A WORD FROM ROAST! WEST COAST:
Hey everyone.
Thanks for reading the Roast! West Coast Newsletter. A few newsletter readers reached out to let me know about a podcast glitch which has been fixed. If you clicked on the stream of the show yesterday and it didn’t work, my apologies. The show is up and working across all platforms now! Thanks for sticking with it!
Yesterday was a wild day in American history. We saw things that will be parsed in a million news columns, on thousands of podcasts and will be given significant time in future history books. There are a lot of reasons to be angry and scared. There are also reasons to be inspired and motivated.
The actions of a few did not overthrow the vote of the people. Votes are not the end all be all. They are not the only course of action, but the power of the vote has been clearly shown in Georgia, in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and more. It has been shown in how aggressively those seeking power will try to take it away from citizens through the disenfranchisement of voters, through redistricting and gerrymandering, by trying to throw out votes submitted through the mail or early, through the courts, with threats, and yesterday through violence.
The actions of a few did not overthrow the vote of the American people. This time. It has been a bumpy enough ride that no one should take democracy granted. I know that I won’t.
I hope your morning cup of coffee today provides a moment of freedom from whatever may be weighing on you this morning, and every day moving forward.
Sincerely,
Ryan Woldt, Roast! West Coast
One Wild Life Co.
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TRANSCRIPT: ERIC MEDINA, LIBRA COFFEE
Roast!: Eric, welcome. Thanks for joining me for a cup of coffee on the Roast! West Coast podcast to talk about Libra Coffee. I was excited that we were able to connect. I've got a bunch of questions about Libra, but I first I wanted to ask you about your Masters degree in coffee and economics, which I did not know was a thing! I read a little about it, and it sounds like you mostly just hang out at cafes all day and drink coffee. How did you find that program? How did you get into it? And afterwards you did quite a bit of traveling for coffee. How did that [international experience] impact your attitude towards coffee as opposed to domestically?
Eric, Libra: Yeah. Well, it started because I started to get passionate about coffee living in La Jolla [California]. Bird Rock was just starting to kind of be one of the main craft roasters in San Diego, and you can really notice a difference in the flavor profiles of the coffee versus like a Starbucks. So I started a little subscription service, and then my wife went to UC-SD where she was doing a study abroad program. We went to Germany, to Berlin, and we went Istanbul.
I was there basically accompanying her. Just having a good time, essentially, and I'm talking about going to coffee shops all the time, different ones, and curious if they had any information on...this was kind of around the time the flavor wheel was starting to come out, I think, and talking about flavor profiles and stuff to the baristas, and either either baristas didn't know, or they weren't really helpful sharing information, but this this one person in Istanbul told me about this Masters program in coffee, science and economics in Italy. And I said, "What! There's such a thing?"
I grew up thinking that college was the pathway to success in something. I'm not 100% sure that's true, now that I'm a little older. When I found out, well, maybe I could get into this industry, I felt like this was a good way for me to learn about the entire scope of the industry. It's very fast. So I applied to this Masters in Coffee Science and Economics. I took it seriously. I sent big letter and explained my qualifications and my passion for for coffee. They accepted me!
What's interesting about that coffee science and economics program is there was people from all over the world. I was only like the second or third person from the United States to go to the program. So the people in the program were from-just in my program,-two people from Ethiopia, one from Burundi, Colombia, China, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Brazil, two from Brazil, Guatemala, just the list goes on. It was just such a great cultural experience being able to be surrounded by people from all over the world for about six to seven months, immersed in coffee. It was an incredible experience.
Roast!: And those are all places that you think of when you think of coffee, too. I mean that they're coming from where coffee is being grown. Except for China. I don't know as much about China's coffee culture. That would be an interesting exploration actually, in the future for me. After, after finishing that up, I think you mentioned you had already started your subscription service back home before that
Eric, Libra: I had, but I kind of I gave it up, right? I gave it up to do this program to try to figure out where is it that I saw myself in the industry. At the time I was just taking other people's coffee and sending it like a Misto box, or trade coffee. I felt like a little bit of a poser because I didn't really understand very much about coffee at the time. So doing this description, I didn't really know that much about it, really. I just liked the idea, more or less, you know. So when I got back, I went to the SCA convention conference, which is the Specialty Coffee Association, big show they do once a year and it was in Seattle. I went there to network with the people that were in my program and the alumni that were in my program. Don't forget that that's just one year of students. It's 10 years now of that program.
