Why Matcha is Perceived as Luxury

We are here in Central Park, boys Central Park, New York. in the great city of New York City, New York And we're having a little collab podcast here with Din. El Capitana. E Capitano. El Capitana. I'm Mexican. Kirk. And if you're tuning in from the Kirk podcast We are the cururtour cooffee. Why would you want to have a podcast with us Well, why are you sitting here? Three Three handsome baristas. But we've been in contact in a little bit throughout The last couple months Obviously seeing the content you guys are doing. loveove it And uh You know It wouldn't be a trip to America without coming on the number one American cooffee podcast. So ourours? Yes. Yeah. mean who else comes close? I mean, So u You know, thank you for the invitation and I'm so glad we caught up. You know, we just had a brilliant salmon and cream cheese bagel for us spil We're gonna go get some dessert pizza after this, which is just pizza you have after. It's like we just want two lunches, but we can't d deserert. No hot fudge on the pizza. unfortunately. And you know, you guys have been throwing out some rage bed as well. so Let's u , That's right Jo We we got to discuss it. I want to ask you a question, Kirk. Why is it so hard for people to accept pre batched espresso in cafes today. A, because it's such a foreign idea And the idea has come from specialty You know, it's come from Starbucks O I don't know, luck in coffee or what's another big one in America Ns Pates Dunkan? Yeah. So it's not come from one of those things. applied and filtered down or trickled down to specialty. It's come from specialty, which I think is probably like one of the biggest points of contention kind of addresses And you know, throughout the discussions that we've all had today, like the service style in Australia for coffee is completely different to U to America per capita Coffee consumption in Australia It must be higher. like don't know I don't have access to any statistics on that, but a lot of people drink coffee and multiple times a day And And we're also discussing the unit economics of making a coffee in America compared to Australia. So We just got a five percent minimum wage increase, which takes the effective minimum wage for a coffee shop in Australia. to about thirty eight dollars an hour which in if we do a currency conversion I think it's about thirty one, thirty two dollars US. That's the minimum wage for a barista in Australia And we also charge less for a coffee So you can see where the problem lies and some interesting analysis has indicated that cafes that are profitable in Australia make an average profit margin of two to three percent in what industry is that ood. Yeah. I mean If you take the wage number for face like from face value, if we were paying thirty two dollars an hour for Baristas's We would be what negative T. Plus percent, I would say. Yeah, that's fair Which is funny Yeah. Really funny because so there's ways that you seem to be operating more efficiently than we are And especially it sounds like we're charging more for drinks in general than you guys are. So it's Baffling. Having said all that, you know, the living the We we all understand that, you know Being a barista is not winfall profession. It's not going to pay a mortgage these days. It's not really, you know, imagine being a barista in New York City where the rents are unbelievably high. But but this is where I feel like the future of the barista profession is because the capacity to automate things is here and it's very strong. No coffee shop in the world really needs a barista anymore, if you think about it. Every single coffee shop in the world theoretically could be entirely automated. That's possible. That exists now But obviously we don't like that And and even with the prebatch thing, I don't want to My motivation for it is because it can be you know, a collaboration with humans. and when you're at a shop, you're not paying things and it's much more efficient. And so hypothetically speaking, if a future exists where you can pay baristas even more But you're going to have a lot less. You know, the human resources are becoming out of reach for cafes, particularly in Australia and we're You know, spepeaking for our industry and obviously just everyone just heard the two to three percent number for profit margins, which is, you know knocked down a few percent and you're in the negativees. know the average cafe is in the negative. But that's where I think the future of the coffee industry is. We'll actually be paying far more for baristivas, but you have a lot less of them in the productivity per person will be a lot higher Yeah, I think we've seen in our comment section since we started talking about pre batching espresso that That idea is Um Very hard for people to accept. Yeah. just just the idea because I mean, it's the same thing in general with other automation and AI that. These things create extra efficiencies which create a need for less overall labor And so I guess maybe the contrary take is where is that labor go If it's not in the coffee industry or if it's not in the tech industry or whatever. whichich, you know, I guess I understand that from a from that perspective, but Well, a lot of times are people especially maybe hobbyists or barists who aren't intimately familiar with a PNL and I guess you could say it's our job to educate people on that and like if we're running profitable business. Don't understand that long term probably isn't a viable option, you know, as a business owner. because it's and that's where I think, especially in America, a lot of the There is a conversation of raised b wages raised Preer w is which It seems like for you is a thing that has happened. But in reality, most people aren't running profitable businesses to start So there's not really room to do that without shuting. Yeah, it's interesting because your I think this idea of pre batching espresso has like worldwide reach in specialty coffee because I feel like specialty coffee as an industry's pretty like globalized, you know. There's a lot of through lines, but it's interesting to see that I mean, it'll be good, especially since this is going to be on our podcast too for you just to share the origin of how you came up with this. but This automation, it's sounding like it's not coming from a place of like How do I take my profit margin from twenty fivecent to thirty percent, but it's like How do I survive the system changes of where I'm locally Braing my cafe You know, it's like it's not unto cutting staff because you just want to make way more money. It's like, hey I'm trying to like run this thing. Yeah, you know. And we were just sharing like, it sounds like we almost do similar volume of business, but We have like five to six people on at a time Whereas you're kind of more constrained to like have three people at a time. And so there's certain like hospitality limitations to that as well. But I think it also speaks to the skill set of Australian baristas. and you know, like we were talking before about how Melbourne people love to come overseas and on about how our coffee so much better than everyone else and You know Which I don't like to hear, but but the skill set that you're required to have to work in a busy Melbourne coffee shop it's exceptional And you know, when you go when you go work in other places overseas, you know, the skills are evident Adley, you know, that is latte art, that's really good milk texturing, that's really good speed organization because you have to have those things. Yeah, so where does that come from that Is just great training you think? G training, but also like adapting to the conditions because like I said, you know, I've been in I've been in America and Canada for three wakes now And the not saying one coffee shop that's busier than the busiest Australian coffee shop. L we were just in watchatch house and that was enormously busy. but there's There's a few venues in Melbourne that are just They do far more than that. It's because the coffee consumption is really high. Um, there's just some dynamic like there's some differences in, you know, the coffee scene that Culturally you just kind of had to adapt to it. Yeah. this is something that we talked about on Barista Skill, our last episode, which was for many years Baristas will say I deserve a higher wage because of the skills that I'm bringing because, you know, Especially before home brewing was more prevalent, the only place you could get a good Cppuccino or flat white in your case is at a good specialty coffee shop But now that that's way more available at home, And then to add on to that, you have more automation in cafes That's taking away the need for that barista skill. spepecifically with steam milk, latte art, dialing an espresso, working clean l, all these sort of things involved in barflow. The more that's becoming obsolete And the more that, you know, when I see videos of your cafe, I'm like, what exactly are these baristas being paid for Well It's an interesting question and I think the Going forward, it's going to be knowledge. This is just my hypothesis, whether or not it becomes true or not remains to be seen. But I think and this this is a good point of comparison, I think for Australian Bisters versus American buristers because I actually do think American Bisters have better coffee knowledge than Australian Bisters that Generally speaking, I think they do Because if you go,, you know, they talk about roast levels, they talk about the farm, they talk about, you know bunch of different technical things., I brerew this at this pump pressure with pre infusion, all that sort of stuff On average, you don't hear that in Australia. Like, you know, I think, you know here's your coffee. I don't think the average barista is in Australia. spepecialty barista is as knowledgeable as the average specialty barista in America. I truly believe that. And to pause there, it's kind of I always think about supply and demand with that. is the culture of Australian coffee consumers interesterested in the story of how that coffee got there. Or is that kind of like the end all be all coffee is a drink that I buy and that's it, you know. I think yes, to the latter point. Yeah. I think like they don't, they're not as interested generally speaking, that's not everyone, obviously, but generally speaking I'll have my flat white thanks and there's not too much more beyond that. I think the The typical American consumer is also more inquisitive about their coffee. Um which is which know perhaps you'd never thought of that, but if you come to Australia, I think you'll agree. But just something I thought about before I really wanted to mention is that you know how we have this discussion pretty frequently in coffee of the need to pay producers more and ensure the financial viability of that I actually think we're heading there with coffee shops too. Because again, we're in New York City right now, R There's not really many independent coffee shops that can make it here in Manhattan, for example. Sounds like a challenge. Well, yeah, well I mean you can, you can try. but you know, watch House of Wwardstat. It's part of a big group that's also in the Middle East and in Europe Look Aarbara, L. That's you know, not necessarily an independent coffee shop anymore. although it's very good. There's, you know, one exception is Arcane, but from my understanding, there's a few founders for that too Um and there's so But we're we're heading there with coffee shops because you look at modern the way rents are going in cities for commercial spaces like it' It's getting unviable for independent coffee shops And you know, for in Australia, the wage is extremely high and hence' we're almost at average zero net profit.. So like we I think we need to almost start thinking about the coffee shop in the same way. like that's not the same, but in a similar light because without These coffee shops flourishing We're just not going to have them. And You know Somewhere in the line, we're going to have to have that discussion as well. It's like, Okay, we've been very good at having this dialogue about paying producers more and Sadly, the effectiveness of that hasn't been realized, but the dialogue's there, the understanding of the need for it. But to be honest, I feel like that dialogue we're going to have to start having it with cafes too. agree. Dagree? No, I mean, I think It's a good point that we were talking about, especially There's a there's a certain extent of get more efficient or You know And so the question really becomes, you know, do we The culture want coffee shops to exist. If we aren't becoming more efficient, especially rising costs across the board, then it just doesn't really work a certain straight. That's probably like the best example of chain that kind of has independent vibes. They've done their branding really well. prettyretty good quality drinks as well, you know, Doing it off an Ephasus, which is largely automated they're doing mostly Marchin now. My understanding is they sell more marchal than coffee. And It's they're crushing it and because and they're paying their staff well. They're some of the highest paid baristers in America So like Everyone likes to look at Blank Street and kind of judge them and you say nasty things in speespecialty But it's actually A success story that's done really well and it's kind of like a model for what spepecialty cooffee should be doing. Not everyone will appreciate me saying that, but anyime I hear someone hating on someone like that, my first thought is, will you try Yeah. Well like how are you going to make something that large? there's absolutely nothing wrong with being large, in and