Latest / Coffee People Podcast / Green coffee importer Jared Hales from Hacea Coffee Source helps the industry Coffee Smarter.

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Green coffee importer Jared Hales from Hacea Coffee Source helps the industry Coffee Smarter. · Coffee People Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey there everyone, I'm Ryan Wolt, host of The Coffee People
• 0:03
  and Coffee Smarter podcasts. It's weird to be staring at
• 0:06
  myself on a screen while talking to you.
• 0:09
  Before I get started today I want to shout out Simply Good
• 0:12
  Coffee Brewers. We have been talking about them
• 0:16
  for a couple of years. We got one of their countertop
• 0:18
  machines when they first came out and just loved it.
• 0:21
  We wrote a review which I'll share in the show notes.
• 0:24
  Might be linked on the screen over here somewhere.
• 0:28
  They came out with a Generation 2 last year.
• 0:30
  Over this last year, we got one to play with.
• 0:34
  It came with a new thermal pot instead of their old glass pot,
• 0:38
  which was then heated underneath.
• 0:40
  And we were really excited about it.
• 0:41
  And it's still brewed great coffee.
• 0:43
  It still did all the things, but the lid on that pot was not
• 0:47
  great. And when they asked for
• 0:51
  feedback, I said, hey, that's not great.
• 0:54
  And I think a lot of people did that.
• 0:56
  And so to their credit, I recently got a box in the mail
• 0:59
  with this. It's a new lid, better designed,
• 1:03
  much sturdier and a little note, which I really appreciated
• 1:08
  apologizing for any inconvenience and the mess that
• 1:11
  may have been made because the old lid was just not as stable
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  and little not user friendly. Simply good Brewers heard their
• 1:20
  customers and they made a change.
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  They made it better. They sent me this and a bag of
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  coffee and some dark chocolate. Didn't ask for it.
• 1:30
  They just did it because it was the right thing to do.
• 1:32
  And I certainly appreciate companies that, you know, follow
• 1:35
  through when they say we're here for you, we're going to take
• 1:38
  care of you. So cheers.
• 1:40
  Simply good Brewer. Check out the review of the pot
• 1:42
  that we made. There's a link in the show
• 1:45
  notes. We do do get a little bit of
• 1:47
  affiliate money if someone buys one from those links.
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  But that's not really why I'm saying this, although that is
• 1:52
  nice. I just think it's cool when a
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  company cares about their product and their customer
• 1:59
  enough to do something at their own cost, at their own
• 2:03
  challenge, finding all their customers to send them these
• 2:06
  lids, sending them this little note.
• 2:08
  And so thank you, simply good Brewers.
• 2:10
  Really appreciate it. Cheers.
• 2:21
  Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Coffee
• 2:24
  Smarter the podcast. It's been a minute since we've
• 2:27
  done one of these. This show, like our Coffee
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  You can also subscribe to this show on our newsletter at
• 2:57
  coffeepeoplepodcast.com. This is a new to me studio and
• 3:01
  I'm still not quite sure what to do with my hands.
• 3:05
  I recently caught up virtually with my friend and supporter of
• 3:08
  the show, Jared Hales. He's the Co founder of Hisaya
• 3:11
  Coffee Source in Anaheim, CA. You can find them online at
• 3:15
  hoseacoffee.com. They're a green coffee importer
• 3:19
  and on their website you'll find updated lists of their green
• 3:22
  coffee, information on how they work with their roaster partners
• 3:26
  and their farm partners, as well as when they have coffee
• 3:30
  education classes coming up, their IRL classes.
• 3:33
  And I strongly recommend them. Jared has long been one of the
• 3:37
  experts that I turn to when I need to get a little coffee
• 3:41
  smarter. Today we talked about cupping,
• 3:44
  planning moisture content, updates on tariffs, what makes a
• 3:48
  coffee good so much more so. You'll find updates and context
• 3:53
  on that website. I mentioned coffee
• 3:55
  peoplepodcast.com. Check that out later and until
• 3:59
  then, I hope you got a good cup of coffee at the ready.
• 4:03
  Enjoy the show. Cheers to getting coffee
• 4:06
  smarter. Yeah, so it looks like
• 4:29
  everything's good. Yeah.
• 4:30
  You were just mentioning Swiss water off off the record, but
• 4:35
  I'm actually drinking a Swiss water decaf right now.
• 4:37
  They're Burundi Roteca. I just brewed it up for the
• 4:43
  first time. I mean, it was excellent.
• 4:46
  It's actually take for them the coffee I had this morning and
• 4:49
  that was not affinity so. Excellent.
• 4:52
  Yeah, we're, we're actually bringing some of that in.
• 4:55
  It'll be available end of October.
• 5:00
  Well, we should probably talk about something that was on this
• 5:03
  list so I have some content about before it gets too late.
• 5:08
  I've been slacking a little bit on the timeline but we're going
• 5:11
  to, I've got like 5 interviews this week.
• 5:14
  So which is bad planning because it's Major League Baseball
• 5:18
  playoffs and I fairly committed emotionally as well as as
• 5:24
  physically to the games. I sent you this like list of
• 5:28
  things. Yeah, I'm looking at it.
• 5:31
  Yeah. Before we get into talking about
• 5:33
  any of those, I one thing came up I wanted to ask you about is
• 5:37
  it have you seen this rebrand for Maxwell House into Maxwell
• 5:41
  Apartments? I have.
• 5:45
  Well, I haven't looked into it too much, but yeah, I came
• 5:48
  across my feed. Maxwell Apartments, right?
• 5:51
  Right, because nobody can afford a house.
• 5:53
  I feel like that's got to be the reason behind it.
• 5:55
  I didn't look into it. Yeah, that's kind of how I
• 5:59
  interpreted it is it's like, wait a minute, most people don't
• 6:01
  have houses anymore. Yeah.
• 6:04
  And I think that was like their thought was like, hey, it's
• 6:06
  still good for the counter at your apartment, but it kind of
• 6:09
  just made everyone feel bad about themselves a little bit.
• 6:11
  Yeah, it probably should have gone with Maxwell home or
• 6:15
  something, you know? Something like that, or just
• 6:17
  leave it what it's been since like 1940, whatever.
