Latest / Coffee People Podcast / Chuck Patton, Chuck's Roast and Patton Coffee Consultancy

Transcript

Chuck Patton, Chuck's Roast and Patton Coffee Consultancy · Coffee People Podcast

0:04
Hey everyone, I'm Ryan Wolt, the host of The Coffee People and
0:08
the Coffee Smarter podcasts. Thanks for checking in with us
0:11
here. These shows are presented to you
0:13
with help from Roast our coffee packaging.
0:15
They're a coffee packaging company that enables small
0:18
businesses to share their big stories and they just make cool
0:22
stuff. So if you're out there and
0:24
you're looking for a new tin can or a flat bottom gusseted bag,
0:27
which is a thing I know about now, a stand up pouch to fit
0:31
your coffee beans. I mean, you want a package that
0:34
matches the quality of what you're putting in them, right?
0:37
Check them out at rostar.com. You can bring your own design.
0:41
You can develop something new with the help of one of their
0:44
recommended designers. You can even create something
0:47
with the help of their AI powered design lab, which is on
0:51
rostar.com. You'll find that they're more
0:54
than a packaging company. They can be a partner that
0:57
enables you to tell your big stories the same way that
1:00
they've enabled us to share the stories of coffee people.
1:03
So check them out at rostar.com. Thanks for listening, and now
1:08
it's time for the show. Hey there everyone, welcome to
1:32
the Coffee People podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Wolt.
1:35
This show is presented by Rostar Coffee Packaging found online at
1:39
rostar.com. They've been a great source of
1:42
support, helping enable us to tell the stories of people in
1:46
the coffee industry and we really appreciate that.
1:49
You can also go to roastwestcoast.com to find
1:51
recaps of this show, our Coffee Smarter podcast, so much other
1:55
coffee content. And if you haven't poured
1:57
yourself a cup of coffee like I have, now is the time to get
2:01
started. Our guest today is Chuck Patton,
2:03
the founder and head roaster of Chuck's Roast.
2:06
He's also the human being behind Patent Coffee Consulting and was
2:09
the original founder of the iconic Bird Rock Coffee
2:12
Roasters. You can find him online at
2:14
chuckroastscoffee.com. Of course, those links will be
2:17
in all of our show notes wherever you're listening.
2:19
Mr. Patton, welcome to our podcast today.
2:22
Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
2:24
I should memorize all that. I've said it like 300 times, but
2:27
it just seems like a lot of work.
2:30
I mentioned that at the top there that you got started, or
2:34
at least I, I know of your start as Bird Rock Coffee, but I'm
2:38
wondering if before that even what got you into coffee in the
2:41
1st place. You know, was there a moment or
2:43
memory that you thought, Man, this is interesting.
2:45
Yeah, You know, I, I was thinking about that and then I
2:49
guess my earliest memory of coffee.
2:52
I grew up here in San Diego, actually very close to where we
2:55
live now in Bird Rock. And I think my, my earliest
2:59
memory of coffee, my, my parents would entertain quite a bit,
3:04
have friends over all the time. And every time they had company,
3:09
I would go with my mom and we'd go over to a place called The
3:11
Panic and which was really known as one of the first coffee
3:14
houses, not just in Southern California, but definitely in
3:17
San Diego and kind of an iconic place.
3:20
But across the street from the Panic.
3:21
And they had a store, they would sell coffee equipment and of
3:28
course, roasted coffee and bulk tea that kind of, and I can, I
3:34
will never forget the smell of walking into that, that, that
3:37
powerful roasted coffee smell when you go into a store that
3:40
has bins of roasted coffee. And my mom would buy some coffee
3:44
there and then go home and after dinner, she would brew that
3:47
coffee in a, in a Chemex. And this is probably, you know,
3:49
mid 70s, late late 70s. And I can distinctly remember I,
3:52
I didn't, it was too young to drink the coffee, but I just
3:54
remembered loving the smell. She would grind it up on one of
3:57
those little home grinders at the time.
3:59
They were kind of like a, it was kind of like a spice meal
4:01
basically. But it was the smell and just
4:04
watching the process and the ritual that always, always
4:06
fascinated me, especially because what they drank was U
4:10
ban in a can with a Mr. Coffee, you know, seven days a week.
4:15
And so this was kind of a special event.
4:18
And, and certainly the smell was nothing.
4:22
You know, the smell of that fresh, fresh roasted coffee was
4:25
nothing like the smell of EU band.
4:27
And so I guess that would be my first real kind of memory of
4:30
coffee and how special coffee can be and how and how people
4:33
use coffee and, and the ritual of coffee and it, and it comes
4:36
all wrapped up into that, that event.
4:40
And then kind of got into to to drinking coffee.
4:44
And as I got older, of course, in, in high school, it was more
4:48
about getting the buzz, the caffeine buzz.
4:51
And, you know, having that before, you know, going to
4:54
school, meeting some friends for breakfast or something and
4:56
seeing how much coffee we could drink and, and, you know,
4:58
getting the shakes during that first period class.
5:01
And then I think probably I was kind of starting to get into
5:06
coffee in in college. And certainly right after
5:11
college, my wife and I moved to Japan for a year and I was
5:15
seeing things in in Japan that I hadn't hadn't seen here.
5:17
Their coffee culture was was far different than at least what was
5:21
going on in San Diego at the time.
5:22
And this must have been mid 90s ninety 3.
5:26
And a lot of the cafes are used as the siphon or the vacuum
5:30
brewing. And they were all into brewing
5:33
by the cup. And I thought that was
5:34
fascinating and the, and the flavor, you know, blew, blew me
5:38
away a lot of the times there. And then when we moved back, we
5:40
actually ended up in San Francisco and that had a little
5:43
bit more of a coffee culture going on than than Southern
5:46
California at the time. So many of the so many of the
5:50
sorry, I was going to say, so many of the stories I hear from
5:53
people, their first coffee memories involve a grandmother
5:56
usually. And I think that's such an
5:59
interesting way to connect. I have these tin enamel coffee
6:04
mugs that my grandmother had in her house and I still have the
6:08
cast iron grinder that was mounted on the wall of the
6:11
kitchen at the farm. That's awesome.
6:14
I've used it, it doesn't work well.
6:17
That was in central Wisconsin. That that grinder is kind of
6:22
like taking 2 cast iron pans and just smashing them together.
6:26
There's not much delicate balance there.
6:29
Well, I think that's all that, that's how powerful coffee is.
6:31
I mean, we, we, we kind of take it for granted.
6:34
But there are also many moments over coffee or the, OR like I
6:38
said earlier, the ritual of coffee that you're exposed to as
6:40
a, as a, as a young kid that just stay with you or can stay
6:43
with you and have that power to, to, to make you think about
6:48
coffee as something different from just a commodity and
6:51
something different from a way just to make it through work or
6:54
make it to school. So you come back from Japan.