of itself, a large company I get that there's like more stuff that can happen that it causes injustice in large companies. There's nothing wrong with being a large company. But like you try to do that at scale and have that same level of excellence as they have. Like sure it's not going to be as as high end as some of these shops we've been to today But like Don't hate people if you know nothing about how to do what they do.eople you know as I'm learning with the internet, people are always going to have their opinions and you just all you can manage is your own expectations. But like you know, it's a success story to be frank. And so like I actually I'm pretty impressed with what they've done. and I've been going a blank street and getting myself a coconut ice macha. Wh of it? We do it. Come I I'm not too familiar with. We're calling that a specialty coffee shop. It's like different than Starbucks or Duncinan, right? It's like would be in specialty. But they would be serving the same quality of spepecialty coffee that a lot of spepecialty coffee shops do and to a higher level of effectiveness. Yeah. Yeah. well I'm curious, kind of tangential, but it comes together Is there a growing group of home brewers in Australia with like the home gear, the really boutique coffees? Absolutely Be that's that's I think the big divide that we've been talking about a lot too is like There's this, I can now do this myself at home But then peopleeople I think are wanting something more commercialized out of specialty coffee, which is I want the like fresh made to order experience, but I'm in a line of thirty people and it needs to go, go, go, go. And so it's kind of forcing the hand of automation in a sense. is are cafes competing with home baristas now? Because why would you go to a cafe And this kind of ties into the whole economics and you know payment for barista stuff. It is a moral injustice that You know You can be you can be a really skilled barista with with you know great knowledge, great skills And you you're still re pretty much just get paid the minimum wage. and that's not really it's largely I don't think something that coffee shop owners impose on baristas. it's the u, you know, the unfortunate economic sort of situation of coffee shops in general. So you know, and looking that back to home brerewers. Yeah, of course, ye, if you can just wide I went to a coffee shop the other day just near the World Trade Center or Crserra Mor and are so barista and the way they were making coffee. I was in the line. I was like, I'm going to get a coffee. Th then I saw the way he was making it and I walked straight out. I was like a port mission. So like just save myself the eight dollars. So you know, like the It does happen. and that's a situation where my version I'm traveling, so I can't just make myself coopies. I'd rather not have it at all. You're going to knock over the camera puppy, look so good. Good at place. Well I think For me, my personal opinion is I am almost certainly likely to make a better cup of coffee Technically finished product at home than I can get in any coffee shop pretty much always at this point because Homegeear so good you have more time and attention to put towards your one specific coffee than serving people at scale. So we've been having this conversation a lot of, you know, is coffee in the way that was a lot of people's mission kind of What a lot of people are trying to achieve is hard to achieve at scale Some people can do it and some people do it well, you know, there's always the exception to the rule, you know, the equivalent to Michelin star restaurants who are making. crazy But is there going to be a diversion where why what we're saying? It's like you have to and especially in America and for us I don't drink lavender vanilla lattes. L no one sitting here does But we sure as hell sell lavender vates because that's what our demographic wants. And if we didn't do it, we would likeike especially in our area if we only served you know a very purest form of coffee, we would go out of business just like U And we can try to educate in certain ways and plenty of people have taken that journey towards drinking you know, coffee in the way that we like to drink coffee. but Um, Yeah, I think But to that point, you know, we maybe could do that in New York City So just Taking a step back, I don't think that we gave a proper intro Um for our audience, your're very known in the coffee industry for doing pre batch espresso. Can give our audience just kind of a picture of how you got there. what the reception has been so far. Yeah, so and I kind of explained it a little bit to you guys off camera before, but we so I've been thinking about it for quite a few years because I studied economics for a little bit and I I really appreciate being able to make things more efficient And you know, it's pretty evident in the way I make coffee and at our shop One day we had a staff member that was unwell and couldn't come to work. And in Melbourne the busiest day of the week is Thursday because Friday everyone works from home now. So Thursday is like the main event. And it's always the busiest day of the week. Not Saturday? Not Saturday. And so we We thought Oh shit, there's no one else that can work. And so I thought, well, if there's ever a day to try that thing out it's tomorrow. it's on this Thursday. So I started making the espresso for the whole day for all the flat whites. And mind you, we serve three different blends for like a milk coffee every day. So you've got three options to choose from And so I made the So I made all the espresso in advance for each one. And u O what machine are you working on? So we' got alaramaz loo, linear PB. So madeade it all manually off that And we dispensed it out of sauce bottles. So you just put twenty milals in for each cup and that's a shot So in the time I notice Americans make a lot of double shots for your milk drinks as well, right? It's like double shots is the pretty much We got to get into that. We'll get into that later, So twenty mils of espresso per cup and in the time that it would take like to make three double shot handles, I can have thirty bases ready. You know, the speed at which it can produce is Very quet And so I told a good friend of mine, Matt Perger, who you guys know about what I was planning to do as well, because he and I had been discussing this for years. And so I was like, yeah, I'm going to try this tomorrow because I absolutely need to. Do you want to come out of look? He's like, yeah, I'll come watch and if it gets out of hand, I'll help Um And then Yeah, didn't even need him. We just we were just flying through. and I was like, my gosh. becausecause we also we use a lot of automation like the Uber milk, which steams our milk for us One person can really lock in and make a lot of coffee. And so that was the first day where it's like, okay, it worked. And we kept doing it for a little while to assess people's perception of quality. So it's like would people think that this is any lesser of a coffee if they didn't know. And quick interrojection, what was your perception of the quality when you were doing it? I was happy enough to do it. Like, you know, this is my own shop and you know I'm willing to I tried it and I was like, I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. And so It's always different when you're doing it with your own money, right? When you're putting your own balls on the line. And you know you've got bills to pay. you're responsible for other people's salary and feeding them. So you got to consider these things really regularly and I didn't I thought that I was impressed with the quality enough that I was like, yeah, I'm going to do this but we were We kept doing it for weeks after to see if anyone would comment at all on the quality. And only one person who saw usip piping the sauce in, we call it Suce. I call it Suce Castillo. I'll tell you why in a moment. But so he saw us piping in and he's like, what are you doing there? I was like You don't know this, but you've been drinking this for a few weeks. I've been experimenting with a new, you know way of kind of making coffee and like. And is it cold? Yes. So you would pull the shots and then put them in a batch in the refrigerator. Yes. Okay. And then honestly, I think we got like more comments. People are like, wow, this is really good. You know, And anytime someone said it,'re like Yeah, And it was just hilarious. So we kept doing it and that was the only time anyone raised anything was that guy Uh Obviously I went public about it with our new thing with our new shop and that's where the Like online fury has begun because again, it's something so foreign and people feel like something is so wrong with it. and It's not like I don't get it You know, I think if any of us had seen that five years Rwdog, you know, no introduction, no nothing youd think. the fuck. Pardon my language. And then the so like I do get the the skepticism. but To me, it just makes a great deal of sense because if I wanted to now go open five shops One espresso machine can power five shops And you think of the amount of capital that's required for a coffee shop, It's enormous. It's like keep this from open opening coffee shops. Yeah. and it's it's too much. It's too much And you know that's what we're imposing on the whole world really. So you know you need the espresso machine, the grubber weight grind is, which you need to sort of keep up with pace these days And like I fundamentally think that the level of investment required for opening a shop relative to the Return you can get is just too high to prevent you think the fit out the machinery. So you put that into context. Nowadays You don't necessarily really need an espresso machine, you could you know, long blacken espresso sales for my shop probably account for like five percent of overall sales. Americanos. So you could feasibly just get rid of it and save yourself a whole lot of time and hassle and just do pre basashed espresso and drip coffee and you'd be a perfectly functional, appealing to most people Cafe Say for example, again, if I went to open five shops, that's four less espresso machines I need. That's for my case, what's three times five is fifteen less grinders. So fifteen grinders at seven dollars a pop. That's what one hundred five thousand dollars. at five espresach four espresso machines at thirty grand apart Australian, one hundred twenty thousand dollars less you need for espresso machines, then the operating expense, which is lower because you're using less staff. U, you know, if you want to go deeper into the morals of it, like You, think of the carbon emissions from not having to have all those extra things, you know Or the electrical de is always so expensive. So this is the motivation for it. The future of it is so that people can They don't have to invest as much. And you think about the application to other things. I've seen in America a lot of people from Seemingly, you know, youve got you've got a lot of undocumented immigrants in America, right? We spoke about that. that's not something that exists in Australia because of because of you We're an island, a greatreat big island that's too far away. You can't catch a boat there. or just trap cross the border. But a lot of the undeelcumed immigrants, I suspect, they work in carts and things like that. These sort of informal jobs.n't you know for them, they could go to pre bachor espresso system and have an income Look And you apply that to people in developing countries. like there's a startup called Jago Coffee in Indonesia. And I interviewed the founder, his name iss Yoshua Tanu. And so there's in Indonesia, cart food is enormous in Jakarta. and so people ride their bikes or cuts because The traffic there iss horrendous and the infrastucture is horrendous. So the That's how a lot of people make up an income And these people have rolled out like hundreds, if not thousands of these carts of people making icice lattes on the street. And pre batch espresso They did it. they did it beforerid did And and like you actually there there's a great moral good to come with it. People can be judgmental online, but for reasons that we just outlined B financial Evironmental, morally, it's A sound idea I think the guest perception part of it is so interesting because in Australia, especially Every like you can't you can't open a coffee shop in the US without Seververal people coming in per week saying, o, this is good, but have you had Australian cafes? like it's even better. So like you would think in that culture of all the people in the world, they would scoff at pre batch espresso, but they didn't And so that makes me think of u This this u Instagram reel that we did last week. that was a blind taste test of Iiced lattes. and so I set up outside one of our locations And I had pre batch espresso in a bottle I had fresh espresso, obviously that was brewing And then I just made like ice lattes. 