So I went to go meet some of the people from the program, the alumni, and at one of the events, I think it was like Cafe Imports was putting on a party after the show, and I was there and I was having a beer talking to this guy from Riverside, who now owns Arcade Roasters, actually, and he's the one that told me about a roaster for sale in Oceanside. I was still living in La Jolla at the time. And I go, "Are you serious? This roasters for sale and it's like a full on setup?" It's completely setup, grinders, everything, right? Scales, the whole bit. And he goes, "Yeah, it's not on Craigslist anymore, but I took a screenshot you want to call him?" I literally called him at that party, outside, and we set up a meeting and ended up like buying the roasting spot off of them.
Roast!: So you bought that, and you found Libra Coffee in 2015-ish. I'm assuming that's about the timeline. How long was that learning process? I mean, I feel like learning a roaster or learning any grinding and roasting apparatus has got to be difficult. You're stepping into one that's already existed. Did did they help you learn it? Or do they just say, "Here's the keys. Peace! See you later."
Eric, Libra: He did help me, but I'll tell you actually the roaster wasn't that expensive, relatively speaking, it was actually kind of a little bit before coffee really blew up, but I paid like a lot of rent for time where I wasn't even here. There was nothing going on. So it took a while for me to learn how to roast coffee proficiently on this machine, and to really feel confident that we could sell the product. You know, a lot of it is confidence, you got to have confidence in what you're doing. If you're the kind of person that's like, I don't know, I guess more humble, you want to say right, and realistic, you're like, "Well, this isn't really that good, or it's not good enough. So you have to get past all that. And for me, it was literally time on the machine. As I started to grow some some bigger accounts, I felt like we we got to a place where we are at a level where we can compete with some of the best ones out there.
Roast!: Yeah, I have those thoughts all the time when I do interviews.
Eric, Libra: What's that? Oh, with interviews?
Roast!: Yeah. I'm like, "Do I have enough skills yet? Do I have enough time doing this?" Generally, the answer is no, but I do it anyway.
Eric, Libra: Exactly.
Roast!: The risk isn't as bad as it is for you with Coffee. You gotta keep pushing forward, and eventually, someday you go, "Oh, I don't have those same butterflies in my stomach today."
Eric, Libra: And that's what we teach our kids, right? Like, no matter what, the first time they do anything, they're not going to be as good as they will once they have 10,000 hours. And like Joe Rogan, or anyone else. They had to just start somewhere. It's not like they were just some given gift.
Roast!: So you you start roasting and you're getting you said, you have clients, you want a subscription-based right away instead of going with a coffee shop. And you were doing subscriptions before I think a lot of people were. Now with the pandemic, everyone is selling subscriptions. Like we need to get this out there on a wholesale basis. But you started that way. Why make that choice? I think everyone kind of has this romantic view of opening a coffee shop and what it will be like once it's open, but you decided not to do that. How come?
Eric, Libra: Money. I still didn't have the money to do that. You know, I barely had enough money to buy the roasting operation. I started with a subscription because I thought it was, it's a scalable concept. I like the fact that you you have a whole nationwide audience to send too. USPS is amazing. To be able to send something across the country for like $5 and something cents is incredible. And it's still keep it super fresh.
It's just taken a lot of turns though. It hasn't been just description. I've always kept a subscription, but it's not like I was making money right away. I do a variety of things to make money and still today to do that, you know. I looked at the machine eventually, like a couple years in I wasn't sure I was gonna make it right. I was like, "I don't think this is going to work out." I remember it I started having a couple of big roasters come by to look at it the machine, and possibly selling selling it. And I was just like, "Oh, my God." I teared up just thinking about the idea of this dream not working out. So I had to take a different approach. I ended up looking at it like a platform. So there's different ways to make money using my machine which is to rent time on the machine to toll roast or to co-roast or our subscription or just anything I can do to make money at it it, basically, you know?
