Latest / Coffee People Podcast / S6:E3 - Eddie Alaniz, Coffee Conspiracy Company

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S6:E3 - Eddie Alaniz, Coffee Conspiracy Company · Coffee People Podcast

0:08
Hey, good morning everyone. Welcome to season 6.
0:11
Episode, 3 of the roast West Coast coffee podcast.
0:16
I'm Ryan Walton. This is the show where I bring
0:18
you the stories of coffee professionals, entrepreneurship
0:22
and coffee education. We are back this week with Eddie
0:26
alaniz of coffee conspiracy company.
0:29
He's the founder of this unique mobile coffee bike.
0:32
That specifically features, cold brew coffee, originally from
0:36
other Roasters, but he recently, transitioned his company into a
0:39
full-on Coffee Roastery. If you want to see photos of the
0:43
coffee bike while you're listening today, follow and
0:46
check out at Coffee. Conspiracy Co on Instagram, or
0:50
just check out the show's newsletter or head to the show's
0:53
newsletter on roast westcoast.com at roast
0:57
westcoast.com. You can also read the bean
0:59
Journal. Which Recaps my visits to coffee
1:01
shops and roaster, he's all over the place.
1:04
You can also find links to the guests on this show and see more
1:07
coffee content, like the behind-the-scenes videos that
1:10
steady-state coffee, roasting one of our industry Partners
1:13
recently launched on their YouTube page.
1:16
It sounds like I'm giving you a lot of directions and that's
1:19
because I am this is a very interactive engaging podcast and
1:22
I'm going to give you one more. Make sure right now that your
1:25
coffee cup is full either with cold brew or hot coffee.
1:29
He or a latte or a cappuccino. Whatever type of coffee it is
1:34
that you like the best. That's what you should be
1:36
drinking. While you listen to this
1:38
interview with Eddie alaniz, founder of coffee conspiracy
1:42
company, Well, it's really nice to meet you.
1:54
I certainly appreciate you taking some time in the middle
1:57
of the afternoon. Welcome to the West Coast path.
2:01
You podcast. Would you do me a favor?
2:03
And just for our the tape, what's your name is what your
2:07
company is and what your favorite ninja turtle is
2:11
Absolutely, my name is Eddie Alan.
2:14
He's the owner and founder of coffee conspiracy.
2:16
I'm based out of Santa Cruz, California.
2:19
Favorite Ninja Turtle would have to be Michelangelo.
2:21
He was the raddest. If you were to say that you were
2:25
like a ninja turtle, which one would it be?
2:28
Probably Michelangelo because I like Michelangelo, but I think
2:32
I'm probably more of a Donatello.
2:34
All right. Yeah, yeah.
2:37
I want to jump into this right away, but I want to learn a
2:41
little bit more about you before we start talking about your
2:43
company. Conspiracy, did you have a first
2:46
experience with coffee where you thought, you know what?
2:49
This is kind of interesting. I'm going to see where this
2:53
goes. Your, do you have any of those
2:54
coffee memories? That kind of got you started on
2:56
the path? You're on now?
2:59
Yeah, hundred percent man. I've been in and out of the
3:01
coffee industry for about 20 years now, first job was with
3:04
Pete's Coffee. Probably back in. 99 98.
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This is like pre syrup spree. Fredo's it was like straight-up,
3:19
classic coffee, shop style, there weren't doing anything
3:21
Blended yet. That was my first job in coffee
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when I first fell in, love with the coffee industry, for sure.
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I was with Pete's. Maybe three years and I just
3:29
love, I love the culture, I love the people.
3:32
I've met that I met and the conversations that I would have,
3:35
you always meet really interesting people and coffee
3:37
shops. Have you been in coffee then?
3:40
Since then, since 99, or did you take a detour?
3:45
I took a detour. I worked at Whole Foods for 14
3:47
years. Oh wow.