'cause for us, that's the application that we're currently using it in is our ice lattes which we should talk about. But I would hand people Two drinks prebh and fresh. and ask them which one they preferred And Most of them said pre batched by a little bit. So it was like very split, leaning a little bit towards pre batched And then I started asking people If you walked into our cafe And ordered a nice latte, paid six or seven dollars for it. and then saw us pour the espresso from a bottle, what would you think of the value of that drink and It was pretty split, but most of them said like, o, I wouldn't like that. Like I don't think that You know, you're putting as much craft into the beverage and that diminishes the value, right? Whereas some people are like, I don't know if it tastes good, That's awesome. And so then it brought this conversation between the three of us last week that was If you were to ask that this was Ethan's point, but if you were to ask a chef Like if a chef was to come to your table and say, all right, so we've got two steaks on the menu tonight They're both the same price One of them is going to be fresh prepared from raw all the way to perfect medium rare. The other one is gonna be sort of like a pre prepped like sous vide and then I'll just kind of sear it to order Which one would you prefer? Like I think everyone would say like the first one. L I want it to be fresh, right But then you know, it comes out to the table and it's exactly the same product And maybe even the sous vide one is especially at scale in that kitchen more consistent overall when they're doing a bunch of steaks per night So The takeaway for me is Yes, we should ask for guest feedback to tether every decision we make in our business to what they say isn't actually what's best for them all the time Eespecially when you're doing it at scale at high volumes. U So that that experiment was very interesting to me, but the mental gymnastics like, okay, so These are my valued customers telling me not to do this. What do I do with that Well, it's a really interesting analogy to use, but let's change the dish, right? Let's talk part pesto pasta So with a pre batched a flat wipe made using pre batched espresso, it's not a pre made coffee It's assembled So with using ingredients, the pre batched espresso is one of the ingredients and then we steam the milk fresh, right? That is the latte. and that's It tastes every bit as good as, you know, as you just explained a Fres Iate one. with Very minor differences But let's talk about this preo this pesto pasta Do you think they're grinding the pesto sauce? to water. Are they making it You know, with the pine nuts and stuff like that in the mortar and pestal, to water No no. It's assembled like this is. So it's an assembly line that is conducive to making the product. Well and to your point, so you're pulling fresh espresso for your long blocks, right? Yes So In that case, the coffee is the showcase item. Yeah versus in a flat white where coffee is an ingredient that's making a completely different drink. But also the I think The way that you pull an espresso for a milk drink and a Lwn blacker, also entirely different becausecause a for what Kirk? So we u so We tailor our extraction for milk drink specifically because for In my opinion, for a good milk drink can U It needs to be a high concentration espresso So we dial as iner between twelve percent to thirteen percent And then we have like for an eight ounce coffee, and then obviously the rest is milk. So whereereas a lot of coffee shots probably use something with a lower concentration, but a double shot I don't like that because that means there's more water in the drink so I want nobodyody's talking about that around us. Okay. And I love that. I love that you're talking about that. Yeah And I've noticed in America, typically you know flat the coffee tastes weaker, even though it's like double shot. becausecause the concentration of the espresso to me, just doesn't seem high enough. And then talk about that with the Uber mill So the Uber milk is a device that automatically steams the milk. And that's been in circulation for a long time in Australia to with no complaint, I might add, it's pre batch milk. It's u the The biggest highlight of it for me is not actually the efficiency dividend from using it.'s that it doesn't add any water to the milk. And so it's just been God's blessing to coffee really because It's's there's less water. so you get this beautiful rich flavor in it. that's just it's It's dessert like, you know, it tastes like it's nauy, but it's not. It's so good.ic baby. And that's how you get that really good coffee experience where it's not lavender vanilla latte. you're extracting these beautiful complex flavors from what could be Ethiopian or Colombian natural beans and you're experiencing fruit in the cup So but again, like the long black extraction is different Whereas you're having it black without milk So there's not these fats and these proteins and you know, the water that's effectively diluted the coffee flavor. you're having a black. you know, You know, espresso could be like eight percent concentration for a al long black it's four percent concentration. So you know, you tailor the extraction differently. So My recipe is quite strong for an espresso And I'm using more water, like a longer yield typically from my black coffee. Because to me they're entirely separate beverages that deserve an entirely separate extraction So what's your espresso recipe for your milk drinks versus your black? coffee drinks I'm going to preface this with a I'll do a little preamble here. So most cafes in Australia, if they're doing an eight ounce coffee, it's using a double shot At least twenty grams of coffee per coffee, right So I am a bit of an extraction nerd So what I c what I calculated was that So I had my hypothesis, but I tried it out at first and it took a little while to be able to roast correctly for this method. So what we did instead was use twenty five grams of coffee Oh my gosh. And use a single shot and at a ratio. So it's twenty five grams in, thirty seven grams out So it's an extremely strong coffee And this is milk Bro, how do you get a pore filter that big? Well, there's twenty five grraam BST baskets And so wake up, bro. So then You use so it's a single shot in each. So instead of being twenty grams of coffee used per coffee It's twelve and a half. So that's's that's a lot more efficient. So you're saving money. If people understand extraction, you can do things like that where you save your business significant amounts of money which we have over the years And you too can make three percent profit. And you too can make three percent profit. Thank you. As long as you don't have to pay back your loans with that three percent. Yeah and you're in the negative. Yeah Yeah, that's that's how that's how we Okay, so twenty five grams in, thirty seven grams out. Yeah. How many seconds typically? twenty five to thir. It is normal Yeah We gotta try it boys. No w. Well, But you see, it doesn't automatically just work. L we had to tweak the roasting profile for our coffee turke. Beacause I would imagine that you'd have to grind really fine to make that happen f course Well, yeah, using a higher using just more coffee. Yeah, using more coffee and you know Obviously with more coffee comes more resistance. So twenty grams in for an extraction time of thirty grams is pretty like across the board. That's pretty typical for a milk drink. Sure. Would you say? Well, it's the same time, but we use twenty five percent more coffee So ye, you gott to cos it up so as there's less resistance. Well, using the split shot method is something that we've done on our coffee carts for a long time. Yeah, you guys are all naked portter filters in America I can't stand it No we're all about spout. We're about the spout. So that valoc over your spoutin? Yeah.. We're spouting. Were spout.' trout maxing. ' I can't donon't know The benefit of using a naked portter filter It's just that's all home homebrewer stuff, you know? But like most of the cafes that I've been to in America are using the naked portterfilm. Yeah, what I'm saying like the home brerewer thing trickled in even more to cafe culture because of like the pk prep channeling But there's no functional benefit to using one, is there? Compared to it at the same page? Yeah like Kirk, you're getting worked up, man. You're getting worked up. is there one functional benefit like Its looks cool. It looks cool. The claimed functional benefit is that you can see a channel if there's a channel You can say that with a spout as well, but Yeah, exactly. Or you can just taste it, you know? I can't taste everything. but you know I just I don't know. I've got to go in deeper on this here. likeike this is going to be a clip like We got we gott to abolish Naked portter filters. They' just it doesn't serve any functional purpose. They look nice and yeah, like the Instagram video of the thing dribbon. it does look cool. But in terms of like practicality, I just can't stand it Yeah Yeah, that's nasty. It's only place is should have a naked port filter at home. put it in then make it in. actually there's one benefit and that's being able to fit like a bigger cape cup underneath. That's it. Oh yeah. That's a good point. like you can fit a cup under there, but like let me say something I really I don't know how much you harp on this with. pre batching, automation, but I was talking to the guys about this. I feel like, well, A, I got an email from my friend Aaron talking about like what that allows you to do in the cafe space. And yes, there's all the efficiencies. But when we're talking about storytelling, like sharing the story of a coffee That's a huge perk right there is being able to like focus more on the guests experience and share about the coffee because the extraction's handling itself or like it's already been made Um But then also J instead of Hyper fixating on the cafe. if you're thinking The journey that the coffee goes through, we always talk about the cafe being the last stop for like for whoever's going to have it. like the supply chain ends at the coffee shop. And so if we can do anything to raise the floor of like how quality of coffee can be represented I feel like pre batch pressso is a great way to do that. I don't know how you guys systematize it in your space, but I'm just seeing that day to day ops like When it's super busy and you're rushing, I feel like the margin for error is way higher when it just comes to like ripping shots versus if you're locked in on a task of like, I'm making three hundred espresos I'm going to like be on top of my work. and I'm going to raise the quality floor of what this espresso can be. People in our Instagram comments would say and have said You're only pre batching espresso because your baristas suck. So if they were actually good, they could make consistent espresso no matter how busy it is Uh yeah. Well I'm curious, like So let let's let's sort of Talk about grinding for a moment, right Grinding has evolved so much in ten years. So it you know, went from using the manual chamber to you know, Mazarobas that gr on demand and you know ret accurately for a little bit to Mythos that was doing the timing thing quite good. Now we're grind by way grinders that do it very accurately. and just How much time that saved, you know, collectively over the years for the forista for the coffee industry at large u But it's How different is it really? like what what skill set is is Is it really so nuanced for someone to grab Pour a filter from a grind by wake grinder, distribute and then put it in a puck press. and then about the machine. Is that not just Is a barista then, not just a machine itself I think it's just simply Especially when people see it online, they do not critically think about it And so then they're like fresh equals better always With most things it does, to be fair. like let's be real. L with most things in life, it does. And you know, on average, like you could I spoke to Christopher Hendon and Dora Pennington the other day. so they're Um Yeah, he's a computational chemist. And he said to me this was at MIT. Yes. So he said to me, which we got to talk about as well U But they said and I posted a re about it U Chemically it's different and you know, o oxidization occurs U so You know At a molecular level, it probably is degrading a touch and constantly is like it's aging and then it'll get to a point where it does decline. you know, there's been next to no imperial research done on that to really verify it. But anecdotally and, you know, there's plenty of ev qualitative evidence, you know, from my cafe But the experience is just as good But at a molecular level, of course, it's changing. You know, from the moment it touches The atmosphere, it's once it's being brewed, like it's being oxidized Um, and this there's There's going to be amazing ways to prevent that in the future, I'm sure. We can probably flush it with nitrogen or argon gas right now and it'll make some level of impact. Really, if we're thinking at a scientific level and you know theres once some investment and some time goes into the space Without a doubt, you'll be able to get consistently and more tasty espresso massively made from complex machinery in the future, that can brew you know, maybe hundreds of liters at a time Yeah then you will get You'll get better results in a flat white, for example, from that method than you will from you know, your twenty one year old barista who's making flat whites manually off a grind by eight grinder, We can all like interternet, bef aside. Yeah, I know a lot of people want to hate us for talking about this, but You can acknowledge that that is fundamentally true. the world's capable of doing really amazing things these days and it'll happen And so that's more precise, more consistent And it'll be done at a scientific level, which isn't a Bsta be sideide by side this tastes better, you know, L Yeah. when you got some proper real Gs working on it in from MIT. From MIT, it'll it'll happen and it'll be better. And you know, that's just an objective truth. I think my utopia for this is And again, back to the what we were talking about before of, you know B is just churning out and just retaying less staff overall being perceived as a negative thing Sorry My preference would be less overall workforce behind the bar at a given time And then when you can