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Coffee People: Libby and Victor Arreguin, Romantics Coffee · Coffee People Podcast

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Welcome back to the coffee. People podcast, presented by
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roast West Coast. I'm Ryan Walt.
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And this is the show where I bring you the inspiring
0:57
entrepreneurial stories of coffee people.
1:01
Thanks for joining me today on the very last episode of season
1:04
7. Our show features Libby and
1:07
Victor are Gein. The founders and Co Roasters of
1:10
Romantics coffee, they're a family roasting company.
1:13
That works in small batches that they make for dreamers and
1:17
Believers in San Diego. California.
1:20
I emphasize the family part of that statement.
1:23
In fact, you might hear their kids and the family dog in the
1:26
background of this podcast. While you're listening today, go
1:29
to romantic off e.com or follow at Romantics coffee on
1:34
Instagram. So you can better Envision.
1:36
The old Hollywood Vibe of the brand and maybe tempt yourself
1:40
with one of their medium roasts. I know you're out there
1:43
listening and you can probably multitask.
1:46
So what you're doing that? I'm going to start the show.
1:49
Thanks for joining me. Once again for another
1:52
interview, with some coffee people, Libyan, Victor are gain
1:56
of Romantics coffee. I've got one more warning which
2:10
is we have a new puppy and I'm distracting him with a bunch of
2:14
peanut butter right now but he may join us at some point.
2:18
No worries. You're probably here are dogs to
2:20
orchids. No problem.
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Well, to the both of you, welcome to Coffee people from
2:28
roast West Coast. That's first time.
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I said that I'm wondering if you could do me a favor and just
2:32
introduce yourself and the The name of your company and maybe
2:35
let us know how you guys met. I'm Libby.
2:38
I'm Victor, we are married and started.
2:43
Romantics coffee and met about 16 years ago at work.
2:50
So you guys have been been in it for a while.
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How long has coffee been something that you guys bonded
2:56
over a did together. It started with a typical big
3:01
box. Coffee dates and he wasn't
3:05
really a big coffee drinker. I brought more coffee into his
3:10
life and then you know started with the sugary drinks and moved
3:14
into real coffee profiles. There's a place for both.
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I'm drinking a fairly terrible decaf coffee.
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Right now that I found in the liquor cabinet because I thought
3:26
I would, I wanted to have a cup of coffee with you guys.
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Nice. Well, let's just start with some
3:31
history about the two. You I'm assuming you both have
3:35
kind of a different story that kind of meshes together at some
3:37
point. But I'm wondering if you copy
3:41
was besides these big box dates was part of your life before.
3:44
Kind of if you remember your first experience with coffee
3:47
that made, you think this is pretty interesting and maybe
3:51
going beyond that big box coffee and into something different.
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I'll go first because my story is probably a lot quicker than
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hers as far as coffee goes for me.
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Growing up, you know, all the men in my family just drunk,
4:06
just drink black coffee. You know what?
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I basically look like motor oil and it was always in the
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mornings and it was always a couple cups and they seem to,
4:16
you know, move around and be pretty responsive.
4:19
So I was like, man, that stuff must be pretty strong.
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So you know, I never asked, I just assumed I really wasn't in
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the coffee until I met her you know, she's right.
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Like I didn't know what Gourmet Coffee was.
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To me, a good cup of coffee was just going down to 7-Eleven get
4:37
in a large coffee and put a couple creamers in it and I've
4:39
called it good. She actually introduced me to
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like a mocha, like a real mocha and we'd go get coffee together,
4:48
but I would never get coffee. I would get a mocha.
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She kind of ease me into into the coffee world.
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That's the long and short of it now.
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Now, I drink two cups a day. If I'm not drinking water, I'm
5:00
usually drinking coffee. A little have a little juice
5:04
during the day before I go to the gym, only for the carbs.
5:08
You know, before you answer Libby, Victor, I'll ask you, are
5:12
there any moments? Where?
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Because I have this little self-fulfilling here where you
5:16
think, man, I could go back in time and just really like that
5:18
7-Eleven coffee and my life would be easier.
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So between you me and the wall, every once in a while, I still
5:26
go get some 11 cop out. There you go perfect.
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I think twice about it. Yeah, still good.
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About you Libby. So, coffee was always a constant
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in my life growing up. We lived all over the world.
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My parents just always had the coffee pot on the stove.
