Q&A with Josie Coffee & David Train

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Transcript:


Chris Edden (00:00:01):
Hello. Hope everyone as well. Welcome to some Instagram live. Greg is coming, he's just brewing a couple of coffees at the moment, and we're going to wait for Adam and Dave to come in. So just have to wait till they come in and have a slightly awkward moment where I just sit here and talk to myself. But anyway, so this is something we've organized a little while ago with Adam and Dave. So for those that don't know, here comes Adam. I'm just going to put a request in for him to join. One second, guys. I'm just going to bring Adam in. This is awkward on a phone. Invite, invite. All right, here, come the other guys and Greg coming up stairs. He's got a couple of... Hello.

Adam Marley (00:01:00):
How you doing?

Chris Edden (00:01:01):
Good, man. How are you?

Adam Marley (00:01:02):
Yeah, not too bad.

Chris Edden (00:01:04):
I'm just going to adjust my camera. Probably going to go a little bit weird when Dave jumps in.

Adam Marley (00:01:10):
I'm trying to figure out is going to look. There we go.

Chris Edden (00:01:15):
Dave, spin your camera.

Adam Marley (00:01:18):
Dave's gone abstract.

Chris Edden (00:01:19):
There we go. Well, hello and here's the fourth one. Why's everybody's soapbox shirt on, god love him. All right. Let's just adjust this angle a little bit. I'm going to get a bit of volume. All right. Cool. Well welcome gents from the other side of Australia.

Adam Marley (00:01:39):
Yeah. Nice to be here.

Chris Edden (00:01:43):
Yeah. Greg, you need to... You need to shuffle, very tight in here anyway. So yeah, we're going to a couple of coffees brewing. Have you guys got your coffee already brewed?

Adam Marley (00:01:55):
Yes. Yeah. We're all excited. Yeah. Great. These aren't these aren't cupping spoons. I didn't cup the coffees at all, nope. That's not how I'm drinking them.

Chris Edden (00:02:08):
We have two Tricolates on the brew. So I think everyone has brewed the same coffees. What did you brew Adam?

Adam Marley (00:02:18):
I brewed all of them. Because I cheated and made it really easy for myself and didn't do any devices. So I've got them all here, but I can not put tasting notes on the ones that you guys don't have brewed, if you don't have [crosstalk 00:02:33].

Chris Edden (00:02:32):
So we've brewed the Ethiopia [gutiti 00:02:37] pink and your...

Greg Watkinson (00:02:38):
Yes.

Chris Edden (00:02:40):
So yeah, for those who are obviously tuning in and are including to what's happening because frankly wouldn't be. We sent a couple of bags of coffee to Adam, who is in Adelaide and so is Dave and Adam sent us a couple of bags of coffee. So yeah, we're brewing one of Adams and one of ours. And we're just going to talk about them and just talk for about an hour. So yeah, so I guess that we'll introduce ourself to people who don't know who we are and then everyone else can do the same. So we are Josie Coffee, we're from Newcastle and I'm Chris, this is Greg.

Greg Watkinson (00:03:23):
Hello.

Chris Edden (00:03:24):
And yeah, we are a roastery much like what Adam is in Adelaide or a specialty roastery. We see lots of cool coffee from around the world and try and not muck them up when we roast them. So got a couple of cafes up here and yeah, and we obviously have had a relationship with Dave for some time being a green trader and just a general good egg. And yeah, we hooked up with Adam, a little while ago. We'd obviously had been sort of following on with what you were doing, because we do run in pretty similar circles. But we obviously kept somewhat of an eye on you and followed what you were doing, because you have definitely done consulting with Scott Rao and you're very much on a very similar path, I guess, to what we are in terms of brewing and buying and ethics and all that sort of stuff. So naturally it made sense that we would become friends.

Greg Watkinson (00:04:32):
Yes. And I bought a Scott Rao book from Monastery. And so I also bought some coffees while I was there and they were delicious. That was... the proof was in the pudding in that regard.

Adam Marley (00:04:50):
Yeah. [inaudible 00:04:54]. The coffees were good.

Chris Edden (00:04:55):
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. If you want to tell our viewers who you are.

Adam Marley (00:05:01):
Yeah, for sure. So my name's Adam Marley. I'm the... Well, I used to say head roaster but now I reckon Tim's probably a head roaster... Sorry. I'm just adjusting my camera at the same time I stand as fickle. I'm say operations manager now of Monastery Coffee. There's three of us, Tim, Harry and I, and then Dan, who's the owner and he's off making big decisions about saving the world and stuff. So we're the ones in the nitty gritty with the coffee day to day. Yeah. So I think we're about 10 years into it now, we started Monastery like nine something years ago, almost 10 years ago here down in Adelaide. At the time we couldn't find any locally roasted coffee that ticked all of our boxes in terms of light roast, transparency and the trade for the green beans and the quality of the green coffee.

Adam Marley (00:05:54):
There's plenty here now doing that. And maybe there was then as well, we just didn't stumble across them. But now there's heaps of... Adelaide's is actually I think quite lucky in that regard, we have quite a lot of roasters who really care about the product and really care about the farmer and the consumer and the quality of the roast. So everyone's putting a lot of effort in which is great. Other than all that, putting aside all the other great aspects of living in South Australia, I always feel a bit, a bit awkward talking to people in the Eastern states. Because we've just had it so much easier than everyone else around the country with COVID related stuff. So yeah. Lucky, feel lucky to be here in that regard. But yeah.

Adam Marley (00:06:31):
So obviously we have a focus on the transparency of the trade, making sure the farmers are paid really good premiums. One of our things is always, we've always from day one issues the whole like direct trade kind of branding and marketing and stuff like that. Instead we want to put a spotlight on everyone in the supply chain and that's where people like Dave come into it. It's like we wouldn't be able to roast amazing coffees if it wasn't for fantastic importers next exporters, as well as producers. There's heaps of us in the supply chain there so we want to put the spotlight on everyone other than ourselves.

Chris Edden (00:07:06):
Aren't you just direct trade if you send an Instagram message to a farmer? Isn't that the same?

Greg Watkinson (00:07:14):
You just have to tag them.

Chris Edden (00:07:15):
Or you tag them.

Adam Marley (00:07:15):
Yeah. Or you get photo with them and you asked the exporter to get out of shot for the photo before you get the photo.

Chris Edden (00:07:26):
He's my buddy from Tolima, [crosstalk 00:07:29].

Greg Watkinson (00:07:29):
Just scribble him out with a markup tool.

Adam Marley (00:07:34):
Yeah. And obviously we get super geeky about the roasting. We love getting really geeky about stuff and then trying our best to kind of communicate to the end consumer why the coffee tastes like blueberries or hazelnuts or whatever it might be. It's like using the flavor to get everyone's attention, to tell that story and I think you guys definitely do the same thing. It's like I'm drinking your coffees now, and of course I've have some of your coffees previously and they're banging, they're always so delicious. And going back to what you were saying as well, I actually found you guys on Instagram actually. But I think Nathan Johnson from Cartel or something, he was doing some stories in India at Riverdale Estate. And then you guys were there and you popped up on camera and he is like, "With the Josie Coffee boys."

Adam Marley (00:08:22):
I'm just like, okay, well, if they're there then I might pay attention to these guys and then like, yeah. Exactly what you were saying. It's seems like our values align just so incredibly well. And yeah, it's great. I can't wait to... And credit where it's due, it was the Josie boys who contacted us and were like, "Hey, we've got these amazing coffees coming in. Do you want to get in on it?" They're the ones that put in all the hard work there and put in forming the connections and-

Greg Watkinson (00:08:52):
It wasn't much hard work, honestly. Yeah.

Chris Edden (00:08:54):
We just DMed him on Instagram.

Greg Watkinson (00:08:57):
That was a legit direct message on Instagram.

Adam Marley (00:08:58):
I'm like how easy's my life. Just get a, "Hey, do you want some delicious coffee?' Yeah, I'll get in on that.

Chris Edden (00:09:07):
We're actually doing an Instagram live next week with, with the guys from El Virgil.

Adam Marley (00:09:13):
Well, there you go.

Chris Edden (00:09:14):
Yeah, we can talk about those coffees, I guess after. So we might...

Greg Watkinson (00:09:18):
Can we have Dave just talk about himself.

Chris Edden (00:09:20):
Yeah. Hey Dave, do you want to say hello?

David Train (00:09:28):
Good day. For those of don't know me, my name's David. I am a green bean importer. I have luxury of getting tasty coffees into hands of coffee roasters around Australia. And I happen to help Monastery get some coffees and Josie Coffee get some coffees. I guess, yeah. We sometimes as importers are the people behind the scenes. It's not our coffee, we're just helping getting it into the country for people that want it. So, yeah, that's who I am, what I do in a nutshell.