6:58
Japan's coffee culture is always seemingly a step or two ahead.
7:01
With everyone else. And like I said, I had, I had
7:04
never seen anyone even attempt to do coffee by the cup before.
7:07
And that's kind of was an interesting concept.
7:09
And then it was San Francisco and I was more, you know, San
7:12
Francisco had some independent cafes, but it was certainly
7:15
wasn't 3rd wave coffee level. When we moved back down to San
7:21
Diego, then it was kind of starting to get into the
7:25
espresso thing, getting an espresso maker, getting an
7:27
espresso. And then and about 9097 or or
7:33
98, my wife got me a home roaster.
7:35
And that's really when I started to, to experiment with, you
7:39
know, obviously roasting, but really appreciating the
7:43
differences between the different origins and, and
7:46
varietals. I mean, before that it was, it
7:48
was either Starbucks or Pete's. And, and even though those two
7:52
companies would sell a Sumatran coffee or Colombian coffee based
7:55
on their, their level of roast, it was often not a huge
8:00
difference between between their, their, their so.
8:05
So that was pretty cool. I'm going to getting all the
8:07
beans from I got all the beans from Sweet Maria's.
8:09
And, and yeah, that was really the start of it.
8:12
I was still teaching at the time, but that was.
8:15
I was going to ask that you you must have had another career.
8:19
You're you're teaching. What made you decide that you
8:22
wanted to take the step from hobbyist to I think I could make
8:26
some money doing this, and then I actually want to do this every
8:29
day? I was, I was an adjunct at
8:34
Grossmont College, City College, National University.
8:38
I think I was also doing a gig at an ESL school at the time.
8:45
So, I mean, part of it was, it was, it was a profession and I,
8:48
I worked more than full time, but I, I didn't have a tenure
8:51
track job. And so, and it's kind of known
8:57
as a freeway flyer. I would drive out to Grossmont
8:59
in the morning and then downtown in the afternoon and National
9:02
City in the evening. And that was just a grind.
9:05
And, and I was kind of really enjoying the coffee thing.
9:08
And then what I started to do, I started to do both at the same
9:11
time. The La Jolla farmers market I
9:15
got, I got a booth in the La Jolla's farmers market.
9:17
So I would roast, you know, maybe Thursday or Friday night
9:21
out of my garage and then I would sell that coffee on Sunday
9:24
morning at at the LOI Farmers Market while still teaching full
9:27
time Monday through Friday. Sure, you had a side hustle
9:30
before the rest of us. Yeah, I think, you know, that
9:35
was that was good. And then as that started to get
9:39
a little bit more popular, you know, my wife had a really
9:43
stable job at the time. And, and she was, we had good
9:47
insurance. And so I was able to kind of
9:49
make that leap because you can't, you can only do that side
9:52
hustle for so long and then you have to either forget about it
9:55
or, or, or go for it. And so luckily I was afforded
10:00
the opportunity to go for it. And then we evolved into having
10:05
the Cafe in in Bird Rock and then rest of history, I guess,
10:10
and. I don't want to spend this whole
10:12
show talking about bird rock. I think we usually could.
10:14
There was a lot of history there and I look, I kind of think of
10:18
Bird Rock as, as I'm looking around San Diego's coffee scene
10:22
now, it's like the coaching tree in football.
10:26
So many people that have their own coffee shops or their own
10:28
roasteries now got their start there or learned there or, you
10:32
know, and, and moved on. And that's a legacy that, you
10:34
know, just continues to expand and expand.
10:38
I'd also like to take a moment to toast to your wife and to my
10:41
wife who also has good insurance and enables me to do what I am
10:45
doing, at least right now. You, how long were you?
10:50
Was Bird Rock running as a roaster under you and your and
10:54
your family? Well, I found it in 2002 and at
10:59
the time, you know, I didn't really have a location.
11:02
Like I said early on, I was just roasting out of my garage and
11:04
then that was technically illegal.
11:08
I had, you had to use a commissary to do any food prep.
11:11
And so the, the VFW, there's a VFW on turquoise and they
11:15
allowed me to roast in there once they started to, to get a
11:18
little more volume. And then I think I'm going to
11:23
say around 2003 or 4, I actually purchased a, a company called
11:30
Destinations and we did it with a home equity line of credit.
11:32
And it was a guy who was operating in La Jolla.
11:35
And it was just a wholesale business that he had out in
11:38
Miramar. And around that time, I, I
11:41
needed to buy a bigger roaster. I think I was using a Dietrich
11:43
IR 3 and operating out of a kiosk on Turquoise.
11:47
But I really needed to, to step it up because I was starting to
11:50
get some wholesale accounts. And so I bought, we bought his
11:54
company and his book of sales and the roaster and that was out
11:57
in Miramar. And then we moved everything in
11:59
in 2006 to the Bird Rock location.
12:03
And then we opened the roasting facility on Linda Rosa, I think
12:07
in around 2014 or 15. And then the shortly after that,
12:12
the Little Italy location. And then we sold in 2016, so
12:15
2002 to 2016. That coincides with my arrival
12:20
here ever. I mean, the news that you were
12:22
selling was big news to the people that, you know, I was in
12:25
hospitality and I'd met a few people and I lived in that area
12:30
just South of of Bird Rock Coffee's original location
12:33
there, that Cafe location. And so it was certainly
12:36
something people were talking about.
12:38
And it, it was kind of a precursor to a bunch of brewery
12:41
sales that were about to happen in in our marketplace.
12:45
What was the impetus? You're running a business from
12:48
the outside. People are going, oh, this is
12:50
cool. And it must be a lot of fun and
12:52
doing this. What?
12:53
Why sell? You ended up selling to Jeff
12:55
Taylor of P TS Coffee. Right.
12:58
Yeah, I think we, we just, we, that's a difficult question to
13:03
answer and I'm trying to figure out a good way to answer this.
13:06
I think. I think really in a nutshell, we
13:08
never figured out how to run the company, how the company would
13:11
run without us. And so I think some owners are
13:16
really good at, at say pros and cons to it, but some owners are
13:21
really good at, at being able to step back and saying, Hey, this
13:23
is your manager's responsibility.
13:25
You know, you deal with it. I'm, I'm going on vacation for,
13:27
for two weeks or whatever. And we were never able to really
13:30
figure out how to do that. So it was really a seven day
13:32
week operation. And when you get up to about 50
13:36
employees in multiple locations, you're pretty much dealing with
13:39
something every couple weeks, either an employee issue or
13:43
you're dealing with equipment issue or a customer issue,
13:47
obviously. And it just begins to wear on
13:49
you after a while. And, and it was basically, we
13:54
were just overworked and starting to get a bit burnt out.