• 6:22
  Yeah, they're saying that they're not changing the product
• 6:25
  at all either. It's just kind of a just a.
• 6:28
  Branding the same. Thing.
• 6:30
  But that kind of brings me, me not changing the product, but
• 6:35
  the external factors right of the world are changing, which is
• 6:39
  probably a motivator for them to seek out a new audience if their
• 6:43
  margins are tightening up or if you're starting to sell your
• 6:47
  product at a higher price point than people are used.
• 6:50
  To. You and I talked kind of just
• 6:57
  for fun back in August when tariffs were really hitting
• 7:02
  hard. I was just wondering if there's
• 7:04
  any update. We're talking now in October,
• 7:07
  right? Yeah.
• 7:09
  OK. October.
• 7:09
  Yeah, mid-october, so. Have things calmed down?
• 7:13
  Is there any predictability? Is it still just day-to-day
• 7:16
  insanity? I know near the end of the year
• 7:18
  there may not be as much, you know, as many imported
• 7:22
  deliveries coming in, but. Right.
• 7:24
  So I mean, the landscape of the terrace has not changed, so it's
• 7:29
  still insane. But coffee shipments have slowed
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  down. I mean, for us, you know, we're
• 7:35
  not doing thousands of containers a year.
• 7:39
  So we really have like peak shipping months.
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  And I think, I think even the large importers would have most
• 7:46
  of their volume coming in the summer as well.
• 7:49
  So it's it was just a lot of shipments related to coffee all
• 7:56
  happening at once. And then dealing with the, you
• 8:00
  know, the insane tariff landscape on top of that, that
• 8:04
  made it really stressful and just absolutely cash draining.
• 8:14
  Do you? Do you do the thing where you
• 8:15
  don't look at your accounts because you don't really want to
• 8:17
  know like? No, we, we look every day we
• 8:22
  need to know. But but yeah, like customs, the
• 8:26
  way that they do it is every month they evaluate your
• 8:31
  shipments and then they just pull the money from your bank
• 8:37
  account. Oh, like like reverse direct
• 8:40
  deposit? Yeah, yeah.
• 8:43
  Cool. If the money is not there, you
• 8:45
  know you'd be in a tough spot. What's like the penalty for not
• 8:49
  having the money? Are there fines?
• 8:51
  Do you go to prison? Like what is it like theft?
• 8:53
  Like, how does this work? Because like, you don't really
• 8:55
  know going into it what it's going to be necessarily.
• 8:59
  That's a good question. I don't know for sure because
• 9:02
  I've never thankfully have not been in that situation.
• 9:08
  I mean, if I would imagine there's fines, penalties, I
• 9:12
  mean, if you just straight up never pay, they can, they can go
• 9:17
  as dramatic as revoking your license to import.
• 9:21
  OK, they may not release any new shipments if you still owe them
• 9:27
  money, right? Sure.
• 9:29
  So if your business is importing you're you're stuck having to
• 9:34
  pay. Tiny Yeah, I just, I think that
• 9:38
  would be a really a curious thing.
• 9:40
  I I have to think being like the person at the port who's walking
• 9:44
  around telling people, yeah, you can't have your stuff is like a
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  pretty lonely job. It's kind of it's faceless, you
• 9:53
  know, it just comes from, you know, Customs and Border
• 9:57
  Protection, so and faceless like.
• 10:02
  They're wearing a mask when they talk to you or faceless like you
• 10:04
  just never see them. This e-mail.
• 10:06
  Just never see them, OK? It's not really coming from a
• 10:09
  person as much as a agency, sure.
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  And then our we, we use a customs broker to make sure that
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  all of our paperwork is in order.
• 10:19
  So a lot of the communication gets filtered through them, OK.
• 10:27
  That's. Also, the bad news is coming
• 10:28
  directly from our customs broker, not directly from.
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  Is is that customs broker specific to coffee or do they
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  just do they just anything that's coming through customs
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  they're that's kind of their thing or is that?
• 10:42
  Right. It's not a job I've heard of.
• 10:44
  They'll do anything. Yeah, they'll do anything.
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  So. So they are essentially
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  overseeing all of the paperwork and filing it with customs for
• 10:55
  us. Nice.
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  So, you know, we set up, we involve them as soon as we have
• 11:01
  a shipment set up and then they monitor the shipment and make
• 11:06
  sure that they're receiving all of the required documents and
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  then they submit it. Is there like a can you go on
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  like your computer and see where your coffee is on the ocean?
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  Like when you're on an airplane and you can see where your
• 11:18
  airplane is over the ocean? Yeah, that's cool.
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  I'd like to see that it. Is cool.
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  That always like makes me, I feel like whenever I take a
• 11:27
  flight and I, I look at that, if it's over the ocean, I just
• 11:31
  naturally get more nervous. Not that it matters if we're
• 11:34
  over land like 30,000 feet up, but for some reason I just
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  think, well, at least like we're going to land on something like,
• 11:41
  I don't know. Well, that's really interesting.
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  I think the, you know, tariffs are still in the news, but it's
• 11:47
  not like there's definitely some distraction news going on.
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  And obviously we're all just getting excited about the
• 11:54
  holidays when this, none of this matters and we can ignore it and
• 11:58
  overspend and over eat and over drink on everything.
• 12:07
  Besides that, I had some more specific kind of green coffee
• 12:11
  questions. I I sent you.
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  And, and part of it comes from feeling really dumb at some of
• 12:18
  the learning sessions at Roast Summit.
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  Some of it just comes from, you know, my own brain.
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  But I, I was thinking about coffee and, and one of the
• 12:30
  things that during this recent experience I was having, we're
• 12:33
  talking about roasting and how much, what percentage of the
• 12:36
  coffee, you know, disappears essentially during the roast
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  process. Like if you start with X number
• 12:42
  of grams or X number of kilos and you end up with, you know, 5
• 12:46
  percent, 10%, what you know, whatever percentage of loss is
• 12:49
  usually due to moisture. It made me wonder, you know, how
• 12:53
  wet do you look for as a green coffee importer?
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  Or is that something you're considering when you're buying?
• 12:59
  You know, what moisture content is ideal for when you buy it and
• 13:03
  it's over at the farm somewhere, Assuming there's going to be
• 13:07
  some, some change maybe between there and then when you get it.