Chris Edden (00:10:04):
Cool. And you've done a few coffee comps?

Adam Marley (00:10:06):
Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say he doesn't like talking about himself, does he?

Chris Edden (00:10:07):
No.

David Train (00:10:12):
I like the brew coffee competitively twice a year for the three judges pretty much. Yeah. I like filter coffee. I think most either importers or roasters tend to drink filter, obviously old cupping, but just an easier way to have a cup of coffee. Obviously I won't go into the intricacies of the flavor profile, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, I like to brew tasty coffee.

Chris Edden (00:10:42):
We only brew cold drip. That's how we do all of our [inaudible 00:10:46]. It's a long process, but we're committed. Yeah.

David Train (00:10:51):
It's more environmentally sustainable if you do it cold drip, but there you go.

Chris Edden (00:10:57):
Yeah. It's [inaudible 00:10:57] cold drip. We're leading the way.

Greg Watkinson (00:10:59):
I actually exhale a lot of carbon dioxide through swearing whilst bottling cold brew so that's technically [crosstalk 00:11:04].

Chris Edden (00:11:06):
Don't act like you do it. Neither of us do it, someone else doesn't it. Anyway so the two coffees we're brewing, as we said earlier, one of our coffees that Ethiopia gutiti pink, doesn't make a massive amount of sense to brew this coffee, because we don't have any for sale.

Greg Watkinson (00:11:21):
It's just really nice.

Chris Edden (00:11:22):
It's a very good coffee. A lot of people have reached out and said that coffee is absolutely amazing. Adam messaged me the other day and like, "Hey, what is this coffee?" And what does it cost and where do you get it. And I was like, it wasn't even that expensive of a coffee. And it is just one of those coffees you wish you bought more of. As I've said before, in my opinion is the best non-exotic Ethiopian natural I've ever had. And even against some of the exotics, it's just... I've said in an Insta Live, when we tasted it last, I think that if you put this in a [inaudible 00:12:02] village bag and sold it for 60 bucks or 250 grams, people would be... they'd be happy. They'd be like, yep. This coffee's sick. It's just got so much for flavor.

Greg Watkinson (00:12:13):
Yeah. It's good.

Chris Edden (00:12:14):
And the other coffee is a Monastery Kenya, which... What is the Kenya? Sorry.

Adam Marley (00:12:21):
So it's the Honduran AA. And that was sourced by Melbourne coffee merchants. I think it's Kenya Cof is the exporter and it's... I'm going to mispronounce this, but [Moranga 00:12:33] County, I think it's the county. But yeah, that's our current Kenya.. I can't remember why I chose to send you the Kenyan. Oh, I think it's because initially you guys were going to send your Kenyan so I'm like, I'll send a Kenyan as well. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Edden (00:12:52):
I think we just decided to send the gutiti pink because I was like, this coffee's so good. You've got to have it.

Adam Marley (00:12:54):
Yeah.

Chris Edden (00:12:56):
But yeah, I just feel like my taste buds are amazing because I just had a bit too much hot sauce on my toastie for lunch and I'm still recovering. So I'm in a bit of a state of disrepair at the moment mouth wise.

Greg Watkinson (00:13:07):
I just had a mint slice to calibrate myself.

Chris Edden (00:13:09):
This guy can't can't even lunch without having dessert after.

Greg Watkinson (00:13:13):
It's got to be [inaudible 00:13:14].

Chris Edden (00:13:14):
It's the good life. But yeah, definitely in terms of tasting these coffees, I think that your Kenyan's definitely a little bit lighter than our coffee. It's definitely, yeah. It's quite light but it's still got really good flavor.

Greg Watkinson (00:13:30):
Yeah. I think the... Certainly the coffees that I've had from Monastery are lighter than the roast that we have.

Chris Edden (00:13:39):
They're filter roast you mean.

Greg Watkinson (00:13:42):
Yeah. And ours are technically omni, but I like drinking coffee like this because I find that it's very hard to roast coffee well and have it this light and it certainly is that in spade. So, hats off to you guys for doing a really good job. Especially with Kenyan, if you stuff up a Kenyan roast and you roast it to this... Well, I measured it on the antron, if you roast it to these numbers on the antron and the roast is not of exceptionally good quality, it will taste diabolical. So commendation there, it's delicious.

Chris Edden (00:14:15):
You need to wave to your daughter.

Greg Watkinson (00:14:16):
I apparently have to wave my daughter. Hi. Hi, Hallie.

Chris Edden (00:14:18):
Hello. Yeah.. I reiterate what Greg says that it's definitely light, but it hasn't got the negative flavors of often very light roasted coffee, which is just, I say like a cup of oxygen. They just don't taste like anything and they're just really underwhelming. Yeah. I think it's still packs plenty of flavor and it tastes like a Kenyan coffee. I think when some coffees get inherently light, they don't have any characteristics of origin. They just taste like exceptionally light coffee where this still tastes like a Kenyan coffee.

Greg Watkinson (00:14:57):
Yeah. It's got really nice acidity. It's got good balance. It's got a really got body still, even at that development. It's good.

Chris Edden (00:15:04):
It's got good sweetness too.

Greg Watkinson (00:15:06):
Yeah.

Chris Edden (00:15:07):
And I think that's often a tough thing from Kenyan coffee is to get really good sweetness because they're such a difficult coffee to roast and I'm not sure how this coffee crashes. But you're the...

Adam Marley (00:15:19):
Oh, it crashed hard.

Chris Edden (00:15:23):
Yeah. Yeah. So you've got that dip happening, no doubt.

Adam Marley (00:15:25):
Off a cliff. Yeah. So yeah. Without a gas dip, it would actually probably stole this coffee, it crash is so hard that if you didn't use a gas dip or have a huge amount of thermal mass... So we're roasting on a Dietrich IR-12. So it's a single walled drum has it-

Chris Edden (00:15:43):
Has it got stains?

Adam Marley (00:15:45):
Yeah. It's heavily modified, lot more airflow. It's got a decent amount of thermal mass because of the heat exchanges, but a lot less than an old school double walled cast iron kind of situation. So yeah, if something, and it's not just Kenyans, but it's like Rwandans, Uganda, Burundi, east Africans in general, anything that's crashy if you are not gas dipping, then you're probably going to have it, not just crash, but it will hit negative ROR. Like all the energy out of the roasting system immediately, it's like you just turned, turned all the heat off and just opened up all the doors and let all cold air in. It just sucks everything out [inaudible 00:16:22].

Chris Edden (00:16:22):
This is like something we've spoke about here before and a lot of people that watch these aren't roasters, but talking about crashing and stuff like that and just how underwhelming crash coffees are, they're just very hollow and they...

Adam Marley (00:16:40):
They [inaudible 00:16:40].

Chris Edden (00:16:40):
We've spoken quite at length about Kenyan coffees and just how I think the general consensus, I'm interested to get your input on it of just people be like, I don't like Kenyan coffees and Kenyan coffee is whatever. I'm quite [crosstalk 00:16:55]. There's a lot of very badly roasted Kenyans. They end up crashing and flicking so they just get this hollow badness with just a roasty aftertaste or whatever. And yeah, Kenyan coffee's are bloody hard to roast, but I never feel like we have had so much of a handle on them and by we, I primarily mean Greg, because I don't tend to roast many of them. But I am aware of how to do it and I do do some with some of the exotics with dips and stuff.

Chris Edden (00:17:22):
But until we started doing those principles, like Scott has demonstrates in his books and courses and stuff, we never had any his success with Kenyans. And since we've been implementing what he's doing, never better. And night and day difference in the cup.

Greg Watkinson (00:17:44):
Absolutely.

Adam Marley (00:17:46):
Yeah. Yeah. No, I definitely have Scott to thank for so much of what we do. I do want to point out to people that, especially anyone who's like a budding roaster that try not to be too beholden to one person's method of doing things. A lot of-

Chris Edden (00:18:03):
Unless it's Scott.

Adam Marley (00:18:05):
Yeah. Don't be too dogmatic. And it's funny because everyone like talks to me about... Because obviously we've consulted like one on one with Scott and he came down to Adelaide a few years back. So we were able to consult in person and like people were like, "Oh man, Scott is so dogmatic, blah blah." And I'm like, but he's not like even says he's-

Chris Edden (00:18:21):
He's a nice bloke.

Adam Marley (00:18:22):
Yeah, yeah. It's like he just comes across that way in his prescriptions of things in really short Instagram posts and stuff like that. But he'll be the first to say like, if you like what you're roasting and your customers like it then great. Crash and flick away if you...

Chris Edden (00:18:36):
Yeah. We met him about four years ago in Melbourne and he was a really nice guy. He was super approachable and friendly and happy to chat. And I completely understand what you're saying about him being very dogmatic and stuff and especially in social media he's... And that's most certainly what I love and I absolutely know Greg does, he's just so cut and dry with stuff. There's no middle ground it's hey, I'm thinking about... or I'm doing this with my roaster and he's just like, no, that's wrong. No, that doesn't work.

