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Coffee People Podcast at SCA Ft. Brigid Shaw, Orgullo Coffee Company · Coffee People Podcast

• 0:00
  Sliding into your screen is not just any coffee can, it's a
• 0:03
  Rostar coffee can. You don't need thousands
• 0:07
  personalized, just one in Rostar's design lab.
• 0:11
  No design experience needed. Choose a pattern, add your logo
• 0:14
  and text, or create something memorable.
• 0:18
  With AI being made in the Midwest, you can expect it on
• 0:22
  your doorstep in no time. Now that was smooth.
• 0:29
  Hey everyone, good morning and welcome to the Coffee People
• 0:32
  podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Walt.
• 0:35
  I recently spent a long weekend in Houston, TX at the Specialty
• 0:39
  Coffee Association Expo. I had lots of coffee there.
• 0:44
  It's an annual convention that draws guests from all over the
• 0:47
  world, and our presenting sponsors at Rostar invited me to
• 0:50
  join them in their convention floor booth.
• 0:53
  My collaborator on Nick and Ryan Drink Coffee, Nick Schmidt,
• 0:56
  curated some excellent interviewees to help us launch
• 1:00
  Season 14. Yes, you heard that right,
• 1:04
  Season 14. I honestly don't believe it
• 1:07
  either. If you're watching this show on
• 1:10
  Apple, Spotify, or one of the other big podcasting sites,
• 1:14
  thank you. And know that you can see all of
• 1:17
  our SCA interviews on our YouTube channel at Roast West
• 1:20
  Coast Podcasts. That link is in the bio, and we
• 1:24
  dropped all of those shows at once.
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  If you're watching there on YouTube already, thank you so
• 1:29
  much. We are trying to grow that
• 1:31
  Channel. The link to our newsletter,
• 1:33
  Roast westcoast.com and to rostar.com and to the websites
• 1:37
  of our special show guests at SCA can be found in the notes.
• 1:41
  Wherever you're watching or listening to this episode, it's
• 1:45
  probably right there below. Thanks for clicking through
• 1:49
  those. It actually helps us know if
• 1:51
  people are listening and paying attention.
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  And now I hope that you, like me, have a Dang good cup of
• 1:58
  coffee at the ready, because it's time for another Coffee
• 2:02
  People podcast. OK, hi.
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  Hello, I'm Ryan. I'm Bridget.
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  Nice to meet you. Bridget, nice to meet you.
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  Would you mind telling our Coffee People audience welcome
• 2:39
  to the Coffee People podcast? That's part of my job now.
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  What's the name of your coffee company and where you're located
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  and what you do there? Yeah, we are a blue coffee
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  company. I myself, Bridget and my husband
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  Marco own the OR Guiyo and what we solely focus on.
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  Yes, right here we solely focus on Honduran coffee and we're
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  based out of Austin, TX. Awesome.
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  But you started in New York, right?
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  We did start in New York. I'm born and raised in Brooklyn.
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  I actually met my husband in New York while we're in college.
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  And yeah, we started in New York after the pandemic.
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  Well, I guess it was like 2022. So it's like the fake time after
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  the pandemic or kind of like that window of time, you know,
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  between shutdown and, like, reality or exactly.
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  Yeah, the new reality. Yeah.
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  And then within like a year, we were in Austin.
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  So we brought the company with us.
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  It started as a side hustle. We really love coffee.
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  Marco's mom would actually bring us Honduran coffee all the time
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  whenever she came to visit us. And that was my question was why
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  the focus on Honduran? Yeah, that and, and we've had a
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  lot of different coffees, but one thing that we found was we
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  weren't able to find Honduran focused coffee.
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  So it was very hard to find Honduran only coffees, whether
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  it was single origin or blends. We were able to find obviously
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  the other origins and other popular coffees.
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  But we're like, where can we find Honduran coffee in the US?
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  And that was like the start of our the problem we were trying
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  to fix, which was how can we bring Honduran coffee to
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  everyday coffee drinkers? So we're like, let's do
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  something about it and start our own company.
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  Sure. You said your husband's name is
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  Marco. Just want to make sure that we.
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  Hi Marco. Hi, Marco.
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  And if you wouldn't mind telling me one more time, how do I
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  pronounce the name of the company?
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  So the pronunciation is orguya. Orguya, yes.
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  All right, so double L makes that Y sound perfect.
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  That's. Usually you mentioned that your
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  mother-in-law is bringing Honduran coffee.
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  Marcos from is Honduras. You guys start this company and
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  I this is a question I ask a lot of people, a lot of small
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  businesses in particular. What made you think you could
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  work together? Because it sounds like you were
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  both doing your own. Thing yeah, it's funny because
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  like in the probably like after we moved in together, we would
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  talk about like, you know, Marcus always wants to be he's
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  always had the entrepreneur itch.
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  He's worked in the corporate world, but he, you know, always
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  wanted to look to see if there was something that he could do
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  where he can own his own business, be his own boss.
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  And we would talk about her friends and we would say like,
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  oh, we would never work together.
