Latest / Coffee People Podcast / S6:E19 - David Yardley, MoonGoat Coffee

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S6:E19 - David Yardley, MoonGoat Coffee · Coffee People Podcast

0:12
Hey, good morning everyone. Welcome to season 6, episode, 18
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of the roast West Coast coffee podcast.
0:19
I'm Ryan Walton. This is the show where I bring
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you the stories of coffee professionals, entrepreneurship
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and coffee smarter education. It feels really good to be back
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in the closet. Interviewing people roast West
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Coast is going to be finishing the season strong with two great
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interviews. Starting with this one today,
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with David Yardley of moon, goat coffee Moon, God has two
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locations in Orange County and has been around since 2018.
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You can check out at moon, go coffee and Instagram.
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If you want to see photos of the shops were talking about or if
0:51
you want to take a friendly detour through roast
0:54
westcoast.com to get to those links I won't come.
0:58
Today I'm drinking a natural washed, Guatemala out of one of
1:01
my favorite green mugs. I hope your favorite coffee cup
1:04
is full too because it's time for this interview with David
1:08
Yardley of moon, go coffee and Orange County.
1:10
California on the roast West Coast coffee podcast.
1:19
That said, David, welcome to the roast West Coast coffee podcast.
1:24
If you could do me a favor, let everyone know who you are and
1:27
who you work for, and what your role is there.
1:31
Absolutely, my name is David Yardley and I work for Moon got
1:34
coffee and I always joke that I do the job that nobody else
1:39
wants to do so, you know, handyman occasionally roast a
1:44
batch of coffee. But in all seriousness, my
1:47
biggest and It's important job is I kind of head up the coffee
1:51
program. So I do all the green buying and
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I helped set the training and make sure that were Brewing
1:58
better coffee than we were yesterday and not as good as it
2:01
will be tomorrow. What kind of coffee did you
2:04
drink this morning? I had a cappuccino to start the
2:09
morning. I was at one of our shops, so I
2:11
love to drink cappuccino. Whether it's my shops or
2:14
somebody else's to help kind of understand what's going on.
2:18
On it tells you how the milk is being textured.
2:21
It tells you how the espressos polling.
2:23
So that's what I had this morning and then I've definitely
2:25
had at least a couple of cups of batch, Brew of whatever has been
2:28
laying around since then less scientific on those.
2:32
It's more just for the desired effect, always good.
2:37
We're talking late after or late morning rather and I was
2:40
thinking to myself, do I have time to brew another coffee or
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not? Should I run down the street?
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What should I do, right? And I decided to do it myself.
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Off today. So I'm very excited about that.
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I want to before we get into moon, go thank you before we get
2:54
into moon, go and everything that comes with it.
2:56
I want to ask about you and just kind of learn a little bit about
2:59
your coffee, backstory your life back story was there some sort
3:03
of experience with coffee that made you think?
3:06
Yeah, this is something I'm interested in.
3:09
I think the first experience is not unique.
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I had an Ethiopian natural in about 2007. 2008 that made me
3:20
change my mind about coffee for the first time.
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It was a Stumptown more to cough organic, remember all those
3:30
details. I have a picture of the bag
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still, you know, lurking around because I already knew how to do
3:36
pour overs in those sorts of things.
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But I just never had coffee the tasted that good.
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So that changed my mind. But that was like, I knew I
3:43
liked coffee at that point, it was in 2013.
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We had another Epiphany. I went to UC Davis, they were
3:53
doing their inaugural coffee science, seminar to see if they
3:57
were going to make a degree on it and I signed up for it.
4:02
I told my boss, I'm taking a week off impromptu, but I'm
4:06
going for this and she gratefully approved it, and I
4:10
went for a week to UC Davis and and then took every class that I
4:14
could on coffee science after that, and that was really when I
4:17
knew knew it was going to go from like a hobby a passion to a
4:21
career. So in a new is nothing else,
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were you working in coffee at the time or that was applicable?
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Or was it something outside of your worldview?
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Kind of, I was a supply chain manager for Starbucks.
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So I was in coffee but not, I wouldn't call it specialty
4:38
coffee even though I was on the siren retail side, the specialty
4:42
side of Starbucks, Starbucks is more of a cult, you know, for
4:46
talking about world. Legends of coffee Starbucks is
4:50
one of the the many Cults and it's a cult of personality that
4:55
does not revolve around coffee quality.
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So I would say specialty coffee is defined by quality more than
5:03
anything else and Starbucks is the opposite of that.
5:06
It's defined by consistency and that's it right?
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Was there a point back then between 07 and 13 where you
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might have gone in a different direction and not been and
5:17
coffee? You at all.
5:18
Oh yeah. That's what I was thinking.
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I was like, cool. I got this cool.
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You know, corporate job at Starbucks.