13:59
And then, so I think there was actually one Sunday in
14:04
particular. I was, we, we decided to not
14:07
work on a Sunday. It was, you know, crazy, right?
14:10
So when we decided to take our bikes and, and go around the Bay
14:13
and I remember we were halfway around the Bay and I get a call
14:15
from Bird Rock saying the some plumbing issue that they
14:18
couldn't figure out what the problem was because I put the
14:20
plumbing issue in. So I knew exactly what the
14:22
problem was. So of course I had to turn the
14:23
bike around and ride up there and on the way.
14:26
I'm just saying this isn't really a quality of, I mean, the
14:29
quality of life that we're living isn't really what we
14:31
should be enjoying. So it was really about that.
14:34
It was really about if I maybe in hindsight, if we had figured
14:38
out a better way to take time to step back and and do some, you
14:43
know, self-care or more vacations or recharge, so to
14:48
speak, we maybe would still own the company, but we didn't.
14:52
Now, now that can be thought of as kind of a negative, but the
14:56
positive was, I mean, I visited every location every day and I
15:02
was constantly involved in the quality control and I was
15:04
constantly involved. Obviously Heather and Tony were,
15:07
were our roasters and, and then Nick and Heather and, but I was,
15:12
still had a hand in the roasting.
15:14
And so I was still intimately involved in the business.
15:18
And I think that the plus side of that is as far as a quality
15:20
and from a, from a customer's perspective, I mean, there was,
15:24
I think very rarely a quality issue on the customer's part.
15:28
And that was primarily because I was so involved as an owner and
15:31
making sure the place was clean and, and making sure, you know,
15:34
helping out when I needed to help out.
15:35
So all was kind of available. So that's kind of the flip side
15:37
of of being kind of a more of a hands on owner.
15:41
Yeah, I mean, nobody will ever see it the way that you see it.
15:43
It's yours, you know, it's I always tried to to treat places
15:48
I worked at like that. But even then there's a step
15:51
between me and whoever was the owner or whoever was the thing,
15:54
because I could only see so much because I didn't have maybe all
15:58
the context of every location or whatever it might be.
16:02
Well, plus you want your employees to to understand that
16:05
the owner is invested and involved and, and, and there I
16:09
never wanted to give the idea that the employees were working
16:12
for a manager. Sure.
16:14
I mean, obviously there was a manager in charge or shift lead
16:16
in in charge. But everyone I think needs to
16:19
understand that, OK, the owner has a vested interest in this.
16:22
The owner's actually coming into work.
16:24
The owner's, yeah, actually willing with some stuff.
16:28
So I think that's important. I I think mostly.
16:31
Came from Martin Dietrich. I, I, I got to give Martin all
16:35
the credit in the world of that before we opened, I went up and,
16:38
and sat with, and for those of you who don't know, Martin
16:40
Dietrich was, was part of the Dietrich coffee brand that was
16:45
pretty ubiquitous in Southern California.
16:47
And of course, Dietrich Roasters is, is the same family.
16:52
And he just gave me that piece of advice.
16:54
He said you never want to expand to the point where you can't
16:56
visit every location every day. And that was how he designed Key
17:00
and Coffee, which is what his his company is now.
17:03
And I, I kind of took that to heart and it made a lot of sense
17:06
to me. I never wanted anyone to think
17:09
that I wouldn't do what I was asking them to do, and I think
17:13
most of my employees always just felt bad for me, and so they
17:15
would have to step up to do more because they saw how tired I was
17:18
all the time. So you sell and all of a sudden
17:22
you have this kind of clean slate, you know, what are you
17:26
doing with yourself? You know, and now it's been how
17:29
many years you've decided to come back.
17:31
How did that all transpire? Yeah.
17:34
Well, I, I wasn't exact. Well, you know, I worked for for
17:37
Jeff as a coffee buyer and kind of helped make that transition
17:40
for our growing partners for about a year or so.
17:45
And then I went back to teaching at USD.
17:50
In this case, I taught for about a year at USD and I think I
17:55
didn't want anything to do with coffee for a while.
18:00
But as I was teaching, and I also was teaching at an ESL
18:04
school and then up at Nam, which is the National Association of
18:07
Music Merchants. They have a headquarters up in
18:10
Carlsbad and I was working with their museum up there.
18:14
But kind of gradually I kind of got back into, you know,
18:18
thinking about coffee and if I was going to get back into
18:20
coffee and how, how would I do it and how, what would I not do
18:23
and what would I do better? And, and really what it came
18:27
down to in a, in a nutshell, was trying to set something up that
18:30
was more education based and high, you know, super high on
18:35
quality coffee. On the education part.
18:38
I, I, I love my, my part of my favorite things about, about
18:43
having Bird Rock coffee was educating the customers about
18:47
either how coffee is bought and sold.
18:48
And I did a weekly free cupping every Friday in Bird Rock for
18:53
well over 10 years. And that wasn't just an awesome
18:56
opportunity for me to explain, you know, what exactly is coffee
19:00
buying and how do people do it? And I want to continue to do
19:03
that. And then the the act of teaching
19:05
people how to roast and then also helping other people coming
19:09
up in in the coffee business as far as kind of giving them some
19:14
advice or counsel about how to start a coffee business and
19:18
maybe some things they should avoid and some things they
19:20
should do should should do as they're as they're figuring
19:23
stuff out. So how can I kind of put all
19:25
this stuff together? Then during COVID, I bought AI
19:28
guess small decent from a company in Cape Town that wasn't
19:31
using it. And it sat in our garage for
19:33
about two years in a crate to, to Elkie my wife's dismay,
19:37
because it was taking up a lot of space.
19:39
But then I was kind of throwing these ideas around, kind of
19:44
conceptualizing what was going to happen.
19:45
And then it came down to, OK, where am I going to put it?
19:49
And it doesn't really it it well, I was thinking at least at
19:53
first, didn't really pencil to rent my own space because I
19:57
didn't know how it was going to go.
19:58
And it was I knew it was going to be super small scale.
20:00
And then Chris from Coffee Cycle was opening up the OB space and
20:05
offered a little. Kind of corner in his face to
20:08
sublease. And that was really a perfect
20:09
opportunity for me to to pull the trigger and and see what's
20:12
going to go, see how this is going to go.
20:14
So that's that's where I am now. Well, and it's a little bit full
20:17
circle because I think Chris worked for you for like 7 years
20:19
at at Bird Rock before going off on his own to do coffee cycle.
20:25
And then I worked for Chris for a year when he opened his cafe.