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  And now years later, we're working together.
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  And I think it just it actually happened during the pandemic.
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  We we actually both had to obviously work remote from home
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  together. And he saw how I worked.
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  I saw how he worked. We kind of were impressed by
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  each other a little bit kind of Ying and Ying.
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  We're very different. I think that's what helps.
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  We work very differently. And then we were just thinking
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  like, you know what, let's do this together.
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  Let's take your strengths. Let's take his strengths and put
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  them together to break this. That's kind of an interesting
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  comment you just made about impressed by each other.
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  Yeah, because you don't always see your partner at their
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  career, right? You don't realize like, oh,
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  they're they're freaking good at what they do.
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  Like, how do I tap into that at home sometimes?
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  Honduras is placing coffee. You mentioned you had trouble
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  finding Honduran coffee. Why do you think that is?
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  I think it has to do with like a combination of things.
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  I think it's just very underrated in the coffee world.
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  I think it's kind of like the the player that you know, is
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  really consistent, really good, but no one really thinks that
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  for some reason and actually gets mixed into a lot of
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  different blends and a lot of different coffees that we drink
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  every day. Like the one thing that we've
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  noticed is or that we tell customers is that you probably
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  have had Honduran coffee but didn't realize there was
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  Honduran coffee in that blend. Sometimes it's not called out or
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  sometimes it is, but you see like the other countries first.
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  So that was like something that, you know, sometimes we didn't
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  know why, but we're just like, let's see if what we can do to
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  help fix that. Sure.
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  I know that you guys are a relatively new company, but
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  you're roasting at a collective I believe or like a shared
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  space, yeah. What is that experience been
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  like and why is that a value to what you guys are doing?
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  It's been super helpful because as you can probably imagine,
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  equipment's really expensive so and.
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  I don't have to imagine, I can just walk around and look at the
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  numbers. That's true.
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  Yeah, exactly. Kind of all adds up.
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  And you know, what we've noticed is that we didn't know a lot
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  about coffee when we're coming into this and we were learning,
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  we were trying to figure out different things.
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  And then we found this collective when we came to
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  Austin and we noticed that, you know, they can train people,
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  They're not, they don't just do toll roasting, which is when you
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  can hire somebody to roast your coffee to the profile that you
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  want. But we're just kind of like, if
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  we really want to dig deep into like knowing the origin, knowing
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  the coffee itself, we got to be able to roast it as well.
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  So we kind of took that stuff to learn how to roast coffee and
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  the place of where the collective was offered training.
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  So we started on the Arc 800 doing 700 gram batches, which is
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  very small, if you think about the very small patches.
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  And then we graduated to the Mill City, which we do around 10
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  to 15 LB batches now. And then I wouldn't be surprised
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  and later this year if we had to graduate to a bigger machine
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  because we're starting to see that we're doing more batches of
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  the same property. So it's probably more efficient
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  for us to do a bigger machine, a bigger, bigger load.
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  So we're probably going to have to be trained on a bigger
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  machine eventually. But it's been really great to
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  like be in one place and be like, OK, we're not.
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  We don't need to use the little machine anymore.
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  We can use the medium size. And then when we're out for the
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  medium, there's a larger 1. So it it helps tremendously the
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  cost and it helps tremendously. Ask other roasters if they
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  happen to be there roasting as well or they're there doing
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  production like, hey, I noticed this.
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  What do you do in this situation?
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  Or they access questions. So it's been really great to
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  like work off of like, you know, if, if they had the same issues
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  that we've had or if we've had the same issues they've had.
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  So that it's been really great for that as well.
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  Sure not to call it Austin. I was just there the other day.
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  How do you survive driving? And I say that having lived in
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  New York. It's funny.
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  It's, it's so weird because like, I, even though I'm from
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  New York City, I drove a lot actually, when I was in
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  Brooklyn, I actually would have moved to Queens.
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  That's when I, I was just like, I don't need a car anymore
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  because like I was so close to the subway.
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  But I don't know, I think it's just like being quick on your
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  toes about, you know, when people are being, excuse my
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  language starts on the road. But yeah, like a lot of times,
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  like people just don't know how to drive.
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  It's ridiculous. I've.
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  Never been anywhere that felt so lawless on the road.
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  Oh yeah, things are flying out the trunks and it's crazy.
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  Yeah. Twice people were driving at me
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  on a one way road and I went wait, am I going the wrong way?
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  But I was going the right way. It's like a universal thing.
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  It's like every if there's no sign, it's a two way.
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  Yeah, it's a two way. Just move over for the car to
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  get through and then you get through.
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  Got it. I'll remember that on my way
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  back. You mentioned graduating
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  potentially later this year. What's the future hold for
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  Orguio? Yeah, did I?
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  Say that, right? Yeah, you got it.
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  Yeah, I think so. We're in a unique position where
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  it we started for you as like in New York and even when we moved
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  to Austin, it started with the side hustle and it's now
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  graduated to this full time gig like we're both now full time in
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  the business. I recently quit my corporate
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  job, I want to say last month, thank you to do this full time.