3:49
But even when I worked even when I worked with Whole Foods, I
3:51
always kept a part-time job here and there to coffee shop just to
3:54
keep my foot in the door. Very cool always up in that
3:57
Santa Cruz area where you are now or were you elsewhere in the
4:00
world? In the San Jose area.
4:03
So over the hill is they say. So then you're at Pete's, then
4:08
you're at Whole Foods. 14 years, that's a long time to be in any
4:11
career. What made you decide?
4:14
Yeah, what made you decide to move on from there?
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It seems like at that point you'd be pretty well
4:18
established. Definitely, I just got tired of
4:22
it. I got tired of the of the grind
4:24
at Whole Foods and I left coincidentally at a good time.
4:27
I jumped out like two years before Amazon ended up,
4:30
acquiring them and I still have friends that work there and it's
4:33
a totally different company. I worked at five different
4:37
stores to different regions, Los Angeles, being the most recent
4:40
region. I just grew tired of it.
4:42
It was just, just felt like it was time to move on and do
4:45
something different. So that would take us back.
4:48
What? Five years ago, give or take?
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Let's see, I left Whole Foods. Gosh, I'll probably deck almost
4:55
a decade ago. Okay.
4:57
So I knew from being very strenuous about research which
5:02
means I looked at your Instagram earlier that you're coming up on
5:05
a roughly a two year anniversary, I conspiracy.
5:09
What were you doing? Coffee conspiracy David
5:11
conspiracy. What were you doing in that
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in-between time between Whole Foods and getting to your Her
5:16
own business. So when I left Whole Foods, I
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jumped into the restaurant and Cafe space and I got into I got
5:24
back into the into the Cafe and Coffee world.
5:27
Now is managing cap, jumping around, managing cafes and
5:29
restaurants in Los Angeles and then I got into some Consulting
5:33
work where I was a consultant for a few Barista programs would
5:36
help restaurants build out their coffee programs.
5:39
Overhaul coffee programs, for coffee shops.
5:43
Okay, and then so that takes us up to roughly similar time.
5:48
Period with covid launching. What tipped?
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You over to make, you think I'm going to do my own thing, I'm
5:54
gonna pursue my own business, my own coffee bike, let you explain
5:58
that in a minute. Like but what was the motivator
6:00
to say now is the time? It was actually covid.
6:04
So I was living in Los Angeles, all my family, relocated to
6:07
Santa Cruz. I was looking to leave a la la.
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I'd been there for about 10 years.
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You just kind of felt like my time was up.
6:13
There was ready for a change, different change of pace and
6:15
lifestyle. So I took a job with a Roasting
6:18
Company to move back home to Santa Cruz, and I started with
6:22
that company, October, 31st 2019.
6:24
And then a few months later, came, the came the great
6:28
shutdown and I've always been wanting ever since I worked at,
6:32
Pizza, always dreamed of having my own coffee company.
6:35
It just always seemed super daunting on like, where do you
6:37
even start to build a brand, or build, a coffee company.
6:40
So with something, it was always something in the back of my
6:42
mind, but nothing I actively pursued.
6:45
And then, when covid came into lockdown scam, I got laid off
6:48
from the coffee, the coffee industry, and we had the federal
6:53
aid stimulus package coming in and I was staying with my mom at
6:56
the time. I moved back home and I was
6:57
living on Mom's couch was only supposed to be momentarily but
7:00
then lockdowns came, so I stayed Her couch during lockdowns.
7:04
So I wasn't paying rent. I had money coming in from the
7:06
state and it's something just hit me.
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And I thought, this is my time to build a business model.
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This is my time to come out of lockdown, doing something for
7:14
myself. Hence coffee consent, hence the
7:17
birth of coffee conspiracy. Well, I want to talk about the
7:21
name. But before yeah, before I do
7:25
that, I actually want to ask you while you were doing that
7:28
planning the thinking about it your business.
