Latest / SOUND COFFEE / SC 01 // ORIGINS
Transcript
- 0:43Unknown: To sing to a dream
- 0:46that starts off your day
- 0:50with flavor supreme.
- 0:53Unknown: Grew up a pot
- 0:56and linger
- 0:57while.
- 1:08Unknown: Greetings, friends. Welcome to the inaugural edition of Sound Coffee.
- 1:13I'm Otis Bittmeyer and this is my Metaphysical
- 1:16Coffee Shop.
- 1:18What follows is a conversation between fundamentals and I
- 1:22that sets the stage for what's to come. Strap in, get comfy,
- 1:27maybe pour yourself some coffee,
- 1:29Enjoy.
- 1:30Let the party begin.
- 1:34Unknown: I will just say I'm really excited to be doing this.
- 1:38We are doing a podcast,
- 1:40Otis Bittmeyer
- 1:42and Fundamentals,
- 1:44and, we're doing a podcast.
- 1:46Maybe it's about coffee. I think it probably is because
- 1:50that's why we that's why we're connected.
- 1:53But it's not like what gave
- 1:56Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say that'll that'll be that'll be the end, but who knows where it'll go from here. The end. But, like, what may what gave me the idea that I wanna do a podcast with you had nothing to do with coffee. It's that every time
- 2:09I talk with you, it ends up
- 2:12I find it I always think, shit, man. We should be recording this.
- 2:17Unknown: Well, that's great. Now we are.
- 2:20Unknown: Yeah. Now we are. And now we are. Right?
- 2:22So for everyone's benefit, right, I think
- 2:26when we talked, we had this idea of a podcast, which
- 2:30I'll describe
- 2:32as,
- 2:33like, where you guys are right now
- 2:36is Otis Bittmeyer's coffee shop in cyberspace.
- 2:40Uh-huh.
- 2:41You probably heard some you probably heard some music that led into this
- 2:45that
- 2:46gave you some aesthetic
- 2:48about what it might look like,
- 2:52And maybe now sort of like a drone
- 2:56is,
- 2:58you know, peering
- 2:59up top and
- 3:01now listening in on you and I just having coffee,
- 3:052 buds,
- 3:07about to have a conversation,
- 3:10you know, about to spend some quality time together as friends.
- 3:14Unknown: There you go. Right?
- 3:17Unknown: I like it. Yeah. What do you think about that?
- 3:21Unknown: That's good. I mean, what more could a man want
- 3:24on a snowy Wednesday afternoon?
- 3:28Unknown: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look. I my dad
- 3:31is 80 years old. He's in great shape.
- 3:35And
- 3:36I can tell you right now, like, the highlight
- 3:38of his life almost every day
- 3:42is going to Starbucks with his friend, his, like, close friend
- 3:47that it's like
- 3:50you know? You know, most of the day, he's with kinda geezers
- 3:54talking about n p c shit that geezers talk about. Right? But when he's with his buds in the coffee shop, they get to you know, they almost go back in time
- 4:05and that you know, they they enjoy each other's company in a way
- 4:09that
- 4:10you don't when you're, whatever, having lunch
- 4:13with the wives and all that stuff. This is, like, good quality time. Right? Right. Yeah.
- 4:19Unknown: I grew up Starbucks.
- 4:22Yeah. Right. Right.
- 4:24Hopefully, we can do better than Starbucks.
- 4:27You know, I grew up
- 4:29with
- 4:30the
- 4:32little country restaurant a couple miles down the road that was the place that all the farmers
- 4:38would meet at, like, 6 in the morning, you know, for their cup of coffee before they go out
- 4:44and do their work for the day.
- 4:46And,
- 4:48I think that's a really, like
- 4:50I think that's important to have those spaces, especially for men. I don't know. I think men
- 4:58I'll speak from my experience as a man
- 5:01that
- 5:02connecting with other men has been a challenge, and I can't blame it all on the culture.
- 5:08But I do think that our culture doesn't really
- 5:13provide I mean,
- 5:15that experience, you know, that that seeing those men get together,
- 5:19those old men get together as a child every morning
- 5:23left an impression on me as something that I want more of, more time with other men who
- 5:29inspire me, who
- 5:31can mirror back to me what I want to be like as a man.
- 5:36So
- 5:37Unknown: I don't know. It's really interesting.
- 5:39I think it's interesting that
- 5:42I was I was gonna I think it's interesting that I think a lot of people look up to,
- 5:48they have a similar experience, but they look up to, say, their dads or men who did this at bars at night
- 5:54as opposed to at coffee shops in the morning.
- 5:57Right. And so I just think that's interest it's just interesting because I would say the same thing. Like, I just told you about my dad. Right? This is, like, the greatest part of his day. It's not going out and getting hammered.
- 6:09It's getting to spend quality time with his friends.
- 6:12Unknown: Right? Mhmm. Yeah.
- 6:15Which, I mean, you know, going to the bar with friends is fun or hanging out by the campfire, drinking with buddies is fun too, but
- 6:21I love the, you know, caffeine is a stimulant. It kind of gets
- 6:26gets
- 6:28your brain going, your body going.
- 6:30I love the thought of starting the day hanging out with people
- 6:34that inspire you to go out and get the shit done.
- 6:38You know, I think we're
- 6:40we're entering a time where productivity
- 6:43producing
- 6:45is coming back into Vogue. Maybe not Vogue in the mainstream media sense, but, like, in our circles,
- 6:53making things, providing value to the world
- 6:56is something that
- 6:57I'm
- 6:58I'm really spending a lot of time focusing on, and that's what I'm seeing in, like, the mesh to Dell and my the people that I hang out with.
- 7:06It's
- 7:08kind of
- 7:10maybe
- 7:11a a detox from that
- 7:14Fiat mentality where we're just trying to make money and whatever we can do to make
- 7:20an extra dollar,
- 7:21we're moving from that into
- 7:24how can we actually add value. What what is value?
- 7:27And I think conversations like this, spending time with other people that are
- 7:33seeking to produce value is really important, and I think coffee can be a part of
- 7:38that
- 7:39conversation.
- 7:42Unknown: Yeah. That's great. So this is gonna be this is you and I hanging out in your coffee shop,
- 7:49and anyone who is
- 7:51listening, right, is sort of just getting
- 7:54to getting to ease maybe
- 7:56sitting at the table next to us. You know?