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  So it's been very exciting. And what we're trying to push
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  is, so right now we just do e-commerce, which is great.
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  And then we also do retail and wholesale.
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  We do a farmers market every Saturday.
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  Where our future holds is we're trying to double down and grow
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  more in the e-commerce space. We're trying to grow also in our
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  wholesale space. We started a coffee gifting
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  program for whether you do corporate events or if you do
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  weddings. We started doing that that as
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  another funnel, as another way to share Honduran coffee in a,
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  in a fun way, whether you're at a wedding or, you know,
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  corporate gifting or something like that.
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  But we're hoping to continue to grow and I'm hoping to continue
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  to to bring Honduran coffee to everyday coffee drinkers.
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  Very cool. I think, you know, you're right
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  in it in the growth period right now and the learning period,
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  it's all overwhelming. Yes.
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  Any advice for somebody thinking about making a leap from their
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  corporate job or starting a side hustle?
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  Anything that you could share that might help them a lot?
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  My advice is to ask, I guess, a couple of things related to each
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  other, is to really be curious and ask a lot of questions.
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  That's something that Marco's really good at.
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  He asks us a lot of questions and I've had to learn to ask
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  more questions. Narrow down your story, whether
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  it's coffee or if you're going to another industry, like you
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  know, find your reason why and try to like, you know, if you're
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  either you're solving a problem or you're trying to make
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  something better, really narrow that down because like your
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  niche is what's going to make you stand out.
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  As you can tell, we're at a coffee convention where there's
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  so many different coffees. Like the consumer has so much to
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  choose from, what makes your recipient for everyone else.
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  So like getting narrowing down that story and then I guess my
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  last piece of advice is just to go for it.
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  Like don't. You will never get to a point
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  where everything is perfect, everything aligns, everything.
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  Like you'll never get to that point.
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  Just just go for it and just just do it and see what requires
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  plan and then make adjustments from there.
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  My therapist has a term for that.
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  It's analysis paralysis. When you just, you're so focused
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  on getting all those details right that you actually don't
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  make the move. Yeah.
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  So you got to overcome that. How can people find you?
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  How can they support you? Where do they go?
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  Yeah, so you can go to erguiocoffee.com.
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  You can also go to our Instagram, our Facebook page at
• 12:43
  Erguio Coffee. Give us a follow a like, DM us
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  if you have any questions or if you have any thoughts on
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  Honduran coffee. I love talking to fellow coffee
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  drinkers and talking about Honduran coffee, whatever coffee
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  you like. But yeah, find us online and on
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  our website. Very cool, Bridget, thank you
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  for joining Coffee Bean. Thank you so much.
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  But since you're here, I'm hoping you can walk me through
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  this coffee bag roast our coffee bag.
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  Obviously I roast our Why does it look like this?
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  What can't? Where'd this design come from?
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  What's the thought process? So there's a lot of different
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  design elements that we want to include.
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  Number one, we wanted to have a design that included a lot of
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  the mountains that you see in Honduras, Honduras.
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  You ever go to Honduras or any Central or South American
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  country, there's a lot of mountains, and that's where a
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  lot of this coffee has grown. So we want to represent that in
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  the design itself. You can see it here.
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  One thing we did was a little nugget or Easter egg is this is
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  actually the Honduran flag that we want to incorporate.
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  And then we have the birds that are also very popular in
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  Honduras as well. We want to represent that.
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  And then one thing that we have on the back is these are the
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  houses, the little houses that you see in the small towns
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  especially where a lot of the coffee is grown, the community.
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  And then the MMM initials are actually represent Marco's great
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  grandfather, Mariano Mercadel. And he was actually a coffee
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  farmer, and we didn't know if he was a coffee farmer until we
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  started this. Project.
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  So that was like a very interesting Tibet.
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  But yeah, we wanted to also include the pronunciation of our
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  pronunciation because, as you know, it's not the most common
• 14:41
  word. So we have it twice.
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  We have it here as a way to show like how to pronounce raguyo.
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  We have it on the back as well. A little bit better story.
• 14:50
  We love calling out that we started in our Anthony State
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  apartment and this is where we are today just to kind of still
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  speak to those roots. And then we want to make sure,
• 15:00
  especially on our label as well included with the bag.
• 15:03
  That's why we have like a nice open space here is that we
• 15:06
  wanted to like just highlight like this is Honduran coffee.
• 15:09
  We walked past it and you know, we're getting Honduran coffee,
• 15:13
  so. Very cool.
• 15:14
  Well, thank you, Bridget. I appreciate the the walk
• 15:16
  through the bag. Thank.
• 15:17
  You. Sliding into your screen is not
• 15:45
  just any coffee bag, it's a roast.
• 15:48
  Our coffee bag. No need, thousands personalized,
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  just 25 in Rostar's design lab. No design experience needed.
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  Choose a pattern, add your logo and text, or create something
• 16:01
  memorable. With AI being made in the
• 16:03
  Midwest, you can expect it on your doorstep.
• 16:06
  No time. Now that was smooth.