7:32
Is based on a coffee bike. You are out riding the world.
7:36
You have this bicycle where you're making your coffee, is in
7:39
your cobras and you're doing all the stuff.
7:41
What? Why the bicycle I chose the
7:44
bicycle because for a few reasons, one, the overhead
7:48
seemed small. I was looking at doing a coffee
7:50
truck, perhaps. But it was so expensive to do a
7:53
coffee truck. And I and a, I didn't have the
7:55
capital to do a coffee truck and be, I thought, you know, it's
7:58
best to find something low overhead for starting a brand
8:01
just to get my feet wet and see if I have something that I can
8:04
grow and since everything was locked down and you could only
8:08
be outdoors. I live in a Beach Community, the
8:10
bike just seemed kind of fitting for the beach vibe.
8:13
And I also kind of felt that if people could at least go for a
8:16
walk and get a cup of coffee life, might seem a little more
8:19
normal than it was since everything for a while.
8:21
I was the only business. That was an operation in Santa
8:23
Cruz. How did you find this coffee
8:26
bicycle? It's a more of a tricycle.
8:29
It's more of a trike. Yeah I dressed a actually just
8:33
Googled coffee carts and I just started going down a rabbit
8:36
hole, looking at images and I saw someone doing a bike and it
8:40
was it was an ad for the company.
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At I got the bike from and I saw it and I thought that's perfect.
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Super simple cold brew one product which I found.
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It's always easier to just focus on one.
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One product and do it super well, as opposed to doing a
8:56
bunch of different things. And the weather in Northern
9:00
California is pretty great. For the most part, our Winters
9:03
are fairly mild. So I thought cold brew would be
9:05
a good all year, drink that I could do outdoors.
9:09
So and it's just make sure that people understand that.
9:12
So if I come to the, the coffee bike and you're there, you're
9:15
just serving cold brew, you're not serving pour overs or
9:19
espresso just doing I'm doing Nitro cold brew.
9:22
No, pour overs. I don't do anything.
9:24
It just because all that would require electricity, you know,
9:28
which serves a whole nother issue.
9:30
I do Nitro cold brew. Now I actually do oat lattes on
9:34
draft. Oh cool.
9:37
Very interesting. Your company is named Khan.
9:39
Conspiracy, what where, how did you settle on that name and that
9:44
branding? And what does that mean?
9:47
Just kind of running through some of the things that I know
9:49
about your your business beforehand?
9:52
You're getting a reputation for having that conspiracy part of
9:55
your name and I see it in your, you reference conspiracy
9:58
sometimes in your social media. What was the motivator?
10:01
I've a long time conspiracy theorist.
10:03
I've been into secret societies since high school, my dad got me
10:08
into it. He was really in the conspiracy.
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So I started going down the rabbit hole at a young age and
10:13
just researching odd topics and government programs and secret
10:17
programs. And when I was thinking about
10:21
branding and how one of the position myself I wanted to do
10:23
something. That was really authentic to me
10:26
and who I am and something that I could really have fun with and
10:29
get creative with when it came to marketing.
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To be honest, I feel like to a degree a lot of Brands and
10:35
coffee are very similar, a lot of things, look the same, like I
10:38
hear time and time again from customers.
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That my bag really stands out, The Branding really stands out.
10:43
And that a lot of times when you go to the store and you line up
10:46
coffee bags, they all have a very similar feel they all,
10:50
look, they all look alike. The coffee industry can be very
10:54
Ultra whitewash and Ultra PC which is totally fine, but I
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want to do something. That was a little different,
11:00
little more, punk, rock. Something that kind of had a
11:02
DIY. Do it yourself, DIY feel I have
11:06
to ask then is there a conspiracy that I should be
11:10
aware of that? Maybe I'm not that you're
11:12
letting that you are aware of in the coffee world.
11:17
A conspiracy that relates to coffee or just a conspiracy in
11:20
general? I would say, is there any
11:22
conspiracies that relate to Coffee?
