers that are there, you know, that's the easy part. You bring the papers, you get the account that you can get, uh, international transfer, you get the whole thing. You register a company so that you can do the export. But this is then the next thing is the hardest one. You need to have a special registration for the duties.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:Yeah. Like taxes
Track 1:Then you need to register yourself there too. But the problem of the registration is that puts you in a constraint that then you'll have to do a tax declaration every quarter. And then imagine if, if a normal person in Columbia doesn't do a tax declaration ever in their life, how are they gonna start from one day, one day to the next, starting to do quarter declarations? So when I go to that point, And I talk with the people of the Federation and everything, and I was like, guys, are, are you serious on this Um, I have my, my, you know, I, I will have to pay a tax attorney in there that will take care of that. And still it will be way too expensive, too much money, uh, and too much time invested, and I cannot being like a, um, a citizen here, you know, like being here. I cannot have that open there because then I will have to do, I will have to do that here too. So in Germany, I will have to have like a, another company for doing that there. And it just became too complex. So I also realized, because I'm, I'm all the time thinking it's like I cannot buy all the coffee of the farmers. Um, I don't have that financial capacity and my customers won't consume that amount of coffee. What I wish is that they will be enabled so that they can keep selling on their own, because. Whatever I buy is not, uh, relevant enough for them. You know, they need to be able to sell the whole production so that they can have stability. And then I was thinking, okay, let's bring some unknown coffees, uh, and then let's make contacts for them so that they can keep selling it. But then they're not able to, to do the exports. If, even if they will do it with the Coffee Federation, they will still have to do the whole registration and then this is the moment when they are, they, they stop because they are like, okay, it's just too much. I cannot take care of that.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:So looking back at your journey, so somebody who was born in Columbia but had no coffee history and then kind of being pushed.'cause I, you know, I lived in Columbia for a couple years. I also have experience with a lot of the bureaucratic side of trying to, you know, work there, have a work visa. we looked into residency and the bureaucratic side of a lot of those ES is really intense. Uh, it, it seems kind of easy on paper and then when you get into it, the wait times, the fees, having to show up in person. It's, uh, I, I felt like having lived in many other countries, Columbia was kind of next level for me for the level of bureaucratic and all of the people that you had to talk to and being passed on. So that's No joke you know, you really have to want it. And even when you really want it, and you do all of the things right, there's still bigger forces that can prevent some of these transactions from happening. but I'm really interested in this side where, you know, I, I met so many Colombians and every single Colombian would tell me, Columbia has the best coffee in the world. We have the best coffee in the world. Everybody's been told this story. And then I would see what they were drinking and they were drinking, say, Rojo or Aguilar Roja, or they didn't drink coffee at all. Or you know, they're just repeating these lines, but not necessarily part of their drinking or every day culture. And so, Then you, you know, left the country, you went to live somewhere else. Now your partner was interested in coffee, you're Colombian. And then you realize I'm kind of missing some of this information. I'm kind of missing some part of my culture. And so you did the research, you came, I think it's very common story. If you go to a co, especially in Lento, if you go to a coffee farm, I think nine outta 10 people would say, I'm moving here. This is my new life. Like, throw everything away. It's very, it's a very beautiful and tempting life. So then you go back to Germany where you're living and then you say, let's, let's bring some of this coffee here. Let's figure out a way to share this where we are with the people that we're interacting with.'cause you want to bring some of your, some of your culture. And then also, like you said, more quality coffee. So then you go down this journey of what does it actually take? Because we have this story that, you know, seed to cup so that, that it, that it can be so easy to just get from the farm to your cup and that it's, you know, it's a story that we tell so many people. So you probably thought that can't be that hard. You know, I know farmers, I go to Columbia back and forth. How hard can it be to just get these farmers, talk to them, go to their doorstep and get this coffee to these coffee shops? So I think part of the, the thing that was, you know, interesting in our conversations before today was you had this challenge of bringing this coffee to the other side of the world, thinking it would be easy.'cause that's what our marketing says. It's so easy to just get coffee to the other side. And not only did you find out how difficult it is, but that this story is still being perpetuated. So tell me more about some of the challenges that you've had as a business trying to educate your consumers, trying to get, you know, getting out of this romantic story and into the realities of what it takes.