20:28
So there's this kind of weird connection here.
20:32
One of the things with Chuck's roast.
20:35
Obviously you, you went, you know, on the nose.
20:38
It's my coffee. I'm roasting it.
20:40
Let's call it Chuck's roast. That was a bit.
20:44
Of a problem because yeah, I mean, part of it is marketing
20:47
marks off and my expertise and the ability to source coffee and
20:49
roast coffee. But like, you know, it's funny,
20:53
when I was trying to think of of a name for the company, all the
20:55
cool names are now taken. It's totally different than it
20:57
was 20 years ago. And I was asking, you know, I
21:00
have, I know a couple great and a tube amp maker in town.
21:04
And I was saying, Hey, can you, are there any cool names of old
21:06
amps or, or vacuum tubes I can use?
21:09
And, and the ones he presented me were actually already taken
21:11
by other coffee companies and, you know, guitar maker kind of
21:14
the same thing. And so it came down to Chuck's
21:16
roast. And it came really from a joke
21:18
with my friends trying to come up with a name and ground Chuck
21:22
what might have was in the running for a while.
21:25
And the great thing about Chuck roast is or chuck's roast is not
21:29
the great thing. But the thing I didn't really
21:31
think about it is how hard it is to now do a search for for
21:33
chuck's roast and you get a bunch of Chuck roast recipes.
21:36
You know, it doesn't actually. Yeah.
21:38
So I didn't really think that probably threw them all the way.
21:40
But yes, that's, that's what I'm stuck with now.
21:42
It's Chuck's roast. But overtime, overtime it'll
21:45
grow. I want it.
21:47
I want to, I, I wrote this down. I just want to make sure that I
21:52
get it right. One of the things that I thought
21:54
was really interesting about what you're doing now is you
21:57
kind of you're, you acknowledge you're kind of looking beyond
22:02
just the baseline of specialty coffee.
22:04
I think, you know, it's specialty coffee, what we
22:08
describe as it or the quality level of it, say 83 plus points
22:12
if you care about that sort of thing.
22:14
It's pretty ubiquitous. You can go to almost any town in
22:17
America and get a, a pretty damn good cup of coffee.
22:19
Excuse my language. What I've noticed with some of
22:23
the offerings that you've been putting out and some of the the
22:25
way you've been presenting it is something special and unique.
22:28
How do you go about sourcing something that's the next thing
22:31
beyond what people have been drinking now for, say, 10 years?
22:36
Well, that opens up a lot of questions as far as how much of
22:38
that is out there. And, and there's been this kind
22:41
of side discussion that specialty coffee's over and
22:44
there's no more real good coffee.
22:45
And, and I think there is an you could make an argument that a
22:50
lot of the the top people aren't really selling exceptional
22:55
coffee, they're just selling good coffee.
22:57
So it's definitely not easy. And this is, this is one of the
23:03
things that's going to be difficult obviously going
23:05
forward is because a lot of times that I may only offer one
23:08
or two copies on my offering sheet.
23:11
And I'm, I think what I would like to do is just offer copies
23:18
that, well, I mean, I said on the site just copies that I
23:23
like. And that kind of eliminates a
23:25
lot, a lot of coffees out there. Not not, or I really like, I
23:29
guess I should say. And so to go about sourcing
23:32
those coffees, you know, it takes a lot of, a lot of work, a
23:36
lot of good examples in and not really worried about the price
23:41
of the coffee. And, and hopefully the consumers
23:43
that are going to buy coffee from me aren't so much worried
23:46
about that because a lot of them are going to be on the spend
23:48
your side. But for now, it's kind of
23:52
leveraging a lot of the contacts we had in at Bird Rock as far as
23:56
the brokers and the importers and going through some of their
24:01
offering sheets. Of course, you know, a cup of
24:03
excellence. Looking forward to doing that
24:05
this year. I'm not going to be doing as
24:06
many sourcing trips as I did and it doesn't really pencil with a
24:10
small scale that I'm doing. But I probably will go to at
24:13
least Panama this year, probably March and and maybe one other
24:19
Central American country. Not to get too personal and you
24:22
can tell me, you know, I'm not answering that you're on your
24:25
own. Does the does the, the finances
24:30
of this whole operation, How important is that over the, the
24:34
coffee, getting these coffees out to people?
24:36
And because when I think about, say, if I were talking to
24:40
somebody who was looking to start a coffee company and they,
24:44
you know, when we talk about coffee companies serving just
24:46
good coffee, maybe not great coffee, part of that is because
24:50
there's a mass audience there. There's a level you have to get
24:53
at. So you're making enough money to
24:54
stay in business, right? Is that something you're
24:57
factoring in here or is this more about, no, this is
25:00
important to me That'll come. I want this type of coffee to be
25:03
in the marketplace. Well, I think that'll come.
25:06
I, I do, I do think, and, and I can't, like I, I don't, I think
25:10
it's a mistake for a lot of younger coffee retailers, unless
25:14
you have a retail location to offer a wide range of coffee #1
25:19
So if I look at, at someone's like, let's just, if you're
25:22
imagining, OK, who the hip people are in the country that
25:25
are considered, you know, the best coffee people.
25:27
And a lot of them have 10 or 15 options on that.
25:31
And I think if you eliminate the eight of those, you're probably
25:38
going to be left with a couple really exceptional coffees.
25:40
And, and that's really what I'm, I'm, I'm going for as far as the
25:45
finances, you know, I would be first to say that this, we're, I
25:51
mean, this is the fourth month that Chuck's roast has actually
25:54
officially been in business. And, and if we were renting a
25:58
place, it would not be sustainable at this point.
26:00
There's, there's no way. And you know, I, I, I owe Chris,
26:05
you know, a lot of that. It's just subleasing space and
26:07
not having utilities and a lot of the extra costs that are
26:11
associated with renting a space allows me to kind of get to the
26:17
point where maybe the, the brand is known and the, and the
26:21
coffees are becoming known before I get to that next phase.
26:25
Now, obviously they'll come a day when Chris needs the space
26:30
that I'm in, you know, as they're, as they're growing that
26:32
roasting operation and or they're going to have to roast
26:34
every day. And right now it's working out
26:36
really well because they aren't roasting every day and I'm
26:38
roasting on the days that they aren't roasting.
26:41
So I know that there's an end point when he's going to say,
26:44
Chuck, it's time for you to move on.
26:46
And I'm hoping by that point that I have.
26:49
And it's basically this whole situation has given me time to
26:51
kind of see if I can get to that point where I'm just offering a
26:56
small, small handful of coffees. Is that going to be sustainable?
26:59
Does, is this going to be penciling?
27:01
And I, I'd like the direction we're going.