remove the giant two or three group Ba Marzoa machine, I think that you can replace that with something like a couple decents where you can showcase specific drinks in a more amazing way because the time allows for that and then the people who do want the lavender vanilla Lae. it's a very quick exchange, you know, like honoring the divide of specialty coee. Like our Alfaretta cafe could have two decents batch espresso and the uber milk set up and be churning out more drinks than we are now while also giving the home brewer who wants something absolutely incredible. A really good experience. But that's to me, this is where the future of the coffee industry is headed. specifically is for specialty, right Because we already have all the machinery needed totally eliminate humans from the coffee making process Let's talk like for You know, you've got the Evasis machines, you could pre batch your espresso, you could use an next balloon for your pore oververs and batch brew and all that sort of shit. All of that exists Right this second U, but Is that something We all want to say happen Do any of you guys wantan to say humans totally eliminated from cat?. Absolutely not. not. No. But yeah it's just And this is something I'm really starting to kind of refine my thoughts around is that the coffee industry twenty five years from now will be more human than ever It'll be the good baristas will be familiar level knowledge. No I like this this because in a world of post scarcity where We'll probably have meals that we can have in the future that have all of your daily protein needs in like one nutritional slop if we want it to. but surely that'll exist. U and you know, we'll probably catch whole cars to work for all wener Yeah, that self driving cars currently exist now The world's going to look a lot different. There's going to be a lot of different technology. But in that world where everything is so much easier. Convenience isn't just like a something sought after. It's Just stand it So what cup becomes valuable then you know, going to somewhere, going to something that reminds you of this past because, you know, we're developing technology at such a rate and It's not going to slow down This is where I feel like the coffee industry will actually Excel especialty coffee Instry, I should say, So like these spepecialty coffee shops that independent, that have these unbelievable skills. Maybe those baristas are some of the highest paid members of society. I was gonna to say just everything you're saying is tied to wage And whenever Baristas are clamoring for higher wages, which should do that. They're essentially asking for the boss to fire or lay off the people that work with them because there have to be A certain there have to be less baristas on staff for each one to get paid more as long as your revenue is fixed. So if your revenue does not increase, taking away like, let's say deead. outwire of if a cafe is operating at thirty percent n that profit or something which The vast majority of cafes do not do that. But if my staff all demanded a across the board ten to fifteen percent wage increase, like that pushes me into. profitable I going to close my business. So then you would have it has to come from somewhere. You would have to More drinks in less time in order to have less baristas to execute that wage Yeah, sort of like I mean In Australia, we have a long history of collective bargaining. in America from what I gather like Unions are kind of like micro unions. L staff can set up a union amongst themselves for a business sort of thing. Whereas in Australia the unions cover like an entire working group And collective bargaining is an essential piece of the Australian labour history. So one of the So we have it two party system, which is being challenged significantly right now in Australia There's the Liberal Party, which is our Conservative Party. I know it's confusing. Okay. And the left wing li Democrat actually consonservative. Yeah. And the Democrat equivalent in Australia is called the Labor Party So its history was formed with workers that during, you know The eighteen hundreds that they were getting a really shit deal, so they'd go on strikes and things like that. and that's the history of the Labour Party. It's Rots are developed in collectivism and collective bargaining. and that's just completely different in America. You've got a completely different set of values and this system is not established for that. and Look, it sounds like the The The workers the average minimum wage workers is far worse off in America than they are in Australia. So whilst we have these exceptionally high wages and stuff like that, It's not something that I'm really too proud of because all I've can, you know have comfort knowing that all my staff have you know, what they need to survive And you know, And I wouldn't really want to have a business otherwise because yeah, it's all about people and coffee That's just not true for every country And so but it also comes to cost. you know, businesses need to be profitable at to be able to have stuffff. So you need to be able to service that as well. So it's about getting the balance right. Ands where that's why unfortunately, less people will be making coffee in the future. P perhaps not unfortunately, pererhaps that's what needs to happen. That's kind of what I'm saying. Yeah, like that's probably actually the moral thing to do You know, that's not saying that peopleeople are going to have no jobs. they're just going to be different. For example, I don't think a train driver should exist in twenty twenty six. You know, there's because in Australia in Sydney, we just built this there was this large infrastructure project called a Mro tunnel And In Australia, like train drivers get paid a decent amount of money, that it would be far more than an American one because they have unions that represent them, they have collective bargains and they go on strikes that are very effective and their wages are higher. But when they go in strikes, the services don't run But so this new metro tunnel It goes every four minutes. There's no train drivers, but it's every four minutes throughout the evening. It doesn't stop. That means there's more social mobility. know The trains run on time. There's no strikes that affect people's ability to get to work I think the world's better off with that system, and I don't think that renders more people unemployed. There's new industries developing all the time and it will probably be the case in the future as well. I'm not one of these guys that subscribes to the belief that AI is going to render everyone unemployed. I actually just think it's going to be a tool people use. and you know for example, Is AR really that good right now? you know? I can't even I was trying to find some Uzs in Melbourne the other day and I asked Chat EVT. And I'm sorry, but if you can't direct me to some Uzs you know in a public city in twenty twenty six like You're not taking my job. So Well, there's always mass dyst area whenever a new technology arises, you know? And so you can look at it I think this one maybe hits home the most because of especially the The creative side of things and the u the lack of consent in replication and things like that. but We'll look back at this in my opinion as a very similar thing to. you know, people were losing their minds whenever computer use started to really spread and I think it's on on repeat. Okay, so if I'm sorry gohe I have to pe so bad. Do you think we could just pause for a second and I can see if that's the bathroom? Yeah. Yeah, do it. 'causeuse I might even maybe can go take me in. Yeah. But we can have a partee, How long have we you been going for .. fifty five is the runtime minus the beginning probably around like fifty or something. I can go another fifty five if we old take away. Just scratching the surface here. Great, gentlemen. Yeah, I was gonna I'm not done. We have quest. I'm not done So for our coffee shop running Padre is listening to this They're liking what they're hearing And they want to implement prebatched espresso in their cafe What would you tell them to do Well, we manually make ours off our espresso machine and you can do it during kind of down hours as well because coffee shops experience peaks and troughs. So that's what we do currently So I mean, extract it to the same thing you would usually do if you want to make the same product, I always advise, as we mentioned before, making it really nice and concentrated less water, positive. What are you doing fluffbowl? What do you want get out of hand U Do something. Now he's a. we like her dog. She's just she's locked in anyway. Anyway she literally doesn't care. U So yeah, just to bre it as you usually would, I put an extra gram or two in the of what is it its three grams. So because you can lose the crema, there's like a little bit less intensity. So I put a little bit more espresso in so like Yeah, twenty grams.. Pick up And then Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't keep it for more than three days. That's probably where You can generally say, yeah, that's not going to deteriorate in quality and get, you know bacteria or something. Make sure you put it in extremely clean vessels to store it as well. Yeah, just keep it clean, refrigerate it cane, refrigerate it sererve it pouring cold and bing bong bangandi boo. So you're using a Describe the machine to me. It's basically like an air pot in technology, right? Like it's pumped up through. So what is the pro to that? inststead of, say kegging and flushing with nitrogen and pushing through like a Like a Like a draft line Well you could, but that's just a significant step up in investment. That would probably be ideal really. But it's just You know Be we already made that moveie, we have kegs, so that would be kind of nice. Yeah, so these birds, man. They got their dog get 'em. But the bird got their dog. But yeah, just like that that would probably be a more ideal situation because it's, you know, more anaerobic So you know, I'd probably look to do that in the future. But right now the company is called Six Simple Machines and they do these pumps or sorry, systems that dispense liquids. And they're very accurate with the volumes as well. So very, very accurate. So we just have to place it under the under the it activates by a lever. which has a sensor. Usually it's used for like differenterent higher volume liquids like bach breur or marta, so it's got a sensor to cut it off We use it for a different function, which is Espresso, which is obviously a lot lower volume But it's volumetric and can be very accurate if you calibrate it correctly. And obviously the main re one of the main reasons we have it is for the aesthetic appeal because these also have digital screens. So it can present our coffee Obviously a bit of romance is lost with the pre batching. evenven I can admit that. So having, you know the branding on the screens and people being able to visualize what they got to taste, it's That's where he and I were getting into a little bit of a Tiff couple days ago we were talking about thistle. I was referencing what you were doing and that from the marketability approach, you know? which is You know, a valid concern or even just I'm like, are we going to call it batch espresso? or we're going to call it rested espresso, you know, and it's Even just it's interesting you bring that point up if I may talk about it because A lot of people u would call it concentrate And to me, I think that's both grammatically incorrect and just doesn't apply because It's not any more concentrated because it's been put in the fridge. It doesn't just become stronger magically. It's already extracted and at its strength. Concentrate to me is a different category of product because concentrate already exists and it's much weaker. which is, you know, a bit of an oxymoron. But the you know, if you buy Nescafe concentrate currently exists, you can go buy it from the supermarket and put it on your ice latte. It just doesn't taste as good because it's It's not espresso. it's not brewed under pressure. so that's why I call it. pre batched espresso, which I'm glad the namees kind of stuck to it because because again, concentrates a different category of drink and we're You know, it'd just become awfully confusing if we had the same name for it because this is concentrate one A and you know I just think it's Is Colbur popular in Australia? Oh yeah. So so many people do cold brew concentrate is lates. Yeah. Is that common It's just not Again, dilution is the enemy of tasty milk coffee. And to that point, our original Uh, you know Blind test. we tested And this is a lot of people hated this because we weren't drinking it. straight whatever reason Eespecially because the context of we would never serve That wasn't the point of the test. We're testing an ice latte with cold brew concentrate versus a fresh espresso latte versus a basash espresso Lotte. and the Cold Bring Honcentraate was the only really distinguishable beverage on the table because it was the worst option. And I think to your point, because of just the dilution. On something I really like too about the pre vest verso, I don't know in your case, but it's cold or at least, you know, maybe you have it in a bottle out and it gets closer room temp But that is way different than a, you know, maybe one hundred and eighty degree shot So when it comes to making an ice drink for us because that's like I said, our use case. you're talking about way less dilution when you're dealing with ice and like ice latte. And so I was doing it side by side and I was like, just the sheer temperature of the drink is such a value add for us. The fact