Latest / Coffee People Podcast / Tim Williams, World AeroPress Championships and Fieldwork Coffee
Transcript
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- 1:20Great. So hey there everyone, welcome
- 1:23to the Coffee People Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Wolt.
- 1:26The show is presented by Rostar Coffee Packaging found online at
- 1:30rostar.com. Coffee People podcast is part of
- 1:34our Roast West Coast Coffee network.
- 1:36You can go to ourwebsite@coffeepeoplepodcast.com.
- 1:40You'll find recaps of this show or Coffee Smarter podcast.
- 1:43So much more. And if you haven't poured
- 1:45yourself a cup of coffee yet, now is the time to get started.
- 1:49Our guest today is Tim Williams. You can find him online at
- 1:54Shoot. Tim, what is the?
- 1:56What's your e-mail address? I got the wrong thing written
- 1:57down here. Probably Instagram is probably
- 2:00the best place to meet up, either through the World
- 2:04Aerobics Championship or at Tim Styles is my my personal
- 2:08account. We'll make sure we have all of
- 2:10those in our podcast notes where you can just click the link.
- 2:13You don't have to think about it too hard.
- 2:14Welcome to the Coffee People podcast.
- 2:16Tim, I appreciate you being here.
- 2:18You didn't mention it, I think, but you're also the founder of
- 2:20Field Work Coffee. You're the director of the
- 2:22Aeropress World Championships. You have this long prestigious
- 2:27resume. So my only real question for you
- 2:30is who are you? And.
- 2:33That's the question I ask myself every day.
- 2:37In simple terms, I guess a coffee person and a coffee
- 2:40person has been knocking around in the industry for for a fair
- 2:44while now. I would say I'm one of the
- 2:47luckier people in coffee, being in the right place at the right
- 2:51time on a number of occasions. That all led to the situation
- 2:57I'm in today, which is, as you sort of outlined, running the
- 3:01World Air Force Championship, which I've been doing for 10 or
- 3:0311 years, and running my own roasting business here in
- 3:08Melbourne, Australia called Field Work Coffee.
- 3:11Those two things can be reasonably busy.
- 3:13And then also being a father of three, the rest of life pretty
- 3:20pretty occupied as well. I'm a father of one dog and that
- 3:24is more than plenty for me. You know, all of that is is
- 3:29obviously stuff going on in your life right now, but I'm hoping
- 3:33we can go back in time a little bit and talk about what was your
- 3:37first kind of memory of coffee or your first experience that
- 3:40kind of made you think, oh, this is something that it's piqued my
- 3:43interest. Yeah, there's actually a few
- 3:47sort of milestone moments. I first started drinking coffee
- 3:52purely as a functional beverage. I was always into Formula One
- 3:59car racing, which if you live in Australia is not on at 2:00 PM,
- 4:04it's on that 11:00 PM the races start and they tend to go to
- 4:09about 11 AM for most of the races around the world.
- 4:13So was there like a 14 year old 15 year old wanting to stay up
- 4:17on a Sunday night and watch Formula One racing?
- 4:21Really the only way that that was possible was by waiting till
- 4:24mum and dad went to bed, busting up in the cupboard, finding a
- 4:28jar of Nescafe instant coffee and it's probably 3 spoons
- 4:33coffee, 3 spoons sugar and then a hell of a lot of milk to to
- 4:37try and counteract the taste. But that was that was like
- 4:41really a lot of people have a lot more romantic stories about
- 4:44how they got into coffee, but mine was purely like a
- 4:47functional thing, just as a beverage that I drank.
- 4:50I didn't really particularly care about it beyond its
- 4:55functional benefits. But then when I was 18, I was
- 4:59moving to Melbourne from my hometown, which is about an hour
- 5:02away and going to university and I needed a bit of kind of
- 5:06walking around money for the week.
- 5:08And you know, I needed a part time job and sort of job
- 5:12advertised for a coffee maker. I thought that sounds really
- 5:16easy. I'd done a 2 hour course as part
- 5:20of like a hospitality programme and thought, well, I already
- 5:25know how to do that as well. So that that's a no brainer.
- 5:29I'll go and do that. I applied for the job.
- 5:33I slept through the interview. I called the owner of this shop
- 5:38at 10 in the morning or something when the interview was
- 5:40at 8:30 and said, all right, you know, I slept through.
- 5:44There's probably no point in me coming in talking to you, is
- 5:48there? And he said no, probably not,
- 5:51but yeah, I'm here till 11, so if you can make it down we'll
- 5:54have a chat. And he must have been very
- 5:56desperate because he gave me the job anyway and I don't think I
- 6:01was ever late again. You proved at the beginning how
- 6:05much you needed that job. Obviously, yeah, obviously.
- 6:10And I ended up working there for quite a while.
- 6:12That was a pretty old school like Italian place.
- 6:14It was actually a Bratwest stall at the Queen Victoria Market
- 6:17here in Melbourne, but just happened to serve 56700 cups of
- 6:22coffee a day as well. Tiny, tiny little space, huge
- 6:26volumes out of there. And their family run Italian
- 6:30business. And I learned so much there
- 6:32about being organized, about having standards, about managing
- 6:37your stock in and out, presenting, you know, facing up
- 6:41shelves to look amazing. Like it would be really easy to
- 6:44say it's a Bratwell shop at the Queen Victoria Market.
- 6:46You know, it's just like some sausages and coffee.
- 6:48But the way that business operated was, you know, really
- 6:52inspiring and I really enjoyed going there every day, making
- 6:58coffee, working in hospitalities, starting work at
- 7:015, all of that kind of thing. And uni I just wasn't enjoying.
- 7:06So the, the sort of the seesaw between the two started to sit
- 7:11much more into the work category and I pretty much just stopped
- 7:15going to uni and started going to work instead.
- 7:19So that was sort of like my launch into coffee as something
- 7:22I got paid for and a career or more at that point probably just
- 7:27more of a job and something that I did for money.
- 7:31But outside of work, you know, I didn't think about coffee very
- 7:35much apart from brewing coffee at home to drink.
- 7:40Was there any pushback from the family about leaning away from
- 7:45university and into coffee? I think you got that.
- 7:49Horrified. Completely.
- 7:54Yeah, completely. So my, you know, my mum was a
- 7:58teacher and my dad was an engineer and, you know, pretty
- 8:02traditional, pretty safe employment histories.
- 8:07And the idea that I would drop out of university to make coffee
- 8:13for a living. Yeah, it was not particularly
- 8:18high on their like list of things that they thought was a
- 8:21good idea. I think they still think it's a
- 8:24bit like, you know, at some point I'll get a.
- 8:28Realtor, but something must have have caught you.
- 8:30Where did you kind of go from there?
- 8:32You, you know, you have a job and you've been working for a
- 8:34while. What makes you think this is I'm
- 8:37going to take this to the next step, I'm going to invest part
- 8:39of myself into this and make it what I do.