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I'm just going to like, do the hop, right?
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I'm going to jump from Starbucks to who knows, I'd probably be
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like, a boring project manager for Amazon or something, right?
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It was like I was thinking, yeah, I can I can make projects
5:38
come to life. That's all I was thinking not
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I'm going to be in coffee specifically.
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So then how get let's get a little bit of the history of
5:46
moon goat. Then you know, How did that come
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about? Was there another stop between
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Starbucks and where you're at? Now, you know, what was that
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path to kind of this launch. And if I'm not mistaken, there
5:57
were two original owners, Mark, and also David.
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And then we're, how did you come into that they're still there.
6:03
They're still there. Don't worry, they haven't gone
6:05
anywhere, but I'll try to give you the shortest condensed
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thing. So my first job when I was in
6:09
high school, was it a local roaster called Diedrich coffee?
6:13
And it's the same brother of the guy who makes the roasters in
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Sandpoint Idaho. Oh yeah.
6:18
Martin Martin and is he now has Keen coffee.
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I believe. So exactly.
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Yep, he has King coffee. Never worked for King coffee,
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but worked for Diedrich coffee and I didn't know anything.
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It was just a local cafe. It was a place my sister's like
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to hang out. So I was like, I'll get a job
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there, right? So my sisters are older than me,
6:39
my two older sisters. So, they were the ones that are
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responsible for getting me kind of wanting to work in a cafe.
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I left there. Had a couple jobs in it.
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Great Recession happened in 2008, got laid off, and decided
6:55
to get a job at Starbucks. Because one of my old diedrichs
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manager was at Starbucks work my way up from being a barista to
7:03
store manager, and multi, store manager, and then supply chain.
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And I thought, yep, going to Parlay this for the rest of my
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career. We're there for nine years left.
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I want to say around 2015 2016 and I did a A Consulting project
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with Curtis the Brewing Company largely on Brewer that never
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came to life. I want to try to remember,
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Essence Brewers was what the name of it was.
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We called it the Unicorn when it was Rd stages.
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We showcased it at one SCA and it never made it to real Market
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but it's really cool. Did cold brew.
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So that was a fun project and I had a little bit of an
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engineering background because my family has an engineering
7:47
firm. So I You a little bit of what I
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was doing in that realm, but just through happenstance, and
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then from there, I just did Consulting and help the family,
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engineering, firm, and tell Moon, got opened and in 2018.
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So, a little bit of fog years. Yeah.
8:04
How did, how did you connect with moon?
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Go? Then?
8:07
Yeah. So it's actually my business
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partners. I never wanted to open a coffee
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shop. I was like the last person you
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wouldn't have caught me saying, you know, anytime up.
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Until now that Oh gosh, I want to open up a coffee shop.
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I wanted to work in coffee. I wanted to have a career in
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coffee, but my business, partners had a passion for
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making a cafe that had a big space and was open late and had
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good music scene, attached to it.
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And currently moon, go doesn't especially our Costa Mesa shop.
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Our Flagship shop is got over, 100 seats, and we have events,
8:44
at least two or three times a week and that's what my business
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partner. Mark focuses on.
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And then I just make sure the coffee underlying, that is
8:51
actually high quality, so coffee and in a little bit with the
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food as well. And then our other business
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partner, Dave was awesome. He when nobody's going to give
9:01
you a loan when you're a startup as a coffee company and he gave
9:04
us a really even really helped us on the finance side.
9:07
Very cool. It's all in part, you know,
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where those connections meet, and how you can find your way
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into a situation. You mentioned something just now
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about the size of this space, And you have two locations, I
9:19
believe the one you mentioned and then Garden, Grove.
9:22
Hmm. But having that big space was
9:25
that an advantage or disadvantage over the last
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couple of years? Especially the first say, two
9:30
years of the pandemic? I would think it'd be helpful.
9:32
But I also know the environment north of Camp Pendleton.
9:36
Say in Southern California, was different than it was south of
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Camp. Delta sure probably, it's so
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funny because even between Garden Grove and Costa Mesa,
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they're not that far apart. You know, as the crow flies Eyes
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are like seven miles. It takes like 20 minutes to
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drive those seven miles, but the they are too far apart yet.
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The customers are totally different between them because
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we opened so close to covid. In my mind as an operator, I was
10:04
just making another pivot just like all the other pivots we had
10:07
made. So you know, of course it was
10:10
worldwide. Pandemic, I would never wish it
10:12
happen again. However it kept us flexible just
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made us think about things differently.
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And having those big spaces I if you had asked me when we
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started, I didn't even want spaces that big, but that's
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where having business partners, can really help you stretch and
10:27
grow. It helped me open my mind and I
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think those big spaces were an advantage.
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However, that's where I would say.