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Never moved. It was like 24/7.
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You want to sit down and have a conversation, we're going to
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have coffee and they always invited me to join them and it
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was a lot of milk and sugar of course, in the beginning.
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But even with family at my grandparents house, it was
6:03
Coffee with the adults, everybody joined in.
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They let the kids join. We had coffee in our bottles a
6:11
few times for my grandma. So it's it's been, it's almost
6:16
like comfort food, but it's a comfort drink for me.
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It just, I don't know. It feels like coming home
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coffee, feels like home. Well, that's the youngest I've
6:27
heard in the bottle but I I think there's a chance that my
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dad might have slipped Some Brandy in mind a few times when
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I was being a little squirrelly just to make sure.
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So I can't judge too much at what point in your process and
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in your relationship. Did you think man?
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You know this this coffee thing is just something that we want
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to pursue you. And further we're going to go
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beyond it, just going to get coffee and drinking it.
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We're going to start roasting coffee, we're going to start
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exploring this as a hobby or even more.
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When did that happen? And kind of what was the Tipping
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Point. I want to say was like 11 or 12
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years ago, I started noticing these local Roasters popping up
7:10
everywhere and I think the first time I realized it was closer,
7:17
it was possible with sing. The Roaster and Cafe Moto, just
7:21
walking in my eyes were huge. And I couldn't go there without
7:26
walking by The Roaster, just a peek and see what was going on.
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And then I think Oh, I started an Instagram of just local
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Roasters and popping into places and that definitely opened our
7:41
eyes more from there. We both just started talking
7:44
about what we would do, like, how we could do our own spin on.
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It started talking names and it was fun at first and then it got
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a little bit more serious. The kids started throwing out
7:57
names for a coffee company, that kind of just You are sparked our
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interest once covid. Hit I was looking through
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Instagram probably and I found the coffee Collective the
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Roasterie and that was like, all right.
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It's it is possible. We went and did a tour and got
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some training and it's been go go go since then and you know,
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covid gave us that time gave us that time to actually pursue
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something on the side rather than I'm driving to three hours
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in traffic every day that gave us a little free time before.
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And after work, what were you doing for work?
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Or what industry were you in before that?
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I'm assuming you are also still working at some point.
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I think we emailed a little bit and Romantics coffee isn't your
8:50
full-time job yet. Correct.
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But what what were you doing? And how did that relate if at
8:56
all into what you're doing now with coffee?
8:59
Absolutely no relation. We work in the corporate world
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and still still grinding. Yeah, it's it's kind of like
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polar opposite. Just another another experience.
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Well then let's go back to the coffee side of it.
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You discover coffee Collective and you take a class, you learn
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a little bit about it. How long are you roasting before
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you start thinking? Okay, not only is it possible
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for us to learn how to roast but someone else might actually like
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to drink this. And I ask that because I tried
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to brew beer. Once and it did not go well.
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So what was your experience wasn't like that?
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First roast was oh this is drinkable.
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We can move forward or you don't.
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How long were you working on this before you felt confident
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in saying here's something world.
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What do you think? We went through quite a bit.
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Yeah, it was a lot of trial and error.
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I could see how some now. I could see how some people can
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pick it up right away. That wasn't the case for us.
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And also we didn't have ego Going into it.
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You know, I think we went to enough places she would talk to
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enough people and she was bouncing ideas off of people.
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You know, we kind of did our kind of did our due diligence
10:13
before we went in and on my end, you know, it's definitely
10:16
nerve-racking. You know, when I go into doing
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something that I like to go in to get a little tedious, you
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know, that's just me. I want to make sure if I do
10:24
something. I'm going to do it, right?
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I'm going to do it well and I'll ask questions.
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So when we went, you know, it was like Getting something
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thrown new to you. It's if somebody trying to help
10:36
you and we'd ask questions but you know you'd forget right away
10:39
as soon as you would ask the question.
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So then you're like I'll screw it.
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I'm just going to wing it because you got to just gotta
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dive in, right? So um I'd probably say we went
10:50
we went roast him. Now at least a good half a dozen
10:53
times before it even tasted like coffee, right?
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Which is ground water, right? Like like easily you'd go.
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It's been an hour. Roasting you'd come home with
11:04
your sample bags and and it's just Brown watering.
