 This is Startup to Storefront, but this is not a typical episode for us. Ever since we began this podcast in 2019, we've been focused on uncovering the truth behind entrepreneurship. Through many conversations with founders, self-starters, and people who think outside the box, we've heard about the ups and downs of branching out on your own and building something new. Those conversations have always been focused on the guests sitting across the table from us, but in a way, we've been on our own entrepreneurial journey as well. We've grown our podcast from a kitchen table to a full recording studio, added some fantastic additions to our team, and have risen to be in the top 2% of all podcasts worldwide. Always with an eye on the future, we've been brainstorming ways in which we can keep expanding and growing. One idea we couldn't shake out of our heads was the concept for a new podcast tracing the route that your coffee travels from seed to cup. I assure you, it's a very complex global industry that involves much more than meets the eye. So much more, in fact, that we started thinking along bigger lines. We thought a subject as fascinating as this would benefit from a multi-tiered approach, one with a docu-series serving up all of the beautiful imagery and emotional journeys of the coffee farmers in remote jungles all over the world, accompanied by a podcast that offers a deeper dive into each episode. This episode is dedicated to showing you a glimpse of that creative process as we hash out this concept in more detail. It also provides a real-time look into our own entrepreneurial journey. Now, on to the episode. Welcome to the podcast on today's show. A very special concept in the room. I'm going to tell everyone who's in the room. So we have myself, obviously. We have Nick, co-host, Brian Barnes, screenwriter, and then Emerson, who's an owner of Farm Cup Coffee. Damn right. And we are playing around with the idea of doing a television show. So in today's show, what we wanted to talk about was the concept of making a television show and specifically focusing on how people ultimately get their coffee. And so Emerson and Tony have both visited the farms that they buy coffee from. Right. And in that, I don't think this connects with people where they truly understand what a coffee bean looks like, what a farm looks like. These things don't always look like beautiful vineyards, like in Napa Valley. And so the concept would be, how do we share that story with someone? The story of what ultimately a grower goes through, a farmer goes through to get coffee into a place like Farm Cup Coffee here in West Hollywood. Okay, so let's back up for a second, right? Yeah. Because I feel that you said something really, really interesting and that is people do not understand how where coffee comes from. I don't think a lot of people even understand what is coffee. Like where does it grow from? Like the fruit itself. They don't even know what a fruit is or how it's seen. It's a crazy concept. The fact that we don't even know where our food grows or how it grows is really concerning to me. So that was the beginning stages of everything of like, how do I tell people what they're consuming without overbearing them with a lot of like details, right? So one of the things that I do when I started, you know, my coffee business and everything is like, if I am going to kind of like jump into it, it's like I'm going to travel. And within like the first three months of me setting up the business, I'm like, hey, pack your bags. We're going to Costa Rica. We're going to see our first farmer. And in it, it taught me not only just how hard it is to grow it, how long it takes to grow it, but also it gave me a better understanding when I was picking the beans of how difficult it is to just process this and then get you to your cup. And it was a huge dissatisfaction for me to come back and then see the prices over here for your cup of coffee and be like, that's not even worth the human skill that it takes just to pick it, let alone to grow it. And it was always a clashing concept for me and this is, I think, the culmination of everything. It's seeing it, showing it to people in a much more meaningful way because no two growers are the same. No two growers that have their same plots of land right next to each other are going to grow the same thing and the same process are not going to ferment the same way. They're not going to roast in the same way. So there's always these things and all of those words that I just said, a lot of people don't even know that it goes into the process of getting the coffee ready, you know. No one knows that we have to ferment them, that we have to peel them, that we have to grade them, then we have to roast them and the roast goes into a whole thing and when we serve them to you, you can do it in a chemist, you know, espresso, drip, whatever, and then they all have a different process and they all have a different way of making it and it's just a lot. It really is a lot, but I think there's a way of sharing it that is captivating. And where are the farms that you've been to? Costa Rica, Peru, Bali and Mexico. And are any of them similar in any way? No, none of them are. And are any of the farmers similar? No, absolutely not. And the process even? So the only thing that's the same is like dirt and the coffee bean, a plant. Actually, you can show me pictures and I can tell you that's that one from that one. That's how distinctive they are from one another. And what are, I guess if you could just, I don't want, we don't need to go in too much detail, but what are some of the process differences of each