Adam Marley (00:19:13):
No, that's bad. Your coffee will taste bad. I can't taste it but it will taste bad.

Chris Edden (00:19:19):
Yeah. He is a person and he's quite uniquely qualified to have a lot of those opinions because he is incredibly experienced then and yeah. Well, I think he's a very smart guy and everything that he has certainly preached and we have implemented, we're not just like a blind follower that like he says it, so it's good. But the stuff that he says in our experience absolutely works.

Adam Marley (00:19:45):
Yeah. Yeah. We found that as well. I mean the DTR recommendations of he himself has gone over this and length, like kind of recanting it and wishing he hadn't written up the DTR recommendations, which for non-roasters is a development time ratio, percentage of the roast that happens after first crack. So those detail recommendations in the first roasting book, we were kind of like trying to hit them and I'm like, man, this is all really roasty.

Chris Edden (00:20:12):
That was a long time ago though.

Adam Marley (00:20:14):
Yeah. Yeah. So I spoke to Scott and he's just like, nah, dude, don't worry. No, no, no, ignore those percentages. He's like get the curve right. Is the curve looking good, drop it when it tastes the way you want it to taste. Don't worry about the DTRs. And so it's funny because we'll send profiles to people, other roasters talk to me and they're like, what was the DTR on that roast and they'll preface like I really like that roast, what was as DTR in it. And I'm like, "I don't know, like 6%," and they're like, no, 6% it's going to be bad.

Chris Edden (00:20:38):
And we have that sort of stuff too. I don't even look at DTR. It's development time is probably sometimes a factor but-

Greg Watkinson (00:20:47):
I would have to go into Cropster and turn on the DTR thing again to actually look at them, because I haven't looked at DTR in a couple of years.

Chris Edden (00:20:56):
But I think that what is definitely important with stuff like that and he's pretty open about it. When he was writing that book about, in referencing DTR and stuff, it was a long time ago when things were very different. And I think that he was trying his best to convey an idea in a time where roasting was very different. And a lot of it, I think got taken out of context, but yeah. And absolutely I think for anyone tuning in who is a new roaster or anything like that, Scott's books are a must read. His books, his posts on Instagram, his coffee tips and even just some online consulting or his courses that he runs online are very good.

Adam Marley (00:21:47):
Great value for money as well, if it's a new roaster and you don't have a lot to spend on one-on-one consulting, there's the beginner's roasters classes, I think they now come with like, you can go onto like Facebook and throw profiles up and stuff like that. You're basically getting his consulting stuff for like a lot less. I think for the one on one, he under charges, he under charges. I think he undervalues his stuff, but yeah, no, it is great. And it's like, again, you don't have to be beholden to Scott's way of doing things, but it's just like really useful information. Just take it on board, it's like what's the Bruce Lee saying? It's like, take on board what is useful and just get rid of the rest. It's like you bound to find some really useful stuff in there even if it's not your style.

Adam Marley (00:22:28):
I think for us, it's just our tastes align. What we like and how we like to present a coffee, it aligns really well with what Scott likes and obviously he's suggesting people roast in a way that he likes coffee to taste. And I think you guys too is like, I taste your roast and even with the different roast levels, I'm just like, this is what I would hope our coffee, like our roast of this same coffee would taste like at that roast level. And I think it probably would be. And so it's like I really love drinking your coffee because I'm just like, "Oh, this tastes like coffee that we would roast." And obviously every roast has a fingerprint and you roast coffee the way you like it to taste.

Adam Marley (00:23:01):
It'd be interesting to say we're both very aligned in that regard. I think all three of us very aligned in that taste preference for roasts and stuff like that. Dave, what about you?

Chris Edden (00:23:08):
Yeah. Hi, Dave.

Adam Marley (00:23:12):
You've been quiet.

David Train (00:23:16):
I'm an importer, I have no input or value to be added to the roast. What roasters should or shouldn't do, that's completely up to everyone's opinion. I obviously have taste preferences, that's a fact, that's everyone in the industry. How you wish to approach coffee is completely up to you. But yeah, obviously the two coffees in front of me, the roast development or DTR or whatever kind language use resonate more with my flavor or my taste preference. I do obviously prefer a lighter roast, whatever you want to call it. Your shorter development or whatever the term you know should be. They would be more with my personal preference. Not David Train, the coffee importer. David Train, the coffee drinker.

Adam Marley (00:24:13):
Slash competitor.

David Train (00:24:14):
Yeah. Yeah. But mine is both. I've had both coffees and I love washed Kenyans and natural Ethiopians. I think most coffee people do. They're the two origins or the two kind of processing that gives people that first wow, coffee moment. Whilst the Kenyon is, I wouldn't say necessarily like super traditional Kenyon, but there's loads of body texture to it. So it's like syrupy whilst warm and cools. It's very silky, very lingering, I like that bright phosphoric acid when it's warm. It cools down and gives it that nice crispiness, but still coats the tongue, which is what I love about like length of flavor with Kenyan. The Ethiopian is wild for a traditional, natural. I've only tasted one or two coffees of a similar sort of processing and flavor profile.

David Train (00:25:17):
Wasn't an experimental process and that was once from Saddam and this one's, I believe a [inaudible 00:25:22]. Like also very hard to... This is a natural that Scott Rao would drink.

Adam Marley (00:25:34):
You're right there.

Greg Watkinson (00:25:34):
I'd like to think so.

David Train (00:25:37):
I hate that we have to, still to this day we have to say it's a natural but it's clean, but it's got all the brightness and it's giving you that you would probably get from a washed. but then just has that natural intensity that probably obviously comes from the natural and yeah. It's clean. There's zero dirtiness, obviously there's no residual sort of like... With a dirty natural, you tend to get like... I like to call like a nut rind texture across the tongue. It's like if you've had hazelnut skin or something, like that's like a dirty natural. This is just like a flower bomb in the mouth kind of sherbety kind of explosion.

Chris Edden (00:26:23):
It's a kind of coffee that-

David Train (00:26:24):
Yeah. The both-

Chris Edden (00:26:25):
Always had. I think that coffees like this are what you want to give to people... You want to give these to people who are trying to get into coffee or they're not even necessarily into coffees, they're drinking piccolos or they're drinking maciardos and they're kind of on the edge, they're almost there. And you just be like, "Hey man, have a batch of this." And they're just like, yeah, they just have their head blown off. And they're like, wow, that's nuts.

David Train (00:26:56):
I think, because they're roasted accordingly, but also obviously the green I can tell is exceptional. And I think I didn't brew them to their full potential. They're kind of, I wouldn't say choked, but they were... I don't tend to brew any longer than three minutes with the kono. And these were sort of like, just over like three minutes, 20. No stringency whatsoever. It's obviously not what I was used to. But they pack, like I would give these coffees to anyone and they would be... I would say, they'd be like, yeah, that's a wash Kenyan. As I said, it's not that traditional punchy black currency, but it has that body that I love in washed Kenyans.

David Train (00:27:43):
That mouth coating lingering structure and then you've got obviously the florailty and sherbety of the natural Ethiopian. And I'd give these to any coffee person or any person, and they'd hate these and just be like, shit, this is good. This is nice coffee. And then maybe on that journey from the marchiardos.

Adam Marley (00:28:09):
[inaudible 00:28:09]. That's what it is. I love this by the way, guys. When it arrived, I'm just like pulp fiction reference. That's pretty awesome. And it's [crosstalk 00:28:17] even better.

Chris Edden (00:28:20):
They all kind of have meaning. That's why we have the slogan now of... Well, I'm having a complete mental blind.

Greg Watkinson (00:28:31):
It's on the bags.

Chris Edden (00:28:31):
Yeah.

Greg Watkinson (00:28:32):
Nothing is sacred.

Chris Edden (00:28:33):
Nothing is sacred, but coffee. We don't take things serious. Yeah. Nothing is sacred, but coffee. So we really... We have a lot of references and stuff and it's trying to yeah... Like trying to make fun of that sort of stuff and play on it. But coffee's serious, we don't take the out of that. Even like my shirt, our Santa sends blend, which Adam recently discovered that this is actually my car. So yeah, santa drifting, the 86, which is [inaudible 00:29:05] by a buddy of mine. And he done those stickers and stuff as well. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff, I guess in Josie that reflects out of our interests and stuff outside of coffee and yeah. Trying to keep things light and cool. And yeah, we don't try and take things too serious with coffee and we take it as serious as it needs to be.