11:23
Let's start there. Any conspiracies that relate to
11:27
coffee. No, really juicy ones that I've
11:30
come across for sure. Yeah, unfortunately, part of the
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conspiracy at the beginning to was up there, I started as a
11:36
multi roast concept, so every few weeks there roaster would
11:39
change on the bike. How does that relate to the
11:41
conspiracy part? I don't quite follow.
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Just that it was always something different on the bike.
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So it always had people questioning what was going to be
11:48
coming next. I like that that people are
11:50
questioning what's happening which actually leads me to some
11:53
questions about how you engage. With customers.
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I mean, if you're on a bike that means I'm assuming you're not
12:00
necessarily in the same spot every day.
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How do people find you? How did you get the word out
12:05
when you first started and everything was locked down?
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I went to coffee places. I already knew during the early
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days of covid. So, how did you get that word
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out and get those first customers?
12:16
I started out just peddling, my own neighborhood and just, I
12:20
just paddled around every single day.
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Would just stop and talk to people and people were curious
12:24
about what I was doing on a bike.
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And then after a couple months actually ended up, I would pedal
12:29
the bike, maybe about 7 miles and where I parked, I've
12:32
actually parked the bike every day in the same spot for the
12:35
last year and a half and there's a cliff area where all the
12:37
Surfers go and people do their daily walks and it's very
12:40
community-driven and community-based.
12:42
It's the community of East Cliff and Santa Cruz and so I
12:45
Digitally embedded myself in the community.
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And I've been parking the bike in the exact same spot for a
12:50
year and a half. And I basically have just built
12:52
a following super organically, completely word of mouth and
12:57
through the Instagram platform. With your business being mobile,
13:04
you don't have any food. You don't have any water, you
13:06
don't have electricity, do you need to get permitted or you're
13:09
essentially retail? Business permit, Health, permit,
13:14
City permit, and then I've been fighting the county back and
13:17
forth. They have a new permit for me,
13:19
for being specifically on the pathway that I've been parking,
13:23
my bike. There's been some other local
13:25
businesses that have kind of popped up on the pathway.
13:27
So, now, I think the county starting to catch on that,
13:30
people are running businesses over there.
13:32
So, they have a new permit. Now, that I've been going back
13:34
and forth with them on where they want, 10% of my gross
13:36
income, well, every time chunk. Yeah.
13:40
It is. It is a chunk.
13:41
Yeah. And it's gross to so and they
13:43
want to audit me. So I've been going back and
13:45
forth with them on that one but I think I found a loophole so
13:51
good for you. Yeah you've been growing
13:55
organically. Do you think that your business
13:59
would have taken off? Had we not been in the
14:02
coronavirus, had it been say year before your after people
14:07
stop being locked down? Do you think that helped you or
14:09
hurt you? I think it helped me.
14:12
I think it helped me because I think it was a good a good
14:14
recipe at the time because people could only be outdoor.
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So the foot traffic was like quadruple, what it normally is
14:20
on any given day. So I had a lot of people finding
14:23
it finding out about me very, very quickly.
14:26
And I think that people really respected, the fact that I was
14:28
taking that leap of faith and taking that chance of starting a
14:31
business during lockdowns, it was a pretty bold move.
14:34
So I think it actually help the business grow in a sense because
14:37
people were really Blown Away by the fact that I was taking that
14:39
chance and getting out there and putting myself out there.
14:42
Did you have any concerns just about being so public facing
14:47
during the early days of coronavirus, I would did?
14:50
Not know. I was never worried about it.
14:53
Now, you mentioned this earlier that you were switching Roasters
14:57
at least at the beginning. Are you still doing that?
14:59
And how did you decide who you wanted to serve?
15:03
Like how did you pick these roaster?