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I like there's nothing there and I want to say probably like the
11:10
sixth time you know you go to cup it and you're like whoa that
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that something you know and then then we were able to share what
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that it sounds it actually kind of looks as I'm watching you.
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Like you can kind of remember that emotion of here's something
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I made and it actually kind of worked.
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Yeah. Yeah yeah.
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Yeah. I remember like it was
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yesterday. Renee, right?
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And then no. Now, when we go roast.
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Yeah. It's we're fairly confident, you
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know? We were still learning.
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Yeah, we're still very well means.
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It's a science. I think that's the the biggest
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lesson I've learned so far, is that it's actually a science.
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You don't just go in and I'm yes, there's machines that will
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roast for you and they have pre-programmed, but for the most
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part, you're you're running the show, your it's And he and
12:02
there's different variables with the beans and it's been fun to
12:06
learn. But yeah it's not easy and that
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might be the fun part 2. Yeah.
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There's a reason I don't do it and that's because I did not do
12:16
well in science. Growing up.
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My brain is this is an English major brain.
12:20
You know, that's what this is. I believe you are in the second
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year of this, of this adventure. Hmm.
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How do you compare your coffee from then to now, how is your
12:32
Has changed in that time period, at some point.
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You decided you felt comfortable enough, not just to share but to
12:37
actually sell your coffee, what made you think that was
12:40
reasonable? Or was it more of a
12:42
justification of the money? You were spending at Coffee
12:44
Collective? Well I think when we go roast,
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we, we went into it, we really didn't tell anybody that it was
12:52
going to be a company where we were going to like, actually go
12:54
out and sell coffee. It was something that we told
12:57
people it was a hobby and we were like, Hey, try this out.
13:00
What do you think? M people would try and be like,
13:03
oh, this was good. Maybe like, oh yeah, we did
13:05
that. You know, we're like, hey, we
13:07
roasted this. Can you try and it's free but we
13:10
just want your honest truth, you know?
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And, and we asked a lot of we asked a lot of people who we
13:15
trust like for me. I wanted somebody to tell me how
13:18
bad it tasted, right. Like, I want to just them to be
13:22
brutally honest. You know, we got we got the
13:25
response we want and you know, people will not be strong or I
13:28
don't taste anything or it's, you know, It's not I like it as
13:33
an espresso. I don't like it as a drip you
13:35
know like we're getting all these different answers and then
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we kind of nailed down our first, you know, our signature
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roast The Riches of the poor. We kind of kind of nailed it
13:47
down and we had a serious heart to heart and we were like, hey
13:50
Will enough people have tried it?
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We're getting pretty consistent at it.
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Let's let's try to see if we could sell some we went in and
13:59
we roasted like 20 pounds. That first roast as soon as we
14:04
put it on the website, it's sold out like in like an hour, but
14:07
you know, that was like her mom. My mom was like, we're cousins.
14:11
It was friends. You know, they're like, oh well,
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you know that that first round was just friends and family
14:16
trying to support, right? But what they didn't realize is
14:21
that that helped like recoup some of the expenses, right?
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So then we got to go out and roast again that second time
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around. You know, the friends and family
14:31
that bought Not the first time that wanted to support.
14:34
Well, they were like, well, we did it for you the first time.
14:36
So now we're like kind of on our own and it was kind of just word
14:39
of mouth after that and we did well and it actually sold out,
14:43
you know. And, you know, we roasted more
14:45
than 20 pounds of can't remember how many we did but it's sold
14:49
out like, in less than a week. Yeah, then we kind of looked at
14:52
each other like whoa this is pretty rad, you know?
14:55
Like that was like the first year that was like, first year
14:59
friends and family. Slow grind.
15:03
You know as we could. Yeah.
15:06
And then second year it's been a slow progression but you know I
15:13
have a hard time comparing because you see all the other
15:17
local Roasters and everybody's doing their own thing.
15:19
So I have to stop and say don't compare, I think it's slowly
15:23
progressed really great for where we're at.
15:28
We have some, some future goals but your one.
15:31
Yeah, you're one was a lot of trial and error learning and
15:37
family and friends carrying us through it your to weave.
15:41
It's still exciting when we get an order from somebody, neither
15:45
of us know. And I even I'll ask him like to,
15:47
you know, so-and-so because it's really awesome, you know, and
15:52
then and then they come back and it's just, that's the payoff
15:56
right there. Its people.