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Like the smartest person in any organization is the, we not the
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one person. So that's where just relying on
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other people's strengths expertise and ability to help.
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Share that workload, makes it possible and not just I'm not
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just some brilliant guy who thought about it.
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You know, grand master plan, it takes a group right takes a
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village. Sure I can certainly appreciate
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that. I find it hard to trust part
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business partners. I've had some rough goes of it
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in the past but it's something that I'm actually working on
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because you can, I have always experienced that you go further
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with a group because they see the things you don't?
11:13
Yep, go fast go by yourself. Go further, go with a group,
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right? Some of them like that.
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And and I totally agree. I mean, it's, that's the hardest
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part. Is it is a relationship, right?
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And any intimate relationship, whether it's finances or
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romantic, or whatever. It's complicated, it's really
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complicated. Oh sure, my wife and I would
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joke about how my business partner and I were just as
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married as she and I were, we had joint bank accounts.
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We had. Yep.
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You know, agreements. We were legally bound to each
11:42
other. So it certainly was a, oh, yeah,
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a long process of dissolving. Those Sayings.
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Yes, my next question is the name Moon don't and I'll be
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honest, I only reached out to you in the first place because I
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saw the name and I thought, oh, I love the name.
11:58
Where does that come from? What does it mean to you?
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I mean, how did that, you know, become what it is?
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Well, what's funny is because when I joined the company, we
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had a different name and it was terrible.
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I won't even say it on the podcast.
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I'll say it once, once we're done recording, just so that
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everybody sends an email to ask me what it is.
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I'll reply to anybody who sends an email to David admin.com
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about what it is, but I'm not going to say it on the podcast.
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But when Mark are other business partners like a I got finally by
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this name, came to me in a dream, it's called Moon goat and
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I was like that names worse somehow worse than the bad name,
12:36
but he was like, wait, we've been talking about the history
12:39
of coffee. Goats discovered coffee.
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We're going to be open late. You got the moon, they kept the
12:44
goat herd up at night. There's the moon symbolism in
12:47
The Call the story, you know, the goods bleeding at the moon
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and it just came to me in a dream.
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We got to call it moon. Go and I was like, I don't I
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still wasn't convinced but then we had no better names.
13:00
And so it's stuck. Well, and it's moon, go one
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word, I believe, right? Is one word much together.
13:08
Everybody says it wrong. Does it wrong?
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And it we kind of love it. You just embrace it, you know.
13:13
Interesting. So let's get to coffee, then?
13:16
Yeah, you're the one doing some of this, cop coffee operation
13:20
stuff. You had AB Street as you
13:22
mentioned on the supply side of things at Starbucks, giving you
13:24
some insight into how to Source coffee and how those chains
13:29
work. How did you go about that in the
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moon, go? What was your idea behind the
13:34
coffee? You're offering people was the
13:36
idea that the cafe experience was, was first, or the coffee
13:40
was first. Is that all in the same plane,
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you know, I'll let you kind of On with that how you will.
13:45
Totally. I mean, my thought process was
13:49
really on the supply side of coffee.
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I wanted to make a statement. That's probably like my biggest
13:56
passion point is what were able to do in specialty, coffee
14:00
today. Would not have been possible 10
14:03
years ago. Even right when I first started
14:06
working at Starbucks, there wasn't the possibility to have
14:10
direct trade relationships to have the sort of We have with
14:14
farmers and producers and really, I think to tell that
14:18
story. But also to preserve a product
14:20
that is on the brink of Extinction, with the average
14:22
coffee producer, age being 63 years young or 64 depending on,
14:28
you know what year? And it's not getting any
14:29
younger, right? So, we've got incentive as
14:33
people who enjoy coffee to help, you know, the younger generation
14:38
pick up that but also to make the job, a better job for that
14:41
younger generation. And I think we have that Power
14:44
with our purchasing, you know, I guess Dynamic and to do it in
14:49
the right way. So, I'm very passionate.
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And we even have a, I've got like a green coffee purchasing,
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Manifesto where I have like priorities and I keep us on
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track to that. Of course, it's all the boring
15:01
things, right? Like, we want to pay a better
15:03
price. We want to do all the that stuff
15:06
in super important boring things, but also some creative
15:10
things where we want to encourage Farmers with
15:13
biodiversity. City.
15:14
We want to encourage farmers who are using good water sources.
15:18
We want to encourage, you know, locations that have biodiversity
15:23
or growing more than just coffee as a crop.
15:26
So those are some of the like deeper things we have in our
15:29
green buying philosophy. But that's my biggest passion
15:33
and everything kind of is an extension of that.
15:36
So even how we present coffee in our shops, we have pretty dark
15:41
roast coffee. We have a milk.
15:43
Espresso blend that may not be. It may be a little deeper than
15:47
some of our specialty Neighbors in terms of coffee choices.