Roast!: Yeah, you said something that's interesting. I mean, co-working spaces were kind of all the rage a few years ago, and obviously this year, not so much, but it had been growing and growing. You're saying something similar with your coffee roasting machine where would you would you be roasting for other people? Or would they come in and work on your machine?
Eric, Libra: I think one of the biggest things that worked out for me was I had somebody from Las Vegas roasting on our machine for like, a couple of years. He became a mentor for me, because he just has a ton of actual experience, not theoretical experience. Like I have all this theory, right. I have genetics class experience, I have agronomy experience in my head, right?
But I never...Anyways, we had somebody come in and he's a really strong roaster. So it was great to learn from him. I learned basically, and then I think that took this to another level. So it was a weird when he was paying me to roast for the machine, and I got to learn from him.
He was one I was willing to let roast from the machine. I wouldn't say that I would let anyone roast on the machine because there is a liability to that, right, and we have people that are really good roasters that come in, [and] we'll just roast with them. Just so that we you know, we don't have to give keys out to every Everybody and everything is strictly confidential with us. If you're able to secure the business, like that's good enough for us, right? We're still benefiting from it.
Roast!: So it's been six years that you've been learning and roasting and working on on this machine. How has your coffee, kind of your philosophy-like you mentioned, you had all that education. Now that you've been putting into practice, how do you look at those coffee beans differently now than from the beginning? Or has there been a change your roasting philosophy?
Eric, Libra: Yeah, I think it was hard for me to figure out how to tweak my machine to be able to do the kind of coffees, like the third wave of coffees that I wanted to do. I've always loved third wave coffee. That was an evolution, just getting to the point where we could take a machine from the early 90s, and turn it into a machine that could actually do like coffee that you would get at Bird Rock [Roasters] or something like that. And as far as the evolution, I think now that we're making a big push on our subscription, you know, because it's all the all the rage right now, I'm really excited about these new processes that are that are out out there. All the experimental coffees. We have something coming out next month. It's going to be carbonic maceration. These are just experimental processes that I'm hoping to bring to people that are subscribing.
Even if we don't make any money off of it, I want to be able to-because they're more expensive than a green coffee-I want to be able to bring these highlight these really interesting coffees along with [more affordable coffee]. So you'll get a, like an $11 or $13, a pound green coffee, and then the next time you might get a $3 or $2 pound green coffee, but you're gonna get like a surprise. For me, that's interesting, and I'm hoping that our subscribers like that, too, you know,
Roast!: There's kind of an education piece to it, like with beer or mountain biking. I use these examples a lot, I think, but where you start in one place, and you end up somewhere totally different. I've never gone to a brewery where they said, "Well, we don't want you to sample all 10 different things we do."
Even for the roaster, or for a brewer it's interesting to make new things and to learn new skills. It is to keep adding those skills into your toolbox. Despite all the different varieties of coffee that we're talking about here, coffee is relatively simple in the sense that it's essentially coffee, beans and water, and how they're put together is what matters.
You guys have this mission statement I wanted to read for listeners, it says that you believe coffee should have a purpose.
"That is why we have built a platform on which to provide clean drinking water for those who are less fortunate. While aiming to create a sustainable model for improving our coffee quality. We promise that Libra will never compromise our quality, integrity or environment in pursuit of monetary gain."
Which I thought was a really powerful kind of statement, and I'm wondering why the focus on water? And how are you following through on that to the clean drinking water promise and efforts? How does that work so people who are buying your coffee, they can feel good about what they're doing?
Eric, Libra: Yeah, and we need to communicate that better. Actually, it's based on our subscription model only because a lot of the other parts of our business are just a different model. So it's really after that subscription, and that's what I'm trying to get people to get involved in this. So we started working with this company called Sawyer for the actual [water] filters. It was like a filter for every bag. You buy it to give to people to get clean drinking water.