- 7:59Unknown: Mhmm. Yeah.
- 8:02Something that I've been thinking about is how do we
- 8:05provide opportunity or space for other people to join us, you know, if they're sitting at that table. Like, if when it was in my physical coffee shops, that was some of my favorite
- 8:16times is when I'm
- 8:19there hanging out with a friend,
- 8:22and then another friend comes in and joins us at the table.
- 8:26So that's something I'm interested in exploring potentially
- 8:31is how do we involve other people who are who hear what we're doing
- 8:36Unknown: and are interested. Yeah. I think the Internet the Internet's gonna make that more possible than it will for your actual
- 8:43coffee,
- 8:44endeavors. Right? Sure. Like, it's gonna be much easier to have people
- 8:48hop on
- 8:50conversation,
- 8:51like, with us here. Right?
- 8:53Mhmm. You just send them a link, and they come on, and we just do this. Right? Right. Right.
- 8:59Unknown: Yeah.
- 9:01Unknown: It's much harder. We you know, it's funny. Once, you know, we talk about
- 9:06the coffee itself is very challenging in you know, there's no good virtual
- 9:11experience, really. Right?
- 9:14Mhmm. You gotta be there. You gotta make it.
- 9:17You have to drink it. You gotta experience it, and you have to be in the company of people you generally like
- 9:22and be in a good setting.
- 9:25It's all very
- 9:27local.
- 9:28Right?
- 9:30Yeah. That feel that's challenge we talk about a good amount.
- 9:35Unknown: Yeah.
- 9:36That's something that I think about since I'm doing most of my
- 9:41coffee
- 9:42interactions,
- 9:44virtually these days, like in the with
- 9:47you.
- 9:48But I do think
- 9:50that physical enjoying it together, even if across distances
- 9:54like, we can still
- 9:56I think there's way ways to play with physical. Yeah. I mean, you're drinking coffee right now. I had mine earlier. I'm drinking your coffee right now.
- 10:05Unknown: Beautiful. I should say, by the way so I had this idea for some reason 15 minutes before we started.
- 10:12You know, you just I I just got your box
- 10:15of the new batch.
- 10:17Mhmm. Right? I ordered several bags, and it just came yesterday.
- 10:22And literally, today is the day I had run out,
- 10:25but I had one I had 50 grams left from one of the bags.
- 10:30Mhmm. And,
- 10:32right, so it's a month. Maybe it's 5 something like 4 to 5 weeks old. It's right at the edge of, like, certainly what you and I have discussed,
- 10:40not looking to go any further. Right?
- 10:43Mhmm. And, so I made a Chemex of
- 10:46which I actually rarely do. I know you guys see the video,
- 10:50think I'm making Chemexes all the time. I don't. I
- 10:54I I mainly use a drip machine,
- 10:5785 grams with,
- 11:00I think, it's 10 a 10 ounces. It's in the techno form it just goes up to the 10. I don't know if that's
- 11:0610 that's 10 cups measured but,
- 11:1085 grams, I fill water up to the 10, and then I don't and I just drink it. So, like, that is
- 11:16that is how I generally drink coffee. So
- 11:20when I had 50 grams left,
- 11:22that was, like, not enough for me to do my normal drip, but I knew I was gonna save it for a Chemex at some point.
- 11:28And,
- 11:29that was today.
- 11:30And so 4 to 5 weeks in you know, 4 to 5 weeks from when it was roasted, I'd say,
- 11:36like,
- 11:37so if I go back to the video, the bloom was not
- 11:41oh, my the bloom was not so impressive. However,
- 11:45coffee still has a good life and, you know, still very nice to drink.
- 11:50Unknown: Mhmm.
- 11:51Unknown: I wouldn't wanna go much further than this, and I'm glad I have a new batch in my closet now.
- 11:56Unknown: Sure. But yeah.
- 11:59Yeah. I think I I had to come through the last batch this morning, and it's
- 12:03it's fine. And I agree. I wouldn't wanna go much further with an open bag, especially.
- 12:09But
- 12:11Unknown: Yeah. This was an open bag, and it's been yeah. Like, it's been sitting around for a couple of weeks waiting for
- 12:17my brain to say, oh, it's Chemex time. And, yeah, that happened,
- 12:22you know, that happened 30 minutes ago.
- 12:25Unknown: Right. Nice.
- 12:27Unknown: So and it's nice. It's nice to be in your presence drinking
- 12:31any coffee and enjoying it, but let alone the coffee I get from you.
- 12:35Unknown: Wow.
- 12:36That is a special
- 12:38special experience.
- 12:43Unknown: So you wanna talk a little bit about coffee?
- 12:46I think we decided we were gonna take a little we've talked a little bit about coffee
- 12:50every episode and then maybe see
- 12:53where it goes because you and I tend to have
- 12:55you know, we tend to then jam on pretty good
- 12:58level of conversation.
- 13:01Unknown: Yeah. Let's use let's use coffee
- 13:03as the starting point and
- 13:06see where it goes.
- 13:08What do you wanna talk about?
- 13:10Unknown: What's on your mind? This is the this is the first episode, and let's pretend not everybody really knows who we are. So you want like, you are you are
- 13:18Otis Bittmeyer.
- 13:20K? You are the Yeah. That is the name that is the name on the bag of the coffee that I drink every day. Right?
- 13:25Yeah. You wanna tell tell people who you are and,
- 13:29you know, just where where did you come from to become
- 13:33a coffee roaster that provide that that is,
- 13:37you know,
- 13:38at this level you are in the world. Right? Which is you you have your name on a bag of coffee that people like myself drink every day.
- 13:47Unknown: Yeah.
- 13:48How far back do you wanna go?
- 13:51Unknown: It's funny.
- 13:52When I was on when I was on Max's
- 13:55you remember that when Max's,
- 13:57confab,
- 13:58He said something like that, and I said, yeah. Okay. Well, in 1974,
- 14:032 autistic people got together and had a baby.
- 14:06And
- 14:09Yeah.
- 14:09So go as far back as you want, but, you know,
- 14:14Unknown: we're we're we're gunning for an hour.