27:03
I, I certainly like some of the successes I've seen so far.
27:06
But yeah, we'll see. We'll see.
27:10
You know, as somebody who drinks a lot of coffee from a lot of
27:12
different places, in part because of my work and in part
27:15
because of what I, I just enjoy going to new places.
27:19
I, I think you, you do have a, you hit the nail on the head
27:24
saying there's only so many excellent coffees being offered,
27:28
in part because I can count, as you know, it's the beginning of
27:30
2025 and I've been reflecting a little bit on 2024.
27:34
I think on one hand, I can count the number of coffees I drank
27:38
last year that when we stop and go, oh, that's exciting.
27:44
So when you're out there, you know, looking for those coffees
27:47
or when you're sourcing and, and trying to do that, you know,
27:52
what else is coming into play there?
27:54
I ask a little bit because I'm thinking about sustainability
27:57
and about our changing coffee culture and climate.
28:00
Are you able to find those excellent, excellent coffees?
28:03
And then also meet all the other factors or other criteria that
28:07
you might have personally putting into it.
28:11
Well, you know, that's a good, that's a good question.
28:14
And again, well kind of take a part of a couple things that you
28:20
said as far as thinking back on having a couple coffees in 2024
28:23
that you really made you stop and that would be the goal of my
28:27
entire offering sheet. So any coffee that someone gets
28:32
from Chuck's roast would have that effect on something.
28:36
Now, the, the flip side of that is everybody has different
28:39
tastes and different appreciation for a different
28:43
appreciation of coffee. And so sometimes when I'm
28:45
sourcing coffee, I'm, I'm definitely thinking of it from
28:48
from my perspective. So I chose to kick this company
28:54
off with that Yemen coffee because Yemen coffee had a huge
28:59
impact on me when I was good starting my coffee journey as
29:02
far as the wildness of it. Now, not everyone digs your mini
29:08
coffee because it is super particular and super
29:11
interesting. But so that was really coming
29:14
from my head and Myspace, Hey, I want to do this.
29:18
This is important to me. Maybe someone else will dig it.
29:22
Now I have a, a couple canyons which I, I'm selling now that I,
29:25
I know right when I tasted them. OK, this is people are going to
29:29
dig this. So I'm going to by these coffees
29:32
now with I have a Colombian coffee that's incoming.
29:36
And again, it was a very personal move.
29:38
It's a it's a it's a solid, great cup.
29:42
But again, it's coming from a place that OK, this cup reminds
29:46
me of of of sourcing in Colombia.
29:49
And this is what I always liked about Colombian coffees as
29:51
wrapped up in this cup. Now again, it's going to be kind
29:54
of like the Yemen will will other people get that same vibe?
29:57
But I'm really sourcing coffee from kind of a personal
30:00
perspective a lot of the time. And now when it comes to
30:03
sustainability and, and climate issues, if I'm not actually
30:09
doing the sourcing on my own, obviously I'm dependent on, OK,
30:12
who's bringing this coffee in. And, and the people I'm using
30:16
have that same ethos like Cafe imports.
30:18
I, I use for that, for that Yemen.
30:21
And, and of course they have a long history of, of being
30:23
sustainable and, and doing things at the farm level.
30:27
Of course, I've used your red fox and, and Aleko, you know,
30:32
also I, I trust what they're doing and know that they do good
30:35
work as well. So I'm kind of reliant on on
30:38
those people. I don't know if you can see it,
30:40
but I I don't think you can. But I actually have a red fox
30:43
burlap sack behind me behind this little stand here kind of
30:47
blocking the view of the closet behind me.
30:51
I saw a a article about your new venture in Daily Coffee News
30:57
that referred to you as a legend.
30:59
When you look in the mirror, do you think yourself I am legend?
31:03
Chuck Patton going to work today?
31:04
Like how does that make you feel?
31:07
I try and remind my wife all the time when I get in trouble.
31:10
Hey, look, I'm a legend right there in front.
31:14
I'm allowed some some mistakes over now.
31:18
No, of course not. But yeah, that was a pretty
31:23
nice, nice compliment. But well, I mean, I do there is,
31:28
I mean, I, I guess a certain amount of ego involved.
31:31
I mean, I am proud of what we accomplished with, with Bird
31:33
Rock. I think we were able to do some
31:37
things that hadn't been done in San Diego and maybe some things
31:40
that had not been done by a lot of other roasters anywhere.
31:46
There were times and and I was reflecting last night, you know,
31:49
looking forward to this interview.
31:50
And I was kind of reflecting about there were definitely
31:53
times in, in when I was running Bird Rock when I knew for a fact
31:57
that we had the best say offering sheet than anyone else
32:01
in the country right now. Not, not all the time, of
32:03
course, but maybe there was a month and a year where I know
32:05
there was no way there there wasn't.
32:06
I don't care. Stump down, tell Jesse, any of
32:08
those guys. I know our coffee's better.
32:10
And so there was certain amount of ego and there was definitely
32:13
amount of pride in, in, in running that.
32:17
Now, like I said earlier, as far as, you know, calling the
32:20
company Chuck's roast, part of what I'm selling is, is the past
32:26
success and expertise going as far as legend.
32:31
You know, I don't know about that, but I, I do, I do have to
32:34
kind of rely on the fact that I've accomplished XY and Z and,
32:39
and that's kind of what I'm building on for this new
32:40
venture. Sure.
32:42
Well, not for nothing, somebody once told me that I was possibly
32:46
the best restaurant manager they ever had right before they fired
32:49
me. So you never really know if
32:51
you're up. You might be up one day and you
32:53
might be down the next. So you know, you just never
32:55
really know. You obviously have extensive
32:58
roasting experience and with you know, what you were doing at
33:01
home and then Bird Rock and now with your, with your new venture
33:04
where you're kind of exploring some really cool coffees.
33:09
If if a young roaster came to you and just asked, you know,
33:12
what would you, what advice would you give them?
33:14
Said, Hey, you know, if I could get any piece of advice from
33:16
you, what would you say? And I'm saying specifically like
33:19
someone who wants to be actively roasting the coffee.
33:22
Yeah, I would say don't use roasting software.
33:25
I, I think it's a mistake to learn and, and start out using
33:29
roasting software. And, and the reason I say that
33:32
is because I think what happens if you're learning how to roast
33:36
and you're using software at the same time, a cropster, for
33:38
example, or, or artisan or. I think what happens is you
33:43
become sucked into this graph and these.
33:47
And then at the same time you're listening to these experts in
33:50
the field. And there are some some great
33:53
people in the field talking a lot, but a lot of the message
33:56
that they that they are presenting young roasters is you
33:59
must be absolutely consistent. You have to stick with this
34:02
roast curve. If you wait more than 6 minutes
34:05
between your roast, then you know you're not going to have
34:08
the consistency. And I think that's bullshit.
