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Coffee Smarter Week 8 - It's a Gesha Party Up In Here. · Coffee People Podcast

• 0:10
  Hey everyone, welcome back to the roast West Coast coffee
• 0:13
  podcast. I am your host, Ryan Walton.
• 0:15
  We are here for another coffee, smarter session with the guy.
• 0:19
  You wouldn't be surprised to find on your couch in the
• 0:21
  morning, Chris O'Brien. He is also the founder and owner
• 0:24
  of coffee cycle in Pacific Beach, which is the cafe that
• 0:28
  I've spent most of my late 30s. He's in check out coffee cycle
• 0:31
  on Instagram at Coffee. Dash cycle, for today's episode
• 0:35
  of coffee smarter, I asked Chris about Geisha coffee, he very
• 0:39
  politely corrects me on the pronunciation, calling it geshe.
• 0:42
  I was shocked to learn that geshe.
• 0:43
  Coffee is named after a place, which in retrospect should have
• 0:47
  been obvious. That is the beauty of hindsight.
• 0:50
  Now, for a little foresight, fill your coffee mug because
• 0:54
  we're about to get into the show and get a little coffee smarter
• 0:57
  today. Week 8 Chris O'Brien, welcome
• 1:12
  back, let's talk coffee so that we can all get coffee smarter
• 1:16
  today. Not you you're already coffee
• 1:18
  smartest. Never Never Enough.
• 1:20
  Always need to be more, always learning.
• 1:23
  Yeah we should get like some sort of like little trophy like
• 1:25
  they give you at like Boeing or karate class or something.
• 1:28
  That says Coffee smartest like different.
• 1:31
  What if we created a belt system?
• 1:33
  But like a mug system like if you have the white mug you're at
• 1:35
  the lowest level. If you have the yellow mug
• 1:37
  you're up, we could go all the way up to like black mug.
• 1:40
  Meaning, you know, you're an expert, your coffee smartest.
• 1:43
  That would just stop you from watching your coffee mug, which
• 1:46
  is probably already a problem for you.
• 1:48
  Oh no. I'm I go the other way.
• 1:50
  I aggressively wash. Sometimes I wash it, then I'll
• 1:53
  make the coffee. Put it in there and be like, did
• 1:54
  I wash this? And I'll dump the coffee out.
• 1:56
  Wash it again, make a whole new. A coffee.
• 2:00
  Well, I feel coffee Dumber right now from having to listen to
• 2:03
  that. Hey man, we just spent a year in
• 2:06
  a pandemic. Like, I'll wash my cup as many
• 2:08
  times as it takes because I don't want to be in a situation
• 2:12
  where I risk a giving up this opportunity to talk to you.
• 2:16
  Alright, your flattery will get you everywhere.
• 2:18
  I turned around and I do want to talk about coffee today and so
• 2:23
  there's this term that I hear a lot and I associate it with
• 2:27
  fancy coffee. I don't know if I, it means good
• 2:29
  coffee, but I associated with that.
• 2:32
  It's generally more expensive coffee.
• 2:34
  But Geisha. When I see the time, a geisha
• 2:37
  style coffee. What does that mean?
• 2:41
  All right, well, Geisha coffee, or sometimes called getcha
• 2:45
  coffee. Instead is a, is an interesting
• 2:48
  phenomenon. You know, when we talk about
• 2:50
  what makes a coffee taste, a certain way, there's a bunch of
• 2:55
  different factors to it. And you know, the first fact of
• 2:58
  the You know, sort of gravitate to is wrote, Light Rail, Spurs,
• 3:01
  dark, roast, I'm going to taste different.
• 3:04
  Another factor is where is it grown?
• 3:06
  As it grown? In Ethiopia, is a grown in Costa
• 3:09
  Rica as a grown in Colombia. Has it grown in Indonesia, but
• 3:13
  that's going to have a significant impact on the way
• 3:16
  the coffee tastes. And then one of the other
• 3:19
  factors that we don't talk about necessarily as much or at least
• 3:23
  on the consumer level, we don't talk about as much is genetics.
• 3:28
  And the proper term for that usually is variety.
• 3:32
  A lot of the time you'll hear, it said variety toll and you'll
• 3:35
  probably catch me at some point in this, this podcast, use the
• 3:38
  term varietal when I should use the term variety, but for the
• 3:42
  purposes of most people's talking, they're fairly
• 3:46
  interchangeable and Geisha. As we know it is is a genetic
• 3:50
  variety of the coffee, plant, the coffee Arabica.