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Like it and they're coming back and we don't know them.
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So I think that feeling sticks with you, I don't know that it
16:04
goes away. If you're still excited about
16:05
what you're doing, I still feel that way.
16:08
And at this point, my friends and family are sick of me after
16:11
years of different projects. So I know it's not from them,
16:14
but when I see something new in someone, something come in and I
16:18
don't know how they connected to me in any way whatsoever.
16:21
I'll often like reach out and be like, hey, I just want to know,
16:24
like, I'm super excited to see your name on this list, but who
16:27
are you? And where did, You come from and
16:29
it's always exciting to hear that that somewhere else in the
16:32
world. Somebody shared my stuff with
16:34
them and I think that's exciting.
16:36
Let's talk about that. You have a website, your name,
16:40
Romantics coffee. I hope I'm saying that right or
16:42
not giving it a little bit. Where did the name come from?
16:45
And The Branding come from. And you mentioned the name of
16:48
that first kind of dialed in coffee Riches of the poor.
16:51
What was the strategy for that? It sounds like and I just want
16:54
to loop back a little bit to what you said earlier, but you
16:57
Might have had a name or some ideas for this before you, your
17:00
Eve really even into it. So how did that get established?
17:05
Where did that come from? Yeah, like I said, we would
17:08
throw out names all the time, just random text each other, a
17:12
name and one would veto it. Or we be sitting at dinner and
17:16
throw out names and the kids would say, no, that sounds
17:19
terrible. We've always been kind of cheesy
17:23
Romantics in our relationship and I like I like the feeling of
17:30
it, not the lovey-dovey hearts and cheesiness.
17:35
I like the feeling where, you know, romance is found in loss
17:39
and pain, and fear and Adventure, I like the little,
17:46
your heart skips a beat kind of feeling, and that's what I want
17:50
people to get from our brand. It's not all, you know, hearts
17:55
and cheesy and it can be sometimes.
17:57
But I think we both kind of resonated with that same thing
18:01
with our names. You know, we want them to be
18:04
reflective of the brand but not carried over board and hoping
18:11
that carry that through. I was going to say that I don't
18:14
see a lot of, I'm kind of scrolling through your social
18:17
feed right now actually, as we're talking just kind of
18:19
giving myself a reminder, I don't see a lot of Hearts to
18:22
begin with, but I feel a very classic old Hollywood vibe to
18:27
it, you know? Even in the font that you chose.
18:30
Yeah, with the cursive. So with that you start this
18:34
company, you're doing it on the side.
18:35
You've got a family. You're obviously very busy.
18:38
How does this fit into your life as a couple?
18:41
I mean, how does working together with your spouse work
18:45
for you? It seems like you have a pretty
18:49
good vibe together so I apologize if I'm imposing.
18:52
No no it's yeah well we met at work but we've I've never worked
18:58
together. So the company we work for has
19:01
tons of office space. So we've never carpooled
19:05
together. We've never worked together.
19:07
He has many different Hobbies as well.
19:10
So this is, this has been fun to have something.
19:14
Together, we go roast, we sit in the car together for a long
19:19
time. Just the two of us which has
19:20
never happened that often before without kids until so.
19:26
It's actually been Learning experience to work together, but
19:32
it also comes natural. We occation.
19:35
Yeah. No, it's been, it's been fun.
19:38
It's been good. I've worked with my spouse.
19:41
My wife Trina, we actually met at work as well, but it was at
19:45
Old Navy in 19, or no, 2001, maybe so it's been a minute.
19:50
We will sense would then work several jobs together.
19:53
And even now she helps me with things and we do events together
19:56
and things. So I No, there is a line between
20:00
our work relationship and how we talk to each other about work
20:04
and our personal relationship. And you've mentioned a few times
20:07
that you have kids who have given you feedback and things
20:10
without getting into the details of them.
20:12
How do you see this? As a family thing ever did you
20:15
guys do events or together or pop-ups or anything like that.
20:19
Yes, we've had a couple pop-ups and we have a, we have a teenage
20:22
daughter. Our oldest daughter.
20:24
Ada, she's read. She's just like a Genuinely read
20:28
kid, and she's really smart. She's probably a lot smarter
20:32
than I was at that age, right? But, uh, she helps us out a ton
20:37
and it is all family like a, our first, the first pop-up, we had
20:41
like the most stressful one. My mother-in-law her mom was in
20:45
the back, helping us wash dishes to keep everything clean.