- 8:43There was a point when I was living in a neighborhood here in
- 8:47Melbourne called East Brunswick and driving to a job somewhere
- 8:52else every day and depending on the route that I would take, I
- 8:56would go past this place that I assumed was a cafe.
- 9:01There was no signage out the front.
- 9:03There was just, you know, some wooden boxes that were seating
- 9:07and there were lots of incredibly cool looking people
- 9:11hanging around bustling in there.
- 9:13This is sort of before take away coffee was a big thing.
- 9:18So 90% of the coffee was, was having.
- 9:21So it wasn't like people streaming out with take away
- 9:24coffee cups to, to really like let you know this was a coffee
- 9:29place. But one day I decided, OK, like
- 9:31I'm early for work. I'm just going to stop.
- 9:33I'm going to see what this place is all about.
- 9:35And I went in and it was like bustling a whole bunch of people
- 9:40behind the counter, every seat taken.
- 9:43And yeah, I didn't really know where to go.
- 9:46I felt like really out of place. And there was a till and went up
- 9:51to the till and said, I'll just get, it's like a flat wire to
- 9:54take away. Like, yeah, there's like three
- 9:58people standing behind the espresso machine and the
- 10:01espresso machine's got this thing up over on the top of it.
- 10:04And it looked pretty. It looked pretty different to me
- 10:07than like all the cafes that I knew or the places that I'd been
- 10:11working. And there's a real energy in
- 10:15there. Got the coffee, walked out the
- 10:18front and I was four steps out the door.
- 10:20I took a sip and it was just like, what is this?
- 10:25Like this is not the drink that I've been drinking everywhere
- 10:29else. This is another thing, you know,
- 10:33it was the texture of the milk, the temperature, just like the
- 10:36silkiness of it, the balance. Like I was just like, that was
- 10:43like the first like epiphany moment realizing that coffee as
- 10:47a product is not this like commoditized, just like
- 10:50everything that just sort of tastes like roasty flavour and,
- 10:54and, and, and Milky excuses. And this was actually something
- 10:58that was really, really delicious.
- 11:00So I pestered them for a job and they hired me.
- 11:04And that was probably the point where the, the real interest in
- 11:07coffee and the idea that beyond just like making sure that the
- 11:12basket's clean and making sure you tamp properly, there are
- 11:16things that you can do to take coffee to the next level and
- 11:21then the next level and the level after that.
- 11:23This is probably the first shop in Australia that had APID
- 11:27machine, you know, controller on the Llamas Laka Linea, which was
- 11:31like from Jaycar Electronics or something like bolted to the
- 11:35side. And it was, you know, pretty
- 11:37like Frankenstein. And it was at that place that,
- 11:43you know, that knowledge started to develop.
- 11:46And I guess probably more more curiosity than knowledge because
- 11:49knowledge suggests that there were answers, but there were
- 11:52definitely a lot of questions being raised about coffee.
- 11:55Yeah. So that was the big epiphany
- 11:57moment that was like, oh, this is actually a thing that's
- 11:59really interesting and that that I think I can like, sink my
- 12:02teeth into. You know, you, you as a guest,
- 12:06it's hard for me on this side to say where should we focus on on
- 12:10this? And you know, you've workshop
- 12:13coffee Square Mile Intelligentsia working with I'm,
- 12:19I'm going to say this incorrectly, but the Cafe
- 12:23Kitsune, is that right? You know, now with field work,
- 12:29the real reason I was excited to talk to you today, not just the
- 12:32only reason, but one of them is the World Aeropress
- 12:35Championship. So you're welcome to come back
- 12:39on the show 10 times. We can talk about everything
- 12:40else, but I think we should kind of skip ahead to the World
- 12:44Aeropress Championships and just start with I I've got mine here.
- 12:49It's fairly well worn. Oh, look at that.
- 12:52Yeah, this is the the first one, one of the first Brewers I ever
- 12:56bought for myself when I got into specialty.
- 12:59Now I use it with the the Prisma attachments quite a bit in the
- 13:02morning. And what is it about this thing
- 13:07that sparked enough interest that you thought, oh, this is
- 13:13not only am I interested in this, but I'm going to get
- 13:16involved in this competition circuit thing, which started off
- 13:19pretty small. It it started off tiny.
- 13:22Yeah, absolutely. So the, the kind of the quick
- 13:26distillation history of the World Airbus Championship is
- 13:29that in 2008, it was started by two other people who are not me.
- 13:35Both of them were and still are named Tim too.
- 13:40So that that that got a little bit confusing for a lot of
- 13:43people. But it was started by Tim
- 13:45Wendelbo and Tim Varney in Norway, in Oslo, in Norway, when
- 13:50the air press had just come out onto the market.
- 13:53And basically this coffee Brewer would come out.
- 13:55It had a lot of potential. No one really knew how to use
- 13:58it. If you follow the instructions
- 14:00on the packet. I mean, it made coffee, but not
- 14:06the kind of coffee that we were sort of getting excited about at
- 14:09that time, The lighter roast, more nuanced, more elegant
- 14:12coffee. So the two teams decided, let's
- 14:17work out how we can find the best recipe for this by opening
- 14:22up to a few people. We'll we'll make it a bit of
- 14:24fun. Three people will compete.
- 14:27Whoever brews the best cup of coffee will be the world era
- 14:30breast champion. So a little bit of a dig at the
- 14:33the US Major League Baseball, which has their World Series
- 14:37open only to teams. I'm aware.
- 14:41So that that was the the genesis of it and it it, you know, felt
- 14:47like over the next few years became something of a little bit
- 14:50of a self fulfilling prophecy in that people in Sweden and
- 14:54Denmark said that looks kind of cool, like can we do it as well?
- 14:59And they said, yeah, yeah, go for it.
- 15:00And then maybe 20 people would get together and brew coffee at
- 15:06a trade show or something like that and they'd get a trophy.
- 15:12Tim Wendel had stepped out pretty early on and Tim Varney
- 15:14was just running it. He was a good friend of mine at
- 15:16the time and he would get me to judge at different events.
- 15:22And I would be there thinking like this is this is really
- 15:25incredible. Like this has got a lot of
- 15:27energy behind it. This is creating a lot of value
- 15:29for Aeropress. Super fun.
- 15:32This is great. And then one year Tim said, like
- 15:35this, you know what, this thing is just like taking too much of
- 15:38my time. It's kind of now costing me
- 15:40money to do it. I'm just going to, I'm just
- 15:43going to shut it down. It struck me that there was a
- 15:47lot of opportunity there to, to, to grow it, but we probably just
- 15:51had to get a bit serious about putting some well thought out
- 15:56rules in place and putting some structure in place and, and
- 15:58turning around to air press and saying, I think this is creating
- 16:03a lot of value for you. Like we're going to need some
- 16:05support to keep growing this. What can we do So?
- 16:10What was their reaction initially they're like.
- 16:14Great, let's do it like it was. Why didn't you ask us sooner?