farmer? Like what is it, what is something that like they all do differently? So for example, it's the one in Peru, right? The Peruvian farmer, he has a waterfall in the back of his growing area. Natural waterfall. Natural waterfall, right? So he goes and then he grabs water. Basically, it looks like a wasp nest, right? It's made out of paper and then he puts dirt in it so he ferments it under the actual waterfall so that this paper cone thing grabs all of the minerals from the water and then he injects it into like his actual like rows of coffee, right? So all of those minerals let the coffee grow. It lets it be better. It creates a better environment for the dirt and it just oxygenates and nitrogenizes everything in there, right? The farmer in Costa Rica, he doesn't use any irrigation. So instead of actually having a water facility plant, what he does is he plants banana trees, which are 90% water. He cuts those down and then once the actual like leaves become, they degrade, they actually leave water. And that's how he actually water-sold the coffee plants. The ones in Bali, because they are in such a different climate in such a different area, like you can go from elevation to elevation and all of the coffee plants are very different. One's grow really, really hard. Other ones grow really, really soft and really, really big. And so they use some of the clay from the volcano that is in there to like get everything ready. So there's a whole bunch of process and it's not even, if we talk more about the tank parts than that's even. We'll get there. Are any of the farmers, like in my head, so I know one farm in Peru and it's very much a family run establishment, right? And so the whole family's involved, kind of like farming in the United States used to be, I would say. Is it similar? Or are there now companies, conglomerates? No, I think. It's not a game for the wealthy. It's not. You have to be passionate and it has to be something that has been taught down from generation to generation to generation. And all of them that I've dealt with are family. All of them. All of them. And everyone's involved. Everyone is involved. And are they going to school also, the kids? Like where do the kids view their future? Some of them are 100% into the coffee business. So they're just going to be inherited, passed down, kept in the family. Some of them. I think the cool part is that, for example, again, let's talk about the Chakra de Lago from Peru. Everyone has a different job within the farm. And then if you think about it, you have the people who roast, which is the middle brother. The youngest brother is the one who goes around the world and he sells the coffee beans and he's in Europe. He's in Germany. He's in the United States. And then the other guy is social media. He's in Peru. He's getting everything ready, logistics. So everyone has a different thing to do. And then the dad does all of the growing. He's the one who has been handling the actual crop itself. So if you're in the family, it's literally you can be anything and you can really create your own future within the farm because you can really do just about anything. And like beer. So if we were all master brewers, we would all be making beer differently. We would all be letting things ferment differently. In some cases you can add process like CO2 to speed up or sugar to speed up certain processes within that making. It's similar. I would imagine it's in coffee. It's the same. They all do it differently to get a note or a taste that they want. Yes. And it starts from the type of bean. Everything is Arabica, but within the Arabica family, there's genetic modifications that each country has done to create a better tasting coffee. And everyone has something different. Everyone has something different. So you can't get just like if Nick and I were next to one another in our farms, he could have like a CR95, a CR97, and I can have a Madagogipe, I can have a Pima de Oro, and it would be completely different coffees. These are like varietals. Exactly. Like in wine, you'd have a Clone 115, a Clone 117. Exactly. It's a Pinot Grape. Right. They all are different. Okay. Is there a right or wrong answer when it comes to taste? Or is it basically based on the farmer's preferences? Or personal preference? Yeah, personal and farmer's preference, basically. So now I'll go back. And so at the beginning of all this, you thought, you and Brian, there's a concept here around potentially making this a show or a podcast, where we share the stories of the farmers and ideally to educate the people that come or drink coffee in LA and anywhere around what are the real processes and some of the struggles that these people go through to basically get you to enjoy something that we all take for granted. Right. Or we don't even think about the process. Right. He's tracing the origins. You called your company Farm Cup Coffee essentially to highlight the coming from the farm all the way to the final cup of coffee. And so the idea behind this podcast, that's a TV show, was to go from literally trace the line from point A, which is seed in the ground, coffee tree, and then point B, is when that customer picks up their cup of coffee from the counter and takes that sip. And so like this is not something that you necessarily think about when you're drinking your coffee from your local coffee shop or whatever it might be. But it is something that should be thought of more often because where you source your beans, how they're grown, all of that goes into the final flavor of the drink. Right. So like you talked about first three months, you took a trip to Costa Rica. How did you even