15:53
However, you know, you look at what a farm grows, they don't
15:56
grow only microwatts. So you have to have a place for
16:01
these producers to sell their coffee into multiple markets.
16:04
And we don't, we're not all things to all people.
16:07
We don't buy lower than 80 Point coffee ever.
16:10
We never have probably never will, I guess.
16:13
Never say Never, however, we even try to think of for
16:16
producers. Where can you sell that coffee
16:19
if you need help doing that in the right way.
16:22
So we even partner with a couple of organizations that are
16:26
nonprofits, that use lower quality coffee than we do to
16:30
help divert some of those things, one of them is called
16:32
Growers, first nonprofit, that does really great work and
16:36
buying really low quality coffee for specialty standard, but
16:41
helps a farm, get sold out. Sure, you mentioned something
16:45
that seems like a really big challenge in that you are
16:48
encouraging or trying to encourage better working
16:51
conditions, higher wages, biodiversity extra efforts at
16:54
the farm level, but you're based in Orange County.
16:57
So, how do you go about doing that other than just making
17:00
buying choices? Or is that really the primary
17:02
way you do that? And obviously, you work with
17:04
gross first, but is there more to it than that?
17:07
Totally? Yeah, work with Growers first,
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donate to World coffee research. We do it.
17:13
A pretty decent amount for every pound we buy think we're at a
17:16
quarter per pound, which is, I think higher than than their
17:19
average match, but by a good margin, those are probably the
17:23
two bigger picture things that we're doing.
17:26
However, even just with our purchasing philosophy, it's not
17:30
us always going to these countries and auditing Farms
17:34
practices. It's sometimes helping producers
17:37
come to the u.s. to see how their product is finished.
17:42
So our All is for every visit we take to a producing country.
17:48
We also want to take that same dollar allotment, we would put
17:51
towards that and use it to bring a producer or you know a group
17:56
out here and we've been successful with that in a few
17:59
different countries. So that's been a really cool
18:02
exercise for us and just I think a little bit different than the
18:06
typical green buying program because to me it's like the
18:09
technology so good. When I'm on a coffee Farm, I'm
18:12
showing them. What's going on with my rose,
18:14
curves? What's going on with how we're
18:16
packaging it whatnot, but then we can do the opposite.
18:19
Have them come here. See that for themselves.
18:22
See how it lives out. And then they showed me
18:24
pictures, on the farm of what kind of trees, they have
18:26
biodiversity etc, etc. And that's really interesting.
18:30
I have not actually heard that from another roaster out of
18:32
maybe 60 or 70 of these interviews.
18:34
So that's really interesting. You do that, there you go and
18:37
it's the same travel budget, right?
18:39
We have like a small travel budget and we just use it both
18:42
ways. You use the term big term, brink
18:46
of Extinction and you mentioned specifically age coffee is also
18:49
facing climate changing or weather pattern changing that's
18:53
affecting coffee. And on the other side of that,
18:56
the demand for coffee in particular, in China and India
19:00
and other countries is growing, how is that going to impact you?
19:04
How do you think about that as a person who is buying coffee now?
19:11
Yeah, I mean and I have small purchasing power, right?
19:14
Two containers a year right now but you know what?
19:17
We will hopefully continue to grow that came out of buying,
19:21
you know, trying to buy split bags for from people at first,
19:25
right, or buying scraps. So we've grown a lot in our
19:29
purchasing power and I think we'll continue to.
19:31
I think part of it will be good for specialty coffee because
19:36
there won't be the one dollar gas.
19:41
A cup of coffee in 15 years, I really don't believe that.
19:44
That's, I don't think that the, that the system will support
19:48
that. So, in some ways, some of those
19:52
macro lens shift, will be good for our the industry.
19:57
That the people that you're talking to the, the coffee,
20:00
you're probably drinking the coffee that I'm buying in the
20:02
coffee. That I'm selling.
20:03
Will definitely get more expensive, more Elusive, and
20:07
they'll be good at first. And then I look down 50 years
20:10
from now. Now, and I'm not sure that we
20:14
will really be able to drink coffee the way that we do.
20:17
I think that it will be a much more special thing whether
20:21
you're an India China or the US. It just don't think that that
20:25
coffee will be able to be as large a cash crop as it
20:29
currently is. So I'm looking even, you know,
20:33
in terms of will people give up their daily fix.
20:37
Certainly they will not, I would say in 50 years you'll probably
20:40
see a lot. More drinkable cacao, you know,
20:43
theobromine will give you that same kick in the morning and
20:47
Cacao is a lot less prone to the extinction events that coffee
20:52
will have or at least the decline in production that
20:54
coffee will have. So, but I mean, that's like 50
20:57
years we're not talking about, I'm not like a doomsday person
21:00
who's saying like tomorrow, but it will be gradual.