- 16:19A little bit like that. You know, back at that stage,
- 16:23there was a guy named Alex who was the business manager of Air
- 16:31Press. And he'd been with the company
- 16:3230 years, 25 years, 30 years. Aeropress was also called
- 16:38Aerobie at the time, was a toy manufacturer.
- 16:41And he was the one who, when Alan invented this, like coffee
- 16:45Brewer, he was the one who said, hey, the toys are cool,
- 16:49whatever. But this is the thing that's
- 16:52going to be massive. And it turned out to be that
- 16:55Alan did very well out of the toys, but he did exceptionally
- 17:00well, big, big level of money out of the air press.
- 17:04So it was Alex who identified that the air press was a real
- 17:09commercial opportunity. And he was our biggest supporter
- 17:13in the company. What whatever we needed sort of
- 17:17within reason, we would work really closely with him.
- 17:20Alex was who we called the young guy at the company because Alan
- 17:24was maybe 80 or so at the time, But, but Alex was like 75 and he
- 17:32despite, you know, being sort of well beyond the point at which,
- 17:36you know, my parents had retired, he got it.
- 17:40And he really saw the opportunity and, and was really
- 17:42willing to back us and support us.
- 17:43So my vision for the Air Press Championship was that we needed
- 17:49to build out the, the sponsorship side of it to make
- 17:54it sustainable. Because there's there's no point
- 17:56if it's like the most amazing thing in the world, but it's a
- 17:59nightmare and it only lasts for one year.
- 18:02So we wanted to make it sustainable.
- 18:04We wanted to make it a program that could offer value for the
- 18:09hosts, offer value for the the sponsors, offer some value for
- 18:14the spectators going along, but make it like unbelievably fun
- 18:19and rewarding for the competitors to participate in.
- 18:24So about 10-11 years ago I got involved and and started
- 18:30building out I guess the business side of it and we've
- 18:32grown now to 65 countries we hold events in.
- 18:40We have something like 150 events, individual events happen
- 18:43each year under our umbrella and about 6000 just over 6000
- 18:49competitors in 2024 season. So it's it's, it's grown a lot
- 18:55in size and we've had to like grow up with it and become more
- 19:00legitimate in a lot of different ways.
- 19:03But what we've always kept at the heart of it is that we want
- 19:05it to be completely, unequivocally, like rewarding
- 19:11for competitors to be involved in.
- 19:14Even if you get knocked out in the first round, we want you to
- 19:18wake up the next morning and say, can't wait to go in air
- 19:22press again. So that's been our guiding
- 19:25edict. And we've tried to really
- 19:27nurture that community, support that community.
- 19:30Because we figure that, you know, the day the competitors
- 19:33don't want to show up anymore is the day that, you know, the
- 19:36sponsors walk away, the hosts walk away.
- 19:38The whole, you know, House of Cards collapses at that point.
- 19:44We need to keep our community of competitors and participants
- 19:47really strong. And we haven't always done that
- 19:49perfectly, but we we use that as our North star for for all our
- 19:54decision making. Sure, I should point out I use
- 19:58Tim Wendel Bow's recipe when I brew Aeropress in the morning.
- 20:01Which I got from the Aeropress app.
- 20:03There's certainly a lot of resources out there.
- 20:07Yeah, that's like the 12 gram to 200 like that kind of.
- 20:11I think 14 to 200, Yeah. And I also do with the Prisma.
- 20:16Then I use, I make a little like espresso, like I call it
- 20:20espresso adjacent tasting shot in the morning.
- 20:24You know, over 10 years, you must have seen just a lot of
- 20:27changes. And obviously managing growth is
- 20:30always a challenge to stay, to not get into this, this movement
- 20:36piece of your job of your career, right?
- 20:39Like constantly moving forward and forgetting to like stay
- 20:42invested in today, right? That's always a challenge when
- 20:46you walk into kind of a larger or, you know, the the end of
- 20:49season Aeropress championship. What is that like for you to
- 20:52look around and think, oh, I'm part of this, building this,
- 20:57it's. Probably only in the last couple
- 20:59of years that I've taken the time to step back and appreciate
- 21:04that and feel rewarded by that. That weekend.
- 21:09It's now the World Airbus Championship final now runs over
- 21:12three days and it's, it's a pretty intense 3 days.
- 21:17It's pretty hectic. And so it can be hard to use
- 21:21that opportunity to yeah, to reflect and to enjoy it and to
- 21:26be present in the moment. My role in the in the actual
- 21:30world final remains being stage manager and coordinator.
- 21:36So that's pretty hectic, moving all the competitors around and
- 21:39making sure judges are in the right places and I'm backstage
- 21:42with a headset, all of that kind of thing.
- 21:45But my role kind of finishes as soon as the three finalists go
- 21:53onto the stage. If I get the right three people,
- 21:56I get them together, I get them the coffee and I get them onto
- 21:58the stage. Then there's nothing left for me
- 22:02to do. I at that point I drop the
- 22:05headset and I usually walk out into the crowd where most people
- 22:11don't recognise me and I stand there as a spectator and watch.
- 22:16So I did this first in Vancouver in 2022 when we had this amazing
- 22:21venue and that was a really rewarding moment. 2023 I did the
- 22:28same thing with when we were here in Melbourne and the nice
- 22:33thing was that my entire family could be there.
- 22:35So I got to stand there with Gerard, the CEO of Aeropress and
- 22:40my family on the other side and, and really enjoy that moment
- 22:44when we're in Lisbon just September last year, I took the
- 22:50headset off. I went to walk out into the
- 22:52crowd and I couldn't find any space to see the stage.
- 22:56It was the, the, the whole space was so packed that I did a lap,
- 23:00I went upstairs, I went to the balconies, I went back down to
- 23:02the floor. I was like, and they're like,
- 23:04well, I've got the, I've got the right pass.
- 23:06I'm going to go back on the stage and watch it from there.
- 23:08And at that point we brought all the competitors up onto the
- 23:11stage to watch the, the final round and the presentation from
- 23:15there. So it's not something that I did
- 23:19in the early days, In the early days, you know, we when we
- 23:25finished the World championship in 2018 in Sydney, there was a
- 23:29big after party, got everyone organized at the after party.
- 23:32My wife and I were staying at a hotel in Sydney.
- 23:34We got back to the hotel at 11:30, twelve o'clock, something
- 23:39like that. She went to bed and I opened the
- 23:42laptop and I sat down and I got to work on on the 2019 season
- 23:49That was sort of like doable and healthy at the time.
- 23:53But these days I'm able to sort of disconnect from that enough
- 23:57to be like that can at least wait until the morning.
- 24:01You know there are there are other things that could be
- 24:04considered. That's something I actually talk
- 24:07about with my therapist, Wendy, on a regular basis is if you're
- 24:12doing your own thing, if you're your own boss or you're running
- 24:15a business, in some cases of business with people who are
- 24:18depending on you and you're certainly a big team.