that you can have like a colder drink longer. I got a sidebar question that I'd like an answer from all of you of Um Oh, actually I'll make a statement, and you can either agree or disagree. Wow. The ice machine is one of the most important investments a co coffee shop can make in twenty twenty six. one hundred percent. agree. Yeah. mayay D Yeah. What are you working with? So I'm using a Hoshizazaki ar there it is. ye. obbviously. You know, people when I podcast drop this name on the podcast lot, they should sponsor me Hoshizazaki, if you're listening, you should sponsor me because multiple people have purchased Hoshazaki ice machines because of me. Hoshizazaki, if you're listing, God damnit. I want to talk. So But again, it's the most important investment a coffee shop can make in twenty twenty six Dunkin Doughuts or now just Dunkin, now they make more cold drinks than hot drinks Americ We make more cloth without hydrating without a doubt. And so and having good quality ice is paramount to that you know We have gone through the entire journey of this with starting with a cheap ice machine. Terrible, having constantly go to our neighbor restaurant. and get buckets of ice to We have a hoshazaki before Dwood walk. Sorry Well, funny enough in Alfredta, we started with a cold draft, which is like a more like cocktail bar, ice cream, like really nice thick one inch cubes that couldn't keep up production. They were so nice though. Oh they were The cubes themselves were amazing.. But And then we got when we opened our second store, we had a back room. so we were able to get a a stand up Hoshizazaki that makes pretty much the same quality ice But into Eth. No Just nice little dimples, nothing crazy. See, yeah, we got these like cubic ones so the You're serious. Cubes? Yeah, cubes. c. I was saying it's fierce the way. I was like, who. Those are different. That'd be cool. You know, the density of it is so obviously the impact is that it cools your drink. If it's denser, the higher quality ice, it doesn't dilute as quickly, your drink stays better for longer. So best investment you can make as a cafe owner today is in your ice machine. Well, I mean, to that point back to if you're not having to purchase, if you're opening several cafes and you're having purchase five lineas then You can invest invest in not buying the cheapest three bay fridge not buying the cheapest item. got question for you. Are you worried that big espresso is gonna come after you? Delong Because they're all in cahoots. Lamazoco is owned by Delongi, which also owns Evasus. So like everyhere you look at it, they win. They won. They're like, just keep making espresso baby. coover grounds maybe upset, but, you know, they'll find a way then making plenty of money You know, us let us have a go, you know? Yeah. what about us? Yeah Cffee shop own. All right, you've been hinting at this story about your Airbnb here. and you have to you have to spill. All right This is my first time in America I've got no idea of New York geography. I've been told it's a big city, but you know, coming here and experiencing it, you know It big canan't confirm. And So I booked my accommodation. I thought I'll just get something cheap. I need to you know I'm balling on a budget here Need to save some money Bad idea Bea I booked my accommodation in a suburb called Brownsville Have anyone ever heard of Brownsville? No. I had never heard of Brownsville until a few days ago either. And as soon as I got off the train, I got out of the train station, I heard this screaming Someone was chasing someone else with a knife. Oh wow. like within Like literally a minute or two of me hopping off the train. So you've just gotten there, you get out of the train station.'s the first thing you hear. So so but you know, I've seen that a couple I've seen that regularly in Melbourne as well. so that's not even the bad part. But then as I'm walking past All these people are just looking at me, gone This And then I heard It quickly became apparent to me, I'm the only white gu in neighborhood And u And then I heard these whistles. peopleeople were whistling at me as I walked down. I' like, oh, that's strange. Then I heard this one guy say I'll say you l it tonight, what boy, and I was lock Oh. Yeah, I meanm in a I'm mean a Sightly rough neighborhood. You're in the red light distict. So stake And then I got to my hotel of the Airbnb which is a little bit seady, whatever, it happens in the game But then I heard pop Three gunshots. Wow. Now I've shot back home and you know, Australians we're not familiar with in suburban neighborhoods herear in gunshots. And I heard it again and I was like I've got to get out of here. I told I booked a new accommodation instantly. I got to the hotel where I was staying at. I told the lady where I'd come from. She's like, Brownsville You went to Browownsville? And anyway, I probably didn't tell it with as much gustle as usual, but like I've never felt any more danger in my life. Well, in to prefice you were you were kind of warned about coming to the US, right? May A lot of Australians are scared of the US because of guns, right? We don't have guns readily available like you do And we all show our guns, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, you're packing right now.. But like Australians are genuinely very scared of the U.S. a lot of them because of, you know, the gun culture and differences. And you know, with the exception of Brownsvillld haven't noticed it at all And the it just A lot of people say to me, be careful, Kirk. Be careful. There's a lot going on there And you know, a of people a lot of people in Australia are skeptical of Trump as well. So that it's been If you don't talk about politics it's fine. this is a perfectly normal, safe part of the world And so let's talk about politics right now for the rest of this part. Okay. so yeah I mean So Opening a coffee shop in the U S You cannot go. seven days without hearing the differences between Australian and US coffee culture. What do they say Well, the people that the people that say that Australia is so much better than US specialty thingss bro, US specialty coffee are also the ones that maybe don't know as much about specialty U O they will say like, oh, this this place you guys have like the pretty designs on your drink. This reminds me of Australia. Have you ever been? And I'm like, no U But now I can be like, I know a guy. He's been. coffee shops. But he doesn't even pull us a fresh espresso. So is he even a coffee shop? Disqualified. D. What are the general assumptions about American coffee culture from Australia That is just bad. You know like everyone just assumes everyone just says it's bad U That's the general consensus. It's not fact But I think a lot of people just think it's yeah, drip coffee from Denny's or something or Starbucks And Starbucks isn't even that bad. Like I've been I've been hitting up the mango. I've been getting my Starbucks order because I've realized the importance of Starbucks to America as I've come here because. You know when you're traveling, you know, public bathrooms aren't as frequent in America so like really? Yeah. so like you can go to a public toilet a lot easier or someone will let you use their toilet a lot easier in Australia. U In Europe, you got to pay. That's just a heinous system. like they make you like wow. Tap credit card to go to a public toilet Bro. That is I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you, but that is backwards. You know? thinks that shit up. Even the public restroom situation is Like, this is not the case in the Southeast. You can go anywhere and use a toilet Like we have struggled with that even on this trip. Yeah New York. Yeah of it's tough. It's me. Okaykay, I've been struggling. you go to a Starbucks here, you've got access to the wiFi, you've got access to, you know, the bathroom and a comfortable place to go see it if you're walking around I'd be screwed with that Starbucks on this trip. Yeah. And they've even said that you do not have to purchase anything to use their facilities like it's corporate policy. Yeah. Well, mean and that's I had to go through some stuff to get there. Yeah. That's right. You know, Starbucks doing the most right now. So and you know, the depending, like would I get a coffee there? No, but you know there What's your order? What's your order At a Starbucks? Well Mgo ice chai. Well, it's like an a ice chai with a mango cream. Hello puppy. we would love for this dog to join. Hey, puppy Looks like a little gully wg toy, you know, L at that I would say the majority of baristas that work in especially coffee shops in the US don't like the te of straight up espresso. I think they actively avoid Tasting the product Unless it's like their shift drink. was probably an icice latte. Like in the people listening to this podcast may think of their themselves and be like, oh, I would never do that. I love espresso. Or you may be running a really great coffee shop where everyone on the team loves espresso But Y boy nameamely me is out in the field visiting a lot of different cafes and training people And the majority of those coffee shops, they have La Marzoco machines, they have Mazer Malcona grinders, they have the Fetcoos, they have nice coffee Most of those beristas are like not getting a job in a specialty coffee shop for the same reasons that I did when I started like they're getting it because it's this is just cool, you know? And they don't like the taste of strap espresso. So when you say Australians think that U.S. coffee shops suck I think of that I'm like, yeah, that sucks. Like if you work somewhere and you don't like the taste of the product But it's like, can you blame them? Because as we were discussing earlier You have this co ferment espresso. in your cafe And a lot of people order it and they order it and they're flat, white We only serve it as a flywite. so you can't get like a flom black or a a straight espresso with a cofament. And so that drink does not it only has milk in the Cofament espresso and The demographic of the people that are ordering that drink are probably similar to the demographic of people in the U. S that are ordering iced flavored lattes. They want a more fun drink, maybe something a little bit with more perceived sweetness, but there's no sugar in that drink And so my point is These baristas in U.S coffee shops Can you really blame them for not tasting the espresso whenever they almost never sell straight espresso? and they're mostly just using that espresso as an ingredient in a sugary milky drink Well, I mean, if you're serving it, you should be tasting it. That's like, you know, does a chef not try his food? I guess what I'm saying is like it makes sense how we ended up here Yeah, yeah, it is. And particularly with espresso in America, it's a lot different to how you ser it in Australia. Everyone like the single origin, you know espresso that I get here is It's extracted a lot longer It's much more diluted. You know I went to say coffee yesday and it's like It's borderline a category of its own, their espresso. is it really espresso? Like to me, it's just so fundamentally different. I'm not saying it's bad. It's quite pleasant. and because it's you know, stretched out a long way. You can't You can actually iron out most of the potential defects, but I just don't think you can get all the maximum highres either. But you know Everyone I like coffee shops doing different things. But like, you could make an argument that that's Maybe a different category of drink altogher. It's like a longo, which so but if you're working with something, you should absolutely be tasting it. And we all have preferences, right I go through phases where You know, For weeks at a time I'm drinking nothing but flat whites. For weeks at a time, I'm drinking nothing of espresso and then nothing but filter. L I just I'd love being able to do that with coffee. But you know, I totally understand there's people with preferences. There's a lot of paristas that I'm sure we've all worked with that don't drink milk coffee at all Um ye. And so they're just like, Yeahah, no I'm I'm Blacko Islet so I don't know if that answers the question. Well, yeah, our approach and people were upset at us for Taking a cupping spoon and slurping an icice lavender vanilla latte it's like that's dumb. Like why would you taste that drink in that way? And it's because we want to apply the same level of excellence and intentionality to that menu item as we do our by the cup coffees. But you know, the reason that we cup coffee in the way we do and aerate it in our mouth is so that we can get like a greater sensory encapsulation of what the You'd sampling, right. So why would that not apply to drink another drink?ight Like with, you know, similiires, they do something similar, don't they? They get right of their mouth and do all that weird shit. You know, like I don't say that Yeah, a lot of people would see it as different, but you're applying a higher level of QC to a different beverage. We don't cup our iced lattes frequently. I'm just saying like So basically you home straight to hell. We should basically. We should QC every. I didn't drink that 'cause I thought it was cringe. I wanted to you're really trying not to be cringe Yeah. It's not going to. H's resolution It happens. Hey, I wanted to I wanted to play a game if we can. You want to wrestle? Sure You'll probably win. Well, you know you're gonna win. You're a good guy. We gotall guy on. He'azason Ross, dude. He's not that strong. He's not that athletic. He's big and tall. So but I want to play a game where you guys all roast one thing about Australian coffee and I roast one thing about American coffee. Do want me to