Now we've moved to a different a different provider for our clean drinking water. It's actually through Lifestraw (Check out the good works from LifeStraw here!). All of these are outdoor based businesses that have have these social missions. And like the ones we're using now, they're more community based. So we're able to, like in Kenya, for example, we'll have these filtration systems that will service an entire community, of say 200, people at one time, or like at a school, for example, where all the kids are playing, and they have this this filter.
In the beginning I thought we were going to do it directly, because of my relationships with all these different people and the different countries that they are going to be the sort of ambassadors for the program, but it's evolved into realizing that I can't do everything. So the number one thing about starting or having a business or owning a business is that you can't do everything.
Like I just am terrible at accounting, right? I'm just like, it's not my thing. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. So this part, I had to outsource to Lifestraw. That's where we're at now with it. I want to, and I need to actually do a better job of communicating this because we're taking these proceeds and we're literally just like, "Here's the money, let us know how it goes."
We'll hear, it's a Western Union transfer, we'll hear about it like three to six months later. Here's a bunch of photos and stuff, [or] sometimes you don't even get the photos. It's not like it's all about marketing for them. It's not all about that. So we need to do a better job of communicating about it, though, because it is a tremendous part of our company. In fact, it's on the logo. The logo has two water symbols on it, and then in the center is a coffee bean. Without great coffee, we can't do anything better for the world.
Roast!: Well, water is such an important issue in general. And I mean, partnering with a company like Lifestraw, admitting to yourself, "Hey, this isn't my expertise, and I don't have time to continue pursuing it." Finding a company that's already doing that, and doing a good job of it-Lifestraw is obviously huge at this point-that's another way of going about it until maybe you get to that point where you can invest more.
I talk to my wife about it. We've talked about living in Southern California. We don't really control our water here. We're dependent on other sources for it to a lot of extent, and coffee in particular, maintaining consistency involves your water quality, and whatever filtration you're using. We think about that as being...well, it's kind of a pain that we have to get our water from somewhere else. We [Californians] have to have these [big] water bills, and then you think about other countries where they don't even have clean drinking water to begin with. So you're coming in trying to create a clean drinking water system to keep people healthy which we need.
Eric, Libra: Yeah. You have a river, and it starts at the top of the mountain or higher up, and it works its way down. Meanwhile, people are bathing in that same water that you're gonna end up and that these people are using. So it gets dirtier and dirtier as it as it flows. Then you have children, and women mostly, and the children who they're taking care of going and walking to go get the water. So the kids are not in school. They're with their mother, and they're going to walk four miles to go get water and bring it back.
It's a serious problem. I'm glad you mentioned it, because it's something that I put on the list of things that I need to do ASAP, because this was the whole focus of the business originally, and I've actually needed to get back on that. My goal this year [2020] was to go to origin, right. My goal of 2020 was to go to origin, which obviously did not happen, but I wanted to go to the places where we're providing clean drinking water.
I wanted to see firsthand the issue so that I would feel that I could talk about it better, because like I said, I'm all about being very...I like to be honest with everything that I'm trying to do. And to be there and see the problem firsthand, is really what I want to do. I want to lead with it next year [2021]. You know, when I go, I need to lead with it. I almost feel like it's more important than talking about our coffee is to be like, "Support our mission! Our coffee is great. You'll love our coffee. Don't worry about that, but you're really doing this!" That's where I want to go with it.
Roast!: Well 2020 definitely has put a damper on a lot of plans. My New Year's resolution was to be more prat proactive about going out and socializing.
Eric, Libra: Oh, really?
Roast!: Yeah, I literally wrote it down. I said it to my wife because last year I spent a lot of time camping and wrote a book. So I was really in my own little head for a while. I thought okay, 2020 back in the world. I'm gonna take the wife out. We're gonna go for dinners. We're going to drinks and dancing and meet up with friends we haven't seen.
Eric, Libra: It's so ironic.
Roast!: So I kind of blamed myself to an extent for the pandemic, because if I wouldn't have made that resolution this wouldn't have happened.