Chris Edden (00:29:31):
And we're obviously into coffee and making and trying to make it taste good and showcase the work of farmers and stuff. But we don't, as we say we don't be dicks about it. We don't have massive egos or look down on people that come into the cafe and get a three sugar cappuccino because frankly, I don't care. They're paying for the coffee, it's their coffee. They'll have it how they want. You're never going to get anyone into coffee by being a condescending prick about it. Like, no one's going to be like, "Oh wow. That guy was really rude to me. I must listen to what he says," but you're just like, "Hey man, like, I notice that you're drinking whatever." Like, you're not going to...

Chris Edden (00:30:07):
If someone's getting a caramel latte, you're not going to like, "Hey, have this exotic filter," but like I said your people who you fringe into coffee, like double shop flat whites, or it's like, "Hey man, why don't you try this coffee?" Like, I see you come in here all the time and you know, or why don't you have your espresso, why don't you ditch that one ounce of milk and-

Greg Watkinson (00:30:29):
All of this said, we make exceptions for piccolos. People do drink piccolos. We just go hard.

Adam Marley (00:30:37):
What's wrong with piccolos.

Greg Watkinson (00:30:40):
It's an ongoing joke and I'm hoping that [inaudible 00:30:42] who comes into the cafe every day for two piccolos watches this back and realizes that we're talking about him.

Chris Edden (00:30:51):
But anyway, like I said, we're always just trying to get people into coffee and get people into the kind of coffees we want to drink. And the things that we think are cool. Because that I think is what it's all about, it's trying to get people off bloody servo coffee and crap like that and into actual good coffees and buying good coffees and understanding that coffee's not just a product, it's not just a consumable product, it's grown by real people. It's grown on a tree, there is actually farmers behind what we are doing. They're the ones, as we always say, like they're the ones doing the hard work and the risk.

David Train (00:31:31):
I think what we need to achieve is for people to understand that coffee isn't a necessity and it isn't a right, it is a luxury and it should be too treated as such particularly in Australia. Like I think we really take that for granted because we can get $1 servo coffee, because we can get coffee at a pub, at a cafe at a Mac's. It's not a necessity. It is a right, it's a privilege that we, in our socio-economical situation that we have and that I think particularly when it comes to specialty or transparent or relationship coffee or, whatever terminology you want to use versus commodity or commercial is that this coffee is different and it needs to be treated differently. It doesn't... I'm not saying that it has to make everyone happy, but it is a luxury that we really need to understand.

David Train (00:32:28):
And then that we need to respect. And these two coffees are coffees that you can give anyone that likes a service station coffee, and they'd be like, "Shit, tastes like fruit juice, what's going on? How can I get involved in this?" My sister was, I think 32 and she had her ever... I was drinking an Ethiopian natural batch brew and I made her try to drink coffee forever and she just didn't like, it. She's like, "Oh, I'll have a taste," took sip. She's like, "Holy shit. What's this?" I was like, this is coffee. She was like, really. Like this. Yeah. And then like a month later she's like, oh, I bought an aeropress, I've got some scales. She lives in the UK. So she's like, is square mile good? I was like, yeah, they're pretty good. [crosstalk 00:33:09]. I'll buy some.

Chris Edden (00:33:10):
I'm 25 pages deep on your way.

David Train (00:33:14):
Exactly. I've read Scott's book, I've read Rob's book. I've taken [crosstalk 00:33:22].

Chris Edden (00:33:22):
I'm starting water.

Greg Watkinson (00:33:23):
I'm starting a micro roaster.

Chris Edden (00:33:25):
Ah. Yes. But yeah. And, and I agree and I try and have these conversations a lot with people who I might come across in whatever circles and they are obviously find out what I do and I'm a coffee roaster. And they're like, oh, I don't drink coffee. And I'm just like they're however old they're in their late 20s or 30s or 40s. And like, I just don't drink coffee. I'm like, no, okay. Like why and they're like, oh, I tried a coffee and it was shit. I was like, "Bro, you probably had a coffee when you were 16, you had a sip of your mum's instant coffee and I bet it tasted terrible." And it's like, that's not coffee. I'm like you need to actually go and have a decent coffee somewhere and give it a proper chance.

Chris Edden (00:34:11):
It's like drinking a VB when you're 15 and thinking... no one likes VB the first, it ever tastes good. But you drink a VB when you're 15 or something, that's not what beer that I think the modern generation generally drink and enjoy. It's just a different-

Greg Watkinson (00:34:35):
Well, that's not the beer that the people that make the VB drink. That's the for certain.

Chris Edden (00:34:39):
No. No. They drink crap.

Greg Watkinson (00:34:42):
Yes.

Chris Edden (00:34:43):
But yeah. Anyway, so absolutely is something that I'm always tried to do as well. And just be like, "Hey, come and taste this." And I've done it with one of my mates recently. Matt comes into the cafe all the time, one of my good friends and he used to drink, I don't know, a soy caramel or something horrendous. And now he comes in every day of his days off and has a tasting flight. So he has an espresso, a flat white and a batch brutal. And he's just like, now he's tasting coffees. And he's like, wow, that coffee's different. Wow that tastes sick. And he just had such a change and it's cool to see that... get people on their coffee journey. And as I always say, it's a pretty slippery slope that once you start getting into coffee, there's no turning back.

Adam Marley (00:35:35):
Yeah. And you can spend a lot of money on equipment very quickly.

Chris Edden (00:35:39):
Yeah, absolutely.

David Train (00:35:43):
Yeah. I think you won't commit to everyone. My fiance still doesn't drink coffee. And I think arguably I have one of the best freezers in the world filled with coffees and [inaudible 00:35:56]. Which is fine. Just means I get to enjoy it a little more by myself but yeah. You can't convince everyone but I think once they do... Like anything, once you try a good, objectively good product, regardless of whatever industry, it is mind blowing, it is changing. These kinds of coffees, it's funny how we take this for granted, these coffees, these are stuff that we drink every day. But you give this to someone that is 30, 40, 50 years old and their mind is blown. When I was in Munich, we gave again, it was Ethiopian natural, we gave it to this really old Bavarian grandmothers that came in.

David Train (00:36:40):
They asked us just for a cup of coffee and we gave them, not a warning, but we said, we roast coffee a little bit differently. It's quite fruity or whatever. They took it like yeah, whatever. They do a couple of sips and they're like, this is the future. Like what have we been doing. And I don't want to play with their ages, but they were very, very silver foxes. They were clearly in their sort of 60s, 70s. And then they came back in every day. They've been drinking coffee for their whole life.

Chris Edden (00:37:08):
Yeah. That's sick.

David Train (00:37:12):
We take that for granted, but getting these coffees in front of as many people as possible is a joy. It's tasty.

Chris Edden (00:37:21):
And, and as we say, you never know where... Everyone's on their coffee journey and I think that that links into like I said, just not being a prick and not looking down at people or whatever because not everyone starts drinking espressos and filter coffee. Like one does. Maybe some do, but there's not common. They generally started drinking, whatever caramel latte.

David Train (00:37:45):
Caramel lattes.

Adam Marley (00:37:46):
[crosstalk 00:37:46] Caramels, definitely.

David Train (00:37:46):
Caramel latte and then dirty chis.

Adam Marley (00:37:47):
Dirty Chis. Yeah. Dirty chis got me through a lot of early lectures in uni, that I have to say that was before I got into coffee and man, that combination of sugar and caffeine, it's a winner.

Chris Edden (00:38:08):
I think it's a matter, for baristas and stuff, of picking their marks and for people, there's always those people that are a bit more inquisitive to what... There's always those people that come into the cafe and they're not really interested in a chat and nothing. They just come and get their coffee, whatever, go. There's always those people that are looking around and they're like, "Oh, what are you doing there? Or what's that, what are you brewing there?" And they're the ones I think that you pick your marks and you're like, "Hey man, you want to just hang around for another two minutes. We've got this filter brewing, check it out."

Chris Edden (00:38:36):
And then that's just... it's a great opportunity to try and get those people into coffee, give them a little bit of that... Always give them the filter before the caramel latte. And yeah, you never know, some of those people, they end up turning into people that drinking more special coffee.

Adam Marley (00:38:58):
Yeah. It's like when I'm behind the bar, I'll have this protocol where it's like every customer who doesn't order batch brew, who goes and batch brew on, they get... We have an undue amount of espresso cups. And so it's like every customer that comes in, it's just like, "Hey, have you tried batch brew or filter coffee before?" No, here's the sample. Just try that as they're waiting for their coffee. So first of all, we've got a bit of a line. It's great because they've already had an interaction, they're drinking something while they're waiting so they don't notice the wait time as much. And then you'll usually get one or two responses. And immediately obviously there's a selection bias for the kind of customers that even come into our cafe in the first place.