15:05
He's I'm assuming based on the fact that you're a small
15:08
business that you're probably looking for other small
15:10
businesses to support. 100%. Yeah, so I would just start a
15:14
lot of coffee companies. We're on my radar already from
15:18
being in the industry, but I started to just do research and
15:21
look for micro Roasters and little hidden gems in the coffee
15:24
World. Kind of the idea behind it at
15:26
first, was that everyone in town?
15:27
Knows our own local roaster, like we've got Verve and Cat,
15:30
and cloud and 11th Hour. They're all pretty well known in
15:32
the coffee world, but there's so many Roasters that most people
15:36
never get to hear about. So I would try to find little
15:38
hidden gems in the coffee world and put them on the bike and
15:42
Eventually, it caught some traction through hashtagging and
15:46
I started to get a lot of small micro Roasters finding out about
15:49
me and seeing me get reposted from other coffee company.
15:52
So I started to get people reaching out to me, trying to
15:54
get on the bike and sending me coffee samples with that.
15:58
Are you still doing that kind of model?
16:00
Where you're serving other people's coffee or have you
16:02
started your own roasting or your own branding of coffee or
16:06
Partnerships? I actually dropped that model in
16:10
November and I started sourcing and Eating all my own coffee.
16:13
So now I have my own line of single origin coffees under the
16:16
coffee conspiracy label, which was always a goal to work up to.
16:20
Yeah. Did you have coffee roasting
16:22
experience before that? Or were you learning that on the
16:24
fly as well? I was learning that on the Fly
16:28
and luckily I had a connection that I met through coffee
16:32
conspiracy, when I was doing the multi roast concept, I featured
16:35
a brand at a San Francisco who started over the pandemic and
16:38
they're called bird and bear coffee.
16:41
Super cool guy. That owns it is name's Dan and
16:43
he's been in and out of the coffee industry, for 15 or 16
16:47
years. And he's been a roaster for a
16:49
decade and he took me under his wing and I roasted side-by-side
16:52
with him and I just started going solo recently.
16:57
If you just started recently, is that because you feel like
16:59
you've gotten to a point where, your coffee stands stands up on
17:03
its own, I'm assuming if you're serving it but also did you, do
17:07
you feel confident in that? What you're putting out there is
17:11
at a certain level like what did it take for you to feel that
17:14
way? Yeah.
17:16
So we me and him were side by side and built out roasting
17:19
profiles together. And once I was comfortable,
17:24
getting in the flow of roasting and breaking everything down and
17:27
learning about the profiles and operating all the Machinery.
17:30
I slowly. He slowly started to take that
17:33
step back a little by little until I was flying solo and I'm
17:36
although I'm still learning all the time.
17:38
I'm really confident in the coffee that I'm roasting for
17:40
sure. And that coffee is then being
17:43
served as cold brew, it is. Yeah.
17:46
So I'm running my line. I'm turning it into cold brew.
17:48
I rotate the Taps, depending on what I'm roasting and then most
17:52
recently, I started batching espresso concentrates and I can
17:55
do. I sold lattes on draft to me.
17:58
It sounds like a lot of like it's not just the coffee
18:00
roasting and then The Branding and marketing.
18:02
It's also kind of learning the engineering of how your coffee
18:05
Bike Works. And how you're serving that,
18:07
which is a whole nother, kind of skill set.
18:10
You wrote something recently that I saw and I'm just going to
18:13
read it. So I don't screw it up.
18:15
That you wrote the bike changed my life.
18:17
It gave me purpose. It gave me Community discipline
18:20
and a creative outlet and I kind of want to ask you, not a kind
18:26
of, I do want to ask you coffee as an artistic expression as a
18:30
way to be creative. What how does, how is it
18:32
creative to you? And why do you think the bike
18:36
changed your life? The bike changed my life because
18:40
it allowed me to apply my passions and create a living for
18:43
myself. I've made it two years without a
18:46
boss, and I'm able to, as of the last year, I'm able to sustain
18:50
myself in life, and I moved out of my mom's house.