• 3:53
  Plant coffee's been grown all over the world and all these
• 3:56
  coffee-producing countries for A long time.
• 3:59
  Now, we've been doing coffee the same way more or less for a
• 4:04
  little while now and espresso machines and the introduction of
• 4:08
  Cafe culture Starbucks. You know, those coffee chains as
• 4:14
  opposed to just getting a cup of coffee at a diner or making
• 4:18
  coffee at home out of your folders.
• 4:20
  Can, you know, those coffee chains and cafes and change the
• 4:23
  way we look at coffee. And so, that's what we talked
• 4:26
  about last season when we talked about first First wave, second
• 4:29
  wave and third wave coffee and so, and third waves.
• 4:32
  As we talked about last season, we're celebrating Farm origin,
• 4:37
  and we're celebrating coffee as a fruit.
• 4:40
  So that sort of ties into US, looking at the different genetic
• 4:44
  varieties of coffee. If you're working with a farm in
• 4:48
  Guatemala, think of, Santa Ana, you know, run by this guy
• 4:51
  Fernando. And you go to Fernando and you
• 4:53
  say, hey, I'd like to buy some Santa Ana coffee.
• 4:56
  You can get some bags of that coffee.
• 4:59
  That are just from all over the farm and they're all processed,
• 5:02
  watch process and then all put in a bag together but you might
• 5:06
  be able to pay him a little extra for him to separate out
• 5:09
  the bourbon variety that he grows on the south side of the
• 5:13
  farm or the bourbon, variety of you to grows in the south side
• 5:16
  of the farm mixed with the bourbon, variety that grows on
• 5:19
  the north side of the farm, or you might be able to buy a bag
• 5:23
  of the Keturah variety, or maybe he's also got the Keturah and
• 5:28
  the bourbon. Mixed together but it doesn't
• 5:30
  include typical variety that he grows somewhere else on the
• 5:33
  farm. So all these names that I've
• 5:34
  dropped are all different, classic popular, grown coffee
• 5:39
  varieties. That are pretty common in Latin
• 5:42
  America and in a lot of the places that coffee is grown
• 5:45
  there, sort of a coffee family tree.
• 5:48
  And a lot of the ones we talked about Keturah, for bone, typica
• 5:52
  katsu, I they're all interrelated.
• 5:55
  And they all have, you know, sort of history and origins of
• 5:58
  how their Ed and separated and looked at as different from
• 6:02
  their Brethren. Well, in Central America were
• 6:06
  talking, you know, Guatemala and Nicaragua Panama, Costa Rica,
• 6:10
  all that. They have a big problem with
• 6:12
  some coffee growing and it does in South America as well.
• 6:15
  And the problem that I'm talking about is called Roya, and Roya
• 6:20
  is the term down there, for coffee leaf rust.
• 6:25
  It's not rust like we see on, you know, the pipe.
• 6:28
  Oops, in the bathroom. It's, it's rust.
• 6:32
  That's a form of like a mildew or a fungus that grows on the
• 6:36
  leaves of the coffee plants and has a terrible terrible
• 6:40
  detrimental effect on the Harvest of any particular Farm.
• 6:45
  If they get infected with Roya. And I think I mean just to help
• 6:49
  relate to the idea of It, kind of like when you hear about
• 6:52
  invasive, species, like invasive beetles and trees appear similar
• 6:56
  concept. Where like, if you see Roya on A
• 6:58
  leaf somewhere it's exponential it just absolutely rats tends to
• 7:03
  come in waves every couple of years.
• 7:06
  So a bad Roy a year, you know, and El Salvador is, is an
• 7:10
  example because I have at least one friend who owns a fairly
• 7:13
  large coffee Farm in El Salvador, and all Salvador, a
• 7:16
  bad Roy. A year can set her Harvest back,
• 7:20
  reduce the amount of coffee. She's able to produce and sell
• 7:24
  by easily 60%. So imagine you're running this
• 7:29
  Farm, you're paying all these workers to pick coffee for you
• 7:33
  and process it and plant and prune and water or whatever it
• 7:37
  is that they're doing down there.
• 7:39
  And each of those peers, people have a family.
• 7:42
  They've got kids lives, spouses, brothers and sisters, elderly,
• 7:46
  parents, what have you? They're all supported by income
• 7:49
  of this farm and then the farm produces 60%, less coffee than
• 7:55
  it. Did the year before and
• 7:56
  therefore has 60% less income and and 60% isn't even
• 8:00
  necessarily I there. I've heard figures as high as 80
• 8:03
  90, but in well-managed bad Royal year 40 to 60 percent is
• 8:09
  totally not unusual. So let's imagine that farm
• 8:12
  owners income just dropping by half or more and still trying to
• 8:17
  support all the people that supported the farm.