- 14:17Okay.
- 14:20Unknown: Let's see.
- 14:21You know, coffee has been one of those things that
- 14:25has
- 14:27it just feels like it's a gift that keeps on giving to me. It has been intertwined with so many
- 14:34meaningful
- 14:35and
- 14:36kind of
- 14:37impactful
- 14:38experiences in my life back to my late teens, I think, was when I started drinking it,
- 14:45kinda
- 14:48with the whole cream and sugar,
- 14:50like, really, I I was introduced to coffee in Morocco. That's when I really started drinking it regularly. I lived there for a while, and,
- 15:00I don't know if you've are familiar with Moroccan
- 15:03cafe culture, but
- 15:05Unknown: was it Turkish? Was was it Turkish
- 15:08style coffee
- 15:09Unknown: down there? It was espresso. It heavily influenced, I think, by the French who,
- 15:15colonized Morocco for a while. So it was there was a kind of
- 15:21espresso, but shitty espresso was a big So what year roughly what year roughly are we talking?
- 15:28We're talking
- 15:292,005
- 15:30ish.
- 15:31Unknown: So yeah. Okay.
- 15:33The world knows how to make espresso, but
- 15:35yeah.
- 15:37Unknown: Well, you know,
- 15:39the world
- 15:42the world was just learning I mean, not not that's a huge generalization. I would say coming back to the states then when I started drinking coffee here and, like, paying attention to different roasts and varieties and origins and all of that,
- 15:57it was still hard to find a decent espresso. It's much different now.
- 16:04But back then, I think the 3rd wave
- 16:07was
- 16:07starting to get its legs under it.
- 16:10And,
- 16:12yeah, it was a lot more difficult to find the coffees that I wanted to be drinking
- 16:18back then.
- 16:19But starting off, you know, it was cream and sugar as much cream and sugar as you needed to make the coffee palatable, and then, you know, it's not that hard to enjoy sugar mixed with
- 16:31almost anything. So
- 16:34that was my my gateway. And then
- 16:36I just tend
- 16:38to follow things that I really like down a rabbit hole to the point where then I'm making it for myself because I'm I just like to know how things work. So
- 16:48Mhmm. A number of years later, I got into home roasting,
- 16:51started off on a popcorn popper,
- 16:54and then I built my own air roaster
- 16:57out of essentially junk from my buddy's farm.
- 17:01He just had a pile
- 17:03of junk, like,
- 17:05parts scrap metal that I dug through and found what I needed to construct a roaster, a 5 pound roaster.
- 17:12And,
- 17:14anyway,
- 17:16from there, I got a job in a roastery and ended up as the head roaster for a while.
- 17:25I think my official job title was the director of coffee, which sounds fancy.
- 17:32Unknown: Look at you.
- 17:33Unknown: Yeah. Yeah.
- 17:34Unknown: That's the I mean, that is a personal responsibility, though, that that you know what I mean? Like, you probably felt a responsibility
- 17:43that drove your intensity level to make it great.
- 17:48Unknown: Oh, man. That was a really sweet time.
- 17:51Absolutely. I it was, I viewed it as
- 17:54a beautiful opportunity, which it was,
- 17:56because I was essentially given free rein over the coffee program at this
- 18:01coffee roastery in the city that we lived
- 18:04in at that time.
- 18:07And I could you know, I I it was essentially me getting paid to taste coffee and then tweak it. Every week, I was tweaking
- 18:15roasts. I was
- 18:17taking samples that week. Batch.
- 18:20Yeah. I mean, that's probably when I fucked up my adrenals.
- 18:24But
- 18:25Yeah.
- 18:26Unknown: I was learning a lot of occupational hazard, though. It's an occupational hazard, I would assume.
- 18:32Unknown: Yeah. And I was young, and I thought, you know,
- 18:36in your twenties, you think you're gonna live forever, so
- 18:39I wasn't trying to
- 18:42you know, now I when I'm tasting, I would spit. I wouldn't swallow. But back then, I was like, I'll just swallow it all.
- 18:48And,
- 18:50probably wasn't wasn't the best, but
- 18:53Unknown: whatever. I was getting paid to to roast coffee. Great job, though. Yeah. It was great. Yeah.
- 18:59So I didn't know this about you. So, like, this is starting to make sense now to me. Like, because for me, like, I still it's still a bit of an unknown puzzle piece of how you became
- 19:08the how you got to the quality that you are. So now it's actually starting to make sense. I didn't even you know, I didn't realize you had
- 19:14jobs that
- 19:16required you. You know what I mean? And that funded you that gave you the opportunity to experiment
- 19:21and all that. You showed up with you just your bag just showed up in my house one day, and I made it and was was astounded. You know? That's pretty much how it happened.
- 19:32Unknown: That's great. Yeah. No. I mean, it's it's been,
- 19:36you know, I'm
- 19:38it was my vocation for my professional life. You know, other than school and travel, coffee is what I've done up until a couple years ago. And, I mean, I'm still doing it, obviously, but with a different energy and a different focus. And when
- 19:55when we closed our cafes,
- 19:57I had no idea if coffee would be something that I would do
- 20:01professionally. Like, I
- 20:03still I kept a small roaster and was roasting for us as a family.
- 20:08But
- 20:09I was like,
- 20:10pretty clearly, at that point,
- 20:13I'm not gonna do this unless there are more opportunities
- 20:16that align with
- 20:17the direction that we're going
- 20:19with our life. I'm not gonna
- 20:22do it the way that we were doing it.
- 20:24So
- 20:25it's been really fun to see this
- 20:28little experiment
- 20:30growing and gaining traction,
- 20:32and I've learned a lot in the last little over a year that I've been doing it.
- 20:37And now I'm
- 20:39this is exciting to see
- 20:41what other
- 20:43opportunities there might be.
- 20:45Unknown: So for people who don't know, like, maybe just where, like,
- 20:50where are you right now? What does that, like, what does that actually mean? What is this thing you've been doing for the last year that you're gearing up
- 20:57for
- 20:58now?