18:53
I'm running a room. I can, if I can afford to live
18:56
my life off of the bike and it just really helped me focus in
19:01
on my passion and really showed me how consistency is key to
19:05
everything in life like I do every day, I was out 7 days a
19:07
week for 6. To eight months.
19:09
When I first started, I never took a day off and just pounding
19:13
the pavement. Grew this organic following and
19:15
it's been such a cool experience to see the brand grow and evolve
19:18
and move on from multi roasting to roasting my own line.
19:22
So really, the bike just fueled my passion and let me make a
19:25
living off of something that I love doing like it.
19:28
I found the one thing that doesn't feel like work a lot of
19:31
times when I'm out there serving and selling coffee feels like
19:33
the bonus, definitely. And it's allowed a big creative
19:38
Outlook creative output. For me.
19:41
I do all my own branding. I do all my own marketing so
19:43
it's really fun coming up with these ideas and coming up with
19:46
the labels for all my products. What is something that you've
19:49
kind of learned from working in the industry?
19:52
Leaving it? And then coming back that maybe
19:54
a surprised you or we're something that you learned over
19:57
the last two years we had to learn the hard way that you
20:00
weren't expecting. That I wasn't expecting one.
20:06
One, one thing I learned was the real sense of community.
20:09
The coffee world has. And how many people want to see
20:13
you succeed? I learned really quickly on the
20:16
bike that most people are inherently good.
20:18
Most people want to see you succeed.
20:21
I reached out to a lot of different companies that I've
20:23
never met before asking questions about coffee cold.
20:26
Dming people and other business and entrepreneurs and I never
20:30
had anybody not respond to me an offer.
20:32
Me advice or try to help me in one way or the other.
20:34
Which I thought was really cool. Yeah, I actually have a similar
20:38
experience just with this show which started about the same
20:41
time as your company in that when I reached out to people
20:46
regardless of any commonalities we might have or not have most
20:51
people were excited to be to engage and talk about coffee or
20:54
share a cup of coffee with me which is something I have seen
20:58
in other Industries but not maybe, as overwhelmingly as I
21:02
have. Over the last two years.
21:05
If you are out. I mean, you're serving cold
21:07
brew. But if you're going out into the
21:09
world, and you're going to stop somewhere else and have a cup of
21:12
coffee, what do you order for yourself?
21:14
I used to do a pour-over. I'll I will grab a cold brew or
21:18
at least get a taste of it. No work, no matter where I am,
21:21
just to see what other people are working with.
21:23
But my go-to is either a pour-over or a breve cappuccino
21:27
with the cold room that you're serving.
21:29
Have you thought about getting doing packaged cold?
21:32
Brew scanned cold? Brews to go?
21:34
Or anything like that, which is becoming just.
21:36
So popular down here in Southern California.
21:40
I've thought about doing it, but it creates a whole nother, a
21:44
whole nother mess of permits dealing with the county its X,
21:48
its can get expensive and it's a lot of work to, I started doing
21:53
some bottles at the beginning, but as a one-man show, it's a
21:56
lot of work for not a lot of payoff.
21:58
In my opinion, I've looked into getting mass-produced bottles
22:02
and the price per bottle isn't a lot, but you have to order like
22:05
10,000 bottles at a time, right? That you have to be able to do
22:08
palette drops. Like I In a small company.
22:11
So I don't have the infrastructure to do things like
22:13
that. Well, it's not just the, the
22:17
cost of ordering it. It's what do you do with it?
22:19
When they arrive, where, where do you store them?
22:21
Where do they go? Exactly.
22:23
And I started doing some bottles of the beginning but they are
22:26
plastic, and I don't care for a plastic, and I just felt like it
22:28
was creating a lot of unnecessary waste.
22:31
So I do offer Growlers, I do gal, Growlers that people can
22:34
come back and refill. And I do half-gallon Growlers
22:37
and that's done pretty good, but it's really about trying to push
22:39
people out. To the bike.