20:48
You know, she was the grunt and she helped us out, you know, so
20:53
it's big-time family operation and I'm at this point, I'd have
20:57
it no. No other way.
20:58
We're still small, you know, hopefully, the projection is to
21:01
get a lot bigger and, you know, we'd probably have to bring on
21:04
an employee or two outside of the family, which is fine.
21:07
But right now, it's still just real family-oriented and, you
21:10
know, she's the boss and I always make fun of her that she
21:12
yells at me too much, but, you know, the truth is she's never
21:15
yelled at me once, you know, we, you know, we're married and we
21:19
have kids, and we've been together a long time, but I
21:22
think the most important thing, not to get cheesy, but she's my
21:26
friend, right? Like, she's She's my best
21:28
friend, first and foremost. She's my wife.
21:30
But she's my best friend. She knows how to talk to me.
21:32
And if she has to walk me off the ledge, she knows how and
21:37
vice versa. I know her.
21:39
I know all her little ins and outs.
21:40
Oh, she's going off into left field somewhere.
21:43
I, you know, I know, I know how to pull her back and say, well,
21:47
we're roasting, yeah, we'll have to talk.
21:49
It's okay. And like, let's be honest.
21:52
I mean when his every yelling at anybody ever worked for
21:56
anything, right? So like why Why, why would I
21:58
yell at her? And why would she yell at me,
22:00
right? You get get if you talk to
22:02
somebody, you're going to get a lot further, you know.
22:04
I'm naturally a quiet person so I don't I'm beside myself for
22:08
even doing this, but yeah, communication is definitely key.
22:13
Yeah. But but the training, the
22:15
younger kids, so we'll get them in there cupping.
22:18
Oh yeah, we have them, tried everything.
22:22
I'm coming before bedtime before which is not the greatest
22:27
parent. But you know they feel involved
22:31
that is definitely I almost just want to say courageous on your
22:36
part. I'm just hoping you know it runs
22:40
through their veins and we have Baristas in our future.
22:47
Can I ask what you see the future?
22:49
As I know you said growth but does that mean growth online?
22:52
Does that mean? And here we had a minor
22:56
technical glitch. Hang on a second buttons,
22:59
buttons typing editing and back to the show.
23:05
Well, let's I want to get kind of back to the coffee side of
23:08
things. What is something you've learned
23:10
about coffee in the last two years, or running a business
23:14
that maybe you learn the hard way, or you've learned through
23:17
experience or what has your, what is your feeling bad about?
23:20
You're putting your foot into this industry that is totally
23:23
different from what you were doing before.
23:25
I think the just a roasting aspect has been a big learning
23:31
curve and like I said before that the science behind It and
23:36
learning how to adjust with different variables has been.
23:41
I mean, for me, the biggest lesson that we're still learning
23:45
with the business permits and getting all the correct licenses
23:51
its you know, I you read it all over the place that it's hard.
23:55
Well, it is hard and there's no clear handbook on what you need
24:02
to do in a checklist. It's different for everybody.
24:05
D. So I think that's been the
24:08
biggest hurdle for me. I know that for me, at least
24:11
there's there's different. When you say licensing out,
24:14
that's always a challenge. I think.
24:16
California in particular, is this challenge, it's a
24:18
challenge. Even from neighborhood to
24:20
Neighborhood. The rules are different.
24:22
Totally. Yeah.
24:24
I was going to say, like, oh, at least some mind.
24:26
I enjoy the roasting, you know, like a, I really like the
24:29
challenge and always up to learning.
24:33
I mean, we've talked Of people that have been doing this really
24:38
long time. They still learn new stuff all
24:41
the time. This is one of those things are
24:43
you there's no end to it, right? I think one of the most
24:47
difficult things on my end is just a business part of it,
24:50
right? Like, I feel I feel really
24:52
confident or in our product that at least it tastes good, but
24:56
it's going out there and marketing it and trying to get
25:00
people just to give you a shot when there's so many other
25:02
people out there, you know, they could go.
25:05
Down the street and I'm we're we live.
25:08
No one's doing what we're doing right now.
25:09
You know, and it's just easier for them to go to Starbucks,
25:13
right? Like so it's just hard and
25:15
that's the frustrating part for me, but I think it's just got to
25:19
be patient and it's a slogan and we're in it for the long run.