Adam Marley (00:39:33):
And this is when I say ours, this is Monastery... It's confusing for everyone, don't worry about that. And you get one or two responses, like one of them... And it would usually be something kind of fun we have on there and they'll be like, whoa, I didn't know coffee could taste like this. I'm going to change my order, can I get this. And then that's it, then they're a batch brew drinker for life. Every day, they now come in and there's no more cappuccino, there's no more milk. So the planet thanks us and they're just drinking batch brew and that's it. And then they try and get their friends onto as well. And then the other response we usually sometimes get is like, "Oh, that's really interesting, but it's not for me." And it's like, that's absolutely fine. But like no one ever says, "Oh gross. No, I hate it. That's bad."

Adam Marley (00:40:13):
The response is always like, "Oh wow, that's weird. I like it." Or "That's weird and cool, but I don't like it," and that's perfectly fine. And they'll stick with the cappuccino or whatever. But, you can taste the objective. If you starting with great green, it's really hard to screw it up. But then you put a lot of effort into the roasting as well, it's like... I think the sweetness is the biggest thing as well. It's like before, going back ages ago, you guys mentioned the sweetness in the Kenyan and I was going to jump in and be like... Roasting, obviously we know as roasters that you can definitely take away sweetness with like flicks or whatever it might be, baking, but you can't add sweetness.

Adam Marley (00:40:51):
And that's one of the biggest things I've noticed for non-specialty coffee drinkers is what I'm doing public cuppings or something like that and they're latte drinkers. Even if they're just like, "Whoa, that smells like rotten fruit. That's like something weird going on. Don't like that fermentation flavor," or the wash coffees. And it's like, "Oh, it's too sour." It's like, all of them will usually go like, "Oh, but it's sweet. Did you push sugar in it? It's weirdly sweet." And I'm like, no coffee naturally has this sweetness to it if it's really high quality green and the roasters put at least a modicum of effort into making sure they've preserved that sweetness. And I think that's just a human thing right? It's like any human... It's the same thing with veggies.

Adam Marley (00:41:29):
The thing that reminds me of the most is like, you get like colds, veggies, frozen six months old, whatever and then you get something from like a local organic green grocer or something like that, where it's like a local farmer. It's fresh, it's in season. Even something as boring and as simple as like snap peas, it's like literally... Or like potatoes, sometimes we'll be like eating dinner and I'll say this is Les, I'll say to my wife, I'm just like these potatoes.... There's nothing on I'm like, "These potatoes are too sweet." Or like "These peas are too sweet, they taste like a dessert." And that's confusing me because this is meant to be savory because it's dinner. But it's the same thing, it's like, every human can notice that sweetness. It's just this intrinsic thing. We're looking, it's like fat and sugar. We're looking for it right.

Chris Edden (00:42:10):
Or it's like people who tend to drink real rizzy coffee or something and you might give them an espresso, something that tastes good and then they're like, "Oh it's too sweet," I'm just like not possible.

Adam Marley (00:42:26):
What. Too sweet. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Greg Watkinson (00:42:29):
[inaudible 00:42:29] a negative review on the Mayfield Cafe recently saying that our coffee tasted like Christmas pudding I think or something.

Chris Edden (00:42:35):
Yeah. I was like, [crosstalk 00:42:36].

Greg Watkinson (00:42:36):
We were like that [crosstalk 00:42:37].

Adam Marley (00:42:37):
Oh no. That's terrible. Oh no.

Chris Edden (00:42:39):
The coffee was fruity, it taste like a Christmas [inaudible 00:42:42] and my reply was like, "Yeah, it was the Christmas blend. It was supposed to." And it was just like, cool.

David Train (00:42:46):
You've done your job. You've got early review, you're doing your good job.

Chris Edden (00:42:55):
Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Marley (00:42:56):
We ran in the shop one time, back when I was this barista, we ran... Actually it reminded me a lot of it reminded me a lot of this, the gutiti. But it was like a really intense... Although it had more strawberry than this. This for me has got like a huge amount of watermelon, but like a really candy watermelon... Like warhead watermelon flavored. Like if you remember that, it's just like, every time I take a sip, I'm just like back to being like 18 and liking warheads. It's delicious. So confected. But it was like, so that level of sweetness, intensity, like not funky or whatever. Anyway, we're just like this coffee's amazing, it's so good and we tried it through milk and it had it just literally tasted like a strawberry.

Adam Marley (00:43:35):
I don't know, I can't remember what the brand is, but it's like strawberry milk. Like in the carton like trade milk.

Chris Edden (00:43:40):
Oak?

Adam Marley (00:43:41):
And it tasted like... I don't know if it was Farmer's Union or whatever, but a particular brand, it tasted exactly like that. And so we ran it. Now we were naive and we made the mistake of using it for every milk coffee and not communicating with customers what we'd done. But instead of writing them normal espresso blend, we did an espresso roast of that and put it through milk and legitimately it tasted like strawberry milk. And in one day, we stopped after a day and then I had to try and find [inaudible 00:44:06], I was just giving this espresso roast away. Because we roasted so much of it because we intended to run it for the week.

Adam Marley (00:44:10):
After a day we stopped because we had so many people sending coffees back, but I had in the one day I had five different people say to me, "Oh, I didn't really like my coffee. Can I have another one?" Absolutely. Sorry. You didn't enjoy it. Can I ask why you didn't like it. "Oh, it tasted like strawberry milk," and I'm just like, yeah, that's what we're going for. And the response is just like, "I don't want strawberry milk, I want coffee." Like, that's fine. But it's not what I wanted. I don't want saying to taste like strawberry milk. I'm like sounds delicious to me.

Chris Edden (00:44:39):
Sounds fun. Yeah. I think that there's sometimes a bit of that thing out there with some customers who like to drink really strong tasting coffee, that they feel that unless the coffee getting the punch in the face, it's not doing it for them. Unless it's like some third [crosstalk 00:45:02].

David Train (00:45:02):
[inaudible 00:45:02] cigarette.

Chris Edden (00:45:02):
Yeah. Like some commercial roast that because it tastes strong, it's really giving you that caffeine hit. They're like, oh yeah like I like this coffee, referring to a lighter roast. Like I like the flavor, but it hasn't got as much of strength to it. I'm just like just add more coffee if that's what you need. But I'm like, the flavor is what you should drink it for. The caffeine is negligible, just because it tastes like it's melting your organs doesn't mean that it's good. If you want something with heaps of buzz, you just go buy a Redbull. It will actually taste good.

David Train (00:45:42):
I think the theory is because caffeine doesn't break down in the roasting process that as a percentage, as you develop coffee more and the coffee becomes less fibrous or less [inaudible 00:45:56], the percentage of caffeine increases as a percentage of the bean, not as overall percentage. So that's like the theories because it doesn't [inaudible 00:46:05].

Greg Watkinson (00:46:06):
That's very marginal [crosstalk 00:46:07].

Chris Edden (00:46:07):
[crosstalk 00:46:07] is we're against the caffeine.

David Train (00:46:18):
Very rarely do I drink coffee for the caffeine unless I'm waking up at some very stupid o'clock and come 9:00 AM I'm super tired or whatever. Obviously I'm in the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of coffee drinkers. I am genuinely doing it for flavor.

Chris Edden (00:46:36):
Yeah, absolutely.

David Train (00:46:37):
But yeah, the caffeine aspect is... Yeah, if I'm on the road somewhere and south Australia's a big state, there's a lot of nothing in a lot of places as bad as it sounds. Yeah, I will get a Redbull or a V or something to keep awake as opposed to drinking a punch in the face at a petrol station.

Chris Edden (00:47:01):
Yeah.

Adam Marley (00:47:02):
Yeah. I'm very lucky in that I don't get caffeine headaches or I don't really get much of an effect from caffeine. It doesn't wake me up, but it also means that I'm not like I don't feel more alert, but it also means I'm not beholden to it. And some days where I'm not going... Because obviously like most days we're either at the roastery, so cupping QC or delivering to account so tasting the coffee of the accounts, but there'll be days where I'm like working from home or something like that and I get distracted as soon as I like get up and have a shower or whatever. And I don't have a coffee making routine because I don't make coffee at home that much because we're at the grocery or cafes. And so it'll be like 2:00 PM and I'm like, oh, shit I didn't have a coffee today.

Adam Marley (00:47:44):
And it doesn't really bother me and so it just makes traveling so much easier. Because I've been traveling with other people and we'll be in airports and we haven't really brought anything to make good coffee with us and so they're like going to cost a coffee or something or just atrocious and sitting there and you can see it on the... they're like forcing down this just like...

Chris Edden (00:48:04):
Just got to get it done.

Adam Marley (00:48:04):
It's not even strong. It's weak and bitter and it's stringent and horrible. And, they're like choking it down to try and to try and get the caffeine, I guess. And it's like just take some nodos next time man, like. Just bring some caffeine pills. It's actually one of the reasons that we care so much about our decaf is because and it always drove me nuts as a barista. Going back to like, don't be a dick, basically what you were saying before. It's like for anyone in coffee, especially trying to get them in but even just in general, especially if you're in a service profession, like being a barista, don't be a dick should be common sense. But it's like decaf, so many baristas are so like death before decaf.