• 13:11
  And then when you get it and give it to the roaster and make
• 13:14
  sure there's enough moisture to go through the roasting process.
• 13:19
  Yeah. The the moisture is, is all
• 13:21
  tracked in the coffee samples all the way until it gets here.
• 13:25
  And then like you mentioned, we, we do measure it throughout the
• 13:29
  year to see how it's holding up. There is a very specific range
• 13:36
  for coffee. The range is 10% to 12%.
• 13:40
  That's the essentially the water percentage in the coffee, right?
• 13:47
  So we call it the moisture content.
• 13:51
  Something else that's related to that is also called water
• 13:56
  activity. So this is based off of water's
• 14:04
  tendency to evaporate open air at sea level, right?
• 14:09
  So then you can, there's a measurement created based off
• 14:12
  that. So water can evaporate faster or
• 14:15
  slower than that, right, depending on the conditions.
• 14:20
  So if if so, there's two things that we look at.
• 14:25
  There's water activity and moisture content.
• 14:29
  The moisture content needs to be in a specific range, like I
• 14:33
  said, 10 to 12% to be considered safe for storage and export.
• 14:38
  If it's too wet then the coffee can grow something.
• 14:44
  Grow mold. Or.
• 14:45
  You know has a lot more microbial activity.
• 14:49
  Sure. If it's too dry then the the
• 14:53
  seeds actually taste kind of stale or or dry like a.
• 14:57
  A dry coffee usually comes along with an old coffee.
• 15:03
  So as coffee gets stored, assuming it's in relatively good
• 15:08
  conditions, it will continue to dry out.
• 15:12
  Have you like stored it in a rainstorm for a year?
• 15:15
  Then it'd probably get wetter, but in most warehouses it dries
• 15:19
  out. Sure, even if you're using like
• 15:21
  a grain pro bag or something like that.
• 15:23
  The grain, yeah, the grain pro bag definitely helps the what
• 15:28
  I'm seeing in like well processed coffee.
• 15:31
  So let's say coffee with with good water activity numbers, the
• 15:37
  moisture loss is like less than 1% in a year.
• 15:41
  So yeah, maybe maybe half a percent in six months.
• 15:46
  So if you have a coffee cup that comes in at 11 percent, it might
• 15:50
  be 10% after a year of storage. So to me, that seems like such a
• 15:56
  narrow window, you know, 1 to 2%.
• 15:58
  But are you measuring then in like tenths of a percent or like
• 16:02
  what's the, does that feel like a big, like does 2% seem like a
• 16:05
  big range to you or am I just imagining it differently?
• 16:08
  It's a pretty big range. And when you're, when you're
• 16:10
  roasting coffee, you feel, you know, you can feel a 1%
• 16:14
  difference even like a, a pretty inexperienced roaster could
• 16:18
  probably feel that. And like you kind of hinted at
• 16:23
  as as you're roasting the same coffee all year, you'll probably
• 16:28
  notice your data start to change towards the end of the year as
• 16:33
  the coffee continues to dry out. So we do use a tool to measure
• 16:38
  it to the 10th of a percent. And that's also being done.
• 16:42
  I mean, that's being done at the farm level and at the mill
• 16:46
  wherever the country country is that the coffee's coming from.
• 16:49
  So, and everyone is on the same page with these targets.
• 16:53
  So if a farm delivers like wet coffee, you know that they may
• 16:58
  get paid less for it, or it may be rejected by the mill
• 17:02
  depending on what the parameters were.
• 17:04
  Is that built into your contracts then, like I assume,
• 17:08
  is there language for that about, you know, the moisture
• 17:11
  content? Or is it more of a, hey, this is
• 17:14
  how the industry works? Yeah, checking because to me, I,
• 17:22
  you know what the thing one is, it seems like it's something
• 17:25
  that almost falls on your shoulders as the green importer
• 17:27
  more than maybe the roaster because the roaster isn't
• 17:31
  dealing with it for that first 2/3 of the trip, right?
• 17:33
  They're just the last mile. But then they have to know to
• 17:37
  ask the right questions about the moisture content before they
• 17:41
  purchase. Right, so.
• 17:44
  So to answer your question, yes, it is there.
• 17:48
  There are parameters set in the Green Coffee Association
• 17:51
  contract rules which which our contracts are are using.
• 17:58
  So it could, you know, that's a pretty obvious example where a
• 18:02
  coffee could be out of spec and like there's legal grounds to
• 18:05
  reject it or or go to arbitration or something.
• 18:11
  Their range is actually bigger than the range that I gave you.
• 18:15
  The range I gave you is the Specialty Coffee Association
• 18:19
  recommended. Range, right.
• 18:21
  Yeah. So there's a little bit more of
• 18:23
  the gap for legal reasons, but that's kind of your target, your
• 18:27
  target range. I haven't seen much coffee
• 18:30
  arrive outside of the range. You know when you're I I
• 18:36
  mentioned processing earlier. It's really about processing and
• 18:40
  how the coffee is dried. So like really well processed
• 18:45
  coffee that's dried really slowly and evenly, we'll have
• 18:49
  that more stable water activity. So the water stays in the seed
• 18:56
  in a stable way for longer. And then that is also related to
• 19:01
  quality shelf life. So if a coffee has high water
• 19:04
  activity, it loses moisture really quickly and the coffee
• 19:10
  will go stale and taste pretty fast.
• 19:13
  See This is why I like talking to you because I feel like I can
• 19:17
  follow along on this the way you explain it and I know you to be
• 19:22
  a a wildly intelligent coffee person, but you can talk down to
• 19:27
  Dum Dums like myself and I, I really am grateful for that.
• 19:31
  You asked the right questions too.
• 19:34
  I'm going to take off that here. Just see how shiny my bald head
• 19:38
  gets in this. In this.
• 19:40
  I've got a sun of sunlight above me.
• 19:42
  It's amazing. No, I don't like it putting it
• 19:45
  back on. You also brought up weight loss
• 19:54
  during coffee roasting, so it's actually not all water.
• 19:58
  I mentioned the number being 10 to 12%, right, But the.