25:22
So I think our time will come when you know enough people hear
25:26
about it and try it that it's going to be more fluid, you
25:29
know, the business side of it. That's that's probably the most
25:33
difficult part, sure. Right.
25:35
Before we had some technical difficulties, I was asking about
25:39
the future and where you see that going, is it staying
25:41
e-commerce, or is there a future in a cafe or pop-ups?
25:45
But what is that, you know, that pattern that you see laying up
25:48
before you definitely, you know, this year, we set some goals to
25:53
be to have some consistent pop-ups.
25:56
We want people to be able to expect and know when to find us
26:01
we started off the year rough with everybody getting sick.
26:05
Sick and then emergency runs. So we're hoping to bounce back
26:10
now and hit the ground running. Maybe coffee shop or consistent
26:15
pop-up will happen sooner than later.
26:18
It's in the works. So stay tuned, but definitely
26:23
e-commerce for the time. Yeah.
26:26
Well, what's the best way for people to to support your
26:30
e-commerce or to try you? And if it were me and I were to
26:32
go online, what is the first thing?
26:35
You'd want people to try that, you think represents you that
26:37
you're selling, definitely our coffee, our cold brew, that we
26:42
actually for local pickup, will do cold broom cold brew lattes
26:45
that are bottled. So if you're not if you're new
26:49
to coffee or you still need some sugar, we have a great latte
26:53
that we feel is great for beginners that want to get that
26:57
first taste of you know, small batch roasted coffee but still
27:01
have that Sugar kick and then if your You already know what you
27:06
like, we have our roasts online. Yeah, we stand behind it.
27:11
It's a strong full body roast and we roast what we like.
27:17
We know that there's a lot of lighter roast that are popular
27:20
right now. So we're kind of trying to swim
27:23
against the stream and kind of get that into people's homes.
27:29
I do have a lot of people ask me about when are darker roasts
27:32
coming back? And I think that they're there.
27:34
I think people are Doing them. They're just not as celebrated
27:37
in the moment. So you got to work a little
27:39
harder to find. Yeah, what did I not ask you
27:42
about? What should you what do you want
27:44
people to know about what you're doing?
27:46
If anything and what did I miss? I don't think you missed
27:49
anything. You know we just were putting
27:52
our passion project out there and we're hoping that people
27:55
enjoy it as much as we do and see that you know romance isn't
28:01
just lovey-dovey romance has a feeling.
28:03
It's that little Flutter that you get when you're excited and
28:08
we want our coffee to get everybody.
28:10
Excited to last question, then before we get going today, is
28:15
when you go out and you're stopping at a coffee shop, what
28:18
do you, what do you order for yourself?
28:19
I always do a cortado and Americano of double fist to try
28:25
both each every location. Yeah, I'm just a cold brew or
28:30
iced coffee guy. So I can drink it when it's
28:33
snowing outside or when it's 100 degrees.
28:35
Is it doesn't matter. So it's usually going to be a
28:37
nice coffee or cold brew. Still be like my milk is and
28:43
then really just whatever the house special is as far as a
28:46
drip column. Well, I would say that you've
28:50
said this kind of term a few times about how you want the
28:54
flutter of of emotion of the heartbeat, you know, being
28:57
romantic, and when I have enough coffee.
29:00
So, that's how my heart feels as well.
29:02
So I think you've got some, some good branding.
29:05
In the works, but the good kind that, right?
29:08
That's not a relation isn't wrong.
29:12
As long as I don't go to the doctor, I'll never know.
29:15
Yeah, it's been really lovely just meeting you and chatting
29:19
with you. I want to thank you for spending
29:20
some time being on the show and and for taking the risk to put
29:24
something that you're doing out in the world.
29:25
And and that's always a vulnerable place to be no matter
29:28
what it is. Thanks for having us here, our
29:30
first podcast. So excuse all the arms and we're
29:34
really good. Reaching out to us to okay, to
29:47
recap, it's Libby and Victor, and their kids, and their dogs,
29:52
and their jobs and roasting coffee and starting a business.
29:56
It's chaos in the way. We all experienced chaos topped
30:00
with the demands heaped upon entrepreneurs.