stop? Yeah, you set the bar. Bypass I don't understand why so many U.S specialty coffee shops And Canadian bypass their poor others. And to me, it makes no practical sense at all, like If you're bypassing, you're just acknowledging that you need to dilute a drink more, right And it's you could have just brewed it and continued to extract the coffee at the correct ratio. that's how you're dialing coffees. Yeah sure you can probably polish a turd a bit better with, you know, if you brew it strong and then you can gradually you know dilute it a little bit more to get to your desired strength I just think it's imperure. The only thing you're bypassing is making a tasty coffee. It doesn't It's gramatically incorrect. It's dilution. What are you bypassing? What are you bypassing Flavor. you're bypassing making a good drink. It's just like it just it's diluting. You're not bypassing. We are bypassing, bypassing, you're bypassing, making it taste good. I'll tell you why we do it. Well, yeah. So The way we do it is not the same as what you're describing. So Our byy the cut method in our cafes is done through our espresso machine. We call it a middle child. It's the Nomicana.omicana That's what I was talking about with the coarser grind paper filter. A ye. So that's what Si is doing Maybe? I think so. It's similar to that. Like for their espresso, is that you're saying? Yeah. Okay. So we're brewing at a one to nine or one to eight brew ratio. Okay. So it's like it's definitely weaker than what you had it say. Like say Well tell me the say shot, what was the total volume of that around? I couldn't tell you. Four ounces Maybe. Okay, cool. And just for the record, it was good, like it was pleasant and enjoyable. So we're the output of our middle child is one hundred eighty grams. Six ounces. Six ounces So it's like, it's good bit more than an espresso. We cannot achieve that quality of extraction att this point pulling at nine bars of pressure. we can't achieve that level of quality of extraction at a one to sixteen brew ratio that we can at a one to eight or one at nine. because it's just so much It's not ninears water. Is that not just a n? It's not nine bars. Okay becauses we're grinding coursear enough to where it's max flow rate, which can't achieve nine bars. So then it's like it it's actually like three So if it looks if you look at the meter, it never actually hits that. Okay, of course. Well, I guess what I mean is not really don't have We don't have pressure profiling set up and that sort of thing. We just have it set to one setting U So that's why we do it. But I never understood Why bypass water is a thing like on batch brew or something like that. That never made sense. I don't think it has a functional purpose. Maybe I'm looking forward to the hot takes on this one, but I mean, I love Like, have you ever used the next level Pulsar? Yes. That's my favorite brewer because it's a true no bypass brewer And it's like usic two new Years, huh? I think a lot of a lot of people, especially as People get into ultra light Nordic coffees are starting to go the other way where they're okay with you know low extraction percentage copies, which is fine Um, but for me for a long time, I've just been chasing like, how can I get the highest Well, you know, the highest extraction percentage without over extracting or getting a stringency or whatever. And so that's why I've loved the next little Pull star. Well, that's just an amazing brewer with dual functionality as well. It can be immersion and percolation. and you know the spray head on it and you know the paper filter. It is an incredible brewer. I would say that A pound a pound could be the best brewer on the market today Are you sponsor or something? What is this? All right, who's gonna who's gonna to roast? Who's gonna I got one if you guys don't U, Okay, go for it. Well, by your own admission You said that the baristas in Australia 't aren't as knowledgeable as the ones in America And yet the culture of coffee in Australia is put on this pedestal. And I'm confused by that Yeah. well, I mean, even like I becausecause Melbournians love to take ownership of it, right? And I'm going through this U really Uh interestnteresting formulation of this view is that We've been a victim of our own success. You know Specialty coffee is so available. like even you know, burger chains sell quote unquote, spepecialty coffee there and advertise spepecialty coffee. Really? Yeah. but and there's also such a density of specialty coffee shops. like they're literally on every block in Melbourne. and That of course, makes it all less special. It means there's less good talented people in the one location. You know, you're spreading talent further And so that means, you know, you see people that it's just their job in college or something like that. And that's kind of why I think that If you want to work as a especially Brister in America, I think it's just Typically because you really want to do it. Whereas in Australia, it's like for a lot of people, it's just another job. And I would say it's at least where we are's very similar to that And your experience of how long have you been in coffee? Have you seen the median age of a bis go down because of this spreading of specialty coffee Yeah, probably Yeah. Like typically say Look a lot of people, because unfortunately coffee is really difficult to make a career out of, where you can pay a mortgage or something like that, a lot of people graduate to different positions in coffee or just leave the industry altogether. And that's like, you know that talent leakage is really bad and it kind of lends to you know We have less talented stauff on average on coffee bars because there's only so much to go around. It's not like there's that many people in the world that As a proportion of overall population that really want to be a specialty barista. And you know, of the small amount that we do, you know some are better than others. This looks like the snow mononster on Hoth in The emmpire strikes back. The Womper, is it a whomper? Ohper. You stick around as long as you want, buddy.. Yep. There you go. Say he looks like he's about to eat Luke Skywalker. Apricot? Yeah. I've got one. twoo percent net profit. That's my roast. It's a good one. Roast me further, like it's embarrassing uh that You know, we have to try and justify ourselves to the population that then wants to go around the world and be like, o, we're so good. Yeah. it's It's a failure of our Yeah of our industry and, you know, it's I'm just I'm just concerned Mainly. It's not I'm not I said that more as a joke, but I'm just like, how, you know, what's the breaking point? and where is that going to look like for because I mean Is Isn't the amount of cafes in Melbourne like a staggering statistic, you know the number Yeah, on a per capita basis, it's got to be the highest in the world. Yeah. I remember Drift magazine. I think their like second or third edition was was on numberber and it was like The number like blew my mind is like when I was first getting into coffee And so I'm just like, you know, As that number starts to creep more towards negative one, negative two, negative three percent You know, what does that look like what' the fall out of that four You know, Be we've been talking a lot about how efficiency is going to remove positions, but what also remves positions is businessusiness is going under. so Well you say, I think The future of Australian spepecialty coffee looks a lot more American to be honest. and that's the reality that they that people in Australia are going to have to come to terms with. because Here like we've discussed before, it's not like an independent can go and just open a coffee shop in New York or downtown Chicago or Boston easily. The rents are just heinously expensive. The future of Australian coffee looks more like chains, you know? you've got lots of dunkin around here. That's probably what we Look forward to an Australia one day. You know, if you want a cheap coffee, you'll get Dude, that's what everybody says to from Australia. They're like Starbucks tried to open here. Yeah' all very. Yeah. And they're surging in popularity in Australia now. Do you guys have Luckin? Not yet, but I'm sure it'll come.. But What you say? L? L Lin? Yeah. Chinese, right? You've not heard of L crandy? No. What is this? Where didd you get this guy? It's like a massive Chinese company that's growing exponentially in there You can only order from a kiosk or an app and they just bought blue bottle. Yeah. So they're set like off camera. They've opened twenty thousand stores or something in They like a store a minute or something like that. It's something heinous, something crazy. But to round off the point, that's what the future of Australia E speci coffee looks like. It's payid a play man. Yeah you can't have that like huge capital cost to start a coffee shop if you're only profiting that. that. I'll say as well Australia Australian hospitality businesses, not just coffee hospitality business. had a mass non compliance issue comes to paying staff correctly It was standard for people to be paid cash under the table because it's non reportable and you know, it's gotten more difficult with, you know, paywave and stuff like that. There was a guy called George Colum Baris who he's a professional chef and he was one of the hosts of the Australian Master Chef series So he was very big, very well known anyyway, so H company got reported for nonc compplliance with payments to chefs. So chefs around the world work heinously long hours for not much money. And it's the same in Australia. and it was it's not just like any like select few businesses did it. All of them did it. And that's how they stayed competitive. and with When that happened, it was a massive inflection point in Australian hospitality where Everyone quickly had to become compliant And what that really meant is that pushhing them all to the situation we're in now helped of A lot of these businesses probably couldn't actually afford to be in business in the first place because they were structurally non compplliant And that was all of them So And that's only started to change you know, four or five years ago So a lot of people were in Australia being illegally paid. I was for a lot of my career On record, Kirk. And but it was normal. Yeah And it was all that you could do. For some people it worked because you know, it's non taxable, but obviously shops like that because then they don't want to report it to the taxmen. but that doesn't thats also Let's face it, it doesn't really exist today because you know, you've got square where all of your You know, most people pay on a card these days and you know, that loophole's not there And I think those are some of the reasons that have probably pushed us to a more realalistic scenario is like a lot of coffee shops could not actually afford to be in business in the first place if they're following all the rules I'm curious your take on tipping because there's There's no tipping that where you are And the price per drink is still lower. Yes. So like A latte for us right now is five fifty, right without Sure around there. Plus tip, you know, you're tipping a dollar typically and then tax as well. So What do you think of that Well I would add to that, we also include the tax in that price too. So we have a consumption tax called GST. so you might call it sales tax. We call it goods and serervices tax. It's on ten percent of every single transaction with a few exemceptions like I think fresh food is one. ten percent. Yeah Everything you pay ten percent goes the government And that's to fund like hospitals and things like that. So it has a purpose. And we have free health care in Australia, so I'm sure they're doing great stuff with it. Yeah. No. There's there's some benefits like, you know, we don't go bankrupt for having an injury sort of thing, like people do here unfortunately Um but It's um You know, it's tough. like and you got to pay it quarterly. so last quarter I've got a tax bill for sixty thousand dollars You know, in a business that makes I can't remember what the revenue was last year, but it's significant. That's one quarter. One quarter. So the taxes in Australia are enormous and the costs are enormous and the prices we charge a little ity bitty, you know, compared relative to all that. Yeah, so let me just ask the most obvious question you can't just Raise your costs Not easily because I sorry, where your prices, I'm sorry. Yeah. So the but this goes into You know, one of the basic laws of economics, demand and supply. Supply is enormous. Supply is enormous in Australia. Yeah, whichich means you're competing against a lot more people. And you know, people can just, if they don't want to pay fifty cents extra, then they can just go to the do you're getting kind of famous. I think if you got like a picture of your head and put it on like, yeah, fathead and you got on your windows. it's like home of Pearson's pre Bach presso. I don't know, I feel like I'd a bit of a deterre. J Ching. Photoshopop your face onto Tim Horton's body. and you'll be good to go. Just give me Tim Horton's body. Yeah. man the man was an adonist. We all want that. He was he was, you know, he was very well constructed. So have you constructed Have you started to notice more coffee shops in Australia going out of business A Or you think you're distressed? enough no. because it's like a whack a moole. L onene goes down three more open, even still in this economic circumstances Where is the money coming from? I don't know. because there's know a lot of people moving to Australia all the time, like high level of migration, our natural rate of increases, you know, below