Track 1:The most important thing for us is that people actually understand what is a specialty coffee. because there is this idea of what is a specialty coffee. So you, you might think, you know what is a specialty coffee, but then we all have A totally different definition for it. So I have many people that say Aya, but uh, I try a specialty coffee over there and I didn't like it. And, and then we start talking Aya and how, how did it taste? So I start asking questions like, when people start, when I, when I talk about coffee, I'm totally, I'm totally into it. And I also think coffee is one of the best topics to talk about because you don't even need a small talk. If you only talk about coffee, how you make it like, how you like it, you are gonna be able to connect with people in, in a different level because you have now something in common. So you have something in common with a total stranger. and then, we go into the, let's, let's talk about it. then people are like, I, I tried this specialty coffee and it was very cheap compared to yours. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, tell me about that coffee. So it is a coffee that is a specialty coffee in the back, but then you don't have any kind of information about it. What I have seen a lot is that commodity coffee is sold as a specialty coffee. So people learn that this commodity flavor is what they're calling now specialty. And of course it's better than Segio, ROHO and all of those really awful coffees that are born to the ashes, but it's commodity coffee, right? And then they don't have a benchmark. They cannot compare easily. They don't have anybody really to explain them. This covid tastes like this, and this is actually a effect. This covid tastes like that. And this is the good thing about it. So I'm not a Q grader, right? I'm, I'm not a Q grader, I'm not anything like that. I just have drunk some coffee in my life since I was 21. And I can recognize now after over 10 years, and I can recognize what a good coffee tastes like. And for me, you know, it's, that's also subjective for me. I. I like coffees. It can be super fruity or not, but I like it that it's balance. You know, I like to find this balance in the coffee. For me, it's like the most fulfilling thing in drinking a coffee. And people don't know that because they're simply told, uh, this coffee is specialty and it tastes like that. And then they're not able to correlate with, I tell them, this is a specialty coffee too. So they say, so tell me what's the difference? And this is where, where we're going to explaining the pe, the people about it, like try it and then. They try it, but then you have to explain it. Where do you, where do you taste, uh, acidity. So you taste acidity. Imagine like if you are drinking, like you have lemon in your mouth, you usually feel it like on the sides of your tongue or you taste the bitterness in the back. So you need to go into all of these sensorial explanation and try to keep it very simple for them, because you don't wanna go super deep into science for a person that is just, let's say, trying like a real, let's call it like real because like, you know, no, no, not saying that this is the only but real specialty coffee. Like maybe let's say for the first time and what happens the most is people say like, what? I never thought coffee could taste like this. And sometimes I feel like we're the jehova witness of the coffee, uh, because we're converting people. We have convert so many people that drank zero coffee before to now have their own equipment at home. And this is, it's a small impact, but it changes people's lives in a way that they get, they get to introduce a ritual in their lives that brings mindfulness. So I have some people that tell me, it's like, Hey, I never stop in my mornings. I will just pick up a coffee. And now, like for me, only grinding my coffee and preparing it is like my holy moment. I think that for us is like the most fulfilling part that we can share this passion with people and that with the little knowledge that we have, that we can bring that to people's lives. And when they understand that, then they're gonna be able to judge by themselves if what they just bought is really a specialty coffee or not. And this is where I want to get that people really are able to say by themselves like, I love this coffee brand, uh, is amazing. Right? Or this coffee, yeah, they sold me a specialty coffee, but it's not, or to a point that I see some bag sometimes. And it is really literally a specialty coffee. And I look at it and it says, uh, variety, several. Like location or something like that. Like several, uh, like
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:seen this too. I've seen it's like, oh, origin, and it says Americas like all of the Americas,
Track 1:All of the Americas. Can you like, like, like what kind of mix is that? Uh, and and it's funny because like we talk about single origin. So single origin what single origin continent, single origin, uh, country, single origin area, farm town. So single, even like I have talked with some farmers and I'm like, What is the size of a micro lot? And then somebody start telling me's like, it can be anything. It can be one tree because the wind hits different there. Uh, it can be just like one, like full area of the farm because of the sun. And uh, like back then, two years ago, I was like, what is a micro load? What, what is it that you're trying to tell me that I should get
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:or it could just be one batch, like, one tank, which could be like 2000 pounds. That's a micro lot, you know? It, it,
Track 1:yeah, everything's a micro load,
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:absolutely.