34:10
I think, I think roasting the approach, especially early on,
34:14
more like cooking. And sure, you have a recipe
34:17
here, but you should be a little bit flexible with it and maybe
34:22
try some things out. And I think going down that
34:24
roast curve and the software kind of stifles creativity in a
34:28
lot of ways because you have this, you're looking at this
34:30
roast curb and say, Oh my God, I'm almost spent 8 minutes, 15
34:34
seconds in this drying phase. I, I got to hurry this up.
34:37
And you know, well, maybe not. Maybe the coffee's going to be
34:40
better this time if you just let it, let it go.
34:44
And I think a lot of times when I'm seeing younger roasters
34:49
roast, they're not even looking at the beans.
34:51
They're not smelling the beans. They're not taking the dryer out
34:54
at all sometimes during the roast.
34:56
And I think that's a huge mistake.
34:57
Now, once you learn how to roast in an analog fashion, when
35:02
you're looking at the beans, when you're experimenting more
35:06
than I think roasting software is, is very important.
35:08
And I think it can help you not only with consistency, but I
35:11
think it can help you identify maybe where you went wrong with
35:14
a particular post. But I do think it's a mistake to
35:17
go down this software and even this, this very rigid approach.
35:23
And you know, of course, it's science based.
35:25
And of course you have my our reactions and, and of course
35:29
you're dealing with moisture evaporation and you're dealing
35:31
with airflow and all that, of course.
35:34
But my point is, is that if you're not paying attention to
35:38
the actual beam, I think you're missing out on, on your
35:42
potential as a roaster. Now, we started when we were
35:46
roasting. We didn't use software from the
35:50
time we opened and even before the time we opened Birdrock all
35:53
the way until we got our Loring roaster in 2014.
35:56
So we got roaster of the year. We got all kinds of high scores
35:59
on coffee review without using any roasting software.
36:02
We we kept manual logs of rate of rise and you know, power
36:08
adjustments, but that was about it.
36:11
And so I don't subscribe to the belief that I think a lot of
36:15
young roasters are, are getting into where they have to have
36:18
roasting software, they have to have X percentage in, in, in
36:23
development or have to have X percentage of their roast in, in
36:26
drying. I think part of it is, is all
36:28
about experimentation. And, and even the other thing I
36:32
would tell a young roaster is even when you think you've
36:33
dialed in a profile, OK, stick with that profile for a month.
36:38
And if you still have the coffee, start over because maybe
36:42
maybe you've learned something in that month and, and maybe the
36:44
coffee's changed a little bit. And, and I just did this with
36:47
one of our copies. I did, I did.
36:49
I was doing a roasting class and I decided to use one a coffee
36:53
that I've had one of the, the Ethiopian 1.
36:56
And I decided to do 3 different with, with the student to do 3
36:59
different completely profiles on it.
37:01
And one of the profiles I'm going to switch to going forward
37:04
because it's actually better than the profile I've been using
37:06
for, for the last two months. And so I think there is also
37:08
that belief with, with young roasters that once they dial
37:11
something in, they can't change from it.
37:13
When in reality, like I said, it should be more of a get your
37:17
feeling, you know, get a feel for what the bean is doing.
37:20
Get it, get it loosen up a little bit, I guess is what I'm
37:23
trying to say. And I think the software and,
37:26
and again, a lot of the advice that they're getting is, is
37:28
don't be loose, you know, be rigid the exact and.
37:33
I think rigid is the word that I was was running through my head.
37:36
Rigidity, you know, it's a little bit of a get off my lawn
37:39
moment for me because I think we are have been teaching people,
37:45
younger people in particular, whether it's in careers or in
37:47
schools that this is the the path, this is the way you do
37:50
things here's resources to help you do them exactly this way,
37:54
but they never quite learn what to do if things go off the path
37:58
they. You know what?
37:59
What if the software? Goes down right like they did
38:02
and I, you know, thinking creatively or problem solving
38:04
are things that you know we've in our in our American kind of
38:10
ideal of getting things perfect or exact or excellence.
38:14
We've set a standard. This is what that is and this is
38:16
how you get there and all of a sudden if you start falling off
38:19
that path, I think those are the best things.
38:22
You know This is why my wife I do most of our cooking and she
38:25
hates it because whenever I make something she likes, she goes Oh
38:28
well, you can you make this again.
38:29
I'm like, well sure, but I got no idea how I got here.
38:32
Like it's. Yeah, but you're consistently.
38:34
Good, right? Consistently good you might have
38:36
might not have a consistent product you have consistently.
38:39
Yeah, I I mean, I know. It all the same, but it but it's
38:41
a consistently good product and that was I I remember getting a
38:44
complaint like that because we'd always change our espresso blend
38:47
because I was trying to be more seasonal and the customer said,
38:50
well, how are you going to maintain consistency when and
38:53
well, well, it's consistently good and and that's just like
38:56
how I approach roasting. I mean, it's, it's obviously
39:00
when you, when you nail a roast and especially if you get, let's
39:02
say, a coffee review score, you, you want them to be exactly, you
39:07
want people to experience exactly what the coffee review
39:11
scored on that coffee. So you follow that exact
39:13
profile. And that's a very specific
39:15
event. But, but yeah, you're, you're,
39:17
you're absolutely right. And that's kind of how I'm
39:20
trying to teach roasting. Is, is with that in mind, OK,
39:23
It's going to be analog. You're going to look at the
39:24
bean, you're going to smell the bean.
39:25
What are the differences between that?
39:27
Because I want people to roast with confidence and the ability
39:32
that they can do it without using any software.
39:36
And, and when you remove that software pod, then part of it,
39:39
then they kind of get more creative and then they're
39:41
looser. And I think the coffee will
39:42
benefit from it in the long run. I have no plans of ever being a
39:46
roaster myself, but I'm feeling very inspired right now.
39:48
Chuck. What comes next for Chuck's
39:52
roast? For next for you as a
39:53
consultant? You know what?
39:54
Do you see the the future path being for you?
39:58
Well, I think like I said, you're getting building the
40:01
brand, making it a sustainable brand.
40:05
And like I said, I mean, there will come a day that Chris will
40:10
say, hey, but I'm trying to move out.
40:12
And so I was kind of thinking about that.
40:15
But I really would like to do is have the training be a bigger
40:20
part of the business and to have a space where I can do that on a
40:23
more regular basis. And what I'm, what I'm kind of
40:26
toying with is to have a space that I could offer a little bit
40:30
of retail in the morning. I never want to get back in the
40:33
espresso game, but I in in theory it would be with, have
40:36
you heard of the ground control units?