replacements so you know, we've got a lot more immigrants coming every year. I don't know. it just feels like When one shot closes three more open.. It's totally irrational. I don't get it. It could be statistically untrue. this is just anecdotal, but Something has to change and we're getting to a point where this is public discourse now more than it ever has been before relating to like the cost of cafes. We've got this and Australia's been a magnificent success story up until now with, you know Coffee culture And you know, and I implore you guys to come. You love it Melbourne Sydy, you'll absolutely love it. A lot of Melbourneians are upset because Sydney people are starting to make just as good coffee. Are we gonna get like beat up we come over there though No, I mean, look, they're gonna to be afraid of us because they'll think we have guns., that's true Yeah. Well, you won be able to bring one to Australia or get one easily in Australia. so well that we'll know about guns so that they'll be afraid of us. A knownowledge is power. Yeah. Yeah there. Yeah, fear for the I fear for the Australian spepecial to Copy scene, I really do. There's a lot of well intentioned professional people in there that are really hard wororking and you know, theirre heart and mind are in the right place, but it's it's not it's no longer a fair. industry for, you know, it's never really has been for producers and now it's like, you know, no longer viable for Coffee shop owners as well And I think inevitably the future looks like it's going to be more chains in less independent coffee shops. And it's probably Emblematic of society at large, you know, consolidation and concentration of wealth Um, middle class. Yeah, well yeah, the middle class is disappearing and you know, then you've got, you know, SpaceX IPO for one point, whatever trillion. the other day and know wealth is across the world becoming more concentrated into less people's hands and that is P probleblematic for the coffee industet as we know it But now you are one of the elites because you have your coffee podcast, right? Oh I'm safe forever. I got a coffee podcast. Yes.' to pay all the bills and you're one of those guys you were talking about at the top. Yeah. What took you to making content and making a podcast from being in a coffee shop Were you doing content and videos before you had your own cafe? I only really started doing, so I've been podcasting on and off for like six years So I first start off with the subub Zero Coffee podcast. Sub Zero Coffee is my former brain childild, by the way. That's the logo for it. Spongebob looking thing. Come on. That's a vacuum sealed bag with beans in it. I love it And and then I was one of the up It's just coffee which I was, you know, I founded with with Rowan and Sonem. So so I was part of but I'm part of that and I decided I wanted to go do my own thing. But I studed journalism so that's. I got a degree in journalism. so it's always interviewing people and telling stories has always been something I'm interested in and you know having a podcast of the thing that I absolutely love scratches that edge. But I started making content like Instagram reels and stuff like that Only this year, I think. and it's it's u blown up a lot. Like obviously clips for the podcast are different, but you know, making videos of, you know, what I do in the coffee shops and going to different Um manufacturer and showing off machinery and just anything to do with coffee. And bricks. Yeah And bricks. We'll get into the bricks. The I started doing that this year and I think at the start of the year, I had like four thousand followers Today Ive probably got like fifteen So it's like, you know, it's grown a lot and started to make content. Oviously, I'm not like Morgan Eckroff, but you know, it's yeah, the community is growing and obviously my profile has grown a little bit with that and You kind of just have to post, you know? you post and it happens. We kind of realize that we put off posting on our, you know, individual channels for the entire extent of this company. and then me and Ross kind of just started posting and it's like, So people see value in it. Yeah you just have to keep it coming out. But I think this is also business discourse generally at the moment. L peopleeople are far more interested in individual stories than they can kind of aspire to themselves in a way like Sometimes someone commented on one of my videos this morning where I was packing coffee We just got these new packages so we got new boxes and things like that and invested a lot of money into it. I wanted to roll it out by by the time the Melbourne International Coffee experpert happened because we got so many more people visiting from outside of Melbourne and I had to all the packaging arrived on the Tuesday and I needed to have it done by Thursday, which means I packed it on Wednesday. And so I packed a thousand boxes on my own and It meant I worked a twenty six hour working day. I didn't sleep. And I I responded back to the gu. I was like, all right, well. He said, Ohh, I really want to be able to do my own thing just like you're doing And it's like, okay, well, this is what it means. you know, long, long hours. And, you know, it's when I was There, I just thought, we'll screw it. I may as well just video some of it. It takes a few minutes to set up, but I'm here for the long run. and you know, sometimes Bringing people along for that' really cool. And you know, this is what it really means to be a business. There was one video I did where it's like, this is what we had a public holiday. And I spent my public hol day maintaining the cafe cleaning the ice machine, you know, repairing some repairing some stuff. And I was like, was good. I can film this and it's pretty easy. And then I'd obviously do a podcast. So you know, I work a lot and I just you know, being able to bring people along for the journey and show what it really means in a specialty coffee sort of sense is pretty cool. But it is kind of disappointing that I'm now just pigeon hoold into a box of being the pre batch guy in a way because Like I'm I'm a genuine specialty coffee person and professional. And you know, with the work I do with SubzZero cooffee and you still love doing to this day and want to explore in the future, you know, having these longer more extensive menus of bigger coffees. I love doing that stuff And just because I like to pre batch your latte, it doesn't mean I want everyone to do that and it doesn't mean that I You know I have a lot of good abilities as a barister I hope that people can see me for more than just pretty thatash espresso because I brought a lot to the table with, you know, freezing coffee that has people have embraced all around the world as well. And you know their message me was like I do this because of you. and that's really heartwarming. And you know, I hope In the future I can tell more stories not just about you know what it's like running a coffee shop, but what it's like being in the coffee industry, at the production side, ye the producing side and stuff like that. So yeah hopefully This is the internet and obviously you get labels pretty easily and quickly, but I hope P peopleople can see me for more than that in the future, to be honest. Why did you guys start doing it? We see Kk We see you as more than that. Thank you. Thank you. Why did you guys start doing it Oh I get podcast in your content. We started doing the podcast because we were at a point where We were all still in very much like heavy operator roles within the company Um So he was in the cafe all the time I was like in the roastery, green buying marketing world and he was doing wholesale sales. And so we just didn't see each other very much. And we were like, let's have a podcast where we can talk on camera. so we would roll for like three hours and just talk about garbage It's called C. It's a T and Linkth podcast. Yeah, for sure. But it was like three uninteresting dudes likeike not interviewing like performers in the world. So we would talk a lot about football and movies apparently Yeah. Things that like fifty six people on YouTube suuffer through. Okay The real ones The real on since then, comment below. I f it was that. And then a big motivator too was, you know, we started a cafe and a coffee company when we were like nineteen. And so we were like chronically looking for help and resources support Wisdom, counsel, you name it And we're trying to find that within our industry. And I think Ely around there's a little bit more like keeping to information and strategy and tactics. And so a huge conviction of ours was like, well, we definitely haven't arrived, but might as well share on what we have learned and what we are learning and heck what we want to learn. Cut to like last year, we were talking about how we really want to change the way we source green coffee And then you know pretty soon we're going to be able to do a podcast with one of our like best sourcing partners in Columbia, just on how that whole thing has evolved. So kind of like inviting people along It's kind of simil thing like, hey A, we're going to share everything that we learned. So if you're starting before us mayaybe this will help you make less mistakes than what we did. and then yeah, just that relationship side of too. I mean, especially If you've experienced it too, like entrepreneurship can be really isolating and really lonely. And so I think a lot of people have found like wouldould be solace or community in uh in like what we have to say as far as like the ups and downs of running a small business I think the number one thing to remember with marketing Out of everything. is do cool stuff. That's worth marketing. And like when I look at your life, that's what I see. Like you you're doing these really low fi videos that aren't you know, the best, the best cameras or whatever, but you're doing a cool thing and just documenting it and showing it. And like the best marketing, when the product or the experience or whatever it is that you are marketing is good and compelling and original and unique, that does ninety percent of the heavy lifting of making it a success. The delivery, the strategy is just icing on a cake. So That has become more and more prevalent and important for us because, you know, we have a marketing team now which If you told nineteen year old me that you would have a marketing team that I wouldn't have believed you. But We have someone who runs our Instagram, we have someone who runs our YouTube, We have someone who runs our email marketing, we have a full time editor, and they're all operating in their different channels and islands And so In order for us to actually make sense of having those roles, we have to do cool stuff that's worth talking about and not just be like We're a coffee shop, which gets at like honestly One of the things I'm most passionate about in this business is I think that most Coffee shop owners don't know why they're in business beyond just coffee and they like like coffee shops and they like thought it would be cool to have a coffee shop and they need something to do None of those are evil reasons to have a coffee shop. It's okay to have those things. But when you have a higher purpose then it's way easier to market because there's like an actually a story. And then the most important part of that is like it's Like It becomes easier to hire people whenever you are hiring them Be they are already living your why and you have the same why. So then instead of just like hiring people and expecting them to follow your policies. You are inviting them to continue living their life mission just at your coffee shop because you both have the same life mission. So That's good. Grandsauce, but I think with recruiting as well, if I can talk about that for a moment, like we when I hire people or everyone that comes to work for us is I try and make sure it's the best job they've ever had, you know, and I try not to be a micr mananager. There's high expectations, but you're g at ourob, you're given every single resource you need to succeed. There's If you've got the right attitude, there's no excuse why you can't have a good time and perform well. There's none and that's not something I hold over people Yeah. I think believing in people And I'm sure you guys all have experienced this. There's a lot of people. I was talking to George Howell about this the other day. A lot of people just want to see you do well You know, even if you got an employee that Their ambition is to one day open a coffee shop for themselves themselves. Great. That's what I wanted to do one day. You I'm going to invest everything I can in you and teach you as much as I can, whether you work with me forever or not because youre going on to succeed later on You know No like it would make me proud, you know, it's not it's's and I think that's that's something I hope more coffee employers. embrace because you know, Not everyone goes to work at a organization forever. We all understand that. And you know we all have ambition ourselves. and I just think I hope the dynamic is is pro investing in your stuff and I hope there's a reciprocal level of, you know, my boss is doing the most for me as well. And I think that's a good dynamic to have between coffee shop owner and employees. Yeah, Arc, Iess contontrari intake to Many people in the industry for a while has been that the concept of being a career barista, just work Um, And We say that specifically because of what we see within our own specific profit model. And so with that, when we admit that, we know that all of our baristas have two directions and it's one that some position makes itself available for them to move up within