Adam Marley (00:48:46):
And like they look down on decaf drinkers and I'm like, that makes zero sense because if you're drinking decaf, you're only drinking it for flavor. That's the only reason you're drinking it, you don't want caffeine. Then you should care more about the flavor of your decaf than the other stuff. Because your other stuff, the customers are also addicted. Whereas your decaf customers, they're not addicted. They are just drinking it for flavor and that's the product that so many baristas and roasters kind of like, oh yeah, we use decaf to get the roaster warm or something. It's like, oh.

Greg Watkinson (00:49:17):
I was considering making a shirt that said death before decaf.

Adam Marley (00:49:23):
I'll buy it. I'll buy one definitely.

David Train (00:49:30):
I have the same opinions. They are the, in brackets, true coffee drinkers because they are drinking it for flavor.

Adam Marley (00:49:37):
Just for flavor.

David Train (00:49:37):
For flavor or they can't deal with caffeine. A lot of people it hits them like a ton of bricks. But yeah, roasters also didn't appreciate it. They would roast it horribly or it was just bad [inaudible 00:49:52] that had been, gone through whatever decaf process. And I would say it's probably only been the past sort of maybe 5, 6, 7 years where it's really changed quite dramatically. And actually like, I guess like on our importing capabilities, we're starting to bring in single farm decaf from like Honduras. Then we're going to have a rotating offer of decaf because people are interested and some roasters, wanting to diversify their offering. This EA process, there's mountain water process, there's Swiss water process. Like people are starting to take that seriously.

David Train (00:50:33):
And there's a massive shortage of decaf in Australia right now. So, it's clearly a really popular offering for business. It's not necessarily something that you're roasting every single day, but it's extremely important as having a really awesome single original.

Chris Edden (00:50:53):
What were you saying, Greg?

Greg Watkinson (00:50:57):
So this is unrelated to all that's we've been talking about. I had a conversation with someone in the cafes the other day and it's sparked an interesting question and this is probably as much for Davis as anyone really, is will the increasing green prices kill the $1 survey coffee?

David Train (00:51:20):
No. No it won't because for those companies, it's like a loss leader, right. I think it's 7/11, stood as the one key of the $1 coffee, whatever, you go into 7/11 to get a $1 coffee, but then you go in there, you get a Snickers, you get a Mars bar, you get a slushie, you get a can of Coke or whatever and that's just... It's like a write off. It won't kill it, obviously with the cost of green and the way it's going and the coffee, the quality of coffee that's going into that no. In the short term, no. If this is still... If the cost of green is still of similar pricing in 12 or 24 months time, maybe because these groceries would've had years worth of stock then maybe. Yeah, sorry, that's a long-winded answer, but I don't think it'll be the [crosstalk 00:52:14].

Chris Edden (00:52:14):
On another tip, I would like to say I was just at Audi today and I noticed they still have $11.99 for a kilo. I want to see if they can keep that up because that will be impressive. Like that is mental.

Adam Marley (00:52:29):
Yeah. Depend how much of a loss leader it is. And obviously they've got the math to be able to work that out, but they'll just plug it into a spreadsheet and go, how much money are we losing. because they're already losing, even before the current price crisis, they were probably already losing money on that. Or at least not making any, they probably got a spreadsheet that just says, plug the number in and are we making... Is it bringing enough customers through the door to buy that and then buy other things where we make a good profit that it's worth still making a loss on that. It's like how many exporters have to take a negative differential on certain coffees in certain times of the year just to fulfill quotas because they don't want to lose a big customer who's also buying other coffees where they're making a decent margin on it. It's just... Yeah.

Chris Edden (00:53:12):
The disappointing thing with coffees like that though, beyond the taste is they set up customers, I think in some ways... It makes it more difficult for specialty roasters to try and get good money in some ways, they're like, well, hang on, like I can get this for $12 at Audi and it is not the same product, but it's very difficult and it's definitely not good for our industry with stuff like that. It's hard to... the focus that farmers are doing good things and just trying...

Adam Marley (00:53:53):
Definitely. And I think it's one of those things that like, because we mentioned craft beer before and craft beer is such a good analogy for specialty coffee in so many ways. And I'll speak to brewers sometimes and just like, oh, why'd... I basically complain about consumers wanting coffee, still really cheap, even specialty stuff. They don't see it necessarily as this completely different product, they see it on the spectrum. And when our stuff's 4, 5, 6, whatever times more expensive than Audi coffee, they're just like, whoa, that's an insane difference. And people don't seem to do that as much with beer and I think that's probably because we're just in this and there's not much we can do about it other than just keep communicating to customers why and giving them the coffees to try so they can taste and then taste the difference.

Adam Marley (00:54:36):
But it's like with beer, it's not just Dan Murphy's when you're going... VB and you know, a really nice local craft beer and the price difference because if that was the only kind of frame of reference people had for the difference in price, they would feel astronomically different, but then they go to a pub and they lay out $7 for a pint. So when you go and you see a bottle of a craft beer for $4.50, you're like, oh, okay, well, that's still cheaper than the pub. And for whatever reason, and I haven't been out, I've been trying to think about it. I can't work why but people that buy coffee to make it at home don't seem to do that for cafes. Now, obviously we have to say, cafes should be charging more for coffee and consumers should be willing to pay more for coffee in cafes.

Adam Marley (00:55:18):
But if you got that like $4 latte, $5 latte compared to like a $1.20 for even like a pretty expensive coffee, it's like the number of brews, you get out of them at home. And it might be like $21 a bag or something like that, you're still only paying like a dollar something per brew at home compared to $4 in a cafe. I'm not saying don't go to cafe, still go to cafes and support your local cafes. But it's like, people don't seem to do that when they're doing the math in their head, they just do the bit where they, oh, it's five times more expensive than Audi, that's ridiculous. It's like it's $1.20 per cup. That's not expensive. Like...

Chris Edden (00:55:56):
I've seen a cafe owner and we were just discussing price rises and stuff. And he was outlining that he's soon to do a price rise. And I obviously supported that, that we have done it recently and customers in general didn't even blink an eye just by being transparent and outlining the reasons why. But I said to him, I was like, I'm 36, I'm almost 37. I was like, when I was younger, 18, 19 20, I remember going out and being able to get beer and back then it wasn't craft beer, it was whatever. [inaudible 00:56:38] or something sooner for like $3 or $3.50. If I went to that same sort of place, now it would be at least 7.50 plus. And no one even backs an eyelid at that. The price is double in 15 years, but the price of coffee back then wasn't much cheaper. And yeah, we're not paying $7 for a small latte now.

Chris Edden (00:57:04):
And I think that was an interesting reference for him. People will pay it if the quality's there and you explain the reasons why it's just like, hey, like we're not doing this to make more money. Oh, we're putting a cups up 50 cents and we're just so only going to be ballers. I'm like...

Adam Marley (00:57:27):
[crosstalk 00:57:27].

Chris Edden (00:57:27):
Well's expensive. Have a look at the price of fuel. People just need to understand what's going on and like Dave said earlier, coffee's something that we have to treasure. It's not a necessity, it may not be here forever. So people need to pay accordingly because the reality is is that farmers aren't going to work for minimum wage forever. We just got an interesting comment here from Brew Tones. Problem with price of bags of coffee is it's also up to the purchaser to make the coffee good, if they don't care about the craft of brewing, then they'll likely buy the oldie bag. Yeah, I guess so. And I matter of picking your marks and picking your customers and I think that customers that buy coffee at Audi don't generally come and buy coffee from Monastery or Josie.

David Train (00:58:24):
I think also maybe what he's trying to say and I've had this conversation quite a lot with Adam anyway, is that when you buy beer or wine or kind of anything else that you want to classify as boutique or special, it's a ready product. It's done, right, you crack open the beer, you open the bottle of wine. Maybe you need to aerate it, maybe you need to decanter it, whatever, but it's finished and taste it and you can make a direct decision on, wow, that's awesome or I don't like this. Whilst with coffee I can take this bag over and go, wow, this smells amazing. But if I literally don't grind it accordingly or I mess up my ratios or whatever, it could taste like crap. And I'll be like, oh, this coffee, not me... I did everything right. Like, oh, this coffee's crap.

David Train (00:59:12):
And that's the hardest thing is that specialty coffee is a lot harder to brew. It's a lot harder to nail, although when we nail it, it's phenomenally better. These coffees from Audi or whatever, the one thing that they do well is they just taste the same.

Adam Marley (00:59:32):
No matter what.