Eric, Libra: Exactly, it wouldn't have happened. That's what's so crazy. So think about coffee shops, right? Coffee shops are community hub. People that go to churches, they go to school, they go on dates, and all of that has been postponed. I mean, it's tough. It's got to be really tough for coffee shop owners right now. It's a large, large investment.
Roast!: Yeah, I think that's why coffee is so important right now is because it's one of those things, like even now I'm drinking this cup of coffee that I that I got delivered to my house. I didn't get to go pick it up, but it kind of made me feel normal just to make it and drink it every morning. It gives me a routine to get into the day. Even though the rest of the day is different than it would have been. I have kind of a baseline and I have this thing to look forward to, to say, "All right, when I am going to go out again, it's going to be for this purpose."
It's usually to get coffee or to meet people that are getting coffee, I think. I don't remember all of the great cups of coffee I've had, but I generally remember the conversations or the stories with the people in those coffee shops and that's why coffee is so important. It's this thing that brings us together.
And speaking of being out you do this thing, which I think is inherently cool because I do love to be outside and camp, which is you do pourtables right? Which are like kind of single servings of good coffee that you can take with you and just prep really quickly. How did you get into that or go about developing it, and kind of getting it to the point where you felt the pourtables, the single servings, were the same quality as your roasted bags of coffee that people can order on your website.
Eric, Libra: Yeah. I mean, I found out about that product when I was doing the Masters program. That's something that's very popular in Japan. So that's where I kind of, you know, found an interest in it. I said, "ooh, this is really cool." So I found a co-packer, and someone to make that product. I was, I think, probably one of the co-packers first customers. So I started I push that out there. It's really good for content, you know, for social media and stuff. We got a lot of camping followers because of it. We've done brand partnerships with Reef and Prada, and geez, all sorts of brands. I'm drawing a blank at the moment, but yeah, it even won Gear of the Year in Men's Journal.
Roast!: Wow.
Eric, Libra: Yeah, it's been it's been a cool one. But again, that's part of the platform of the roaster, because it's not a lot of coffee, and our core business is roasting coffee, right? I pay for a space. I have a roaster. I have a lot of green coffee on my floor. It [the pourtable] takes 12 grams of coffee. So it's..you need a lot of grams of coffee, gotta roast a lot of grams there.
Roast!: Yeah, but I like the idea that I could, if I were if I were drinking my regular cup of coffee at home from Libra, and then I was gonna be gone for the weekend. I don't have to deal with hauling along like a French press or doing all the stuff. I can grab the pourtables and as I can heat up water I'm okay.
Eric, Libra: Exactly. And also, if you run out of coffee in your house, it's nice to have those things around. I mean, it has saved me so many times. Even though I have a lot of coffee here [at the roastery]. I don't always bring it home. I know I can come here and have La Marzocco quality shot of espresso. But if I'm at the house, I'll sometimes run out. But it is and I think to your point, like I went camping a couple of weeks ago, and I made two pourtables. I took the the Ethiopia and the Columbia, and I kind of put them together in a way. I poured one in and I topped it off with a little Eth[iopia], and it was probably the best cup of coffee I've had all year. It was the weirdest thing. I was like, either I'm really enjoying this environment or this coffee i like legitimately, you know, I hit the jackpot on this particular way I blended together. It shows you can drink quality coffee on the go, which is always cool.
Roast!: Yeah, and coffee is always better if you're on a mountain or in the woods somewhere. I think.
Eric, Libra: I agree. Yeah. Why is it that? Like you go to Europe and you have a coffee. For some reason you have a coffee in Europe and it tastes better, or something. Somewhere different.
Roast!: It doesn't matter what the quality is. I mean, it could be better, but it could also be like diner coffee.
Eric, Libra: Oh, yeah.
Roast!: And you're just like, Oh, this is good.
Eric, Libra: Actually diner coffees are on the rise. I think people are starting to appreciate diner coffee even more. now.