Track 1:so.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:So what I'm hearing is that you had, in your corner of Germany, you didn't have customers that were necessarily Educated about coffee and that you've, through this journey, had to do a lot of educating yourself and then trying to transmit that information to your customers. And, and it sounds like you're really trying to justify specialty coffee. You're trying to say, this is why it matters. This is why it's important. This is what it means, this is what it doesn't mean. And realizing just how ignorant most, you know, and I think a lot of people would say they're coffee lovers, they love coffee and have very little knowledge about all of the steps that go into making their coffee or what makes their coffee special. Um, is that right?
Track 1:Yep. I I think you totally nailed it there because it is, it's like you're trying to justify and try to explain people, so why is this coffee valuable? Um, but if I tell them why is it valuable, they, they don't really get it. They don't, they don't get the feeling for it. So there are even more things like, let's say, label of fair trade. Fair trade, uh, here in Europe at the moment for one kilo of coffee, but is, um, 3 96. Uh, Euro. So four$26. And then I was looking also at what is the price of the, today of the Coffee Federation. So today, coffee Federation is 2 35, uh, Euro, and then in dollar will be like 2 52. So those are, those are the prices that we're talking about. Green coffee. And I imagine that the one in the Coffee Federation is like the coffee, like just in the farm, like they just purchased there, and then that's the price there. But you know, these prices don't match at all, uh, with prices in specialty coffee because reality in, in Columbia especially, and I'm totally happy paying the prices because I see the work, these people are pointing to this and I'm like, I, I don't ask for a discount. It's like, what are you telling me? That's what I'm paying. and then people in here don't get that. Don't, don't understand because they see their benchmark is, is commodity or really like, like even like the worst of commodities, like supermarket coffee. I, I mean nowadays I think it's like, why do they even do it? Right? Uh, it is the worst thing. But I think I'm gonna tell you something that hopefully you don't know yet. Um, do you know about the coffee tax here in
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:No, I'm not familiar,
Track 1:Okay, so sit down. Okay, so we pay here in Germany, when I roast coffee, I have to pay per kilo that I roast to Europe. 19. It's the only country in Europe that has that, and it's a,, tax to coffee. So it is, and it's not like the customer is not like directly paying for it and it's not written anywhere. It's like your roast. You pay directly, you need to report it, you need to report. You rose so much coffee and you pay then, the coffee tax right
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:that's almost more than some people pay for the coffee itself. Like I know people that are buying coffee at a dollar 50 a pound and now you have to pay$2 just to roast it. That's incredible. It kind of reminds me of, at least in the wine industry, we have a luxury tax on alcohol. So just by producing alcohol, you have to pay. A certain amount. And then the more alcohol you have, again, a luxury tax. So a higher percentage of alcohol pays more taxes just by having alcohol. So I wonder if it's something like that, a luxury tax on coffee.
Track 1:Maybe, I mean, it could be similar, right? Uh, and then on top of that, people pay the, the add value on it. But then the tricky part is, so if you roast coffee in Germany, you have to pay this. But then it's not that we are isolated, uh, like in an island, we have the Netherlands, France, and like everybody around us coffee coming from there. If you just order from there, it comes with D H L or whatever. They don't have to pay that. So from that matter, from the business perspective, we are in, uh, in disadvantage because we have more cost only from starting than any, any other coffee roastery. In another country in Europe, we could even import, let's say, let's say that we, like, I seen some different models here of bringing coffee. So I saw this one, people bringing roasted coffee directly from Colombia, um, but then it could be brought, let's say to France and that you bring it by car to Germany, then you can sell it, and then you don't have this cost. So we are there in disadvantage in that regard and customers don't understand that.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:Uh, well, I wanna go back to what you mentioned about the fair trade'cause I think a lot of people don't understand that. Again, they great marketing, fair trade sounds wonderful. It's a great name and it makes you feel good about what you're doing for, for coffee, I'm paying fair trade prices, um, but Fair Trade is really divorced from the cost of production and making coffee in different parts of the world costs different amounts of money. So I want people to understand that, you know,$3 and 19 cents is not very much money. For how much work it takes to do this coffee. And yes, they are paying above the baseline of commodity coffee, but not very much. And again, that money doesn't go as far depending on what country you're living in. So it's like saying, okay, you're gonna make a base salary of a thousand dollars a month and now you have to either pay rent in Ohio, which when I lived in Ohio, we were paying, uh, you know,$500 a month for this really great apartment. Or you have to live in New York and you have the same exact salary. And then people say that, that's this, you know, fair trade label. So I think that a lot of times as consumers it is, it's both not enough information and then there's so much that it's overwhelming and then you're getting information from all of these sources. So I think it can be really hard as a consumer to fish out the bullshit from really good information. So can you tell me a little bit about your experience with greenwashing and how this information can be really challenging to transmit.