- 21:00Unknown: So a little over a year ago,
- 21:03we moved
- 21:04to a different state,
- 21:07and
- 21:12it's where my wife's family is from, but I don't
- 21:16didn't really know anyone here. So I'm like, I'm gonna need to
- 21:20find some friends,
- 21:22essentially. And I had just kinda
- 21:25I
- 21:26I was really into
- 21:28I think I was gonna say I was really into Bitcoin.
- 21:32That sounds
- 21:33silly, but I had fallen down the Bitcoin rabbit hole. We we cut we closed our campaign.
- 21:40Unknown: What's that? For the listener, we just crossed 21 minutes. We I forgot I forgot we had Bitcoin in common, and that's actually why we know each other. And that's why I forgot about it. There's no mention on the podcast whatsoever. That's pretty great.
- 21:53Yeah. Sorry if people are hoping to make it through the whole podcast without a mention of Bitcoin. We weren't trying. Yeah. No. That's great. So, like, now it's like, oh, yeah. Okay. Now it makes sense. You moved to a new area.
- 22:05Unknown: You And I was like, where do I find friends that are interested in the shit that I'm interested in? Permaculture,
- 22:10Bitcoin in in as far as it how it enables us to live differently. You know? Like, that's that's what I'm really interested in with Bitcoin.
- 22:17Number go up is
- 22:19only gets me so far. Before, I'm like, but
- 22:23how does it enable us to live more sovereign,
- 22:26free lives today? Anyway, so I was looking for for people to connect with about these things, and
- 22:32I ran across the rich,
- 22:37Bitcoin
- 22:39meetup culture
- 22:40in in my area in Michigan
- 22:43and discovered that there were multiple meetups within a couple hours driving of me. And so I'm like, I gotta go to these these meetups,
- 22:50see if I can meet some other folks that are
- 22:53into similar things.
- 22:55Very first meetup I went to,
- 22:57Carl was there and Shout out.
- 23:00Also,
- 23:01at the same time, I kind of had this intuition
- 23:03that, like,
- 23:06even though I didn't know anyone else really who was,
- 23:09like, I really didn't know anyone else who was a Bitcoiner at that point, and I certainly didn't know people who were
- 23:17trading with Bitcoin.
- 23:20But I had this intuition that
- 23:22we we need to be using it.
- 23:25Otherwise,
- 23:27it's, you know, we we just don't really know what its true worth is unless we're actually using it. So I
- 23:33brought some coffee along
- 23:35so that I had roasted.
- 23:37Unknown: And
- 23:38Carl and Carl is, like, the king of using it. Like, you met you happen to meet, like, the Apex.
- 23:44Yeah. Yeah. It was actually had to use it and had to go to meetups and proliferate propagate
- 23:49Unknown: your stuff. It was great. Right.
- 23:52If there's any sort of divine,
- 23:54like,
- 23:55coordination,
- 23:56that
- 23:57I I would be willing to say that that was one
- 24:00one instance of when that would have occurred.
- 24:03Because I showed up and I'm like, hey. You know, this is
- 24:07I'm here to meet other Bitcoiners. Also, I've got this coffee.
- 24:11And Carl is, like, thrilled because he had just run out of the coffee that he was drinking, and he's been he was looking
- 24:18for
- 24:19coffee to buy from a Bitcoiner.
- 24:22And
- 24:23he'd purchased
- 24:24some
- 24:25in the past from someone else, and it was not what he was looking for.
- 24:31So but, anyway, he took a chance on my coffee.
- 24:34Couple days later, he messages me, and he's like,
- 24:38this is delicious.
- 24:39I want more. And so he was essentially my first,
- 24:45customer
- 24:46whatever and then became a huge has become a huge ambassador.
- 24:53And, anyway,
- 24:54Unknown: couple months later I could see Carl have I was
- 24:57just gonna say, I could see Carl having, like, multiple uses of coffee, like, that we don't even know. Like, he feeds the hulls to his sheep or something.
- 25:07Like, I can just see Carl having,
- 25:08you know
- 25:09it's kinda way like how he uses miners in different ways. You see him using having utility for coffee.
- 25:16That's really cool, man. That is so
- 25:20Unknown: cool. Yeah. So without making it too much longer, my story, I I just
- 25:26essentially, that was my
- 25:28seeing that there was some interest
- 25:30in the Bitcoin community. I'm like, okay. This is a skill I already have. I'm looking to add value.
- 25:36I'm looking to add my
- 25:38proof of work
- 25:40into the Bitcoin system,
- 25:42and this is low hanging fruit. If I've got a skill and there are already people that really want,
- 25:49like, who value it enough to
- 25:51to exchange their bitcoin for my coffee, this is let's
- 25:55let's see how what we can do with this. So for the past year, I've been
- 26:00going to the meetups in my area
- 26:04and sharing my coffee with people that are interested there. I've got regular
- 26:09folks who buy,
- 26:10and
- 26:11I took it to Lake Satoshi,
- 26:14served some brewed coffee and sold beans,
- 26:17and that was just a wonderful experiment in
- 26:21kind of
- 26:22getting more exposure
- 26:24to Bitcoiners
- 26:25as well as
- 26:27physical
- 26:28like, just dipping our toe in back into the water of,
- 26:32like, physical hospitality,
- 26:34which is
- 26:35something that my wife and I are still interested in. Like,
- 26:39feel like
- 26:40we have more to explore there.
- 26:43And
- 26:45I've been really intentional about keeping my overhead
- 26:51low to nonexistent.
- 26:52Like, I have I've been intentional about having no fixed
- 26:56costs
- 26:57so that,
- 26:58essentially, like, what I'm
- 27:00selling, I get to other than my
- 27:03other than my,
- 27:05like, cost for the coffee and bags and stuff like that, I
- 27:10get
- 27:11to hold on to that Bitcoin
- 27:13that I
- 27:15accrue from selling this. So it's a way of stacking sats.
- 27:20And, anyway
- 27:22Unknown: Yeah. I mean, it's like a it's like having a miner in a certain way. You know? People buy coffee every
- 27:28month. Right? Right.
- 27:30And, you know,
- 27:31it's,
- 27:33pretty great. You know? I think you, you've achieved something.
- 27:38You know, my personal trainer doesn't even know he barely knows what Bitcoin is, but he's allowed me to pay him in Bitcoin every once in a while. And, like, he's earned more sets from what he's done than I have.