• 20:04
  The amount of weight loss in coffee can be as high as 20% in
• 20:08
  a dark roast, so it's not all water that's being lost, and
• 20:12
  there's still some water content in the in the roasted coffee
• 20:17
  when it's finished. I'm not even going to ask today
• 20:23
  what the other percentage is. We're going to get to that at
• 20:25
  some point. You know, thinking about it from
• 20:33
  the roaster, if I'm like a new roaster and I'm like, I call up
• 20:36
  you at Isaiah or I'm on your website, isaiahcoffee.com and
• 20:43
  I'm thinking about buying from you.
• 20:45
  And so we set up a cupping. I I'm wondering how you do a
• 20:50
  plan for that. You recently posted a picture.
• 20:53
  I think Siri did our friend Sirius, Summer and Kalsa from
• 20:56
  Color Magic about a cupping she did with you, which I was really
• 20:59
  excited about because I've been wanting that to happen for a
• 21:01
  long time. 2 great coffee people in the same area.
• 21:06
  But how much does you setting that cupping up for someone like
• 21:09
  Siri change based on the roaster you're working with or based on,
• 21:15
  you know, they focus on dark roasts, which is becoming a
• 21:19
  little bit more popular Or, you know, how much of that
• 21:21
  background do you get before you set that up?
• 21:23
  And then how much or do you tailor or is it always kind of
• 21:28
  like, no, we do it the same way every time.
• 21:30
  So our, our protocol doesn't change.
• 21:33
  We use the same roast profile and you know, that's the same
• 21:38
  ratios, the same water, everything, everything with the
• 21:42
  actual brewing and prep of the coffee is the same no matter who
• 21:46
  we host. But you know, we bring in, I
• 21:52
  don't know, maybe at least 200 different coffees a year.
• 21:58
  And so when we have a client come visit us like Siri, right,
• 22:02
  I don't we, we can't put 200 coffees out right?
• 22:05
  So it's just not practical. So we always kind of curate a
• 22:11
  list for each roaster who's coming to cup with us.
• 22:16
  And really what I like to do is first have a phone call or a
• 22:20
  meeting to, to kind of check the pulse on what people are liking.
• 22:28
  You know, things like price target and, and obviously flavor
• 22:33
  profile target. That all comes into
• 22:35
  consideration. If someone's target price is $5,
• 22:39
  I'm not going to put the $10 coffee out, right?
• 22:43
  Maybe maybe just show them what they're missing.
• 22:47
  Maybe 1. But but yeah, so we we have kind
• 22:52
  of AI don't know discovery meeting, you could call it,
• 22:55
  where I asked some questions about what they're currently
• 22:58
  buying and what they like, what they don't like.
• 23:02
  And from there pick from our list of availability to match
• 23:06
  them up with the right coffees. The goal is if we put 10 coffees
• 23:11
  out for a cupping, whoever is joining us has a really hard
• 23:15
  time picking which one they want.
• 23:18
  Oh, so that's a good thing. I would think that'd be a bad
• 23:20
  thing. I, I almost was going to ask if,
• 23:23
  if you've got let's say 5 coffees to cup, if like 3 are
• 23:26
  good and two are like throw aways on purpose, you know, I.
• 23:30
  Do I do set some bookends though?
• 23:32
  Like I mentioned, I will put like a like a exceptional or
• 23:37
  something crazy, something really loud.
• 23:39
  And then I will also kind of put our baseline no matter what kind
• 23:42
  of like our lowest tier coffee just so that people have the
• 23:47
  context of. Sure.
• 23:49
  You know the qualities. Yeah, the hard part is the the
• 23:52
  risk of doing it. You know what I said is that
• 23:54
  then they pick the one that's really bad like this.
• 23:57
  Was supposed to be there, shouldn't be too bad.
• 23:59
  OK, fair enough. Do you what?
• 24:04
  So I would assume then if somebody buys from you once,
• 24:08
  it's easier than to set it up the next time around, right?
• 24:11
  Because you're starting to get, I assume you have like a
• 24:13
  database of like notes about each of your clients and like
• 24:16
  what their preferences are. Yeah.
• 24:19
  So we, I, we call it calibration, right.
• 24:21
  So even when we send samples out to the roasters who are let's
• 24:25
  say out of state, the biggest thing that we are always asking
• 24:30
  for is just feedback. Even if you're not buying
• 24:32
  coffee, just give us some feedback because then we can
• 24:36
  calibrate with you and, and maybe maybe we just sent you the
• 24:39
  wrong samples, right? So, so we're constantly
• 24:44
  calibrating with roasters, not just in like scores.
• 24:48
  That's that's where calibration gets thrown around a lot is in
• 24:51
  like the actual cupping score. But but beyond that, just more
• 24:56
  looking at, at preference and profiles and even pricing and
• 25:03
  all that. So I have clients I've been
• 25:08
  sourcing coffees for, for over 10 years now and they don't even
• 25:13
  try samples from me anymore. They just because we're so
• 25:17
  calibrated right. So they they feel comfortable
• 25:20
  calling me and, and asking me certain key questions about the
• 25:25
  coffees and I'll make recommendations and they'll
• 25:29
  order the coffee and we'll ship it without any samples and
• 25:32
  they'll receive it and be very happy.
• 25:36
  I've been the person on the other side of that in the beer
• 25:39
  world where you get to a point where you trust somebody's
• 25:42
  opinion and their taste and you know, they know what you you
• 25:45
  like as well to sell. And I can say that it's always
• 25:50
  such a relief because it's as fun as it is to try a bunch of
• 25:54
  new coffees or beers or whatever, it's still like part
• 25:58
  of your job. And when you're doing it all the
• 26:00
  time, at some point you're just like, if it's one thing I can
• 26:03
  take off my plate or I don't have to do, it saves that time
• 26:06
  and that effort. And also I can just drink
• 26:09
  something I know I'm going to like.
• 26:11
  Right and you know, a lot of a lot of small roasters they're
• 26:16
  they're run by people who wear a lot of hats and maybe they don't
• 26:19
  have the equipment to roast a tiny sample and and yeah, it
• 26:24
  takes time it it I, I budget around an hour per sample.
• 26:29
  So if someone. Is sending. 10 samples.