Track 1:So, yeah, fair trade I think is like the easiest. Um, I I don't even say like fair trade in any of my stuff because doesn't make sense for me and I'm on, every time I see fair trade, I'm like, guys, please, like, don't start with that. Uh, because it's in, at least in specialty, coffee is really way far away from the prices of fair trade. And this is also, you know, one of the things that I try to explain people,
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:Right. Like if
Track 1:I think there is
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:as a bragging point, it's not a very good brag
Track 1:Yeah, yeah. It is like, you know, I think one of the biggest things, like for trade, not everybody does do advertising with that, but there is one direct trade. This one I love it. Direct trade. Everybody, they all do direct trade. It doesn't matter who they are. I even saw the other day a guy that is doing, white labeling. So he's literally buying his coffee pack and everything, like from a coffee roster and you know, great business. That's his thing, right? But then he's saying like, uh, direct trade. And I'm like, Direct trading with whom? Right. And then there are all of these people and, and it's like when you, when you get into the business, then you start meeting people and they all know each other and they all buy from the same place and so on. And, and it's fine. Fair because I also see the value of coffee traders. I see their value. These traders that they have their, their positive impact, but then the people buying from there are saying that they're doing direct trade, which is a little bit unfair. With everybody, even with the farmers saying that they're doing direct tray when, when they're not doing, and we all know at least, I mean, I just do Colombian coffee. And we know trade with Columbia is almost impossible. There are, I think last time I checked how many, uh, exporters are registered and was like a minimum number compared to the amount of producers. So it's really minimum. And the ones that get to be registered they, they have a good, financial background. So direct rate is, is really hard to do. I don't have anything against it. I just, what I don't like is that people are lying, you know about it. They're saying that they're doing it, and I have fallen for the putting the pictures, you know, and I don't like it. I
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:mean you used to do it bef like you've done it before?
Track 1:I, I have, I have put the pictures of the farmers and I don't like it. I feel terrible. I feel terrible
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:hap what happened in that change? Like what made you realize that maybe you don't wanna do that anymore?
Track 1:I received once some pictures, you know, it's like, you don't know these guys. I'll tell you why I never like it because just look at any, any Instagram account. See the eyes in the people, they're not happy. They're never smiling.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:It's hard work.
Track 1:and
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:I, don't wanna smile when I'm on the
Track 1:me. Yeah, but you know, it's like they're forced. It's like, like I see I have received some pictures and I see the pain in their eyes. I see like, like they feel up, I feel like they are abused by that, you know? So I see their eyes into that and I feel some pain with this. And that's why I don't like to, to put, um, pictures of people. So this is something that I avoid and yes, totally. I have done that. I have put that in our website. I have put like, in the coffee, but is this part of, people wanna hear this story and they don't like it if it doesn't go in the same rhetoric that area is going. So I get people asking me. And do you know the farmers? I like, not all of them. I know some, I, I have met some and I have talked to them, uh, in the phone. You But they, they're using the source of, let's say a trader in Hamburg and then the trader in Hamburg gives them the pictures. And then you go through different roasteries and then you'll see all the same pictures everywhere.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:So what have you tried to A little bit differently in your business where you see all of these things that you don't like?