40:38
You know those Brewers? So we posted their, one of their
40:42
first prototypes at, at Little Italy.
40:43
And so we worked with those guys before that came to market.
40:47
And I was always fascinated with it and I thought it was a such a
40:50
great tool. And I think I really believe the
40:53
way Eli and that and that group have designed it that you can
40:57
run, you can run a, a coffee retail location without an
41:02
espresso machine and just use that.
41:05
And that's what I want to do. If, if, if, if I ever found a
41:08
really small location to have a little bit of retail, but just
41:11
use the ground control. So just offering brewed coffee.
41:14
And it also brews a concentrate. And so you can't, you have a
41:17
little bit more flexibility, flexibility there than than say
41:20
a Curtis Brewer. And to offer really perfectly
41:23
brewed coffee and as a way to sell coffee beans, you know, in
41:27
the morning and then run some classes and and consulting in
41:29
the afternoon, that would be that would be ideal.
41:33
So yeah, I guess that would be the long range plan of Chuck's
41:36
roast. I, I don't know if you got this
41:39
message I sent kind of late, but something new that we've been
41:41
doing on the show is just asking people about the things that are
41:44
important to them and if they have any sort of charitable or
41:46
nonprofit efforts that they care about or that they support.
41:49
And if so, we want to share it on the show.
41:52
You know, I, I haven't really thought about that, but I, I
41:55
have always had a soft spot for grounds for health And, and we
41:59
aren't, you know, to the point where we, we can do a lot of
42:02
charitable work right now or Chuck's Broast isn't, I can say
42:04
I'm not to the point, but that was a company or an organization
42:09
that we always love to support and, and hopefully we'll get to,
42:12
to support that again as we grow a little bit.
42:14
We'll definitely share that in our podcast show notes and
42:16
everywhere that the show comes out, when you're out exploring,
42:21
maybe not an origin trip, maybe you're just running up the coast
42:24
somewhere and you pop into a new place, what are you going to
42:26
order? I always just order, order
42:29
brewed coffee and, and I think you can tell a lot about us, the
42:33
place and, and how they present that to you and, and you get a
42:37
feel for how they're roasting or, or how their roaster is
42:41
roasting. I very rarely get an espresso or
42:45
curtato or, or strata. I, I always gravitate towards,
42:48
OK, how's the brewed coffee? And so that's 99% of the time
42:52
that's that's what I do. Did I miss anything today that
42:55
you wanted to share? No, I think, I think, I think, I
43:03
think we're good. I want to thank you so much for
43:04
giving the opportunity to come on here and and talk a little
43:06
bit. Hey, I'm the one talking to a
43:09
legend, Sir, and it's been a pleasure.
43:12
I appreciate you being here. To everyone else listening,
43:16
you'll find all the links that we chatted about in today's
43:18
episode, including the one to Chuck Chuck roastcoffee.com.
43:21
That's also the Instagram at Chuck Roast Coffee.
43:23
Yeah, and that that's kind of a mouthful Chuck's
43:25
roastcoffee.com, but it's actually, so we have a a
43:27
workaround of that as Chucks Dash roast.com that's a little
43:31
easier and it it links to that same.
43:33
We'll make sure people can find it.
43:34
It's in our show notes. It's in our newsletter.
43:37
This show is part of our Roast West Coast Coffee Network and
43:41
can be found on all the favorite podcast platforms, Apple and
43:44
Spotify. Just search for coffee people.
43:46
And shout out to our presenting sponsor, Rostar Incorporated.
43:48
We appreciate their efforts and they're a coffee packaging
43:52
company helping small businesses tell their big story.
43:55
That's all for today. Anything to anything to say?
43:59
No, I think, I think we're all good.
44:00
Thank you so much, Ryan all. Right.
44:01
We're all for listening to the stories of coffee people.
44:04
Tip your baristas and be sure to drink good coffee.
44:09
That's it. Yeah, You're welcome.
44:18
Just call in and say hello. You're more than welcome here.
44:22
Certainly appreciate that. I already hit the, the recording
44:25
thing and I, I saw your e-mail and I mean, we talked about so
44:30
much stuff last time. I didn't want to run out of
44:32
time, but you in addition to like making good coffee, you
44:36
teach people and I was hoping you.
44:41
Excuse me. That was the thing I was
44:43
thinking about after I talk to you because we were talking a
44:44
lot about feasibility of just offering a couple awesome
44:49
coffees rather than a line of 10 coffees.
44:51
And maybe those are awesome and it is maybe a A.
44:57
On the surface it may seem like a difficult thing to pencil out,
45:01
but the other part of this business is, is the education
45:04
part. And that's really what got me
45:06
kind of back into coffee was the hope, you know, to teach people
45:09
about coffee, to continue on with the, the coffee cuppings
45:13
that I did at Bird Rock Coffee, to do that again, to teach
45:16
people how to roast coffee. And then business consulting.
45:19
That's a big kind of a, a big part of the, of the business.
45:23
And Chuck's roast is really the, the coffee line.
45:26
But patent coffee consulting is, is the education part of it.
45:30
And that's really kind of what I wanted to say.
45:34
I guess how important that part is to me because I've been a
45:37
teacher for so long. I, I, I think this would be a
45:39
great opportunity to continue to teach and do it in a way that
45:43
would kind of help people grow as, as coffee people, either on
45:47
the roasting side or on the business side or as the employee
45:49
side, or even the hobbyists too. I mean, a lot of people who come
45:52
in to, to, to the cuppings are usually just people that want to
45:57
learn about coffee. They're just, they like coffee
45:59
and they want to learn more about it.
46:00
Whereas the, the coffee roasting classes are usually, maybe
46:03
sometimes it's, it's been a home roaster and other times it's
46:06
been someone who's just starting a coffee business.
46:10
And so that's a a great opportunity.
46:12
I saw a photo of a recent class that you were offering at the
46:17
shop there. I know you have, you've all this
46:20
experience and obviously you teach on the, you know, in your
46:23
other life, but do you get, did you get nervous kind of getting
46:26
back into it where you're telling people your coffee
46:29
information and going, Hey, I, I, I know this, I've done it,
46:33
but I'm doing it again for the first time.
46:35
That was a great question. I forgot, you know, because I
46:38
kind of had a stick because for from basically 2007 to 2016,
46:43
every Friday I would host cuppings for the general public
46:46
at, at at the original Bird Rock location.