22:41
What is something that we didn't cover that?
22:43
You want people to know about you or your brand or about
22:47
what's coming next for coffee? Conspiracy company.
22:52
I've got some really cool things in the lineup.
22:54
I'm going to be headed to La coffee fast in a couple weeks.
22:57
It's going to be my first time being on the main stage of the
23:00
coffee World, which is super exciting for me.
23:02
I'm going to be brewing with the ground control team or familiar
23:06
with ground control. I am.
23:08
Yes, yeah. So I have a ground control unit.
23:10
That's what I used to produce my cold brew in my iced latte.
23:14
So I'm going to be rocking with them at the booth in l.a. coffee
23:17
Fest. So that's super exciting.
23:19
I do have a website where I ship coffee all over the country and
23:22
Like been building a big ad marketing campaign that may be
23:25
doing to attack the e-comm space that was kind of the idea with
23:29
dropping my own coffee line was how can I scale this business is
23:33
kind of how I've been thinking the last year and I don't want
23:36
to brick-and-mortar. I've ran enough cafes to where
23:39
it's not really my passion and I really don't want multiple bikes
23:43
with multiple employees because that just has its own set of
23:45
headaches. So the only the next logical
23:48
thing for me was try to put some man hours into scaling a
23:51
business online, and I see what people are doing in the e-comm
23:53
world and it blows me away with what kind of businesses.
23:57
People are building in a short amount of time.
23:59
So launching my own coffee line was to really do an econ play.
24:04
So one of the things I've been working on is trying to Pivot
24:07
The Branding and the marketing is to where the website is the
24:11
business. I'm a direct-to-consumer coffee
24:14
brand. But then, I do pop ups around
24:16
town to promote the brand. Because right now, I kind of
24:18
feel like it's the opposite where because I was for a long
24:22
Just a guy on a coffee bike. And so when people go to the
24:24
website and look at the Instagram, I feel like a GU can
24:27
be a little confusing. Like, is this guy on a bike
24:30
trying to sell things online? So I'm really trying to Pivot
24:33
The Branding to where the website is the brand and then I
24:36
then the bike is just popping up and promoting the brand.
24:40
Very interesting. Yeah, you're doing the labor
24:43
intensive part now and try to transition into the part where
24:48
it's not that it's not labor-intensive.
24:50
It's just it's a different type of business model.
24:52
Model where you are, you're making money while you sleep.
24:55
People are shopping whether you're out on the bike or not or
24:57
whether the weather is good or not a little bit.
24:59
Yeah, building some passive income, you know, before I let
25:03
you go, actually that just reminded me of another question.
25:06
I've actually run a business that was predicated on being out
25:09
in a mobile space weather. Even in California was such a
25:15
driver of our success. Have you noticed that at all or
25:19
how do you deal with it when say the weather is bad?
25:22
Or windy or rainy? We're coming into the winter
25:25
season. How do you prepare for that?
25:27
During the rainy season. If it's raining, I just let us
25:31
take it up as a loss. It's a day off.
25:33
I'll try to create some content. Go visit a coffee shop.
25:36
Do some marketing on a cold day. I'm always surprised on a cold
25:42
day, how much cold brew? I'm actually able to sell a lot
25:45
of times, people just want to get some caffeine in them and if
25:48
cold Brews your jam, then cold, Brews your jam.
25:51
I've worked at so many cafes where can be dumping rain?
25:54
And we're still slang a nice drinks.
25:55
Like like, there's no tomorrow. So even on a cold day, I have
25:59
really have no problem selling coffee.
26:02
Could you ever Envision yourself going back to work for someone
26:05
else? Never, no, not at all.
26:10
I just had this conversation with my wife a week ago and I
26:14
just can't do it. And not only could I not do it
26:16
just because the creative freedom that I have.