• 26:31
  I'm budgeting 10 hours. Holy cow, that's.
• 26:34
  And it, it's about that, that much time, I mean, to, to intake
• 26:39
  the coffee, right. So we have to make sure that all
• 26:42
  the details are very accurately saved.
• 26:45
  Yeah. It's we're not buying the wrong
• 26:47
  coffee by accident. And then we do the physical
• 26:51
  check the we have to roast it, we have to cup it, all the clean
• 26:56
  up from that. And then the follow up, you
• 26:59
  know, giving feedback and getting pricing, whatever it's,
• 27:03
  it's A at least 45 minutes up to an hour per sample.
• 27:07
  Wow, that's actually a lot more than I would have realized.
• 27:11
  I wanted to ask, did you see my new mug?
• 27:14
  I can't read it. It's a different types of
• 27:17
  salmon. I found this in a thrift store
• 27:24
  in Idaho and I've learned because of it.
• 27:29
  I've googled salmon and learned all about the different types of
• 27:32
  salmon. So every morning I look at my
• 27:35
  fish and I feel vaguely calm about the world.
• 27:40
  Then I I put on a raincoat and or AT shirt and go outside and
• 27:44
  figure it out. We were talking about contracts
• 27:52
  earlier, just briefly there. I've never read or looked at a
• 27:58
  green coffee contract if I were to get into roasting or if I
• 28:04
  were to get into some sort of business where I'm buying green
• 28:07
  coffee. I'm assuming you have contracts
• 28:11
  on both sides to some extent, but maybe thinking about it more
• 28:17
  from the roasters perspective or your relationship with them,
• 28:21
  what would be some key components of that, that
• 28:25
  contract? Is it more about like if you
• 28:27
  already made the decision to buy and then here's our agreement or
• 28:32
  are they sourcing through you? You know, especially now with
• 28:35
  the the unexpected tariff situation, one of the things I
• 28:38
  would imagine is happening is green coffee importers in in
• 28:43
  particular boutique ones or ones that aren't like bringing in
• 28:46
  thousands and thousands of of different containers where they
• 28:49
  can absorb some of those extra costs.
• 28:53
  You're planning ahead. You're trying to figure out
• 28:56
  who's going to buy what before you end up ordering it.
• 29:00
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:05
  I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot to say there.
• 29:07
  We started doing a 200 level class that's two days and part
• 29:14
  of the two days is about two hours of green coffee buying
• 29:20
  content and that would include like contract knowledge and
• 29:25
  planning. I clarify you when you say 200,
• 29:28
  you're talking about the coffee education classes that Jose
• 29:31
  offers that people can go to. Can they do them virtually yet?
• 29:35
  No, not yet. We're playing around with
• 29:37
  Discord a little. Bit.
• 29:40
  But for now just in in person in Anaheim.
• 29:46
  But yeah, we we started offering this 200 level class to to kind
• 29:52
  of continue the education beyond our 100 level class that we've
• 29:55
  been offering since we started. But part of so to to address the
• 30:03
  tariff specifically that is that is contractually a pass through
• 30:08
  cost. So we have to front the bill
• 30:13
  with customs, but we are allowed to pass the cost along in the
• 30:21
  price per pound in a, in a contract.
• 30:24
  Now that's it. We've had a couple of, it
• 30:29
  requires a lot of planning on both ends.
• 30:31
  So you know, we communicate a lot with customers on the
• 30:35
  current, the current tariff landscape when they're signing
• 30:39
  the contract. If it's, let's say if it's
• 30:41
  coffee, it's not here yet, we talk a lot about that and we
• 30:45
  also talk about what could happen with contracts.
• 30:49
  And we've had a couple of tough situations, most recently around
• 30:53
  Brazilian coffee, because the the tariff went from 10% to 50%
• 31:01
  with about a month's notice, six weeks notice.
• 31:04
  So we had coffees already contracted on both ends with
• 31:09
  vendors and with roasters and we were expecting 10% tariff,
• 31:16
  right. And all of a sudden it goes to
• 31:18
  50. So now we have to come up with
• 31:22
  40% extra money. And just to give you some scale,
• 31:26
  it's like $70,000 to come up with in six weeks, right?
• 31:31
  Yeah. That should be no problem for a
• 31:34
  you know, a man of the world like yourself.
• 31:38
  Yeah, yeah. And.
• 31:39
  You don't just plan for 70. Yeah, you don't.
• 31:42
  You don't just plan for $70,000 throwaways.
• 31:46
  I should start golfing or something.
• 31:49
  He'd be better prepared. No.
• 31:52
  So we, we had a call, we had to call the customers that were
• 31:57
  contracted on this shipment and let them know that the tariff
• 32:01
  was going from $0.40 to almost $2.00 per pound.
• 32:08
  You know, so their cost effectively went from let's say
• 32:11
  $5 up to seven just just overnight.
• 32:18
  So, so yeah, the tariffs definitely throw a wrench in, in
• 32:22
  the contract, but there's not, there's not much that anyone can
• 32:25
  do to, to plan. You know, the, what we've been
• 32:28
  saying internally is there's no, there's no good plan it.
• 32:33
  It's just, you just have to roll with whatever is happening.
• 32:39
  But that's, that's tariff specific.
• 32:41
  You know, there's plenty of other elements of your contract
• 32:44
  that are, that are really key and, and coffee, you know,
• 32:48
  coffee follows these rules, but I've been trying to trying to
• 32:52
  help roasters understand their other contracts with things like
• 32:56
  cups or, or coffee bags if they're not getting them locally
• 33:01
  made in US, right. So if you're shipping cups or
• 33:05
  bags from China and you're not prepared for the OR if you don't
• 33:12
  have the right terms in your contract, you could get stuffed
• 33:16
  with a crazy tariff bill. And we saw Chinese tariffs go up
• 33:20
  to a. 145 percent, 140 I think it just announced it's.
• 33:25
  Just it's radical, so. Luckily we don't make thing
• 33:29
  nobody makes anything in China anyway, so that's fine.
• 33:33
  So like if you're ordering cups, I would order them what's called
• 33:38
  DDP delivered, duty paid. So whoever's selling you the
• 33:42
  cups pays the tariff, not you, right?