21:03
It'll feel natural. You'll just wake up one day and
21:05
your grandkids will be going to their local Cowboy Bar.
21:08
Instead of coffee bar, With those beans that you've
21:12
received, which I believe you guys refer to as seeds on your
21:15
website where he instead of being try to I slip up.
21:21
It's just a habit earlier this year.
21:23
I think you guys you won a gold medal at the golden bean coffee
21:26
competition. Is that right?
21:27
Yeah. Well silver but still silver.
21:30
I mean thousands of entries and a dozen or so, you know,
21:34
winners. So we're really proud of that,
21:36
you know, like five thousand entries and not a huge amount of
21:40
women. Plus I can say it again.
21:41
You, you won silver medal at the golden being competition.
21:44
Clip met it. Yep.
21:46
No, just get out. But why did you decide to enter
21:48
a competition and how is that different, you know than the
21:51
preparation just for the coffee that you're making every day?
21:55
Totally, we didn't really approach it that different
21:58
because we wanted to really see, you know, we knew that some
22:01
people would totally make it a green buying competition.
22:04
How expensive could the coffee that they bought be?
22:07
Our goal was to really just put our current daily driver.
22:10
Hours in that competition and see how it shook out.
22:13
So, we submitted six coffees and all six of them, either got a
22:18
bronze or silver. It wasn't our, it wasn't our
22:21
milk-based espresso blend. Don't don't get me wrong.
22:23
It wasn't, it wasn't our cheap coffee, but it was all of our
22:26
single Origins basically. And, and a couple Blends a
22:31
couple of our seasoning Blends and they all metal, which was
22:33
great to see. But even more important for us
22:36
was to see how it stood amidst a group of Here's some of them who
22:41
had just amazing coffee, the companies that one Prairie Lily
22:45
like unbelievable, Rose profiles, great green coffee
22:49
selections, their true winner and it's a totally blind
22:53
competition. So it was fun to be there and
22:56
see how it's tasted and taste alongside some of that the
22:59
judges that actually made the final calls, all the brochures
23:02
who entered kind of help sort through the bottom of the
23:06
barrel. Get those out of the way and
23:08
it's really cool competition and it was just a litmus test to
23:11
make sure we're doing our job, right?
23:14
You know that we feel like it's actually happening the way that
23:16
we want it to just talking about.
23:19
Beings are saw something on your Instagram, just this week.
23:21
I think, well, I saw it this week called The Cool Beans
23:24
program and it actually is said like if you email David at moon
23:27
go coffee.com I'll answer your questions.
23:29
Whenever you get to tell me what that is.
23:32
Yeah. And why you would have coffee
23:34
seeds in the freezer. Yeah.
23:36
No absolutely. That's I'm super excited about
23:39
that and it's been super successful.
23:41
I thought I was going to have to like really muscle that program
23:44
into people's you know lexicon or I was really gonna have to
23:51
like do a ton of tastings to show.
23:53
People is worth it and it's been selling on its own which has
23:56
been amazing. We kind of modeled it after you
24:00
know, what is a restaurant due to sell their by the glass
24:04
wines. So we have a menu that separate
24:07
there's 10 or so coffees on it, they're only Available via
24:11
pour-over you can't get them any other we can't even get them as
24:14
a nice pour over. We dialed in one profile that
24:17
works for them and we use automated pour over machines to
24:21
Curtis seraphim or gold cups. And they're great especially
24:26
with their they've got kind of like a clever dripper kind of
24:29
design, it holds in the bloom and then after there's more than
24:33
an ounce of water sitting it starts to dispense and you have
24:36
fresh water flowing over. So you get really nice high
24:39
extraction in Really short period of time under three
24:42
minutes. So really like the way that
24:44
they're extracted and they're just the W that we really can't
24:49
justify filling an espresso Hopper with or can't justify
24:54
putting on batch for. They wouldn't be appreciated
24:56
even if we could sell them for the the same price, we dump out
25:00
too much. So we 20 grams at a time in a
25:02
test tube fully hermetic seal, do never get freezer burn more
25:07
than even like a zipper Locker vacuum sealed.
25:10
Bag because it's just such a tight seal.
25:13
And we're really love it because it allows you to have those ten
25:16
different coffees without them. Going stale.
25:18
We freeze them at the peak Rose period.
25:20
So whether it's 5 to 15 days off roast, we kind of tasted along
25:24
the journey, freeze it at that Flashpoint, and then offers pour
25:29
overs. And, and we love it because
25:31
you'll have a rare fermentation, a rare origin, what have you?
25:36
We have an Ethiopian wish wish right now.