26:19
I don't like the whole brick and mortar thing I've been outdoors
26:22
in the sunshine and fresh air for two years slinging coffee.
26:26
I don't know if I could go back inside under fluorescent
26:29
lighting, and just being almost like trapped in a box, you know?
26:34
It is definitely a different lifestyle, Eddie, I really
26:37
appreciate you taking some time to chat with us and and I
26:41
certainly wish you the best of luck with the bike and I'm
26:44
looking forward to seeing what you're doing next.
26:46
Thanks for joining the show. Hey, thank you so much for
26:49
having me as a really cool opportunity.
26:50
I enjoy chatting with you. Okay?
27:00
To recap covid-19 the inspiration for ready to take on
27:03
the age of starting a new business.
27:06
He wanted to keep it simple to see if you had the right concept
27:09
and even the right internal motivation, after examining his
27:13
options. He decided to offer cold brew
27:16
from a mobile Cafe built onto a bicycle.
27:19
Eddie came by his company name coffee conspiracy.
27:21
Co honestly, he's a self-proclaimed.
27:24
True conspiracy theorist. A hobby passed down from his dad
27:29
in some very quick internet. Sleuthing, I found a few coffee
27:32
conspiracies. Including one that the FBI is
27:36
actually hiding. The true origin of coffee which
27:38
the author claims happened right here in the United States.
27:42
We've told the story of called you the goat herder on this show
27:44
before. So I would say that seems a
27:46
little suspect Eddie's. First days on the bike were
27:49
spent uplifting other coffee companies and then it was the
27:53
willingness of another roaster who mentored him that enabled,
27:57
Eddie to begin offering his own coffee for sale, both on the
28:00
bike and online. It seems to be the rule, not the
28:03
exception, that many in the coffee industry, go out of their
28:07
way, to lend a hand, to those who are on the come up.
28:11
Finally, Eddie mentioned that his go to coffee order may
28:14
include a breve cappuccino. I don't think that we've defined
28:18
a breve drinks in the past on this podcast.
28:21
Breve is an Italian word for short or brief and breve coffee.
28:25
Drinks are espresso with steamed half and half instead of milk.
28:29
The half and half which is usually a mix of whole milk.
28:32
In cream creates a rich velvety, microphone and a naturally added
28:36
sweetness. If you just order a breve, your
28:39
Barista will likely default to a latte.
28:42
So be sure to be specific. If you're listening and you have
28:46
a coffee conspiracy theory. I'd love to hear it here.
28:50
And I hope I don't regret saying that but send it to at roast
28:53
West Coast and at Coffee conspiracy Co on Instagram or
28:57
leave a comment on the newest newsletter post featuring this
29:01
episode of the podcast. Just which you can find on roast
29:04
westcoast.com, check out coffee, conspiracy dotco to see what
29:09
coffees Eddie is currently offering online and as cold
29:12
brew, on the mobile Bicycle Cafe.
29:14
In Santa Cruz, you probably already know where all the links
29:17
I just mentioned are, but just in case, check the show notes
29:21
and roast westcoast.com, which is also where the coolest
29:25
people, subscribe to both the free and paid newsletter.
29:28
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If you're listening to this show right after it drops on
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I'm probably literally drinking in a send coffee roaster single
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origin right now A told Cal Coffee in San Marcos California.
30:11
Thank you all for listening and supporting this show.
30:14
A special shout-out to Brent your comments and contribution.
30:17
Last week were a really nice pick me up at the end of a long
30:20
podcasting day. Thank you to everyone else.
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Don't forget to check out the newsletter and thank you for
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using your power to support craft coffee.
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This episode of the roast West Coast, Coffee podcast is was has
30:34
been written produced and recorded by me Ryan Walt.
30:38
I hope this episode is found you happy healthy and with at least
30:42
enough sanity to make it through the day, always tip your
30:45
Baristas and be sure to drink a coffee.
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