• 33:46
  But you can't get that kind of contract with green coffee,
• 33:50
  right? So knowing those terms, those
• 33:53
  are related to INCO terms, which are like an international set of
• 33:58
  rules for contracts. Understanding your INCO terms is
• 34:02
  super important. What's that an acronym for?
• 34:05
  INCO. I don't.
• 34:06
  I don't think it is. I don't.
• 34:07
  Know it's just what it's. Called.
• 34:08
  It's a registered trademark. Someone owns it, of course.
• 34:13
  So, so like our, our contracts with vendors are what's called
• 34:17
  FoB. So it's free on board.
• 34:20
  So what that means is the exporter is responsible for all
• 34:25
  the costs up to the point that it's delivered at the boat.
• 34:30
  And then once it's on the boat, all the costs are transferred to
• 34:33
  the buyer. Which is due or you know, or.
• 34:37
  So, so all, all of our contracts are FoB.
• 34:43
  So it's fairly simple. But when coffee gets here, a
• 34:47
  really common thing even before tariffs is some importers might
• 34:50
  sell the coffee ex warehouse. And in an ex warehouse contract,
• 34:59
  essentially the the seller gives up possession of the coffee
• 35:05
  inside of the warehouse. So that means that whoever's
• 35:09
  buying the coffee, the roaster is responsible for all the
• 35:12
  warehouse fees, which include like the load out fees, the
• 35:16
  pallet cost. You know, like the actual cost
• 35:19
  of the wood, the cost of the strap, the wrap, and whatever
• 35:24
  other fees these warehouses charge to prepare a pallet of
• 35:29
  coffee for shipping, right? So then if I'm looking at like a
• 35:34
  green coffee importers or sellers website, right and they
• 35:40
  have say do you offer like a catalog?
• 35:43
  Can you even do that? Because it seems like those
• 35:46
  whatever prices you would put into it.
• 35:49
  Yeah. So we just as a company, we
• 35:52
  decide to do all of our sales as FCA or free, free carrier.
• 35:59
  So what that means is we, we take responsibility of the
• 36:02
  warehouse fees and we give up responsibility once it's on a
• 36:07
  truck, right. So, so we will, we essentially
• 36:12
  it's fairly easy to cost in the warehouse fees because it's
• 36:15
  related per bag or per pound. So we just average those fees
• 36:22
  into all of the cost per pound and then charge everything this
• 36:25
  FCA term. So all roasters have to worry
• 36:29
  about is the cost once it's on the truck.
• 36:32
  So anything related to the actual shipping?
• 36:34
  Got it. Yeah.
• 36:35
  I feel like for, for me, I'd be whichever company is making it
• 36:39
  the easiest, I'm willing to, you know, to pay for that because
• 36:43
  I'm already like getting lost in the number of different, you
• 36:46
  know, people or things that we're paying for.
• 36:50
  And, and not as like a complaint about it because there's all
• 36:53
  these things that have someone's got to pay for.
• 36:55
  It's just a matter of figuring out if you're that person or
• 36:57
  not. And.
• 36:58
  Yeah, I live in fear industry go much more this way where most
• 37:04
  most importers are now just selling everything this if FCA
• 37:08
  term. Sure.
• 37:10
  Rather than the X warehouse only the only the larger roasters who
• 37:13
  maybe have their own warehouse account are usually buying the
• 37:18
  ex warehouse term. Well, we've taught everybody in
• 37:23
  all aspects of their life that, you know, delivery should be
• 37:26
  free and you should be able to just to press a button and then
• 37:30
  it arrives. And so when it's not like that,
• 37:34
  it's that simple barrier to entry or it's that, Oh, well, if
• 37:39
  one company is doing that and one's not, then who am I going
• 37:42
  to purchase from, right? And so you can feel like getting
• 37:45
  fees, you know? For sure.
• 37:47
  So you just get rid of those. I have an existential question
• 37:56
  for you. So I was, I've been thinking
• 37:59
  about this word a lot, but also how it relates to coffee.
• 38:05
  This coffee I'm drinking as we talk it, you know, the decaf is
• 38:10
  really enjoyable. I brooded as a French press
• 38:14
  because I don't have my grinder. It's in storage and I'm hand
• 38:17
  grinding everything. And that's like the least
• 38:19
  impactful on my rotator cuff as a 45 year old, 44 year old
• 38:24
  something. But it's really enjoyable.
• 38:28
  I, I, I'm really liking this coffee.
• 38:30
  And so my question for you is what, what makes coffee good?
• 38:37
  Is it a, you know, from your perspective, are you quantifying
• 38:41
  it based on quality, you know, on a scale?
• 38:46
  Is it the experience of it? You know, what is it that makes
• 38:48
  coffee good for you to you know, that you go, Oh yeah, I'm going
• 38:52
  to feel good about this today. Well as AQ grader which is about
• 38:59
  to not mean very much. Means something to me, buddy.
• 39:03
  We're still, thank you, we're still in 2025 here.
• 39:07
  So still the rules we use that SCA cupping form, right?
• 39:15
  And we, we judge 10 different attributes of the coffee.
• 39:19
  I think what you're getting at here is caffeine is not on that
• 39:24
  list of things that's evaluated. Caffeine is not.
• 39:29
  Caffeine is not anything to praise as far as quality goes.
• 39:41
  Obviously, it's why a lot of people drink coffee.
• 39:44
  I think that's why a lot of people drink bad coffee.
• 39:47
  Yeah, yeah, I think right. So to your point there, it's
• 39:51
  changing as people start drinking better coffee.
• 39:55
  They're enjoying coffee for a different reason.
• 39:58
  Maybe caffeine is a perk, no unintended, but you know,
• 40:03
  they're enjoying for the flavor, they're enjoying for the
• 40:06
  experience. So I think I think caffeine is
• 40:10
  getting less relevant. I mean, we're talking of a
• 40:13
  really small niche, and you can kind of see the shift before our
• 40:20
  eyes, like that coffee you're drinking from Swiss water decaf.
• 40:24
  Those coffees didn't exist from Swiss water five years ago,
• 40:28
  right? So Swiss water decaf is feeling
• 40:31
  a demand for producing a better product.