46:48
And so I, I, I different coffees every week, but the same kind of
46:52
stick as far as how coffees are processed, how coffees are
46:55
grown. And I think it was one of the
46:57
first times I did a cupping after not doing it in, in public
47:01
for so many years. I forgot how to explain the wash
47:04
process and I was stumbling over and I had totally just like I
47:09
couldn't, I couldn't explain to the guests properly what washed
47:15
processed coffee is. And that's really the most basic
47:17
thing you should know if you're if you're going to do a coffee
47:20
cupping. So yeah, definitely had had some
47:23
stumbles early on and it, but it was just it then it's just kind
47:26
of like muscle memory. Once you get going it, it's
47:29
pretty easy again. Now I never taught people how
47:32
to, to roast coffee before. So that's a a brand new Lesson
47:36
plan. And what we're trying to do or
47:38
what I'm trying to do is not teach roasting on a home
47:41
roaster, but to do it on the Geeson.
47:43
So they actually have some experience roasting coffee on an
47:49
actual commercial roaster. And the customer for that then
47:53
just to clarify, maybe somebody who's already tried a little bit
47:56
of home roasting on a 1 LB roaster or something, you know,
47:59
small roaster they're looking to see, can I take the next step?
48:02
That's the person. Absolutely right.
48:04
And that's pretty much everyone who's taking the class before.
48:06
And I have one person who's been in the business for a while just
48:10
needs to refine kind of what they're doing.
48:13
And I gave him some tips over the phone and, and he's going to
48:15
come down and, and take a lesson and, and we're kind of work on
48:19
some refining with his style of roast.
48:21
But as far as approaching those roasting classes, as I was
48:26
talking about earlier, I don't think young roasters should rely
48:30
on software. And when I teach a roasting
48:33
class, it's all, it's all analog and they're, I'm having them
48:38
really write down temperature tracking and they're not relying
48:42
on the software basically at all until they do a couple rows.
48:45
And then I can kind of teach them how software works and how
48:47
software can help you with consistency and stuff.
48:49
But, but I do think it's crucial, as I was saying
48:51
earlier, when you're teaching someone or when someone's just
48:54
starting out to kind of do it the analog way at first.
48:57
So that means I. Have to ask about.
49:00
No that's OK, I have to ask then.
49:03
There was an article that I saw recently, this is over over the
49:07
pond, where a roaster developed an entire profile and roast
49:13
using only chat GPTAI prompts, didn't tell the anyone that's
49:20
where it came from and put it out as one of their own coffees
49:23
next to their other coffees. I bet it.
49:25
I bet it was great. What did you say?
49:29
What? What did you say?
49:30
They're saying that it's one of their most popular coffees at
49:34
this point, that they went through the process.
49:36
How? How do we move into this new
49:39
world where we can do that? Well, well, well, well, wait a
49:42
minute. Now a couple things now, now
49:44
chat GT is a little different because it's kind of going back
49:47
to, you know, that methodology of how people I'm sure it's
49:50
science based method. You know what happens the
49:52
chemical reactions when you should do it.
49:55
But my point is, is that what you actually said in the last in
49:58
the last and our last chat was the rigidity of how people are
50:02
supposed to roast down. And that's a great demonstration
50:05
of you can maybe do it a different way and still come up
50:07
with a different result. And you know, and be open and be
50:10
open to new things and, and mistakes even.
50:12
And that could lead to some, some great coffee.
50:15
So I'm sorry, what was the second part of your question?
50:17
No Ro, just curious about your your feeling about it.
50:20
You know you're talking about analog and writing things down
50:23
on a piece of paper that's. The idea?
50:26
Yeah, For our younger audience, paper is like this thing that
50:28
comes from like, trees that get cut up and mashed and then they
50:31
dry it and you can use charcoal to write on it.
50:33
It's cool. I'll look into it.
50:37
But I, you know, it's just a totally different, you know,
50:39
model. There's going to be a generation
50:41
a few years from now coming up that that's how they'll get
50:44
started. That's how.
50:44
They'll learn the basics. And so yeah, I, I do.
50:47
And, and I'll go back to the cooking analogy too.
50:49
I mean, you, you can, you have a recipe for anything you're going
50:52
to cook. And it's just about, I think
50:54
what we, what we're kind of losing is that feel is that kind
51:00
of sensory feel that just trusting your intuition and when
51:04
you, when you're kind of feeling, OK, I think I should
51:07
make an adjustment here. I mean, that's OK to do that.
51:09
It doesn't have to wait for a sign and a signal to tell you to
51:11
do it. Once you've roasted several
51:15
coffees, it's just like cooking a dish for a while.
51:18
You know, the, the temperature might be different.
51:21
So that's so whatever protein you're cooking might, you know,
51:25
work differently or might something might be different.
51:27
Just be open to that and go with it.
51:28
And what do you feel about it? Trying to get people to that
51:31
state where they're not, where they're kind of, I guess what it
51:34
is, is getting getting to the point where you're confident
51:36
enough to trust how you're feeling about a roast and not
51:40
depending on what something is telling you to do in a
51:42
particular time. Sure.
51:45
Anything else that we missed when we talked last time?
51:49
Well, I, I think the other one little thing I wanted to bring
51:51
up was, you know, as far as the coffees, I do have a couple of
51:55
coffees I'm kind of excited about right now.
51:57
We have a couple from Kenya, one called the Key Kenya Key, which
52:02
is the middle name, and then another one, Rune Ghetto.
52:04
And they're very, very different Kenyan coffees.
52:07
Coffee Review just gave the Key at 94 and that'll probably be be
52:12
published next week. But the Key is kind of real
52:15
peachy. It's one of my favorite canyons
52:17
of all time. It has it's just a little bit
52:19
more delicate than a traditional Canyon, but the Runghetto is
52:23
more of a traditional Canyon. It's really heavy bodied, dense,
52:26
thick black currant and and the key is more, you know, Peach
52:31
kind of tropical. So there it's kind of a nice
52:33
pairing. I'm kind of happy with those two
52:35
Kenya's that I'm offering right now.
52:36
We have a wonderful Columbia coming in next week that I'm
52:39
really excited about. And then later in the month we
52:42
have a or late, late, early next month we have a Washington
52:45
coffee. I watched Geisha from Peru
52:49
that's coming in that should be outstanding.
52:50
So those are the things I'm kind of excited about as far as our
52:53
offering sheet at. The moment we'll make sure that
52:55
we share those with everyone. I brewed a coffee in an
52:58
automated machine at the car dealership this morning, and I
53:01
bet every one of those is going to be a lot better than the one
53:05
that I dumped in the grass outside the car dealership did.
53:09
You buy a new car. I did not, no.
53:13
But I am deciding whether or not I'm going to spend a bunch of
53:16
money to do all the things that they want me to do in the
53:18
service department. So it's always fun.
53:22
Chuck well, thanks for popping back in.
53:24
I'm glad we were able to clarify that with people and make sure
53:28
that we send.