- 27:49And,
- 27:50it's envious. You know? In a certain way, it's actually envious that you found
- 27:54you found a way
- 27:56to earn sats through your work.
- 28:00Unknown: I feel thankful
- 28:02because, yeah, I don't think it's easy. I think you have to really
- 28:06like, people have to people aren't gonna send you sats if you're selling something shitty.
- 28:11Unknown: Well, they're gonna apply a much higher standard to your product.
- 28:15Right? They're gonna be like, I spent sats on this, like and and then, you know, even if they don't,
- 28:21next month's gonna roll around, and they're gonna ask themselves,
- 28:24you know, am I gonna
- 28:27give you 17,000
- 28:28sats for a bag of this coffee? That's, like, hard you know, for everyone, it's hard earned. Right? Mhmm. So it's a good litmus test for you
- 28:37on the qual on the quality because,
- 28:39like, you know, one thing you reminded me of is, like, when I tasted your coffee, I I just thought it was gonna be crap. Why? Because,
- 28:48I had bought a bunch of bags of coffee with Satoshi's name on it in one version or another that
- 28:54I'm not gonna say it was terrible. It just was not you know, it was, like, typically
- 28:58typically average or an average in coffee is just not good. You know? Right. Average coffee is just like what you experienced in 2005. Right? It's just
- 29:09and so Yeah. You know, nothing special.
- 29:12And,
- 29:15like, certainly not gonna pay sats for these for this. You know? I could go to, like, Whole Foods and get, like, a 4 month old bag of,
- 29:24That would be equivalent.
- 29:26Unknown: Right? Right.
- 29:28Unknown: Yeah.
- 29:30You know, so, like, it's pretty
- 29:32strong testament
- 29:33that people keep buying the coffee.
- 29:35Right? And because you're taking you're taking sound money.
- 29:39Unknown: Right? Right.
- 29:41So I guess when I'm thinking about, like, what is what what what makes me willing
- 29:47to trade my sats
- 29:49for something?
- 29:50Obviously, the quality of the
- 29:53product
- 29:54is is a big part of it.
- 29:56But to me, I I'm also
- 29:59realizing, I think, that the relationship
- 30:01is
- 30:02another large
- 30:05piece of this pie.
- 30:07And
- 30:09I I I guess I'm curious about your thoughts about that
- 30:13as well. But I I feel like the new economy that we're that that I'm
- 30:17trying to play around with is is much more relational.
- 30:20And so,
- 30:22like,
- 30:24the way that I've gone about,
- 30:28structuring things. I don't have a website
- 30:32yet. I'm not saying I never will.
- 30:34But at least in this 1st year, I've been very
- 30:38intentional
- 30:39about
- 30:41pursuing growth where there are people
- 30:45who value my coffee, and we have some sort of personal connection beyond that. So,
- 30:51yeah, I don't I'm not sure where I was going with that, but that that feels like an important piece too. It
- 30:57is we're not just
- 30:59Unknown: It's huge, actually. I mean, what you just mentioned is the gold right there. And that's that's where I feel like, oh my god. That's me.
- 31:07I love coffee, and you and I have personal connection, and this is like you know, this just not an accent that we would end up
- 31:14really finding a way to try to share this more broadly. Right? Right. Yeah.
- 31:20Unknown: So my my hope would be
- 31:23that we could digitally do maybe what our our
- 31:26forefathers were doing
- 31:28with
- 31:29community
- 31:31and business back in the day. I mean, web of trust stuff, it's all you know, there's there's so many words that people are using. Buzz like, I don't wanna say buzzwords because that makes it sound negative, but there are ways lots of ways that people are talking about this.
- 31:44But what I'm what I'm aiming to do with
- 31:47Otis Bittmeyer
- 31:49coffee and any other Otis Bittmeyer branded products
- 31:55is essentially sell myself, first of all. Like,
- 32:01and and that,
- 32:03like, not that I'm that my relationships
- 32:06are for sale,
- 32:07but I'm, like,
- 32:09looking to connect with people
- 32:11where we can trade value on a much deeper level than just
- 32:15money.
- 32:18And and
- 32:19Unknown: as you mentioned, I think our relationship is a great example. The the common thread, though, is that you I mean, you're you're selling more than yourself. Okay. Right? Because
- 32:31you
- 32:32I guess part of yourself is that you really have created something that people like.
- 32:37That's you know? Yeah. You create, Like, there are people out there who that's all they have to offer is themself.
- 32:43Right?
- 32:44And it's like, to me, that's very fiat. Right? It's like, oh, all you have is yourself and your marketing. Right? Whereas
- 32:51Okay. We we tend to seek out people that
- 32:56have substantial selves.
- 32:57Right? But, like, actually, the thing that they make
- 33:01I guess when I
- 33:02I tasted your coffee, I I made an assumption that the person who did the person who roasted this must have some substance, must be of some quality.
- 33:11You know? I didn't know you.
- 33:14And, the funny story is the one where, after Lake Satoshi,
- 33:20I'm talking to John,
- 33:21and he goes, we gotta have a conversation about Otis. And I was like, whatever it is, whatever you're about to say to me, I'm just gonna tell you that I'm a stand by the fact that the coffee implies that he's got yeah. I thought John was gonna tell him something terrible about you or something like that. And I was like, I'm still before you say this, the coffee is so good that I stand by I still am gonna stand by the guy.
- 33:44And he's like, no. No. No. No. You got it all wrong. This is, like,
- 33:47he's a great guy. This is what I need to tell you about. Like, we need to really support him. But, like Oh. This is what I wanna tell you. Like, the quality of the coffee for me is worth defend like, it was even if he was gonna tell me he watched you do something terrible, I'm like, yeah. But there is a personal quality that is required to make something excellent.
- 34:07It doesn't mean you're
- 34:08a blanketly great person. It just means that, you know, that is a great starting point then to find out if there's a self worth selling behind it. Right?
- 34:17Unknown: Right.
- 34:20Well,
- 34:21that's that's hilarious.
- 34:24That story. I love that story.