• 8:20
  You know, it's really, really devastating to some of those
• 8:23
  countries into some of those communities that are built
• 8:26
  around. This is agriculture, you know to
• 8:29
  manage things like Roya on the agricultural level and I think
• 8:34
  we've maybe touched on it before but I have not an agriculture
• 8:37
  expert, I make coffee and I think I'm pretty good at it and
• 8:42
  I've learned a fair amount about it.
• 8:43
  I'm not in agriculture expert, but to manage things like Roya
• 8:48
  at the farm level, there's a lot of things that they can do or
• 8:52
  that they try to do to manage it.
• 8:54
  You know, you want to treat the plants that have gotten infected
• 8:56
  with Roy, you want to remove the Roya, infected plants as much as
• 9:00
  possible when you want to prevent it from spreading.
• 9:03
  Well, one of the ways that they want to help manage the impact
• 9:08
  of a Roy, a year is that want to see if they can breed a new
• 9:13
  genetic variety of coffee that is resistant naturally to this
• 9:18
  Roya. And so this Roya problem has
• 9:22
  been going on for long enough that they've been working on it
• 9:25
  for a long time. And rather, Than breeding a new
• 9:28
  variety at first, they sort of said, hey, what varieties can we
• 9:32
  find that are already resistant to this?
• 9:36
  And so, all coffee originally comes from Ethiopia.
• 9:39
  All the all the genetic varieties that we talk about all
• 9:42
  those names that I dropped earlier all, have their roots in
• 9:46
  Ethiopia, and they moved throughout the world and they've
• 9:49
  been bred or they've adapted to different climates.
• 9:52
  The ultimately, they all come from Ethiopia and so
• 9:56
  organization. Is that were attempting to solve
• 9:59
  this problem earlier on said, let's go back to Ethiopia and
• 10:04
  let's see if we can find a genetic.
• 10:06
  Variety of coffee, that is better at handling.
• 10:10
  This, this Roya thing and back then they would drive a Jeep out
• 10:15
  to these small Ethiopian towns. And then the four guys in the
• 10:19
  Jeep would get out and they'd run in four different directions
• 10:23
  and then go pick up seedstock, you know, they pick up coffee
• 10:26
  seeds from Whatever Farms they found in whatever Direction they
• 10:29
  were chosen to run it. And so there was a jeep that
• 10:33
  drove to the town of getcha in Ethiopia and a runner went out
• 10:38
  from that jeep and he found this variety.
• 10:40
  And when he brought it back to the organization that had sent
• 10:43
  him down there, they marked it as just geshe because it came
• 10:47
  from such a small Hamlet or Village or Farm remotely.
• 10:52
  The only data they had from it was that there was literally a
• 10:55
  guy that ran from a Jeep. Parked in this town for a day
• 10:59
  and so exactly whose Farm it was that have this getcha variety is
• 11:04
  sort of hard to say, but the variety made its way to a farm
• 11:07
  in Costa Rica and it just got mixed in with all the other
• 11:10
  plants there. But then the variety seemed to
• 11:14
  be somewhat Hardy to the Roya or at least the the section of
• 11:19
  farm. That those those plants had been
• 11:22
  planted in was was doing okay on a Roy a year and so that farm in
• 11:26
  Costa Rica Send it across the border into Panama.
• 11:30
  So the bomb pop G is State and the non-party estate was like
• 11:34
  yeah this is pretty good and so then they share that mix of
• 11:37
  genetic varieties with the Esmeralda State just down the
• 11:41
  road and the Peterson family that was running as morale de
• 11:45
  estate was growing this and they noticed that one particular
• 11:48
  Variety in this sort of batch they have gotten in this chain
• 11:52
  of events was was different. It was sort of a little bit.
• 11:57
  Leg year, it didn't produce has a ton of cherries, but it had an
• 12:02
  interesting Aroma to the blossoms.
• 12:04
  And so the Peterson guy who was in charge of the farm, at the
• 12:08
  time said, hey, can you guys just pick only cherries from
• 12:13
  bushes that? Look like this shrub right here
• 12:16
  and try to isolate this genetic Variety in this area of the
• 12:19
  farm. And can you gather those
• 12:21
  cherries and then the beans that come from it just in a separate
• 12:24
  lat. And so, this is actually one of
• 12:26
  the earliest Your times that we saw Farmers really pulling a
• 12:30
  specific genetic variety of setting it aside because the
• 12:34
  consumer coffee world was not in what we call the third wave yet,
• 12:39
  but this is sort of some of the founding seeds to it.