- 24:22You, you can't just turn it off because the clock says a certain
- 24:25time or because the event is over, because you, you've got to
- 24:29be able to turn your brain off somehow or, you know, turn its
- 24:33attention somewhere else for a few moments.
- 24:36Because you're doing this with the World Air Press
- 24:39Championships and you're also have your own roaster and field
- 24:43work and you have your family. How do you find balance?
- 24:46Or do you? Is it even possible?
- 24:50I feel like there are days that are balanced and then there are
- 24:52days that are just all over the shop.
- 24:56How do we find balance? I don't know that I've got a
- 25:02good answer for that because sometimes you just have to do
- 25:06what you have to do. I think these days we're pretty
- 25:12good. And it's really sort of actually
- 25:15came out of the COVID pandemic. And we're, we're pretty good at,
- 25:22you know, 630 six, 6:30 PM the work day cuts off and you know,
- 25:31we all sit down to dinner together.
- 25:34That's a really important thing. And generally when not picking
- 25:38up work stuff after that point. So that that's been a probably
- 25:44more of like a psychological shift, an operational shift.
- 25:49You know, pre COVID, you know, if I missed bath time, the kids
- 25:52were a lot younger then. But you know, if I missed bath
- 25:54time and missed bedtime, well then it didn't matter if I was
- 25:59home at 830-930-1030 or midnight.
- 26:04I could stay in the office to whenever and and I often did.
- 26:10The funny thing is, I'm not sure that I was any more productive
- 26:13than with that like 14 hour 16 hour work day that I'm now
- 26:20working a much more reasonable kind of amount of time.
- 26:24There's this value to letting your brain merit in on things in
- 26:28the background, I think. I don't know how it works
- 26:31exactly, but I know that when I'm talking to you or I'm, you
- 26:34know, spending time with the dog or my wife or walking to the
- 26:37beach, there's always something going on back there, even if I'm
- 26:39not totally aware of it. And it'll come out later at the
- 26:43weirdest times, usually when I don't have a pen to write it
- 26:46down. Yeah.
- 26:47OK. How long has field work been
- 26:51open or how long have you been pursuing that that roaster?
- 26:56So field work's been around about coming up to three years
- 27:00in April and we a very small micro roaster.
- 27:07So we roast only about 1000 lbs of coffee a week out of a really
- 27:13small space with a coffee shop attached to it.
- 27:16And then we have one other coffee bar in the city as well.
- 27:21It's been nearly three years and it was definitely field work,
- 27:28was sort of the end result of a longer journey when we first
- 27:33moved back to Melbourne after 10-11 years away in London and
- 27:38LA and consulting in Paris. When I moved back to Melbourne,
- 27:43I didn't want to open a rose tree straight away.
- 27:45I really wanted to get a sense of what the market was all
- 27:49about, you know, get a bit established.
- 27:53Like I said, we've been away for 10-11 years.
- 27:55We relocated home, we had a 2 1/2 year old, we had twins on
- 28:00the way. We're moving the world overs
- 28:05championship and starting a new business.
- 28:08I thought going straight into a roastery in Melbourne probably
- 28:13doesn't make a lot of sense. So we actually first ran a Co
- 28:16roasting space and there were aspects of that that were really
- 28:25good and there were aspects of that that were just horrible and
- 28:29demoralizing. And when I said before, I was
- 28:33like the the luckiest person in coffee, being at the right place
- 28:36at the right time. Like I was a person like hanging
- 28:40out at Square Mile when only James and the network there and
- 28:44sweeping the floor and putting stickers on bags.
- 28:48And that turned into a job working at square Mile.
- 28:53I was the housemate of someone who got a job at as the director
- 29:00of education for Intelligencia Coffee, based in Chicago, when
- 29:04they were looking for a manager to move to LA and open the
- 29:08Venice location. You know, I got the phone call.
- 29:14I had all this opportunity to work alongside some really
- 29:18inspiring people who put quality at a really high priority level.
- 29:25And then when we opened the the Roasting Collective here in
- 29:28Melbourne, I was just amazed because I'd never worked at a
- 29:33like a mid tier, low tier roast tree.
- 29:36Like I didn't know what was deemed acceptable in a lot of
- 29:41operations. Like it.
- 29:42It never occurred to me that if you ran out of the Kenyan
- 29:47component that you were supposed to be roasting that you'd just
- 29:49stick something else in because no one's really going to know
- 29:52the difference. Like that does not happen at
- 29:53square one. That did not happen at workshop.
- 29:55That does not happen at Tim Wendelberg.
- 29:57Like, so it was a little bit like, Oh my God, I got my
- 30:02fingerprints all over this thing.
- 30:03And I, I think a lot of what's happening here is like awful.
- 30:08Like, it was one of our objectives with the roasting
- 30:11collective was that if you get close, more closely connected to
- 30:16your coffee, that you start to care a lot more.
- 30:19That you want to know more about how it's grown, that you want to
- 30:21buy better, that you won't accept past crop or agey
- 30:24coffees, that you'll really, you know, get on that journey to
- 30:28push your standards. And maybe one in 30 clients had
- 30:36that motivation. And for most of the rest, what
- 30:39our business got used as was how do we cut out costs, how cheap
- 30:47can we get our coffee to be under the banner of we're doing
- 30:53it with these experts. And that just was not fun.
- 30:59Financially, the business was great and it was, it was it was
- 31:01flying and doing really well. But the prospect of getting up
- 31:06every day to put all of my energy into helping to create,
- 31:11create coffee that I would not drink if you paid me, it just
- 31:16felt horrible. So basically the, the decision
- 31:21was, you know, I'm sort of trying to lead from the back.
- 31:25I'm trying to like help create these expectations and
- 31:28opportunities for other people. And I just had had enough of it.
- 31:33So field work was born out of that to put front and centre the
- 31:39kinds of coffees that we think literally are the best in the
- 31:42world. And buying in a forward
- 31:46contracting way as much as possible, working in a direct
- 31:49way as much as possible, roast sourcing, roasting, iterating
- 31:55profiles to a really high standard and then presenting
- 32:00them to customers that care. So that I mean, that's why it's
- 32:04not a massive business because we only buy washed processed
- 32:08coffees. We only roast, you know, really
- 32:11from a pretty narrow altitude range and a pretty narrow
- 32:16varietal range. Also, because these are the
- 32:20coffees that we adore. We don't have the approach of,
- 32:24you know, we should have a little bit for everyone and
- 32:27something to please everyone and that kind of thing.
- 32:29We, we, we really are just focused on the coffees that we
- 32:32think are super enjoyable daily drinker coffees.
- 32:38Very rarely is something had a tier that requires a special
- 32:43labour law, special pricing, but the kind of like well grown
- 32:50sustainable varietals, wash the process clean, elegant coffees
- 32:54that I thought all these other people should be doing and they
- 32:58weren't. So I was like, you know what?
- 33:00We'll just do it. You know, it's a it's a real
- 33:04great benefit to somebody's career.