Roast!: It's like anything, when you get into it. People go really far and go, "Well, I can only drink this great thing." And I found that I've gotten far enough on the other side of my coffee drinking, and far enough on the other side of my beer drinking, that I can I can go back and say, "Yeah, you know what, give me a PBR, and I'm good. Or give me-you know, I can stop at Denny's and get a cup of coffee if I'm meeting someone." It comes back to that idea that coffee is about the connections you're making and the experiences you're having.
Eric, Libra: Exactly. I agree.
Roast!: I want to kind of bring this together and close up with a two part question, which is you kind of partially answered it, but simply, if you're not drinking coffee for work, what's your go to style of coffee that you would drink? If you're just out? If you went to visit another coffee shop? What would you order? And then what do you guys have coming up? What's the best way for people to support you guys through the holiday season? Obviously, you have subscriptions, but is there anything else that people should look for? Or something that you guys are doing?
Eric, Libra: Yeah, when I go to a coffee shop, what do I order? Hmm, that's a good one. I I think if I go to a coffee shop, I usually just order a black coffee. You know, I know. It depends, I guess if I go to like, say a Lofty [Coffee] for example, which I would say is probably one of my go to's, if I'm not drinking my own stuff. I'll order a cortado. I mean, I think that's the way to go right there. The cortado or a black coffee. Just a regular old drip. A lot of times it's it's still like a super solid, super solid cup at some of these places.
Roast!: The first time that I ever drink coffee, actually, in a coffee shop. I was in Chicago, and I asked, "What do you suggest? You know, I've never had a cup of coffee before." After we got over the fact that they didn't understand that I had never had coffee before, as a 30-year old adult, there was about six people working in the shop and they were all there at the register arguing over what I should drink. And they all disagreed, but they all had one comment which was drink your coffee black until you know what you like. Oh, so you can actually taste the flavors of these coffees. So when you said that you generally order a black coffee. I like that because it's wherever you go, you can kind of get a sense of what their quality is. You can you can cover up a lot of things with a lot of cream and sugar, and so I've kind of taken that to heart and I've I've stuck with black coffee ever since.
Eric, Libra: Yeah, if I have to go to a Starbucks, I'll do the blonde The blonde espresso, I'll do that. You know, actually, it's not that bad. It's up there. I would say the blonde is in the game relatively.
Roast!: Well, there's a reason why Starbucks is as big as they are. They're smart. They're smart and consistent.
Eric, Libra: Yeah, exactly.
Roast!: So then follow, how can people support you guys and find your coffee? And what are you guys going to be doing for the next few months?
Eric, Libra: Yeah, LibraCoffee.comm. I mean, that's our website. We're really pushing the subscription. Right now I'm going to be switching to a different platform. I'm going to get off this one. We're on WordPress right now. We're moving over to Shopify soon enough. So you can buy individual bags, because right now you have to be a subscriber.
You can cancel or pause anytime though, if you just want to try it, and you can always cancel it. But we like to surprise. So that's the main thing. Our subscription service is the main way to go. To be honest, that's all we're going to do. I might be doing another run a pourtable, and doing like a little gift pack. I'm just checking that out. I gotta pull the trigger on that soon, but I would say that our subscriptions are number one. You're going to get some badass coffees in there. Straight up. Some of the stuff I don't even make money on. I just do it for the passion. So yeah, I would do that.
Roast!: That's a lot of people in coffee. They don't do it for them. They do it because they love coffee. And they love sharing their coffees.
Eric, Libra: Yeah, one of the importers I work with he says, "You can't eat passion. You still gotta make money to be able to buy food." So yeah, I mean, luckily, we have some other revenue streams with this with this business. We do a lot of private label and things like that. It keeps us keeps us going, but I am actively trying to grow the subscription business. And I think that those that are in it, they don't really leave because they enjoy what we're giving them. It's a diversified experience, big time.
Roast!: Well, I would say thanks for joining me for a cup of coffee to talk about Libra and it's LibraCoffee.com for anyone looking for a subscription where they're going to get a variety of coffees month-to-month, and I would say congratulations and cheers!
Eric, Libra: Thank you very much, man. Great to meet you.
Thanks for reading, listening and sharing Roast! West Coast, and be sure to drink good coffee!
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