• 12:42
  Hey, seeds at the farm level, he set it aside and a brood, it and
• 12:47
  was a wash process that he processed it.
• 12:50
  And he roasted it at the farm and he brewed it.
• 12:52
  And he said, wow, it's so fruity, and floral and
• 12:56
  beautiful. And delicate.
• 12:58
  It almost tastes like a natural process coffee.
• 13:00
  I did, you guys practice this naturally and his employees have
• 13:04
  no, this is really unique and special and so that's where the
• 13:09
  Geisha variety comes from. Is the, the Peterson Family at
• 13:13
  the Esmeralda is State Farm rechristened this this coffee as
• 13:18
  bitcha because they traced it back to Don pacci to Costa Rica
• 13:23
  back to the think was maybe a Dutch company.
• 13:27
  Or might have been some sort of international the traced, it
• 13:31
  back to you, Theo Pia and they found that it was from a runner
• 13:34
  that came from this town gacha on this.
• 13:37
  It okay. Well, actually sort of sounds
• 13:39
  like deja that that'll probably sell well, so renamed it geisha
• 13:44
  and started to sell it as a special thing.
• 13:48
  And so what sets this coffee at part is one it's resistant to
• 13:52
  Roya which is fantastic. Problem is, is that it's a
• 13:55
  finicky enough plant. In other ways.
• 13:58
  And that it produces a small enough amount that it's not
• 14:01
  really practical for replanting. A whole farm with this doesn't
• 14:05
  produce enough but if you give it a lot of care and you really
• 14:08
  hit close attention to, it's very labor intensive and it only
• 14:12
  really thrives in certain microclimates.
• 14:15
  If you pay attention to it, it'll be resistant to Roya and
• 14:18
  it'll produce this really cool unique top.
• 14:21
  So, because of the limited amount of places that it's
• 14:23
  produced, because it really only thrives in this small.
• 14:27
  Climates. And only with this careful
• 14:29
  attention because of the limited amount introduced because of the
• 14:33
  unique flavor profile. That it creates.
• 14:36
  People have really started to seek this Geisha out and the
• 14:39
  gesso variety tends to create a lot of tea, like Flavor jasmine
• 14:44
  tea is really classic tasting note for a washed Geisha intends
• 14:48
  to get a really lot of Jani fruit.
• 14:50
  Fruit notes, a lot of like grape jelly layered with Citrus but it
• 14:55
  can taste a lot of different ways just like Any kind of
• 14:57
  coffee can. But those genetic traits tend to
• 15:00
  shine through almost no matter where it's grown as long as it
• 15:04
  does Thrive and almost no matter what kind of processing.
• 15:07
  So it's a really unique coffee that we figured out through this
• 15:10
  interesting chain of events and it's really interesting one to
• 15:13
  know about because it really does actually highlight the
• 15:16
  struggles of some really really challenged coffee farmers, in
• 15:20
  Central and South America. It highlights how the lengths to
• 15:25
  which they've had to go to To combat these problems.
• 15:30
  It shows that an incredible luxury product can be created
• 15:34
  out of this desperate search for something that will help them
• 15:38
  deal with this, this reoccurring problem.
• 15:41
  Yeah, I'm amazed that all the hundreds and hundreds of coffee
• 15:45
  options that we have available. They all have a story behind
• 15:48
  them like that, you know. Like, with some products, we
• 15:53
  create stories in the name of marketing, but with coffee
• 15:56
  there, R really are these kind of unique Adventure, ask stories
• 16:01
  behind a lot of these varietals varieties that we are, that were
• 16:06
  drinking every day. But I'm also amazed that I can
• 16:09
  ask you a question and then you can just talk for 15 minutes.
• 16:14
  I don't know how I got. So lucky to have like a podcast
• 16:17
  where I could I think I could walk away and you could just
• 16:20
  keep going. It doesn't matter that I'm here.
• 16:22
  You just love sharing this information and that's something
• 16:24
  I am truly grateful for and appreciation.
• 16:27
  And so, thank you, again. We've got one more of these
• 16:31
  episodes to go this season, and I'm really looking forward to
• 16:34
  chatting with you one more time for the show and, you know,
• 16:37
  maybe five more times just in general.
• 16:40
  Yeah. A Lifetime, right?
• 16:42
  Yeah. Well, you know, it's not get too
• 16:44
  crazy. Okay.