- 33:07Maybe retrospectively when you have a manager, owners that care
- 33:13and that give you an example to follow.
- 33:17You know what you're saying about leaving some of those
- 33:20places and realizing not everyone has that same
- 33:22motivation is certainly something I went through.
- 33:25And you're like, wait a minute, why aren't you doing it?
- 33:28This this extra step? It's not that much harder and it
- 33:30makes it so much better. But not everybody is motivated
- 33:34by the same things or they didn't have the same examples.
- 33:36You know, I want to just point out, you mentioned luck as it
- 33:40being in the right place with the right people.
- 33:42But you, you know, you're part of that chain too, right?
- 33:44Like Jared Linzmeyer is the founder of Ruby Coffee in the
- 33:48Midwest. He was a guy who, you know, was
- 33:51a busboy at that Venice location of intelligentsia.
- 33:54I think at one point it was just kind of showing up and hoping
- 33:56for more. And now runs a very well
- 33:59respected roastery that I believe does things in in a way
- 34:01that makes me proud to be from that area.
- 34:05So you're, you're creating, you know, those expectations for a
- 34:09new generation of people. And I don't mean to call you
- 34:12out. I think, you know, I'm in my
- 34:1540s. But you all of a sudden your
- 34:17career is a lot longer than you realize, right?
- 34:19You've got all these different steps and all these different
- 34:22places and all these different people that you've connected
- 34:24with. And on the other side of that,
- 34:27you were touching base with people.
- 34:29I'm a little soapboxy here. I apologize everyone, but you
- 34:33know, it's just the connection that coffee is and a lot of
- 34:35industries are, but I think coffee in particular because
- 34:37there is this emphasis in certain aspects of specialty on,
- 34:42on both it's the coffee and it's the people and it's what we do
- 34:46with it. And so it, it's interesting to
- 34:49hear you mention that and then in my head start making
- 34:51connections with other people I've spoken to on the show.
- 34:55You know, Rostar, I mentioned at the top, they, they are a big
- 34:58supporter and collaborator on this show.
- 35:00And one of the things they've asked for me is to ask our
- 35:04guests, you know, for advice for other people in the industry.
- 35:08Kind of like I'm, I'm just saying right now so that it
- 35:10leads into, well, I'm wondering if you have as the leader, I
- 35:14know you can't give away too many secrets, but the leader of
- 35:17the world air press champion, the director, I should say.
- 35:20Any advice for competitors on how to step into this next 2025
- 35:26season? Absolutely, yeah.
- 35:30My my advice for competitors every year is to to go in it to
- 35:37have fun. Like to the you, you win a lot
- 35:44if you win, right? Like there's prestige, there's a
- 35:48trophy. George, who won in 2024, were
- 35:54taken to Columbia in May to visit coffee producers.
- 35:59And he's a home barista. So he doesn't even work in
- 36:02coffee. This is this is not something
- 36:07that was really on his agenda for his life was to be the
- 36:13world's best coffee Brewer in this particular division and
- 36:16then go all expenses paid to Columbia there there is a lot
- 36:21that you win and you should definitely be wanting to win to
- 36:23get involved, but it's not a winner takes all value
- 36:28proposition for competitors. The other you know 63
- 36:35competitors that that came to the world final in Lisbon.
- 36:38Most of them had an amazing time, made 60 new friends,
- 36:45learned a lot about Lisbon coffee culture, about the coffee
- 36:49culture of the person who is next to them in the competitor
- 36:52prep area, really got connected to a global community that they
- 36:57are an indelible part of. And if you go in there with that
- 37:01mindset of being part of that experience and connecting to the
- 37:06people at the regional level, at the national level, and then
- 37:10hopefully at the world level, you're going to, whether you
- 37:14place first, second, third, or 50th, you're actually going to
- 37:17walk away from that year with a wealth of experience, a wealth
- 37:22of connections that you really won't have the chance to
- 37:26cultivate in any other way. So absolutely, it is good to
- 37:32work on your recipe, to brew really tasty coffee, to get
- 37:38everything that you can out of the coffee that's part of the
- 37:40competition. You should absolutely be doing
- 37:42that, but make sure you're doing the other 50% as well, which is
- 37:47coming along to the welcome event, getting to know the
- 37:50people who you're competing against.
- 37:53They're really only adversaries in the cup of coffee.
- 37:56They're your allies in almost every other facet of your life.
- 37:59So getting to know them, you know there is so much value for
- 38:04you to extract outside of just winning the competition itself.
- 38:09How much do you engage with this competitive circuit, the
- 38:13community of, of the Arrow Press community when you're not, when
- 38:17it's not at an event? I mean, is there a lot of back
- 38:20and forth between you and, or your team and, and the people
- 38:24out there? Or is it kind of you come to the
- 38:26event and and that's where our bandwidth, you know ends?
- 38:30Now we are now a 12 month a year operation.
- 38:35It it used to be that there was an offseason, but there isn't
- 38:38any longer. Actually there hasn't been for a
- 38:40few years now because we we license events in 65 countries.
- 38:46We're also doing, I won't announce too much, but I'll get
- 38:50a little teaser. We're actually going to be doing
- 38:52something in the US this year that'll be really exciting as
- 38:54well for the 20th anniversary of the air press itself.
- 38:59We work all year round and apart from I take a couple of weeks in
- 39:04January for like getting off the aisle in time with the family
- 39:09and, and actually disconnecting. But, but all the rest of the
- 39:13time we're, we're on. And the most important thing,
- 39:17well, not the most important thing, but something that I
- 39:19think a lot of people fail to understand about the World
- 39:24Airbus Championship is that it's the whole thing is run by two
- 39:28people. So the entire network, all of
- 39:31the sponsorship, all of the event planning, all of the
- 39:34hosting relationships are managed by Grant Gamble, who has
- 39:40been my partner on the Airbus championship for a number of
- 39:43years now. And me and we, we coordinate the
- 39:48whole thing together. We obviously have support from
- 39:52Aeropress and from our sponsors. When we do events, we pull
- 39:55together a team of, we call them volunteers, but we also make
- 40:00sure they get paid. Paid volunteers.
- 40:03Is that a thing? We bring together A-Team to
- 40:06actually do the event delivery at the world final.
- 40:09But the rest of the year it's just the two of us.
- 40:11So we're. Intimately connected with with
- 40:14our hosts around the world. Just this morning I'm answering
- 40:19questions about hosts in Poland. He's looking at expanding where
- 40:26we disapproved events in Iran and Armenia for the year.
- 40:32It's it's it's constant back and forth with our host network.
- 40:38Where can people go to find information on becoming part of
- 40:42the the upcoming competitions or their regional competitions?
- 40:45Is their website? Is it social media, discord?
- 40:48Where should they go? Yeah.
- 40:49So either to our Instagram account, which is Aero dot Press
- 40:54or Aero Period Press, or to worldaeropresschampionship.com.