David Train (00:59:35):
Yeah. So like, it's that it's a lot harder than [crosstalk 00:59:38]. Yeah, it is. We still have another step in the chain. It's like espresso, it's like, I love espresso. But espresso is the worst drink in the world. It is single handedly the most destroyed coffee beverage, everyone just messes it up. And that's not me having a go at anyone, but it's just so difficult to nail an espresso, to get it not perfect, but just phenomenal. And that's because there's so much more work to be done, the grind of the water, the pressure, yada, yada. So that's when you can finally get the beverage whilst I can just go to the shop right now or to the pub and if the beer haven't been cleaned yeah, maybe their beer taste like shit but I'm like, the pub has done a bad job, not Coopers or whatever.

David Train (01:00:27):
So the issue being, we... And that's where roasters, I guess, as hard as it is, need to have, not necessarily a brew guide, but like, hey, this is how we feel our coffee tastes well. And then the consumer needs to invest that time and energy into following a recipe or understanding how the coffee should taste.

Chris Edden (01:00:51):
We had a question come in, Unravel Merchants with the increase of price for 2022, do you anticipate an increase in quality, same quality or lower quality from producers? I think it's definitely... It's tough. Another conversation I had with someone today in the cafe is, but yeah, where the price of the coffees we buy has become a lot more expensive because the gap from commodity coffee to more actual proper specialty coffee, let's call it 85, 86 cup blenders, the coffees we buy for our blends. The gap is much closer now, price wise. So that has pushed the price of those coffees up. So it's most certainly been happening in Columbia and such where farmers have been doing a lot of extra work to get more premium for their coffees when the sea market was quite low and it was beneficial.

Chris Edden (01:01:49):
But as the sea market price, the commodity price has got a lot more expensive. These farmers can sell basically unprocessed coffee to local market at a price which is comparable. So it's not necessarily in their interest to do that extra work. And no one can blame them for that, they've been on the raw end of the deal for a long time so they're turning the tables a little bit. But I think that there's absolutely still going to be a large amount of really high quality coffee coming out. But yeah, I think there's definitely going to be a decrease in quality of coffee from roasters, especially from some bigger or less quality focused roasters to protect margins and fulfill contracts that they already have with cafes and such, where they've come in cheap.

Chris Edden (01:02:42):
And there is a lot of big roasters who have low balled the industry for a long time, riding the backs of super cheap coffee and they've committed to accounts, big accounts or whatever with cheap prices. And they've got to see those contracts out and the price of green has went to the moon. So I think that you're going to see... And I'm sure Dave will support this, I've had this conversation with him and a lot... My battery went a little bit flat. Where they've just been filling blends with old coffee or cheaper coffee to protect margins because it's not commercially viable use the coffee that they may have been using before.

David Train (01:03:38):
I don't know [inaudible 01:03:38]. I don't know if anyone can quite hear me all right. [crosstalk 01:03:53]

Chris Edden (01:03:53):
Dave sounds really weird now.

Adam Marley (01:03:55):
How do I sound? Is it...

Greg Watkinson (01:03:57):
Fine.

Chris Edden (01:03:58):
You're fine, it's you Dave.

Adam Marley (01:03:59):
It's just Dave. Technology issues.

David Train (01:04:06):
I have no idea.

Greg Watkinson (01:04:08):
That's better.

Chris Edden (01:04:09):
That's better.

David Train (01:04:09):
Better?

Greg Watkinson (01:04:13):
Oh, maybe not.

Adam Marley (01:04:16):
[crosstalk 01:04:16].

Chris Edden (01:04:21):
That's definitely the case of what is likely to happen with roasters trying to check their position through cheaper green. And [crosstalk 01:04:32].

Adam Marley (01:04:32):
You going Dave?

David Train (01:04:32):
I might just stop talking. No, I think my [inaudible 01:04:46] but what I wanted say is everyone should pay attention to even what the unraveled merchants is doing. That's what I wanted to say and I'll elaborate later on coffee and whatnot. It's not destroying the audio for everyone.

Adam Marley (01:05:02):
Yeah. I was just going to say I think that the bigger guys and the... I'm going to call them the commodity plus, they call themselves Special D, the commodity plus [crosstalk 01:05:10], yeah they're definitely going to substitute down. They've gone entirely now. Bye, Dave.

Chris Edden (01:05:18):
Bye, Dave.

Greg Watkinson (01:05:19):
Bye, Dave.

Adam Marley (01:05:22):
So I reckon they'll probably substitute with cheaper green. But then what that might mean is there's an opportunity for people like us and you guys, roasters that refuse to substitute down to compromise on quality. And what it means is that the differentiation in quality, the quality gap for the consumer between the high end stuff, if we can call ourselves high end and the commodity plus larger commercial specialty, that gap will extend I think quite significantly. It'll be noticeable to at least the cafe owners who are obviously dialing in coffees every day and stuff like that, hopefully to consumers as well. And that's one of those things I talk to a lot of cafe owners or other groceries and stuff like that.

Adam Marley (01:06:10):
And people regularly, I find fall into the trap of trying to compete on both price and quality. And they're like, we want to compete on quality, but then also not be too much more expensive. And I'm like, it's no man's land. It's a dead zone. You have to either compete on price or compete on quality and these bigger commercial specialty operations, they've always competed on price. With marketing, which gives the impression of quality but then enough quality to back that up and now I think that that's not going to fly anymore. The consumer's too savvy, the consumer can taste the difference, can notice the difference, can read between the lines. And so for people that are actually going, you know what... And I love the post you guys did about the price increase.

Adam Marley (01:06:53):
That was just like it took the words out of my mouth. That was amazing. I love that. And those sentiments in exactly, it's just like we could buy cheaper green or we could maintain the quality that we're buying green at because we respect the farmer and we respect you, the end user, the consumer. But that means it's going to go up in price. It's like differentiate based on quality not based on price. And it's like there's always now, I think that we'll probably get to a point. We you've always noticed for us that our range of singles, like the pricing between like for 250 bags, it might be like 16 to 24 or something. That's now shifting a little bit, because green's gone up in price. This is single origins and we've never previously found much price sensitivity for our customers.

Adam Marley (01:07:39):
For our customers, selection buyers, they're already our customers. We find they'll choose based on tasting notes. Basically. The $16 bag doesn't sell better than the $24 bag. It's like they sell kind of evenly based on tasting no preferences. Now we're running defined where there's like nothing really cheaper than 19... We are starting to sales dropped a little bit and I think we are losing well... They haven't. But like in certain segments they have anyway. We're hitting that point where even our customers are getting a little bit price sensitive, but that's fine if the consumer base is a little bit smaller, as long as it's enough for us to stay viable and sustainable and continue to buy coffee, which support producers and importers and exporters and are delicious then okay.

Adam Marley (01:08:26):
Yeah. So be it. It's like there's a, yes, that market of people may be happy to pay $60 a bag, not happy to pay 20 [inaudible 01:08:33], but okay, that's fine. Like we just have different customers now.

Chris Edden (01:08:40):
We had these conversations. Yeah. We had this conversation the other day where Greg had made a coffee for someone and this person was buying coffee from another roaster and they had on time and they had enjoyed it, but there came a point where they stopped enjoying it. And we would suggest this probably because the quality of coffee has gone through the floor and the customer knew. The customer drinks long black. He was like...

Greg Watkinson (01:09:13):
He just had a straight up, he said like, oh three months ago, something changed and it just suddenly started being rubbish. And I was like-

Chris Edden (01:09:20):
He's now jumped on drinking purple rain. And we've had to increase the price of purple rain a bit because it's just got some frankly really expensive coffees in it. And as far as we're concerned, people pay that. And even Greg is Soapbox Coffee has his trailer and he does in farmer's markets. And Greg is also the head roaster of Josie Coffee and he's also a customer of Josie Coffee where he buys coffee wholesale. And I had to have a conversation because we only wholesale... We don't effectively wholesale purple rain, we run it in our cafes and Greg is the only wholesale customer of that.

Chris Edden (01:10:00):
We don't have a massive amount of it. And yeah, I had to have the conversation with Greg and say, Hey, if you want to keep buying purple rain, we're going to have to bump the price of it wholesale. Because frankly the coffees are going into it and just getting really expensive. And that's-

Greg Watkinson (01:10:15):
That's fine.

Chris Edden (01:10:16):
It is what it is. I was qualified to assess that but he sees the value in it and he sees it on the call phase, I guess, where he is dealing with customers constantly. And he's seeing people really like it. Yeah.

Greg Watkinson (01:10:30):
Well, without getting too much onto my Soapbox, which is my tendency. I feel that for the quantity of coffee that a cafe actually uses in comparison to the amount that it actually creates in turnover, there's really... the price rises that roasters have to be concerned about, I feel that's silly, it's like a dollar, a kilo might cost a really busy cafe 40, $50 a week. Which is, when you compare to the amount that you're making nothing, and the argument that you can't just... If the price of purple rain goes up considerably to me, I'll just increase the price of my coffee cup a little bit. And that's the problem solved.