Track 1:Yeah, so I don't write anything that I cannot really back. So I know that there is always this discussion about the, the scale value, but I try to keep it fair.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:But do you ever use that as a buying decision in terms of if somebody's coffee scores an 83, you just wanna know what it is?
Track 1:I just want to know about it because it gives me information, you know, it's like maybe I'm just too data driven because of my job. So for me, data is value.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:I was noticing that on your bags that you have, which makes sense as, a data-driven person, you have like seven or eight different, um, parameters. You give a lot of information about the coffee that you're buying, and I was surprised to see that the CUP score was the s e a score was, you know, on, on the label. But I understand what you're saying now is that it's important for you because you're also in an emerging market where you're trying to educate people and trying to maybe make those correlations so that they can have the information for themselves. So you're not trying to, you know, gate keep any of that information. You're providing as much of it as possible, and then people can look at whatever they want and kind of ignore whatever they don't.
Track 1:Yeah. And that's also the order of the label. You know, it's like when you go top down, um, the lowest you go is just the deepest you go. So at the beginning you just have like the super basic information. Columbia's written a little bit small and, but it's the first thing. You have the name of the coffee, then you have three notes and then I try to put like, where exactly is the origin? And I think I put 100% arika, which is totally overflowing, like probably don't even need it. And then a scan number if it has. And then mention what's the height, the name of the farmer and the farm. And if he has a special process. So this is how I look for coffees. When I look at a label, I try to like just identify cer certain things that will guide me into, is this a coffee that I want to buy or not?
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:And the other thing I noticed on your website that was interesting was that you have decaf coffees available. So I was wondering what is the market for Decafs said? Why was that important for you to include?
Track 1:So I think that if you drink decaf it's because you truly love coffee. So, you know, like there is this love hate relationship in the coffee world about decaf, but I always say if you truly love coffee, you drink decaf because you love it so much that you really are caffinating yourself so bad that for your health reasons you need to reduce the amount of coffee you're drinking. And this is what happens to us. Like I, my boyfriend sometimes 6:00 PM 7:00 PM he's like, I'm gonna make a coffee. I'm like, no, we're not gonna sleep tonight again. So, you know, you were saying at the beginning, the name of our coffees na oiling coffee. Right. And that translates literally into night hours. And that's us. We struggle a lot to go bed early and I mean, we end up going bed super late all the time for, we always have a good reason. Right. This brand is us.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:Yeah, and it's a really cute little mascot that you have for the Owl. I think he's really a nice part of your
Track 1:Yeah. Henry,
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:It's funny we're talking about this today when Nick and I just did a caffeine break, which we've never done before. I think we had, how long was it Nick? Like 16. 16 days without coffee, without any caffeine. And I've never done that long also for my health. Um, I wanted to see how it was affecting me. And again, I was one of those people that thought, I only have coffee in the morning. I never have coffee after like 10:00 AM Like, it's always early and I have one cup and I'm very moderate and there's no way it's really affecting my sleep. And I've had the best sleep for It's been incredible how I feel and how I've been like waking up. And so I am, uh, yeah, having this kind of battle with myself that decaf needs to be a much bigger part of my life. And I completely agree with you of like coffee lovers. If you really love coffee, you should be drinking decaf.
Track 1:Yeah. And tell me about the headache please. Do you
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:I didn't get a headache. No, we didn't get a
Track 1:What? I
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:No. I I, I, for the first couple of days, I had to take a nap in the middle of the day. I was at the same time as I was also doing a, like a sugar, like detox, like sugar and caffeine at the same time. Um, but no, I, I didn't experience a headache and that's why I thought, oh, I'm not that addicted. It's not that big of a problem. I didn't experience a headache or any withdrawal. And yet when I look at notes in my diary of how I was feeling and what I was observing, and my sleep is just incredible since taking this break. So this is just something to think about for me and like how I'm gonna, my relationship with caffeine moving forward.