- 41:00Both of them are going to get you to a page where you can
- 41:04express your interest in becoming a host or find out
- 41:06where and local events are happening around you.
- 41:09We, we work on a regional to national to worlds sort of
- 41:13structure. So you can in most places find
- 41:18an event not too far away from you.
- 41:21We're still working on on Africa.
- 41:23We don't have as much coverage there as we'd like, but like in
- 41:26Poland, for example, like there's 22 regionals take place
- 41:30in Poland. So there is one, no matter where
- 41:34you are in Poland, there's one, there's one near you.
- 41:37So yeah, that that that social media account or our website are
- 41:41going to be a great place to to find more information.
- 41:45That two weeks that you get away or that couple of weeks in
- 41:49January, I'm not going to ask where you go or what you're
- 41:52doing. I want to stay, you know, out
- 41:53out of your personal life there. But I do want to know is if
- 41:56you're if you're away from home and you stop into a coffee shop,
- 42:00you know, that looks pretty good.
- 42:01What do you order? It really depends on the shop.
- 42:07So I'm a really big filter coffee drinker, but there are
- 42:13definitely shops where you're taking your life into your hands
- 42:18by going for something as unadulterated as pure filter
- 42:21coffee, as simple as it is to make, you know, we know that
- 42:26with with filter coffee, like 90% of the equation is set with
- 42:33what's inside the bag. And if, if that's rough, if it's
- 42:39the naturally processed coffee, you know, that's not, not my, my
- 42:43style. So yeah, like if I feel like
- 42:46they're in tune, if they know what coffees are on their menu,
- 42:51then I'll go down the filter route.
- 42:55But generally I'll order a milk drink like a milk based drink
- 43:00because I think the old likelihood of getting something
- 43:02that's like reasonably enjoyable is much higher with with the
- 43:09milk based beverage than it than it is with filthy coffee.
- 43:13You just said something that struck a chord, which is if they
- 43:15know what coffees are on their menu.
- 43:17I I can't express how many times I'm surprised when I ask a
- 43:22barista or a server a question. You know, something simple on
- 43:26their menu or you know how, how they cook, they prepare it or
- 43:31cook something. I know you have a, a quite a
- 43:35appreciation for food as well. And they just, they're like, Oh,
- 43:39I, I have no idea. And I'm like, is it because you
- 43:42don't care? Is it because someone your
- 43:45management and teach you, you know what, what happened to this
- 43:48point where you were at a table or at a, at a counter and you
- 43:50said, I don't know, and you just kind of left it at that.
- 43:54It always surprises me. Well, let me so let me, let me
- 43:57put a question back to you then, like in that.
- 43:59And I have that situation happen all the time.
- 44:01And I think it's really unfortunate.
- 44:03And then I, I come to the conclusion that it's like, well,
- 44:10I'm the outlier because if this was happening four or five times
- 44:14a day, surely the managers would do something like a post it note
- 44:18on the square console or something like that.
- 44:22That's like. There's a lot of factors that I
- 44:27think go into it. I think I'm more empathetic to
- 44:29it now than I would have been when I was running a place, say
- 44:3310 years ago where I would have been furious, You know, I would
- 44:37have been like, what is the problem?
- 44:38We need to work on this. Why are you not caring as much
- 44:40as I'm caring? And I think now I'm more aware
- 44:46that one, people have a lot going on.
- 44:50This might not be my server's primary focus.
- 44:53You know, maybe they're a student or a parent or a
- 44:55whatever. Maybe it was just as simple as
- 44:58they walked in, the door got thrown on the floor and I was
- 45:00the first person they talked to. And so I try not to take it too
- 45:04much to heart. I just asked the questions that
- 45:07I want to know and, you know, hope to get an answer.
- 45:11I think when I go to a place where they do clearly care or
- 45:16their staff is well educated on their products, it's what makes
- 45:20me come back. There's so many places now in
- 45:26all industries. I, I don't go back to a place
- 45:31just because they're convenient. I, you know, I want to have a
- 45:33good experience and if I'm going to go out and spend my money, of
- 45:37which I don't have a ton of, I want to make sure that it's
- 45:40worth it. You know, I'll pay the extra
- 45:42money for the good experience or the good product now.
- 45:44And that might be a product of aging.
- 45:47I think COVID had something to do with that, where we became a
- 45:50little more appreciative. On the other side it, you know,
- 45:53it hurt the workforce, at least here where I am, more places
- 45:58were opening than people were staying in the industry because
- 46:00they found other careers when things were shut down or they
- 46:03realized, hey, I don't want to do that anymore.
- 46:06And we're still waiting on that next generation to come up.
- 46:09Yeah. So I think there's a lot of
- 46:11that. That's the question, Alejando.
- 46:12Yeah, yeah, that's another. Podcast Yeah, yeah, that is a
- 46:16whole. But you know, I think they're
- 46:18they're starting off looking at entrepreneurship earlier than
- 46:22maybe I did or, you know, someone in their 40s might have
- 46:25because they're seeing it every second of every day on their
- 46:29phone of other people who are doing some sort of hustle.
- 46:32And we're also at a weird time where, I mean, unfortunately,
- 46:38it's hard to have a, you know, A1 income family.
- 46:40Everybody's got multiple things going at some point.
- 46:43And you know, that's a, that's another conversation too, when
- 46:47you get into the economics and, and politics of it.
- 46:49But I think for me, I'm empathetic to my servers.
- 46:55I believe that, you know, there's just a lot going on in
- 46:57their lives. But at the same time, if you
- 46:59want if, if I'm going to go back, it's going to be because
- 47:03the service was good and the product was good.
- 47:06It's those two things, and. Can I ask another follow a
- 47:09follow up on that of course. I got nothing else to do.
- 47:12Yeah, I mean, we're flipping the rolls a little bit, but that no,
- 47:15no, it's OK. When you go into that, like
- 47:18let's say it's a coffee shop experience and you go in and you
- 47:25call it drip coffee. Like what?
- 47:26Oh, what? You know what, what coffee do
- 47:27you have on drip today? Like here, here it's called
- 47:30batch. Like what do you have on batch?
- 47:32Is it better to be told? I'm not sure, I'm not really
- 47:39sure. Or for them to make up something
- 47:42that's like completely wrong or inaccurate?
- 47:46Like do you have a preferred? Oh yeah, I do.
- 47:49And it's actually option C, which would be, you know, I'm
- 47:53not sure. Let me find out.
- 47:55Yeah, I'll wait. You know where Where I where I
- 48:00get frustrated is when they say I don't know and then the
- 48:03conversation ends. You know, I don't know small or
- 48:06large like you know. We're probably not the, the
- 48:09business that we're in, whether it's a the biggest coffee shop
- 48:12on the, you know, in the community or not, it's probably
- 48:15not good. You're not going to go far to
- 48:16find a bag or whatever it is that you're, you're brewing.