- 34:26I mean, that's that's the beauty and the magic of Lake Satoshi. I mean,
- 34:30again, I
- 34:31I feel like those of us
- 34:34Lake Satoshi
- 34:36looms large
- 34:37in the conversations in the mesh to Dell, I think, because it's so powerful for those of us that have been there. And I think
- 34:44I look forward to more
- 34:46of us getting to experience that, hopefully, this next summer. But it's a magical place where,
- 34:55you just never know
- 34:57what might happen
- 34:58out of that sort of
- 35:00collaborative environment.
- 35:02At least that's what I felt last year.
- 35:06Unknown: I have a deep void from not going, and, you know,
- 35:10you guys
- 35:11think everybody knows why I didn't go, but I still
- 35:15like
- 35:16it's I still live it's not a consequence is the wrong word but the missed opportunity to develop those connections
- 35:23is something I do regret
- 35:25and I look forward to righting that wrong this year.
- 35:29Well This episode is sponsored by Lake Satoshi.
- 35:36Unknown: Look here, friends.
- 35:37We don't actually have sponsors for this show,
- 35:40but we do
- 35:42talk about things that we like and Lake Satoshi is one of those things.
- 35:47If you are looking for a place to connect
- 35:50other folks
- 35:52who like
- 35:54liberty,
- 35:55who like a good time.
- 35:58Hold on. Hold on.
- 36:00We're gonna have some vocals coming in on.
- 36:04Unknown: Lakestoshi
- 36:05is the place to be. For plebs who are wild
- 36:09and plebs who are free, you can make it what you want if you're ready
- 36:15because Lake Stoshi is the place to be.
- 36:21Unknown: Look,
- 36:23we're trying to do something new
- 36:25here, trying
- 36:27to create new ways of being together,
- 36:30of structuring ourselves,
- 36:31and
- 36:33you have to be together in one place to do that.
- 36:38Lake Satoshi is one of these places that we get together
- 36:42and we try out new ways
- 36:44of being humans
- 36:46that honor life,
- 36:48beauty,
- 36:51and self sovereignty.
- 36:53So if those are things that
- 36:56appeal to you,
- 36:59check it out.
- 37:01Links in the show notes.
- 37:03Here come the vocals.
- 37:07Unknown: Lakes tote she is the place to
- 37:23Unknown: I guess I got one more slot to fill here real quick. Check out,
- 37:26fill here real
- 37:28quick. Check out Lake Satoshi.
- 37:33We're gonna have a good time.
- 37:35See you
- 37:40Unknown: can hear stuffy.
- 37:42I greet an ember. I can eat a sweet. You can make it what you want if you're ready.
- 37:50Because Lake Satoshi
- 37:52is the place to
- 38:12Unknown: Yeah.
- 38:17So what's what's your coffee story?
- 38:21Unknown: Okay.
- 38:23So you basically
- 38:25jogged my memory of,
- 38:27so I'm a I guess, I'm probably a little bit older than you. Everybody knows I'm 50. It's the reason I miss Lake Satoshi. It was
- 38:34you guys know, like, I I was I clicked the button to book the RV, and then my wife had notified me that,
- 38:40no. They had plans to surprise me for my 50th birthday.
- 38:45And that buggered up that buggered up the,
- 38:48the plan for Lake Satoshi, unfortunately. But as so as a 50 year old,
- 38:52I go back
- 38:53to I get you know,
- 38:56coffee was really crap and garbage for
- 39:00such a large part of my life. Right? You know, you think of the formative coffee drinking years for most people. You're talking, like, when you go to college.
- 39:09You know, it was all really bad. You know? Late eighties, early nineties,
- 39:14nobody there was nothing. You know? I don't even know if you would call it first wave. Right? It was just like,
- 39:21you had, like, the coffee beanery and that had, like, flavored coffee was, like, the best alternative to, like, Maxwell House. Like, this is, like, what I grew up with. Right?
- 39:30I grew up with this idea that coffee was tasted like garbage. Like, I grew up with the idea that beer tasted like piss,
- 39:36you know, because
- 39:38the craft
- 39:39brewing didn't come around until, like, the mid nineties.
- 39:43Right?
- 39:44Craft brewing of coffee, I would say, really, with Starbucks in the United States didn't come around till about 94, 95.
- 39:51Unknown: And Yep.
- 39:52Unknown: I will say the lights turned on at that point because if you ever went to, like, an Italian restaurant and got a shot of espresso,
- 40:00I don't care how good this restaurant is. It was a shot of espresso was gonna taste like motor oil.
- 40:05Okay? Mhmm.
- 40:07And That was my ride in espresso.
- 40:10Yeah. Right? Now the moment that changed my life, that moment that absolutely changed my life, this is gonna sound insane. I don't think I've told the story in a podcast at all before.
- 40:20I might have, but here we go.
- 40:23I,
- 40:24I traveled.
- 40:25I did backpacking in Europe in 1996
- 40:28after I got after I graduated college.
- 40:31I had gotten a couple of scholarships
- 40:33and so I had some like, I had a little bit of money and I bought, like, a URL pass and a flight to Europe.
- 40:41And Yeah. Within a week of being in,
- 40:45Paris, I pretty much ran out of money. And so, like, the whole plan
- 40:49was
- 40:50to go
- 40:51to, like, Spain
- 40:52and, you know, whatever places like that. And I'm like, nope. We're gonna have to go
- 40:56we're gonna have to go to, like, Prague,
- 40:59Hungary. Like, at the time in 1996,
- 41:01those places were
- 41:03dirt cheap. Like, in Prague, like, I got into a youth hostel, slept on a floor in the hallway for, like, you know, $6 a night.
- 41:12So Yeah.
- 41:14The story is I'm in Prague. K?
- 41:18And somebody who I'd met,
- 41:20like,
- 41:20somebody who I'd met along the way just wanted to take a trip to
- 41:26there there there was a well known concentration camp called Theresienstadt.
- 41:31It's actually the one
- 41:32it's it's very well known because it's the one that they showed the Red Cross to show say, like, oh, okay. You know, all cool here.
- 41:42It's also well known because apparently that's where, like, the most prominent people were taken
- 41:47to, I don't know, compel their work.
- 41:52You know
- 41:53anyway, it's not really that relevant other than the fact that
- 41:56it's a town
- 41:58it was a 2 hour bus ride in this town and it is so far away from any kind of civilization.
- 42:03Okay?