Track 1:I think I'm just gonna give it a try and I'll let you know how it goes. So going into the decaf market, I think it's really important and there is to list. And most of the coffee places in here, like specialty or not, they take really terrible coffees for decaf. Really? Like, what is really disgusting. And then I tried this one decaf that we have available at the moment, uh, from Diego and it's like,, like pure luck that we got his coffee, you know, it was no plan, no nothing. It was my friend again, he is like, Hey, I want you to try this coffee. Um, and I was like, okay. All delicious. He say, it's a dickoff. I like, I don't believe you. I don't believe you. And then we were like, okay, just pack it in, like we bring it. Um, so it was just pure luck that they know each other for, I don't even know what reasons. I mean, coffee industry, right? I'm changing my mind all the time about the coffee industry. You know, it's like the, when you learn something different, it's like you change your mind. So I used to think, I don't wanna be going for these, um, like super famous coffee producers. I don't wanna do that because that's what everybody's doing. And I'm interested in to, you know, like, let's get other coffees in here. so then we had the chance and I thought, I, I changed my mind and I thought, this guys, they have been working on, on these, on their processes and they totally deserve their appreciation. I mean, is they're doing mind blowing things with this.
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:I just wanted to mention that you were talking about Diego Bermuda from Finca Paraiso in in Colombia, and I have a lot of respect for the work that they're doing there in terms of all of their innovative processing and their, I think one of those producers that has really transcended the most of the barrier is like the, the, the fame of the coffee was usually brought on by the roaster, you know, oh, this was roasted by Blue Bottle or intelligentsia, and people wanted that person's coffee. And I think what they've done that I really admire is that now people want that producer not necessarily important as important, who roasted it. It's like, I want that producer and I want their processing. So I think that that's a really great lesson and a really great movement for coffee producers. So nothing but respect over there. And like you said, they have earned their good place because they are producing this quality that is, is the proof is in the coffee.
Track 1:Yeah. And, um, you know, totally agree with that. And also they, they have brought also a good direction because I'm always talking is it's about the coffee. It's about the coffee that you make, uh, the result that you get. It's not about, the machine is not okay. The grinder has great impact, right? But you cannot grind, grind a bad coffee good. Uh, you cannot roast a bad coffee good. You can maybe hide some things, but you cannot make it good. You cannot screw up a good coffee in many ways. But a good coffee will be highlighted by the best roster, by the best grinder and so on. So, um, I'm really glad that we are also going in this direction of looking to producers. I'm also a little bit skeptic about the thing that we are then going to producers, because then if it is not this producer, then ah, I'm not interested in this coffee. Or if it's not this producer, I don't wanna pay the money. but, you know, that's maybe let's say, future chapter to, to look up
lucia_1_09-06-2023_101025:I totally agree. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing and thank you for spending this time with me. I really enjoyed getting your perspective on the market in Germany, kinda your challenges as a small business owner, and also some of the things that I think we do need to talk more about pricing, labeling, kind of our perception versus what is reality, really questioning what we're being told as coffee consumers and kind of the information behind that. So I really appreciate you sharing. Thank you so much.
Track 1:A lot to see. Thanks a lot for your time.
All right. Thanks for making it to the end of another episode. I really appreciate you hanging out with us and having your attention this time. Another, thanks to the patron to make it possible for me to make new episodes. If you want to join our coffee community and join the office hours, live to ask me a question or connect with other awesome listeners. That's how I got to know not deli, uh, go to patrion.com/making coffee. I also want to remind you guys that I've started a second podcast for the Spanish speaking community. That's called And it's a more casual shorter form episodes, more geared towards producers. Kind of practical tips for production and navigating different processing styles and different processing practices. Um, so that is With Lucia and Francy. So I'm going to be focusing on putting out more Spanish content. So if you know anybody, if you have any producer, friends, any Spanish speaking friends, um, please share that podcast with them. Or if you want to practice your language skills, I think that would be really fun. And, also know that the discord community has a Spanish channel. So I also do office hours live in Spanish. periodically. So we have office hours in English and separately office hours, just in Spanish and Spanish conversations. And again, that's just another really fun place to hang out on the internet together. So. If you enjoy listening and get value out of our time together, please share with a friend who loves wine or coffee. If you want to be notified when the next episode is coming out and see behind the scenes pictures for, you know, every episode has some visual attached to it. Check out my newsletter@lucia.coffee. Lucia is L U X I a. Thanks for listening. And remember, life's too short to drink bad coffee.