- 48:19Somebody near you is brewing that coffee and knows what it
- 48:21is. So I think service is about
- 48:27providing people with the information they need and giving
- 48:30them the feeling that you care. You know, if you don't, you can.
- 48:36I'll forgive a lot if I think the person is trying and they
- 48:38care. Absolutely, absolutely.
- 48:41Yeah, right. Like we, we have a, there's a,
- 48:44a, there's a roaster that has a, you know, coffee experience
- 48:50place up the, up the street here.
- 48:52And one of my staff, you know, he's a really experienced coffee
- 48:55person himself, you know, went in there and it was like, this
- 48:59was like such a good lesson in like reading the room, like they
- 49:02were there with friends, you know, just to get coffee and
- 49:05whatever. And they ordered espresso and
- 49:07the espresso got brought over And so like, great.
- 49:11And he sat down with his espresso and he's gone to take a
- 49:14sip. And the the guy's like, Oh, no,
- 49:16no, no, like, like you can't, you can't drink it until I've
- 49:21told you. Our guys like, oh, I've drunk
- 49:26espresso before. Thank you.
- 49:28Like there's like giving people the information they want and
- 49:34then there's burying people in information or like spiel that
- 49:40they never asked for and are not in the mood for.
- 49:43You know, we're trying to make sure that our team are like
- 49:45really like you don't have to talk to them about coffee.
- 49:50If they don't want to talk about coffee, great take take a 3
- 49:54minute breather and talk about something else.
- 49:56Like talk about their dog, talk about, you know, their bike that
- 50:00they parked up out in the front or their football team or, you
- 50:04know, just talk to them like take an interest.
- 50:09And there's a real selfish motivation in that too that like
- 50:12they might turn out to be. I got chatting to a customer a
- 50:15few weeks ago. He was a regular customer who
- 50:19always comes in and orders what's called a magic.
- 50:21I don't know if you've ever heard about this.
- 50:23It's a drink in Australia. Anyway, it's a whole that's
- 50:25again a whole other episode. And I got chatting to him about
- 50:29the fact that he ordered this drink called a magic and blah,
- 50:32blah, blah. We talked.
- 50:33I used to spend a lot of time in London and we got chatting and
- 50:37he turned out to be the the the main guy in a band that was like
- 50:43huge in my, you know, lifetime of the music appreciation and it
- 50:49was a regular customer. I just never had made that
- 50:51connection in any other way apart from just talking and
- 50:56engaging. So I said about Tim, it's like,
- 50:59you never know where your next like free haircut is coming from
- 51:03all like, you know, you're going to cut the line at the bar down
- 51:08the street like on Friday night because you know, because you're
- 51:11engaging. Like we're not, we're not just
- 51:14here to like facilitate a caffeine transaction, like get
- 51:18to know these people like a, it's good for the business, it's
- 51:21great for the customer, but like there's also really something in
- 51:25it for you too. And it makes the day a lot more
- 51:27enjoyable. Yeah, it reinforces this belief
- 51:30that we are connected to others when it's so easy to be not
- 51:34connected. And to to me, what you just
- 51:37described is the difference between what I would call a big
- 51:42box coffee shop, you know, corporate coffee versus a
- 51:46specialty coffee shop. A corporate coffee shop
- 51:49employee's job is to sell me coffee and move me out as fast
- 51:52as they can. You know, they can try to sell
- 51:55me more coffee, but in a very quick pace.
- 51:58They don't, you know, and that's not a reflection on that
- 52:01employee. That's the business's ethos.
- 52:03It's how they do things. Specialty coffee shop is, you
- 52:07know, we talk about community, but it really is that because a
- 52:10lot of our customers are not moving in and moving out very
- 52:13quickly. Some of them are, and that's
- 52:15great, you know, they're just going to work whatever they're
- 52:18doing. But a lot of them become the
- 52:19people. This might be their only
- 52:22engagement during the entire day.
- 52:23This might be the one time they get out of the house.
- 52:25This might be the thing they do on the way to the grocery or
- 52:29when they're taking 2 minutes away from their kids.
- 52:31And as the barista or the owner of your cafe, you get a chance
- 52:36to engage with them and be like, oh man, this is kind of a cool
- 52:38community that we're part of. And sometimes you think these
- 52:43people are not that great either, both sides.
- 52:46But you know, that's the difference to me between
- 52:49specialty and and corporate. And you know, depending on where
- 52:52you fall and what you want in your life, that's what you'll
- 52:54choose. I agree 100% and I think I don't
- 52:58know if you know Kyle Glanville who he was at Inteli.
- 53:01He, he employed me at Inteli and he went on to do GMB and go get
- 53:07him Tiger in LA and he had a lot of guiding principles.
- 53:12But like one of the key ones was that like the, the coffee bar
- 53:17should be like, like where you like pony up and like check in
- 53:22with your neighborhood, like like that.
- 53:24That's like a key function of, of the coffee bar space.
- 53:29And it's something that I've always like really internalized
- 53:33and held on to because it's like that's like such crucial.
- 53:39The thing that, you know, we don't have as much anymore.
- 53:40Like Australia is a very car based culture.
- 53:45And, and you get into your car, you're a medically sealed box
- 53:48and you drive to the next spot. You know, you don't really
- 53:51interact with people not like you do in London on the tube or
- 53:54walking or that kind of thing. And it causes that less of that
- 54:01like human to human, even just like proximity, being able to
- 54:07create that in a coffee bar and being able to like embrace that
- 54:10in a coffee bar space is really powerful and creates a great
- 54:15energy. But you have to nurture it and
- 54:20you have to design for it and you have to train for how you
- 54:26accommodate that too. But if you get those things
- 54:29right, and I'm, I'm definitely not saying that field work like
- 54:31gets that right all the time, but if you get that right, what
- 54:34you create is something that transcends, yeah, like a airport
- 54:41coffee service and becomes like really a part of the fabric of
- 54:47that community. And that's sort of something
- 54:48that we try and keep in mind with field work.
- 54:50And if we're opening new shops, that's definitely a factor the
- 54:54way we look at. And that's a lot of that will be
- 54:58the team that you built, you know, in in building in a
- 55:01reflection of that, right. Pro tip if you ever fly into San
- 55:05Diego and you need a cup of coffee, there's a coffee shop
- 55:08there. A pretty good name coffee shop,
- 55:10but the line will be a couple 100 people deep and the the bar.
- 55:15The brewery next door also serves the same coffee but
- 55:18there's. Never.
- 55:20A huge line there so you can go and sit at the bar and get your
- 55:22cup of coffee instead of waiting.
- 55:25Is this in in the airport itself or out outside?
- 55:28In the airport itself, yeah. Airport.
- 55:30OK, San Diego's a small big city, so we, we have this
- 55:35airport that I, I always think is very easy to get in, in and
- 55:38out of. People complain about it a lot,
- 55:40but I just go and if I have an early flight, I sit down at the
- 55:44bar and I order a cup of coffee. They open at 6:00 in the
- 55:46morning. It's great.