- 42:05And we missed the last bus back into Prague. That was that's so this is, like, really where the story begins.
- 42:10We missed the last bus back into Prague and we're stuck there. This is 1996. We don't have cell phones.
- 42:15We don't have anything. Okay?
- 42:18And it's starting to get dark.
- 42:22And somebody tells us there's a train station,
- 42:24like, that's like a, you know, probably half hour walk away. So we're like, shit, we better get going because it's gonna get dark, dangerous.
- 42:33And again, the middle of the Czech Republic, I couldn't even tell you where the heck it was. Right?
- 42:38We end up, hitchhiked. We this guy comes and decides to pick us up. Drive and it took us, like, it took us 5 minutes to find the word. All he had is a book called, like, a let's go Europe book. And I'm, like, going through the glossary,
- 42:52found the word train in Czech with the language this guy spoke, and he finally got it. Took us to the train station. Okay?
- 43:00So we're on the train station. At the train station, I'm on the platform
- 43:04and
- 43:05there was like a vending machine that, you know the vending machines that sell coffee in like the hospitals where Yeah. The cup comes down and they make the coffee. Right? Yeah. So I'm like, this is going this is
- 43:18I just needed a cup of coffee.
- 43:20Okay. It's late.
- 43:22There was a like, we found out the train back was gonna take 3 and a half hours. God knows why. Right? The bus ride was 2 hours there, but for some reason, it's gonna be a 3 and a half hour train ride back.
- 43:33So I go to this right on the platform
- 43:36vending machine,
- 43:38stick a couple of Czech Crowns
- 43:40coins into it, get the cup of coffee,
- 43:44and, oh my god,
- 43:46I couldn't it was so good.
- 43:48Like, and I was I I thought to myself,
- 43:51how in the hell
- 43:54do do they do this?
- 43:55How I've never had it. Like, I've never had a quality shot of espresso in my life.
- 44:00Right. And here, it's like I had to go to
- 44:03this town
- 44:04where I was stuck outside of civilization,
- 44:08and somehow they had a vending machine that made
- 44:11a better shot of espresso
- 44:13that than I'd ever had before in my life.
- 44:16Right. To be honest, this is, like, again, 1996. Like, you really you really didn't have it in the United States.
- 44:22When I came back to the United States, I was determined to now just find good espresso.
- 44:29You know, I started working, like, 90 hours a week.
- 44:32Like,
- 44:34you know, you just start to
- 44:37you just start to now care about it. I I didn't know.
- 44:40So Yeah. That, like, turn well, that turned the lights on forever.
- 44:44Yeah. Like, that con that that experience was possible
- 44:48from
- 44:49tasting something, and it wasn't like they put sugar in it or,
- 44:53you know, some kind of, oh, pumpkin spice latte. I never knew you could do that. No. This was just straight up espresso
- 45:00on a train station platform in the middle of middle of nowhere.
- 45:05Unknown: Those are some
- 45:07fun surprises when you run across shit like that.
- 45:11Unknown: Yeah. So that yeah. I guess I'd say that's, that's my best coffee origin story there. Right? Yeah.
- 45:18And then I I'm gonna say, like,
- 45:21I really didn't,
- 45:23so that then second wave coffee, really, I would you agree it's, like, basically, you have Starbucks and then you had
- 45:29independent coffee shops that had the line of syrups.
- 45:34Unknown: Mhmm.
- 45:35Unknown: You know? That
- 45:36frankly,
- 45:38those independent coffee shops
- 45:40were not as good as the,
- 45:43the the train station.
- 45:46Starbucks was pretty good, and they were using manual machines for a long time.
- 45:51I wanna say it was o o one or o two when I noticed Starbucks started
- 45:55going at automatic
- 45:57machines.
- 45:58Unknown: Yeah. I think that's about the right range.
- 46:02Unknown: So then I'll just I'll just fast forward. I didn't care much. Like, I was happy with that level of coffee. Okay. Right? And I was basically enjoying,
- 46:11you know,
- 46:12Starbucks
- 46:13lattes
- 46:14and and
- 46:16and the like.
- 46:17Not real and, you know, I like coffee shop culture.
- 46:21I like going meeting friends, playing board games, seeing bands, and that type of thing. But, like,
- 46:27what I saw what I saw was coffee shops in the US just going out of business left and right and it wasn't because of Starbucks. It's because they they didn't wanna you know, they insisted on charging,
- 46:37you know, $6
- 46:39for a shot of coffee or something like that. It was like they you know,
- 46:43very few of them the ones that survived
- 46:46did something else. Like, they had decent food or they had bans Yeah. Or something like that. But, like, just straight up making coffee just they they you know, those those went bye bye.
- 46:56And then it wasn't until,
- 46:58for me, 2015,
- 47:01that was the moment I got a new job,
- 47:03and it was the one that I'd
- 47:06well, one that I left last year. But,
- 47:10I was I was in, like, I was in Center City, Philly,
- 47:14and
- 47:15my boss and mentor and I decide we're just getting into coffee again. He bought, one of these, I forgot what they're called, but it's the handheld espresso
- 47:24makers. And so he had gotten a bunch of grinders to try to
- 47:27optimize
- 47:29this optimize this espresso pulling machine.
- 47:32But we we basically built a coffee station
- 47:35in the office
- 47:36and Nice. Just went like, you know, in 2015,
- 47:40I don't it's probably around the beginning of, I think, this 3rd wave. Maybe it's a little late. I'm I'm not sure. But, like, from for us is when we got really deep in and,
- 47:52just
- 47:53really started buying coffee from everywhere, trying all the different varieties,
- 47:58honing the various you know, you start to see all you know, you start to see
- 48:04the various pour over
- 48:06methodologies.
- 48:08And,
- 48:10you know, if we were in Center City, we were two blocks from La Colom,
- 48:16the Center City location, which would be
- 48:19you know, first of all, it's I mean, it's still there and it's pretty beautiful, but
- 48:24back in 2015, 2016, you could get, like, bags of legit
- 48:29Panama, gesha
- 48:30coffee that they're dorking around with, whereas now it's all cans. You know?
- 48:36Like, you're not Okay.
- 48:38They, you know, they they they've lost their focus on that. But, I mean, it was a pretty cool time.