our company and have a you know career salary type of position or two that they will leave our company and go do something else. So we kind of I don't know. we've called it many different things, but Basically, like what you're saying, we want to give you all of the possible skills that we know how to give you from what we have learned. so that you can translate them into whatever other industry you're going to be in after this And makes it makes the work like when we morere fulfilling. Yeah, it's conducive to a better culture, which is, you know, there's no animosity between you and you know, it's a better environment that you can perform better in as well. That's what I was gonna to say, if you just think purely selfishly as a boss It is the best move on the board. pour as much as you can into your sf. Always Even if they are going to leave your shop in two weeks to start a coffee shop across the street, that's hyperbolic and that's not going to happen If you're just thinking purely selfishly of like, how can I get the most out of this barista It's like pour into them and to like tell him everything you know because they are going to reciprocate that and when they're there as opposed to like holding everything close to your chest and living in a scarcity mindset What's what do you guys think about hiring non experienced parises? Becauseuse I'm a big advocate for it. We love it. And especially if you're hiring from another industry. So I've got a guy that works for me, Dennis Last year shout out to Dennis. He had never he had never worked in a coffee shop last year. And now he's like second to me in our business and he's running the whole show while I'm gone. two months You know, and no experience and these are these are his background's in finance. So I've got someone who came Packing. withith a different skill set that's extremely valuable to me. He's not packing in the way' packing. Yeah guns. Yeah. he's packing accounting knowledge and finance knowledge And you know, Ella who I just made a video about, you know, was we documented her first day and put the metag glasses on her and stuff like that. And you know, she does sort of digital work for us for us, but had zero experience beingaking coffee And my new policy is if you come work at our business, then no matter your position, You're going to be making coffee Because I just don't want to have people that are soft. Now, I don't want to have people that don't understand. being in the trenches and stuff like that it's just not what I want. So U There's going to be a lot of inexperienced people and I think it's Hiring on attitude is so much better than hiring on resume. Oh yeah, soft skills are way better than hard skills.. I would say ninety five percent of the employees we have ever hired did not have industry experience more like Starbucks experience or like You know, they worked at a coffee shop that was nowhere close to what we're trying to do. But having that Starbucks experience is probably actually valuable in a lot of ways for different things. likeike we're talking about the assembly of drinks, right They're probably more far more qualified than a specialty barista. I think the stamina plays in too of like being behind the bar for eight hours. You know, like you have to have some a degree of social stamina and physical Whenever people transition from a desk job to the hospitality industry, there can be added difficulty there because they're just used to like crunch in numbers. It's different to be behind the bar. But overall, I would still take that person if they're a culture fit every day. I mean, same thing the other way around just to be real every including us, every single person who has transitioned from the barista role to an admin job has had an immensely hard time with getting into project planning and running to do list and o. Wow ye point. I got a side byar question And I'll start with the preamble, So We've been talking about you know how people value coffee and don't really want to pay a price for it, but they love it and it's like Almost an extension of oneself, you know, having coffee Along comes a few years ago, Macha. Yeah But Marcher people automatically would just pay more for. And it's almost like a fashion accessory as well, right? Yeah. Why is Matcha perceived as this high quality valuable drink And why is coffee not? Because peopleeople again, people will pay more for Ma. And it's not necessarily tastier, I don't think so. Yeah, I sell it, and from time to time, I enjoy one here and there. Blank Street, apparently. Yeah. But what did coffee do wrong? What has Marcha got that coffee doesn't, where people perceive it so valuably? I mean, do we need to hire the Marcha PR? Well when I think about luxury brands A lot of times It's like there's a Japan link to it, honestly. And I don't know if that's a part of it, but I think that Japan has a really good brand for luxury branding. one hundred percent percent, one hundred percent because hot take here again. I don't think Japanese baristas better coffee than Australian or American breastteres.ure. You know And I don't think they roast better. On average, on average. I don't think the coffee When I think of coffee countries I've traveled to, Japan's like T or lower on my list You know, and I just think because they've got this image of being, you know, the culture of Japan and having that the word omakase and hungry. And you know, they are Like when you hear a Japanese person speak, it's very eloquent And then when you hear someone like me with an Australian accent speak, it's like You're redneck But we don't think that about you, Kirk. But I and my contemporaries in Australia make really good coffee I also think a part of it, this is whatever, just stream of consciousness at this point Would you say that Girls are guys like Macha more O girls. Okay Girls are guys better at posting aesthetic social media content Galals I think that's a big part of it. It's like It's a big vibe. Like what percent of influencers are women? Yeah. And like just this is another example of like my wife When we were younger, she loves coffee and then it just started to hurt her stomach more. And then she tried matcha and it was like perfect. And so I think there's' another one. Maybe that aspect of it too, it's like easier on your system. and then like girls like it and they post content about it that gets views still antioxidants. The caffeine experience is like different My less inflammatory. My first thought too Coffee is ubiquitous. You can get it at a gas station, you can get it anywhere Matcha' a little more scarce Yeah, especially if we're talking like legitity matcha Senta, Uji, stone milled, Japan, shade grown spepecialty coffee shops for the most part You know, include now Starbucks. I don't even know does Duncan do matcha I don't know. If not they will soon. If not they will soon everyone's cashing in. All that being said, like it's I think it's a little specialized. it's like, oh, this is special Coffee, you have such a range of price I think that The fact that it's greened does fifty percent of the heavy lifting. comppared to marketable product. Imagine if it was the same color as coffee We would not be having the Eter Ho Chicha. Yeah, in Ho Chicha, no no one drinks that. Yeah. I just I instantly like Japanese denim, you know? It's like Yeah all you got to say is Japanese dinner. Japanese breakfast. Japanese breakfast. Yeah, but if you were to ask the average Influencer girl, where the matcha comes from, I wonder if they would have that perspective of like I like this because it's Japanese specialty product. Definitely not So but I'm saying there is something to how something got to prevalence versus how it stays or explodes into Ross Mainstream We gotta get dessert pizza. I would say, it's time for dessert. It's time for dessert pizza. We wouldd just like to finish on probably the most important part of the podcast though, which is I've had a really good time gring brick In America, I've got a new hobby of like brick raiding Um I've got an intricate algorithm that calculates the scores. So I'm looking forward to after this, we'll go get some pizza and we'll grade some grate some brs some brick buildings together. only you know the algorithm. so we'll just have to listen to It's proprietary in notes. I can't I can't release it right now witness your And so far Boston is winning your brick score. Yeah. Number one brick city in the world is Boston Brick Hands down. Yeah objectively. Yeah. it's just nothing it comes even close. Number two, I would say is Copenhagen. And how many cities have you been to in America? Well here's how the world. I'm on a third now. So out of o, so out of all the cities, you've been a three and you already know Boston's best. A Yeahah. But do you think it's unbeatable Yeah, I've seen enough. I'm just wondering I mean I've only barely been to Boston. We went and we went to we went to George Howell. Right. Yeah. We didn't record a podcast but. No we didn't. My only interaction with George Howell F enough. A We posted an Instagram story one time talking about how or an Instagram reel one time talking about how blends are greatra and don't get to love and especially In my opinion it like in American and the worlds specialty coffee that they deserve whenever someone's doing it blend really well. And George commented and said G good way to keep farmers poor And that was my only interaction with him I He's got some very strong fundamental views on that sort of thing And he's a very progressive person and I applaud him for it. Yeah. I do think we over blend in coffee though. especially in competitions these days, everyone's making a blend Really? They're blending two different gishes together, which to me just fundamentally don't understand because you know Do you get like the best bordeau and mix it with the best bracling Do you? No. So yeah, that's something I fundamentally don't understand. I do think we over blend in that sort of category. But there's obviously some applications where it's really good. So don't one hundred percent agree with George there, but you know Listen, I'm not hating on him. I was just saying that's my one interaction with. you know to be We need to be able to disagree properly. There's nothing wrong with having a disagreement. It's just when itcends When it discends into. I' trying to disagree with you. so we're just gonna to actually cut this off. Well just on that, we had the same conversation around We name all of our coffees. like Eple. come on. Ambrosia. Ambrosia is is a single origin talk Washed Ethiopian And we made that decision because we kind of landed on the idea that One is more marketable It's only name a copy. What and When we can market a coffee better, we can sell more of the coffee and we can buy more of the producers. product And in our conversations with producing partners, it's like, what do they want for their name to be on the coffee or for them to sell more of their coffee? And their name is still on the coffee And it is the title. It's like that's still the story of the coffee's just the marketable name of it It's better and thus can help us Yeah. That's more to speak about the tkt tkoocification of life though, you know, every People have a very short attention span and you know they can read something like that and gain more information from it quickly. likeike I call a blnd Stuper cheesecake And you don't need to ask any more questions after that. Whereas if I have No Ethiopia Dantcee, grade one natal yogura chef L like with another coffee. So times that by two Yeah, that's more to do with people's slower attention spanss to me than it is, you know. try to bastardize sink large in coffee. And you're getting people to have that coffee, which is like a really high end coffee because of the name And they wouldn't have got it if it was the full technical name. Well, that's been one of the greatest failures of especity Coffee R Well, just how we present it. and it's not We had bad intentions, it's just kind of how it landed. You know, we look at Ma for example, there's probably like three or four keywords with Matcha, that is ceremonial grade, like you said, mild, Ui. Stress thing. That's it. That's like all of it. That's all you get. I'm in and where coffee there's Mriad more nuance sixteen hundred meters above sea level. Katura. Natural process, thermal shock, washed, whatever. There's just so much more to it that we've presented in, you know a The typical brain can't comprehend it as easily as ceremony grad, not ceremony who grade You know what I mean? Yeah, that's legit. But we are gonna to have to wrap it up because I gott to go weei again. that Gatorid has arrived. Successfully hydrated. So how do we close up the Vvel or coffee podcast? Well, we can all just fluog ourselves, you know? Do you want to tell people where to follow you? And then I'll say the same att E Cabitano. kirk and at coffee showow. kirk and at projectzero d. coffee Thanks How you. Hey, we're going to have four Ross is at Ross Walters I'm at Riley Westbrook We've got at Valor. coffee and at Valor Coffee Pod this is collaboration Pod. One of the greatest in the history of coffee podc or podcasts in general. S S ever. And we're here in Central Park here how many podcasts do you see that go for what must be two hours now in Central Park And we're about to go get a Damn fine sls of pizza, so Desessert pizza baby? All right, thank you, Kur. Let's wrap it up It's been an absolute pleasure, all met today, by the way,. so that's been's best friend. That's been best friends. Excellent excellent meeting. So I love doing this in America. Thank you so much Thank you, Fk. I'm gonna give this to you and go do an emergency Weiwi.