• 40:36
  You know, Swiss water decaf process is the same for a good
• 40:40
  coffee or a bad coffee, but for so long they're just using
• 40:45
  really generic, not traceable large lot commodity coffees.
• 40:51
  And so it didn't taste that good, you know?
• 40:54
  Sure it wasn't the process, the caffeine.
• 40:57
  It didn't have the caffeine. So what wasn't the?
• 40:59
  Processing or the OR the lack of caffeine that didn't you know
• 41:02
  that was not hitting the mark. It was just the coffee that was
• 41:07
  being started with. So Swiss Water made the decision
• 41:11
  to start this new program, this kind of like sub brand, if you
• 41:15
  will, of these high end coffees that are decaffeinated and they
• 41:20
  taste great. It is awesome.
• 41:22
  And so we started, we started carrying those coffees at the
• 41:26
  beginning of the year, and we've watched people actually get
• 41:31
  accounts and create new connections by having a much
• 41:35
  better decaf product than, you know, competitors have.
• 41:40
  When, and this is a question I should be asking someone at
• 41:44
  Swiss water and I will do that to follow up, but are you
• 41:48
  seeing, you know, when you when you remove caffeine from
• 41:51
  something, caffeine has a bitter taste inherently.
• 41:55
  Are we seeing these specialty decafs?
• 41:57
  Are you experiencing that they have kind of a smoother, you
• 42:00
  know, finish to them, like less of a on that scale of bitterness
• 42:04
  on that SEA form, you know, is that a commonality or or not
• 42:08
  something that you noticed? They have, they definitely taste
• 42:13
  a certain way. I think it's more complicated
• 42:17
  and just less bitterness because then bitterness is coming from a
• 42:22
  lot of factors like roasting and brewing.
• 42:26
  So when we're cupping them, yeah, they feel a little softer,
• 42:30
  but there's still, there's still something about the seeds
• 42:34
  themselves having to go through the extra processing, right.
• 42:38
  So I mentioned in an in our earlier conversation like water
• 42:43
  activity and moisture content, right, These numbers are changed
• 42:48
  during decaffeination. So that's having an effect on
• 42:51
  the coffee seed that I mean I'm not exactly sure what is
• 42:57
  happening, happening chemically, but tasting that you can, you
• 43:02
  can taste that they have been decaffeinated.
• 43:05
  Interesting. I mean, they basically just like
• 43:07
  let them go swimming for a while and then somehow they get, you
• 43:10
  know, it's all magic. I would say the existential part
• 43:14
  of the goodness of a coffee, though, kind of comes back to
• 43:17
  that person five years ago who was drinking that decaf coffee.
• 43:21
  Even if it didn't taste that good, there was something about
• 43:25
  having it, the experience of having it that made them a part
• 43:28
  of their their routine or there was something.
• 43:31
  And so for me, yesterday, I, I was wandering around in this new
• 43:38
  town that we're in, my wife and I, and we got a cup of coffee
• 43:41
  just to walk around with. And I can't be certain, but I
• 43:47
  think that I enjoyed the taste of that coffee more 'cause I was
• 43:50
  enjoying enjoying the experience of, of my wife and I being in
• 43:54
  this new place. And I find that when I'm sitting
• 44:00
  at home in the morning drinking a coffee or seven every morning,
• 44:07
  I'm so much more critical of the coffee.
• 44:11
  I'm, I'm more focused like it is an SEA tasting form or a, a
• 44:15
  cupping form of some sort, which I think are two different things
• 44:18
  personally. But then I am if I'm out and
• 44:24
  there's this extra component of the experience.
• 44:26
  So I guess as AQ grader you should be able you should have a
• 44:30
  different perspective. Can you just take the coffee and
• 44:34
  say this is good based only on the Q grader qualifications?
• 44:37
  Or does the experience affect it for you too?
• 44:44
  That's a good question. No, I, I definitely believe that
• 44:48
  the experience is what it's all about.
• 44:51
  You know, I, but as a business, that's not what I'm delivering,
• 44:57
  right? So, so when I'm tasting coffee
• 45:01
  for work or, or to share with a client, it it's not to see if I
• 45:07
  enjoy it right? Or it's not for me to enjoy,
• 45:11
  that's for sure. If I do, that's a treat.
• 45:15
  But, but when I'm drinking coffee for fun, like on the
• 45:21
  weekend, right then yeah, it's, it's much more than just coffee.
• 45:27
  And, and the coffees that I keep at home, you know, I keep
• 45:33
  actually keep a couple of different profiles at home so
• 45:38
  that I can pair them with different things, right?
• 45:41
  So I can pair the chocolatey coffee with my pancake and I can
• 45:47
  pair the Ethiopian coffee usually on its own right where
• 45:51
  it's not nothing else to kind of hide the flavor of it.
• 45:56
  So that that is something that I think a lot of coffee people
• 45:59
  miss actually is pairing element, right?
• 46:04
  Like even even Somalia is in wine, they don't they don't
• 46:08
  grade the wine. They don't score the wine or
• 46:13
  give points to the wine. That's not what a Somalia does.
• 46:16
  Even though a lot of people compare the Q grader to Somalia,
• 46:20
  that's, that's not what they do. They, they pair wine, right?
• 46:23
  They, they pair flavor profiles. So and I I think that gets
• 46:29
  missed a lot and overlooked. Well, it's because we focus so
• 46:35
  much on the, the training that they go through to get to that
• 46:39
  point where they can do the pairing to get there.
• 46:42
  We only focus on as the outsiders or people have watched
• 46:45
  one of those movies like Soma or whatever or some or whatever,
• 46:50
  you know, oh, they can identify all these characteristics and
• 46:53
  all these very finite details as opposed to the overarching.
• 46:57
  This is the profile. And if I blend it with dark
• 47:00
  chocolate or grapes or whatever, right?
• 47:04
  Although it's kind of up to drink wine and also eat grapes
• 47:08
  simultaneously. Is it, I don't know, like it's
• 47:11
  kind of like a weird, oh, look at this grape.
• 47:15
  This could have been you. You know that you didn't quite
• 47:17
  make it. I could be wrong.
• 47:21
  Yeah, I think, I think that if you want to make a really good
• 47:25
  pairing, then you need to understand the flavors, right?