25:38
We've got really cool. Route fermentations from
25:42
Colombia. We have Lorena which is a
25:44
naturally caffeine-free variety that grows in just few places so
25:49
just find copies. So it's similar to like if you
25:53
were to go to a fancy wine bar and they have their specialty
25:56
wine by the glass, only sort of options is how I'm understanding
25:59
that, which based on what we were just talking about, is kind
26:02
of how I see some of the future of coffee as well.
26:05
Is me to maybe. I'm not drinking as much coffee
26:08
every day. I'm making but the coffee.
26:10
I am drinking. Cooking is a is a true luxury
26:12
which I don't know that everyone looks at coffee as a luxury
26:15
item, but it really is nobody does.
26:17
And everybody think Scott, I bookmark a silly Tick-Tock video
26:23
recently because I saw this guy and he's like, I judged the
26:26
Italian restaurant that I go to buy.
26:28
If I order an espresso, the end of dinner, instead of dessert,
26:32
if they don't give it for me to me for free, I'm never going
26:36
back and he's joking, some Jersey Shore guy but it's like
26:39
that's what people's lives. Tation.
26:41
Is that coffee is free, right? Or coffee is a dollar you know?
26:44
Not that it's the special thing. This magical fruit.
26:48
You know that grows nowhere where we enjoy it and it's
26:53
crazy, right? I only judge restaurants by the
26:56
quality of their toilet paper because I believe that if they
26:59
have good toilet paper in the bathrooms, they care about their
27:01
employees. There you go.
27:03
See, perfect. That's I like that judgment.
27:07
Yeah, you know, it's important because you can save money on
27:09
toilet paper. It's one of those things, as a
27:11
restaurant manager that I've experienced like that.
27:14
Single-ply is a lot cheaper than the good stuff way, Southern
27:18
California and the Orange County in general, in your region has
27:23
been growing exponentially as a coffee Zone.
27:26
Yeah, I mean, yeah. I'm in North County San Diego.
27:29
I can walk 25 Coffee Roasters, like local coffee roasters, and
27:35
get a really good cup of coffee. Totally.
27:38
How have you seen that in? Area in particular.
27:42
And do you see that growth continuing and you'd mentioned,
27:46
you guys are hoping to grow as well.
27:47
What does that mean for you? I mean for me, what I see it.
27:52
That's exciting is not that our customers were stealing from
27:57
another specialty coffee shop. I think we're stealing our
28:00
customers from 7-Eleven from a gas station from the cake up at
28:06
home and I think most specialty shops are right.
28:10
Think that that's the bigger Market.
28:12
When you look at 80% of adults in our area are drinking coffee
28:18
at least once a week, you've got a huge Marketplace in way more
28:23
than any of our shops could handle.
28:25
So I think it's just exciting to see.
28:27
I welcome anybody who wants to jump into the specialty coffee
28:31
Market opposite of me. I never thought I wanted to open
28:34
up a coffee shop. I encourage anybody who wants to
28:37
do it because they're, I don't think we're Hit the limit
28:41
anytime soon of what's possible within this space over the next
28:45
few years. I think you can, you can put one
28:48
across the street from another and we would interpret what
28:51
we're doing differently enough that there's the pie is big
28:54
enough for all of us to take a slice if a couple you know
28:57
7-Eleven stop selling as much coffee or a Starbucks goes out
29:01
of business, not out of business, but has to close one
29:03
of their locations. I won't sleep any worse than I
29:08
did last night. I'll sleep like a baby.
29:10
So So and I even look at like generational shifts, you know,
29:14
Starbucks is to this generation, what 7-Eleven was the last
29:19
generation and that it's a, it's a convenience store.
29:22
It's something that's convenient and easy.
29:25
Yes, you can get caffeine there but it's not any it's not
29:28
special anymore. What about you've been in this
29:31
industry now on various levels for what's almost 15 16 years?
29:37
Yeah and some more than 17,000. Yeah.
29:40
What's something that surprised you or something?
29:42
You've learned kind of through experience that you take with
29:44
you as you're looking forward to the future.
29:48
Oh man, I would say the thing that the biggest thing is, every
29:55
job you have is more similar at no matter what industry you've
30:01
been in. Because, you know, if I've been,
30:04
I've been a server, you know, as a second job, I've worked at
30:09
clothing stores. And Christmas just to pay bills.
30:12
You know, I've done all sorts of random things, right?
30:15
And every job is more similar than it is different.
30:17
And the one common thread is that if you can help influence
30:22
people or help people find what they're looking for.
30:25
Basically customer service is something that exists, no matter
30:29
what industry or career you're in.
30:31
So, I would just encourage anybody, especially I'm a coffee
30:34
nerd, and I assume most people will listen, this podcast art as
30:38
well. You know, you can, You know,
30:41
can't brush up on your people skills enough in order to set
30:44
your future self up for Success. So that would be like, the one
30:49
thing that I've learned is that, yes, of course, like watching
30:53
all the James Hoffman videos, you can help.