30:03
I know being an entrepreneur, starting a business, it's a
30:07
choice and I chose this life and Libyan Victor chose to start
30:10
Romantics coffee. But that doesn't mean it isn't
30:14
hard sometimes, and that it doesn't take a little life
30:17
juggling. All of that effort makes the
30:20
victories. The sales to strangers, the
30:23
realization, that something tastes better than brown Water.
30:27
A little bit sweeter. And I'll add I screwed up.
30:30
Three cups of coffee today alone.
30:32
I actually dump the first batch. I brewed, I drank the second and
30:35
third and they were fine and find was okay.
30:38
Today, mistakes and coffee are part of the process Libyan.
30:43
Victor roasted a half a dozen times or more before their
30:46
roasts. Even tasted like coffee to them
30:49
but they kept practicing and practicing and driving to the
30:53
Roasterie and roasting more beans until they felt.
30:56
They had something they could share with the world.
30:58
Old. And then they got feedback and
31:01
ask people, they trusted and got more feedback and kept
31:04
practicing and finally, they were ready to launch.
31:08
Romantics coffee. I found it interesting that
31:11
Libyan, Victor had very different.
31:13
First coffee experiences, Libby's family, used it as a way
31:16
to connect or facilitate communication.
31:19
I love that aspect of coffee. For her coffee, Feels Like Home
31:23
Victor's, family approached. It more for the boost for the
31:26
daily routine. Think back beyond the first
31:29
cups. You drank.
31:30
What are your first memories of coffee in your life?
31:34
Were you exposed to motor oil coffee?
31:35
Like Victor or your family drinking coffee together over
31:38
the kitchen table like Libby or were you exposed to craft coffee
31:43
more? In my case, it wasn't coffee at
31:44
all. My first exposure came in the
31:46
form of a coffee flavored hard candy that I definitely thought
31:50
was going to be caramel. I hated it so much that I didn't
31:55
taste so much as a sip of coffee for the next two decades.
31:58
Decades, finally. Today the payoff for Romantics
32:01
coffee isn't when someone tries it for the first time or even
32:05
when Libyan Victor, see an order come in for a bag, it's when
32:09
they come back for more. Those of you listening, might be
32:12
one of those people providing that pay off someday.
32:15
You can get your start by heading to Romantics coffee.com
32:19
and you can follow their company and in some cases family Journey
32:22
on Instagram at Romantics coffee.
32:25
As always, I'll also include those links in this shows
32:28
podcast notes and in the newsletter on roast
32:31
westcoast.com. If you already subscribe, you'll
32:35
be able to find those links in your email inbox.
32:38
Roast westcoast.com is also where you'll find the brand-new
32:41
coffee smarter education podcast.
32:44
I just got the stickers today. That's where you'll learn the
32:47
ins and outs of making a better cup of coffee at home.
32:51
Find the coffee smarter thread on roast westcoast.com or search
32:55
for coffee Smarter on your favorite podcast platform.
32:59
It's a platform I'm grateful to have and this show doesn't get
33:02
made without some incredible industry partners that include
33:05
Cafe litter. Most, your coffee company,
33:08
steady-state coffee, roasting Camp, Coffee Company, coffee
33:12
cycle, roasting ignite, Coffee Company, Maria coffee, Cape Horn
33:16
coffee, importers zoom bar, coffee, and tea Ascend Coffee
33:20
Roasters, and San Franciscan roaster company a giant thank
33:25
you to our partners and to you for listening and supporting
33:28
this show. So, I'm looking forward to
33:30
getting started on season eight. We've already scheduled some
33:33
great interviews with guests from Craft 42 Roasters up in
33:37
Canada and roast our coffee. Packaging company.
33:40
That's actually from my home town in Central Wisconsin.
33:43
I'll be joining rho star for some live afternoon podcasting
33:46
events at next, month's specialty, coffee Association
33:49
Convention in Portland Oregon. If you're headed that way,
33:53
please reach out. I'd love to connect with you.
33:56
Give you one of those coffee smarter stickers and maybe even
33:59
You on the show for a few minutes, this episode of the
34:02
coffee. People podcast, presented by
34:05
roast West Coast is was has been written produced and recorded as
34:10
always by me Ryan Walt. I hope this episode is found you
34:15
happy healthy and with at least enough sanity to make it through
34:19
the day, always tip your Baristas and be sure to drink.
34:24
Good coffee. Sorry about that.
34:56
No. Yeah he decided to make his
34:59
voice heard. Yeah.