• 47:27
  The more you understand the flavors and how flavors work
• 47:30
  together, the better the pairing you can make.
• 47:33
  So that's something that kind of came to me from coffee and going
• 47:40
  through the Q grader program. I, I came out with a much better
• 47:45
  appreciation of food and other drink pairings, right.
• 47:50
  So I'm lucky my wife went to culinary school.
• 47:55
  She works in coffee now, but we like our Sundays we set up we
• 48:02
  set up a whole day of parents. We we actually plan out five to
• 48:09
  8 courses throughout the day and.
• 48:12
  How do I get invited to your house?
• 48:15
  Sundays or maximum of two. That's a good, that's a good
• 48:20
  policy. But yeah, we, we, I mean, we do
• 48:23
  have some friends over occasionally for events.
• 48:26
  I, I call an event, but you know, we're just hanging out.
• 48:28
  But we turn cooking and and eating into part of the hangout,
• 48:33
  you know, So we're, we're just kind of constantly cooking,
• 48:38
  eating, cleaning up, cooking, eating, cleaning up and of
• 48:42
  course, drinking, you know, with each course starting with
• 48:45
  coffee, ending with something stronger.
• 48:48
  But the paw on the mic is a good clip.
• 48:52
  Yeah, it's going to be great. He's telling me that I'm done
• 48:55
  now. I think he's like, I'm done with
• 48:58
  my nap or I got to go turn his heating pad on.
• 49:02
  He's spoiled a little bit. I love that, though.
• 49:05
  It's like a salon, you know? It's, I think, something that's
• 49:08
  missed. We're so focused on, you know,
• 49:12
  our own things and it's so easy to be entertained.
• 49:15
  There's something missed when you don't get groups of people
• 49:18
  together. We were talking kind of before,
• 49:21
  you know, I moved to a place that politically speaking is
• 49:25
  mixed 5050 and all the people that live here, you know, for
• 49:29
  the last so many years, they kind of have to get along
• 49:32
  because your neighbor probably doesn't have the same opinion as
• 49:35
  you. And I find a lot of value in
• 49:36
  that is exhausting, as you know, our political situation has
• 49:41
  been. But it reminds me of when we
• 49:45
  first moved to San Diego. My wife and I would invite
• 49:48
  strangers that we had met, you know, in our wherever at our job
• 49:52
  or at a restaurant or wherever that seemed interesting or
• 49:55
  different over for brunch. And we'd have this big brunch
• 49:59
  outside and you could bring something or not.
• 50:02
  And it would just be a chance for like people that we kind of
• 50:06
  knew somehow, but didn't know the other six or seven people at
• 50:09
  the table to start just talking. And we usually themed it, you
• 50:14
  know, something goofy. And and that's something that is
• 50:18
  easy to get away from. Like it's a lot of effort and
• 50:21
  work to, you know, be social in that way.
• 50:24
  For me anyways, I'm not necessarily instinctively that,
• 50:28
  especially on your day off. But but what I always found is
• 50:31
  even now, 10 years later, I can think back on some of those
• 50:34
  meetups and be like, oh, this was the person who had this idea
• 50:37
  that changed the way I thought about whatever's happening
• 50:40
  today. And it's how I feel about good
• 50:43
  books. You know, good books are kind of
• 50:45
  like that too, where they they put something in your brain that
• 50:48
  comes out in your life later and you're like, oh, yeah, I
• 50:50
  remember. This is why I feel that way.
• 50:53
  That's. Cool.
• 50:55
  That's that makes me think of one of our first conversations
• 50:59
  was, you know, how I got into this and why I stuck with it,
• 51:05
  you know, being exposed to the diversity of people involved in,
• 51:09
  in coffee sourcing, right. So I'm talking to people in
• 51:13
  Africa, Asia, South America, Central America, everyone has
• 51:18
  different languages, different religions, different culture,
• 51:22
  right. So it's, it's definitely
• 51:25
  constantly challenging what I believe.
• 51:29
  Sure, but. To your.
• 51:32
  Point I think we would really like to get a a supper club or
• 51:36
  some sort of event to, to host people and kind of share what
• 51:41
  we've been learning about food and pairings and getting
• 51:45
  something like that here. I think we just came up with an
• 51:48
  idea for a a meet up in the Spring Supper club.
• 51:52
  Yeah. Let's do this.
• 51:55
  My schedule is open. How?
• 51:58
  Long are you here in? Oh, when I fly down about 16
• 52:06
  hours. No, no, no.
• 52:09
  In April. Oh, in April, I'll get there
• 52:11
  like Monday or Tuesday and be there until Monday or Tuesday.
• 52:16
  Yeah, it's going to be a whole week for me, for the world of
• 52:22
  coffee, which I'm teaching myself to say instead of Expo.
• 52:27
  Everyone in everyone in emails is saying WOC slash SCA.
• 52:32
  Yeah, or WIII have said and I found myself typing out World of
• 52:37
  Coffee Expo and then like highlighting Expo and deleting
• 52:42
  it because it's like, no, that's that's not it.
• 52:45
  Jared, I just appreciate you always.
• 52:49
  I hope we get we keep talking here for another minute, but for
• 52:52
  everyone listening, Jared Ailes of Isaiah Coffee source.
• 52:56
  I'm going to cut and splice that into every little clip I make so
• 52:59
  they know. And thanks for for helping us
• 53:03
  get coffee smarter as always. Anytime, Ryan,
• 53:27
  the way we got Rostar started was looking at and discovering
• 53:31
  who coffee roasters were and what their problems were.
• 53:35
  You're going to get unmatched legendary customer experience
• 53:38
  here from start to finish. Rostar has evolved a ton over
• 53:43
  the last few years. We've invested in new equipment
• 53:46
  and technologies. We have really put a lot of
• 53:49
  effort into continuous improvement out on the shop
• 53:51
  floor. What I'm most proud of with
• 53:54
  Rostar is I love how they seek cutting edge technology.
• 53:59
  We also make things that are really cool for really cool
• 54:01
  customers too. We're really interested in
• 54:05
  getting to know our customer and discovering what we can do to
• 54:10
  help them out. Not too bad.
• 54:22
  Go Brewers.