• 16:44
  All right. Well, it is really a treat every
• 16:46
  time, and I'm just so happy to be here.
• 16:48
  And I am glad that you don't walk away for those 15 minutes
• 16:52
  because you're my muse ran. I don't walk away.
• 16:56
  I Listen, and then I listened again when I added it and then I
• 16:59
  listened again, when I put it out in the world and then I ask
• 17:02
  you again in like a month because I've already forgotten.
• 17:06
  You got a hammer it into the end of me until I get it.
• 17:09
  So thank you again and I'll see you again soon.
• 17:11
  But next time. How many times have I reference
• 17:19
  Chris's ability to expound on a coffee topic?
• 17:22
  He really loves all things coffee and I know he's having
• 17:26
  these conversations just about every day.
• 17:28
  I'm grateful. He lets me record them.
• 17:30
  Chris talked quite a bit about La Jolla, which is today's
• 17:33
  coffee vocab term. I'm going to clarify and provide
• 17:36
  some context for you, Laura or coffee.
• 17:38
  Rust is an airborne fungus, which after this year, we all
• 17:42
  know, to take pretty damn seriously.
• 17:44
  Royal was first noticed in the 1860s East Africa.
• 17:47
  And then the word began to spread.
• 17:49
  When it started devastating coffee, plantations, in Sri
• 17:52
  Lanka by the early, 1930s scientists had discovered four
• 17:56
  different versions of Roya fast-forward, to 1972 and more
• 18:00
  than 26, different varieties. Had been found with a coffee
• 18:03
  industry Panic occurring. When it was first seen in
• 18:05
  Brazil, which at the time was producing 65% of the world's
• 18:10
  coffee. So we know that it is scary.
• 18:12
  But what exactly is it? It is a fungus that feeds on the
• 18:15
  living cells of the coffee. Plant effectively stealing the
• 18:18
  plans nutrients for its own reproduction.
• 18:20
  The different varieties have different impacts but version 2
• 18:24
  is the most famous known to be able to attack any type of
• 18:27
  coffee. Currently being grown Roya is
• 18:30
  first, seen as a sport that looks like a yellow or orange
• 18:33
  powder on the underside of the coffee.
• 18:34
  Plant leaves. It literally looks like rust and
• 18:37
  I'll post some photos on roast westcoast.com.
• 18:40
  Once the coffee plants are infected the impacts of Roya are
• 18:43
  seen in the beans. They are smaller and the flavors
• 18:46
  dramatic. Impacted in particular, the
• 18:48
  sweetness is greatly reduced. The beans appear to be at an
• 18:51
  immature state of ripeness, which causes major flavor issues
• 18:55
  when they are mixed in with traditionally, right?
• 18:57
  Beans during harvesting, which will give an eventual, brewed
• 19:00
  coffee a harsh or flat flavor. I want to thank sustainable Food
• 19:03
  Lab, where I learned just a ton about Roya.
• 19:06
  I'll link to their website, sustainable Food Lab dot org, on
• 19:09
  roast westcoast.com. And I'll be back next week with
• 19:12
  an interview with the team from codel coffee and another coffee
• 19:16
  martyr with Siri from lofty, Coffee Company, shout out to
• 19:19
  roast industry, Partners including Maria coffee leap
• 19:22
  coffee, zoom, bar coffee, and tea steady-state, roasting Cafe
• 19:26
  litter coffee cycle. And most your coffee.
• 19:29
  They helped me keep the lights on.
• 19:30
  And if you need coffee, check them out.
• 19:32
  And I also want to thank first like coffee, whiskey for keeping
• 19:35
  coffee, on my mind, even at happy hour and Joe over at Cape
• 19:38
  Horn coffee Brokers for his continued support of the roast
• 19:42
  West Coast podcast, you can and will find links to all of those
• 19:46
  great. This is and Friends of this
• 19:47
  show, right on the front of roast westcoast.com.
• 19:52
  Thank you for listening to the show today.
• 19:53
  If you've enjoyed it, I'd appreciate it.
• 19:55
  If you would tell a friend, give it a share on social media or
• 19:58
  become a paid subscriber. Those are the best ways to help
• 20:01
  us grow this show. This episode of the roast West
• 20:04
  Coast podcast was written produced and recorded by me Ryan
• 20:08
  Walt. I hope the show is found you
• 20:10
  happy healthy and with at least enough simulated sanity to make
• 20:14
  it through the day and of Course, always be sure to drink.
• 20:18
  Good coffee.