30:56
But at the end of the day, if you can convince somebody with
31:00
the shortest sentence possible, as to why they should be
31:03
drinking better coffee or different coffee, that will
31:06
serve you better than knowing, you know, how to calculate.
31:10
Traction yield without a calculator, right?
31:13
Sure. Well, and I think part of mr.
31:15
Hoffman's internet celebrity is because he's able to communicate
31:20
and he's able to break down complicated, coffee science
31:23
projects, for someone like me to understand, you know, who's not
31:27
only a condo, not say that, in that, that should be required
31:31
reading or watching for everybody, who is in college, a
31:35
kid that way. But I think that idea that
31:36
communication between you and a customer or you and a Potential
31:42
buyer of your product. Yep, is part of it and you see
31:45
that struggle on people who are so focused on one side of the
31:48
business or instead of the other.
31:49
And, and you mentioned, we can bring it back around.
31:53
Having a business partner, who picks up places, where maybe you
31:56
aren't as strong, that's the value that little huge value.
31:59
Add that what didn't we cover today?
32:01
About Mundo coffee, that we should know about or that you
32:06
want to draw attention to. We're talking on Halloween, The
32:11
show is going to be on a few days, so it's very timely nice.
32:14
You know what, what, what did we miss?
32:18
I mean, I love the things that you brought up.
32:21
I always take every opportunity to brag about the special
32:25
coffees, we have in the special coffees that we have coming up,
32:29
but I guess the thing to stay tuned for in a few days, I'm
32:33
trying to think what we've got. That's coming out.
32:35
We're doing an in-house. Cryo, desiccated, coffee or
32:39
freeze-dried. So, I'm really excited about
32:42
that. We partnered with what does that
32:44
mean like when did when does the freeze-drying happen part of it
32:48
is, we did in collaboration with the Chapman universities, food,
32:52
science department. So really excited to have
32:55
partnered with them and hired a couple of their, their masters
33:00
level students to help us kind of pioneer this program.
33:04
So, I'm really excited about that.
33:06
It's nothing. You would have even known about
33:07
but can tell you about and tease.
33:10
Just because it's something to me.
33:13
Our mission statement, you know, kind of for us to know and to
33:17
help us guide. Our decisions with customers is
33:21
to make coffee better easier daily.
33:25
And when we looked at, where are we not doing that for our
33:29
customers? It is in that like, very entry
33:31
level customer. How do we get that person off of
33:33
K-Cup? And so having basically an
33:36
instant option is the best way to do that because we Stood,
33:41
these companies that are doing actually really great work of
33:44
making better K-Cups, but it's still not good enough.
33:48
You know, for me to put my name on it versus freeze-dried, what
33:52
we do is we extract a concentrate, we extract it cold,
33:56
so never has hot water, touching it, but under vacuum pressure.
34:01
So then that has a really great extraction, you know, we're
34:04
talking about always 23% extraction, you'll plus
34:09
freeze-drying that Concentrate. And when you freeze dry that
34:12
concentrate, you still have some vulnerables, you solve some
34:16
Organics that are that have never been hit with heat.
34:19
So when you hit it with water for the first time, it smells
34:22
like a cup of coffee, so we're really excited about that.
34:25
Some of the tricks that we do, you know, that I should probably
34:29
keep his Trade Secrets but whoever's listening to, this has
34:33
earned it is, you know, we Brew under vacuum that vacuums drawn
34:37
with nitrogen. So, never sees oxygen.
34:40
In and then we've axial, the liquid freeze it in the form and
34:46
then freeze dried or cry or desiccate it.
34:48
So it's a really cool process. We kind of did in tandem with
34:52
Chapman University and really excite because that will launch.
34:55
Gosh, I'm looking at my the date two weeks from now.
34:58
So we can have after this podcast launches so stay tuned.
35:02
It'll come. Yeah.
35:03
Very cool. And when my mom comes out with
35:06
that same product, you know, a year from now, you know, where
35:08
she found out about I'll be glad to give her the secrets.
35:15
I started off the show by asking you what you had this morning
35:18
and I'm gonna when I end the show the same way by asking when
35:22
you're not at work, when you go out into the world and you stop
35:25
into some random coffee roaster on the side of the road, what do
35:29
you order for yourself? I mean, if it's before noon, I
35:33
do like a tight milk, beverage a cappuccino sorts.
35:38
And you know what? I'm the kind of person who
35:39
usually orders to Or three drinks even just for myself.
35:42
So you know, kind of see what they are.
35:46
Proud of just by advertising, or what they chose to wrote a copy
35:51
line about or are trying to promote.