- 48:42And so that
- 48:44that time period started my reignition. And so I had a we had a Chemex. We were dialing we started dialing in the grinder that I have in my kitchen, the one that I showed in the video
- 48:53Uh-huh. Was in that office
- 48:56every day trying to figure out
- 48:59basically trying to figure out how to make the best Chemex.
- 49:02And we were, you know, people we were having there's a little bit of a culture in my office where
- 49:08we would have people would have serious talks with me. We would do it over coffee.
- 49:12Right?
- 49:13There's, like, a discipline to it. Like, you know, when you're in business with somebody, sometimes there's a discipline when you go out to dinner where you don't bring up business until you order your food.
- 49:21You know, there's a certain discipline for us. We're like, let's not talk
- 49:26anything serious yet. Let's just shoot the shit until the coffee's ready.
- 49:30Unknown: Right? Yeah. I love it. And,
- 49:33Unknown: yeah, it is cool. It was a very cool culture that I got. And then, you know, like, it's something new awoke in me socially
- 49:40around coffee.
- 49:41Right? Mhmm. Okay. Because there was this other aspect that, you know, what happened to me on that train platform was happening, like, once a week with
- 49:51beams and what like, a Chemex is capable not just a Chemex. Right? I mean, like, you know, French press,
- 49:57you can which is the other end of the spectrum, but it's, you know, more volatile.
- 50:03But you
- 50:04have the potential for more flavors that will blow your hair back. Right?
- 50:08Mhmm.
- 50:12Yeah. So then I'd say the next phase was meeting you.
- 50:15You know? That was, I'd say, the real next phase. Right? Which is then really leaving Fiat and finding out that there's a future
- 50:22still
- 50:24with coffee, that that this thing can still have a life after,
- 50:27you know, even in the new the new phase after leaving
- 50:32Plato's cave. Right? Like, whatever happens with this Bitcoin experiment,
- 50:37right, we got coffee. And you know what? There's a lot of people that like to say you can't buy a cup of coffee with Bitcoin, but you and I would definitely
- 50:45Unknown: argue with them. Right? Come to Lake Satoshi. I'll sell you a cup of coffee for Bitcoin.
- 50:50Probably just does it for you, but you can buy the beans.
- 50:55Unknown: So then I've, yeah, I've
- 50:57my meetups, I've
- 50:59distributed some of your you know, definitely some coffee to a few people.
- 51:03Some, you know, some like it, some don't, or just you know, what I find is that
- 51:09it's not uncommon to just not know. That's why I made the video. So, like, the reason I made the video
- 51:15was because I just find that so many people don't know. Like, they don't know how to know.
- 51:20Right? If I hadn't done what I if I hadn't started in 2015,
- 51:24right, I would just basically throw your grinds in a Mr. Coffee
- 51:28or something
- 51:29that a Breville, something that somebody told me was a good coffee maker.
- 51:34Mhmm. And, you know, I would base
- 51:36whether or not it was good on, like, my on how I felt about it. Right? I didn't know how to objectively assess,
- 51:44you know, the quality of coffee. Right?
- 51:47And so that's you know? Mhmm.
- 51:49I find that it's that's just not that's not an easy thing to do and you it takes work and,
- 51:57but I want people to know that this thing is good and worth it. You know?
- 52:02Even if they can't figure it out. Even if you can't it's not a slight to say you can't figure it out for yourself. It's just the reality that you didn't spend
- 52:09100 of hours
- 52:11dialing in coffee
- 52:13coffee tasting Yeah. Dialing in a pallet. You know?
- 52:19Unknown: Mhmm. Yeah. And and I would
- 52:21I guess there are a couple of things that come to mind
- 52:24when talking about stuff like this. One is
- 52:28if you don't,
- 52:29for for people who don't have interest in going down this rabbit hole,
- 52:33great.
- 52:34Figure out what it is for you that lights you up.
- 52:39However,
- 52:40if you are interested,
- 52:42come join us because coffee can be
- 52:46coffee is just a tool like anything else,
- 52:49and we get to decide how we use the tools that we have at our disposal.
- 52:55We've just decided
- 52:57that, like, you and
- 52:58I have decided that
- 53:01we want to explore
- 53:03how to use this tool for more.
- 53:06This is my paraphrase anyway. Feel free to,
- 53:10add your own flavor to this. But
- 53:12I'm I'm not trying to convince anyone that my coffee is better or that coffee in general is something that you should consume.
- 53:22But if you're drawn to it and you want to
- 53:25explore
- 53:26what it
- 53:27means
- 53:28to discover wonder
- 53:31and beauty
- 53:32by going deep into something,
- 53:34I think coffee
- 53:36has a lot of gifts to offer.
- 53:38Like, you know,
- 53:40I'm how many years
- 53:42in to being a student of coffee?
- 53:44Maybe 20 or more,
- 53:47and I feel like there's still
- 53:49plenty to discover. So, yeah, I I think
- 53:53that there all I have is an invitation. Come join us if you're interested.
- 53:58If not,
- 53:59do whatever it is that lights you up.
- 54:17Unknown: Me shaking around
- 54:20like a floppy
- 54:22old fool.
- 54:26Make
- 54:27sweet
- 54:27love as fast as I can.
- 54:31Fully one guard and fully a man, we are to generate a healthy way to evolve.
- 54:39Show me something special before I get to the ball. Here we
- 54:44are flying to space,
- 54:46grabbing onto nothing breeder just in our games.
- 54:50Even if you think you know what to do, it's a whole lot of nothing that you ever get through.
- 55:00So hold.
- 55:02Get yourself 1. It's a
- 55:05hot time to be on the run.
- 55:08Make a
- 55:24a healthy way to evolve.
- 55:27Show me something special before I get to the ball. Here we are
- 55:33flying through space,
- 55:35grabbing all the nothing, readjusting
- 55:38our
- 56:05Twelve men are looking.
- 56:08Twelve men are seeking.
- 56:12Twelve men are justice.
- 56:16Twelve men are substance.
- 56:48We
- 56:49are, flying through space,
- 56:51grabbing on to nothing,
- 56:53readjusting
- 56:54our gaze.
- 56:55Even if you think you know what to do,
- 56:59it's a
- 57:32Unknown: Grace in peace.