Greg Watkinson (01:11:21):
It's a relatively easy rubric and then we just have that conversation with our customers, Hey, you know how this is really delicious. Yeah. Well that's because now it's costing you an extra 50 cents because that's what it needs to do to maintain that level of deliciousness.

Chris Edden (01:11:33):
Absolutely. And I had this... Just doing numbers to talk to wholesale customers about a price rise and the difference was going up say $3 a kilo, in a price rise was realistically somewhere in the vicinity of five to 6 cents.

Adam Marley (01:11:48):
Exactly.

Chris Edden (01:11:49):
So like I've said implement a minimum 50 cent price rise in your cafe, that's a given and you are more than covering those costs. The cost of everything's expensive, like wages are constantly going up, they go up every year. With the wars and prices have to go up. They can't stay stagnant because cafes don't just suddenly make more money generally. So many customers you can serve and there's no shortage of... I think in general, a lot of cafes are gradually diminishing in some ways because there's more and more cafes coming to the table and.

Greg Watkinson (01:12:33):
They can talk about home is more accessible and easy and more well understood.

Chris Edden (01:12:36):
Yeah. So you've just got to charge accordingly. But yeah, I think we should probably wrap this up pretty soon. We've been going for a while bit over an hour.

Adam Marley (01:12:47):
[crosstalk 01:12:47].

Greg Watkinson (01:12:48):
Let's quickly talk about the coffee that we have bought together, we've been waiting. I don't know about you guys. But we've been waiting until this to talk about it in depth. Though Chris did accidentally what the coffees are on the club email, but yeah. So we Josie Coffee and Monastery together have bought some really cool coffees. And they are from El Virgil in Columbia. They Koji processed coffees.

Chris Edden (01:13:17):
Move over a bit, Greg. You're a little bit out of shot.

Greg Watkinson (01:13:19):
Sorry. Yeah. So these are coffees that I saw at the World Barista Championship, a guy called [Kavo 01:13:28] was using them. I can't remember which country he was representing, one of the Nordic countries. And, I found out about them really through Chris Faron, who is a buyer in the states and worked with El Virgil on this process. Anyway, they should be really cool.

Chris Edden (01:13:49):
We reached out to El Virgil on social media and was like, "Hey, we are interested in these coffees." And they were super sweet to deal with. They were like, sure, we'd love to, and a process ensued and we got some coffees and they are...

Greg Watkinson (01:14:07):
On their way.

Chris Edden (01:14:07):
They've just cleared customs. Which is super, super cool. So yeah, we are going to do an Instagram Live next week and we are talking to El Virgil about the coffee. So yeah. Greg can explain more about the Koji process.

Greg Watkinson (01:14:24):
Yeah. So Koji is a... I think it's a mold that grows and converts a sacrifice is the technical word, I believe starches into sugars. And so it's used being saki processing, anyone that has looked into saki or know about this. I tried making my own sake last year and it was really hard. But basically they turned starch into sugar and then you can ferment the sugar. And so the idea thing that you can turn the starches on the coffee cherry, which is the silver skin or the char and the actual skin of the fruit into sugars, and then you can ferment the entire thing together. The thing that I think is particularly interesting about this process and the overall actual project is really to demystify and also, and not protect the actual intellectual property of the process.

Greg Watkinson (01:15:17):
So you can go onto El Virgil's website or Chris Barron's blog and find the proper specifics for how to do this process which koji that they used and how they actually did all of the stages of processing, how they drive the coffee, how they documented the coffee, how they pick the coffee. The idea being that it's more transparent and also means that other producers can copy and learn from this process directly, which means that we are sort of sharing more than just a notion that this is possible, actually the specifics of how the do this process. So I wouldn't be surprised if we end up doing some in the future with Riverdale. Because I spoken to them about it. And that's the whole project. Really.

Chris Edden (01:16:01):
Yeah. Yeah. So we bought two lots. So we've went halves. Monastery got half and we got half. So we bought a red bourbon, the [inaudible 01:16:12] koji process and a geisha. So yeah, we both have some of those. And we also brought in some Diego Bermudas and yeah. So Adam is getting half of the Diego Bermuda, I think the El Paso, Luna geisha, super, super cool coffee, it is a coffee that Carlos Escobar won Australian Brewers Cup with and took the World. I think he may have got six or something.

Greg Watkinson (01:16:43):
He didn't think that specific coffee to Worlds. Because he had to change for reasons, he came fourth.

Chris Edden (01:16:48):
Oh four. Okay. But did he still take one of Diego's coffee?

Greg Watkinson (01:16:50):
Yeah. It was one of Diego's coffee. Yeah.

Chris Edden (01:16:54):
Diego's coffees are really cool, but they're also quite hard to get. He's a busy man and his coffees are popular and yeah. As we spoke about in the past, we tasted one of the coffees maybe a couple of years ago for Manhattan roasters in the Netherland. Ben Marrow and Ozzy Expat does really cool roasting and yeah. We tasted a thermal shock catura.

Greg Watkinson (01:17:20):
Catura.

Chris Edden (01:17:21):
And it was bloody amazing. And we were like, this coffee's sick. We need to find it. And we found it and it was an absolute debacle to get. And anyway, so we're sending Adam some of that as well. So yeah, in terms of purchasing it, I don't know what Adam's doing with it. I'm sure he will tell people in due course, but we have the red bourbon lot... Sorry coming in into... It's in geisha club, our subscription which is live now and it's going to start roasting in a couple of weeks, it's got three coffees in it. It has the Immaculate Coffee Farm from Columbia, geisha, it has the red bourbon koji and it also has the Diego Bermudas, Luna geisha on it. And then the other lot will be following geisha club. So yeah, if you want to get them from us, that's how you can get it.

Chris Edden (01:18:17):
It's 150 bucks and you get all three bags delivered anywhere in Australia. So yeah. Very excited to get those coffees and... Sorry, my battery's going flat. We will be doing a Live next... I think it's next Thursday morning. Yeah. With the guys from El Virgil to talk about it. So very cool.

Adam Marley (01:18:44):
Thanks again for bringing us in for those purchases. I can't wait to release these coffees. We'll probably do for the El Virgil stuff. because we've got two different lots. For us what we'll probably do is do it special release. We don't have a... I really like the idea of the geisha club, by the way. We don't have any kind of subscription for hiring stuff, we just do them as special releases. Limited releases. What we'll probably do for this one is do them as a pack so you can taste both the lots and see the difference between them. We might release them individually as well. Probably not considering just so little of the coffees, we'll probably tell out it pretty quickly. So what I intend to do is we'll release it as a pack.

Adam Marley (01:19:29):
And then what we might do, we're bouncing this idea around internally, is used cut wise to... Basically it'll be an email will go out, it'll be however many packs are available, might not even be that many... It's like hundred something like that. First hundred in, first in, best dressed. And what we'll do is and it might even to actually go on the website and then we'll send them out and then we'll all cut them together or taste them, brew them together and taste them and collate all the people that got the pack, collate everyone's tasting notes using cup wise and live. And we'll probably throw that up onto YouTube and or IGTV. And then just get everyone's opinions on the coffee and then just do a little bit of little bit of data analysis and Excel to tease out, to get some like bubble things for the different tasting notes.

Adam Marley (01:20:24):
Because I think it'd be really fun for everyone to not have us tell them what it should taste like but instead go into it blind and work their own palettes, but together at the time. Because some people are really nervous about... Like they want someone else to take the lead a little bit in tasting notes, but once you get the ball rolling for them then they're off right. And I think it will give people a lot more comfort and their ability to taste coffee critically and analytically, but also enjoy like obviously just enjoy it. It sounds very logistically difficult. So I'm hoping Tim's good with that stuff.

Chris Edden (01:20:59):
Yeah. I think we better wrap this up. My phone's probably getting flat. We've been going for... Pushing an hour, 20. So it was awesome to chat mate.

Greg Watkinson (01:21:09):
Yeah, thanks mate.

Adam Marley (01:21:13):
Yeah [crosstalk 01:21:13]. Sorry missed you Dave. Bye Dave.

Chris Edden (01:21:16):
Bye Dave.

Greg Watkinson (01:21:16):
Bye Dave.

Chris Edden (01:21:18):
Yeah, I think that this stuff's good to do now and just to chat and we didn't need to have a script or topics or anything. It's pretty easy to chat, there's always it's... Like we're on very similar paths, there's always stuff that once we can start talking about something, the time flows pretty quick. So yeah. Pleasure as always mate.

Adam Marley (01:21:41):
Yeah, likewise.

Chris Edden (01:21:42):
And yeah. I'll be in touch.

Greg Watkinson (01:21:44):
I'll see you on cut wise, no doubt.

Chris Edden (01:21:45):
Awesome. Thanks guys.

Greg Watkinson (01:21:49):
Cheers.