- 55:48Perfect. Everyone assumes you've got all
- 55:49this like of whiskey in there as well, but that's that's all.
- 55:52Who's to say I'm not? I'm not going to say one way or
- 55:55another. Yeah, Tim, I want.
- 55:57I've been asking guests this because it's something that I've
- 56:00been trying to focus on more in my life since I have the
- 56:03opportunity. But are there any sort of
- 56:05charitable or nonprofit efforts that you support or you
- 56:08encourage others to explore? I know that's something we
- 56:10didn't get a lot of time for today, but is part of your life.
- 56:14So right now, the charitable things that I've been involved
- 56:20in on hiatus, which is, yeah, a little unfortunate to say.
- 56:24But for the last 10 years, I've been working with a coffee
- 56:29producer who we've been buying from in Rwanda.
- 56:32And we have run a really small grassroots charity out in the
- 56:38western part of Rwanda in Karongi and where his coffee
- 56:42washing station is. And it was a project we call the
- 56:47Kotesi Project. The the basic premise being that
- 56:52so much of the smallholder farmer economy and domestic
- 56:59economy was based upon selling cherries and sold cherries.
- 57:05And it went well. They didn't sell cherries and it
- 57:07went badly. And I got approached by a coffee
- 57:10festival in Manchester about 10 or 11 years ago to say we want
- 57:16to donate our door sales, our ticket sales to a grassroots
- 57:22coffee project that really benefits coffee farmers.
- 57:27What do you think we should do? And I said, I've got absolutely
- 57:30no idea, but I make it easy. Who runs a washing station in
- 57:35Rwanda? Who who I visit, you know,
- 57:38occasionally I reckon he'll know.
- 57:40And So what he put forward was that there's a really well
- 57:43established program in or, or approach in Rwanda called a
- 57:47Gorinka program, which is where you take funds and you buy dairy
- 57:51cows and you gift those dairy cows to small farming
- 57:55households. The the cows produce manure free
- 58:01organic fertilizer for your coffee trees that produce milk
- 58:05that you can either use for nourishment for your family or
- 58:08you can sell the milk for a cash benefit into the household.
- 58:14And under the right conditions, cows produce more cows.
- 58:18So we started that program as a one off about 11 years ago with
- 58:25a couple 100 bucks and we bought free cows or something like
- 58:29that. And then my wife really
- 58:32encouraged me to like put more effort into it and to try and,
- 58:35and grow the program a bit. So over the the next 10 years or
- 58:39so, we raised, I don't have the numbers right in front of me,
- 58:41but we raised somewhere around like $80,000 by working with
- 58:45different roasters around the world, taking the Gotesi green
- 58:49coffee, giving the green coffee to the roaster and saying sell
- 58:55the coffee as roasted coffee. You keep what you need to cover
- 58:59your costs and whatever you can contribute back into the program
- 59:02we'll then use to buy dairy cows.
- 59:05We then had the support of RTC, which is the Rwanda Trading
- 59:09Company, who are the exporter of the coffee, who backed up the
- 59:12program with veterinarian support for for the cows that
- 59:18were put in place and building structures, sending the vet
- 59:21around to make sure that the cows are doing well.
- 59:23We got up to the point of like 90 to 100 cows purchased and
- 59:28donated into this community. Like there's a lot of cows in
- 59:30this community now. It got to the point where there
- 59:33were so many cows each year that we actually took most of the
- 59:37funds to put towards buying cows.
- 59:39And then we also bought health insurance for 100 of the poorest
- 59:44farmers each year in that area as well.
- 59:48So when COVID hit, the fact that 3-4 hundred of these poorest
- 59:52farmers had health insurance that they didn't have previously
- 59:56was like a massive, a massive boon.
- 1:00:00And we ran that program for about 10 or 11 years.
- 1:00:04And and as green coffee prices start to climb, as cost of
- 1:00:11living started to get tougher, we started to find it harder and
- 1:00:14harder to get the philanthropic. Response from the rosters that
- 1:00:19we're working with to keep the program going and we're really
- 1:00:23at a tipping point there of needing to commit a lot more
- 1:00:27time and energy to the program to run it or to put it into
- 1:00:32hiatus and say there is an opportunity here.
- 1:00:34There's work that we want to do, but we don't know exactly what
- 1:00:37it is right now. So rather than going through the
- 1:00:40motion and I think using up goodwill that you know, exists
- 1:00:46in our roster network, how do we sit back on this for a little
- 1:00:51while and and think about what we want to do with it next?
- 1:00:54But that was a project that I was really proud to have been
- 1:00:58involved in and to help bring to life and make a huge difference
- 1:01:03to the, the lives of these coffee farmers.
- 1:01:07There's also a really big day in the community when the, the cows
- 1:01:10were presented and usually the mayor of the, the region would
- 1:01:13come and help do the presentations and it was pretty
- 1:01:16amazing. Other charitable projects.
- 1:01:22Reach out to me. Hit me up.
- 1:01:23I'm, I'm interested to hear, you know what we can do that that
- 1:01:27would be supportive. I mean, I just like the idea of
- 1:01:31of finding a small area where you really see your impact.
- 1:01:34There's a lot of it. It's a reinforcing activity,
- 1:01:38right? Because you see the people and
- 1:01:39you see, you get to know them and you see the how it impacts
- 1:01:42their lives and makes it, I don't want to say worth doing
- 1:01:47it. It's all worth doing.
- 1:01:48You know, whether it's writing a check or it's showing up and
- 1:01:50volunteering, whatever it is, there's benefit there.
- 1:01:53But when you can really, you know, spend time year after year
- 1:01:56with a group, you, you really get to build relationships.
- 1:01:59It's no different than building relationships at the coffee
- 1:02:02shop. I agree.
- 1:02:03What did I miss today? Anything that we wanted to say
- 1:02:06that you just didn't get a chance to.
- 1:02:09Not not that comes to mind immediately, but I do feel like
- 1:02:11we could we could have talked for three or four hours pretty
- 1:02:15easily. I feel like there's a lot in
- 1:02:17your experience and background that would be really interesting
- 1:02:20to unpack to. Well, I'm happy to answer any
- 1:02:23questions off air. I think the people that listen
- 1:02:25to the show have heard me talk enough today.
- 1:02:28I I certainly appreciate your time here and I'm excited to
- 1:02:32share all the links to the Aero Press Championships, to field
- 1:02:36work, all the other things we've been talking about.
- 1:02:38Everyone listening, you'll find them in the podcast show notes
- 1:02:41in our newsletter, which goes out every week from
- 1:02:44coffeepeoplepodcast.com. And just a reminder, our
- 1:02:48presenting sponsors, Rostar Coffee Packaging.
- 1:02:51They've enabled us to tell these stories and we're eternally
- 1:02:54grateful for it. Tim, thanks for being here.
- 1:02:57To everyone else, please tip your baristas and be sure to
- 1:03:00drink a coffee. Thanks for running.