35:54
So I'll usually order another coffee thing like that whether
35:57
it's a pour-over, a batch Brew or cold brew, whatever it is
36:01
that, you know, you got to moisture and you can tell they
36:03
like, their cold brew. You can go to, you know, other
36:07
places, you can tell they like their single origin.
36:09
So I like to just have a variety and I love to support local
36:13
coffee shops. I still like going to them on a
36:17
weekly basis because when I go into my shop I get hit with
36:20
problems and when I go into somebody else's shop I get hit
36:24
with Solutions so I love supporting other places David.
36:29
I really appreciate you coming on the show and just kind of
36:32
sharing with everyone about Moon goat.
36:34
And yeah thanks for being part of craft coffee.
36:39
Yeah. No, I'm glad to be part of it
36:42
and there are so many people doing it.
36:45
So, well, it's an exciting industry and kind of a baby of
36:48
an industry in a way just because he has been around for a
36:51
while but gosh the the leaps we've taken in past 10 years,
36:56
far outpaced, you know, have been exponential in comparison
37:01
to the years previous Okay, to recap David's turn into
37:13
specialty, coffee began with a week-long seminar at the
37:16
University of California. Davis that seminar turned into
37:20
an elective course, which turned into an entire coffee center
37:23
facility, make that three facilities, where they're doing,
37:26
coffee research, and developing coffee education.
37:29
Programming at the undergrad, graduate and continuing
37:32
education levels Moon. Goat success.
37:35
Depends on the skills of not just David, but his partners and
37:38
their team will all bring different.
37:39
Skills and Specialties to the table.
37:42
I thought their effort to bring producers here to their shop in
37:45
America, instead of just taking origin, trips was a great step
37:48
forward in creating mutually beneficial coffee relationships
37:52
and their recent success. I competition was born out of
37:55
the desire to see where their coffee offering stand against
37:58
some of their peers. The metals at the golden Bean
38:01
competition would imply that they stand up fairly well, David
38:05
mentioned split bags, which I wanted to find.
38:07
It's just what it sounds like. It's where multiple Roasters
38:10
often, very small or micro Roasters purchase, a sack of
38:14
green coffee together and split the beans more than just in the
38:18
operations Department. Moon goat is also pushing
38:20
forward on coffee Innovations. They have their cool beans
38:23
offerings on the high end and their soon-to-be released.
38:27
Instant offering being a driver to bring new craft coffee
38:30
drinkers into the fold. There's plenty of room here.
38:34
Finally if you want to ask David a question about coffee or about
38:37
those programs, you can email him at And moon goat coffee.com,
38:41
okay, despite what might be implied.
38:44
Sometimes on this show, The Cult of coffee isn't exclusive to
38:48
aficionados or Fanatics, the coffee Community welcomes.
38:52
All I'm going to share links and more about Moon goat in the
38:54
roast, West Coast coffee newsletter on roast
38:57
westcoast.com. Onto some closing business.
39:01
Speaking of that newsletter, did, you know that this podcast
39:04
is a listener and reader supported creative effort?
39:07
It's true. If you've been enjoying
39:09
listening or reading, please consider subscribing, the
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podcast is always free. But the support that comes in
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through those paid subscriptions, really helps us
39:17
grow. Also helping the Pod, grow our,
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our coffee industry Partners including Cafe litter, most,
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your coffee company. Steady-state coffee.
39:25
Roasting Camp, Coffee Company, coffee cycle.
39:28
Roasting ignite If you company Maria coffee, Cape Horn, coffee
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importers and ass, and Coffee Roasters.
39:35
They all have a bunch of really cool, crazy things going on, but
39:38
a special congratulations to most her coffee on celebrating
39:41
their eighth anniversary with the hugely successful, most real
39:44
and experience. I don't like telling people what
39:47
to do, but you should mark your calendars for late October, 20
39:50
23, so you can get a jump on. Getting most your land, nine
39:54
tickets. I have to last request of you
39:57
today first. Please go get your flu shot,
40:00
your covid booster. Or even your first covid shot.
40:03
It isn't too late listeners of this show.
40:06
Know that my amazing wife works in the school system with kids,
40:09
mostly special needs children and many of whom are considered
40:12
at risk staying healthy and getting those shots helps
40:15
prevent the spread of viruses which in turn, protects those
40:18
kids and adults, who don't have the benefit of strong.
40:21
Immune systems, not to mention the rest of the human beings in
40:25
your It's a very good thing and second treat yourself to a good
40:30
cup of coffee or a latte or a macchiato or espresso sometime
40:35
soon. I'm sure you've earned it.
40:38
This episode of the roast West Coast coffee podcast is was has
40:41
been written produced and recorded by me Ryan Wilt.
40:46
I hope this episode is found you happy healthy and with at least
40:49
enough sanity to make it through the day, always tip your
40:52
Baristas and be sure to drink a coffee.
40:55
Coffee.