find these farms or like decide on which ones to go to? Because this is not so straightforward as like... It's so comical and I think my answer is going to be... You went to Google Maps. Coffee farm. Get directions too. Costa Rica. Absolutely. You hit it right. Did I really? Yeah, of course. That's how I did it. It's not a good story. I mean literally what I did is like, I like coffee. Where does coffee grow? Google. Where does coffee grow? And I was like, okay, the coffee belt, right? And I saw it. Wait, wait. Where is the coffee belt? So basically around the equators. Basically anything around the equators with tropical areas and high elevations is where you can... It's like rainforest, high elevation area. Humidity. What does the elevation have to do with it? The higher the elevation, the better the coffee is. And it's how it grows. Obviously, Nick. God. So dumb. So there is... Non-coffee drinker over here. Obviously. So you got matcha. Is matcha the same? No, matcha is very different. All right. So you went to Google and you found the farms? Yeah, I found the farms. Okay. And then I still remember it because I was at work while I was doing this. And you called them? And you're like... Yeah, and I called them from the international... This is when you were an accountant? No, no, no. This is way before. This is when I was like way before all this stuff. And I was like, organic coffee farms, Costa Rica. And then it came up and then I pick up the phone. They pick up the phone and they're like, hey, can I talk to someone who... And then they transfer me over to later became Glenn. And he's like, yeah, how can I help you? And I'm like, listen, I have a yellow truck that's been imported in about a year from the UK. I want to sell your beans. He's like, I have never sold. Who are you? What do you want? I just didn't understand. So we went into these whole conversations and that's literally it. That's how I did it. And then he's like, do you want to come to the farm? And I looked at Tony and I was like, we're going and we're seeing what this is about. And so we made it out to Costa Rica and the learning process began as soon as I stepped into the farm. Like it was mind blowing. What did you think before you got to the farm? Like what was in your head? Did you think like this is going to be a resort? Like what was in your head around what the farm would be? I actually didn't have many expectations. I just wanted to kind of like let go of any pre-conception that I had because I didn't even know what a farm was going to look like. I've never been into like an actual growing area and seeing actual things that were about to be consumed. So I didn't know what I was getting myself into. And once I got there and I saw the coffee beans and I saw, you know, the process and the people, it just blew my mind. It was absolutely insane. The way that you get in there and the way that you just open into this magnificent jungle and then within the jungle there's the coffee plants and, you know, you hear the water and then you see all of the exotic animals that are there. You're like, where am I? It was literally kind of like opening a children's book and then being like, oh, I'm like in it now. So you're in it now. So you're playing at Earth. Yeah. Okay, so as you're sharing all of this, you open up here, you're sharing it with Brian. Brian's a regular. Brian helped open Intelligencia on your screenwriters. So as you're hearing this, what were you finding to be like podcast, TV show worthy? It was a series of events, actually. The first day I came in here, I want to say it was a soft opening weekend. Really? Yeah, because Emerson was taking orders. And so I was like, hi, how are you? It takes my order and then, you know, I pay and I kind of wait at the retail line on the display. And before I knew it, Emerson's right there in front of me. And I'm like, oh, hello. There you are. And he started telling me about the beans they had on the shelf and what impressed me about what they were doing just right out of the gate was already sourcing directly from these farms. You know, a lot of the coffee shops you'll go to that are kind of like stand-alones. They're sourcing from somebody else. Like they're using Blue Bottle or they're using that, engaged with that process themselves. And so that happened and that impressed the hell out of me because I was like, wow, that's commitment. That's commitment. That means you do care about what you're doing and you're making the effort to do that. Also I decided to work with them oddly enough. But then here was the other thing. Two, maybe three days after that, I was at another coffee shop whose name I will not name. You know, I don't want to throw shade. But they had on their retail shelf. They had bags from Columbia and bags from Myanmar. And I just started a conversation with the barista. I was like, wow, that's really interesting that you guys have coffee from there. And they just started to give me kind of a coffee stick that I had heard before. Why is that interesting? Well, because at the time when I saw it there, it was still coming up in the news about all of the government uprisings in Columbia and all the protests that had been going on across the country. And then in Myanmar, it had been in the news, gosh, we're going on six months to where the military had overthrown the elected government. And that's on top of all the Rohingya stuff. And I was telling I was educating the barista about world affairs. And then he kind of he made this casual joke, which was kind of like tragically clever. And then the more I thought about it, the more it annoyed me. He said, oh, well, he said, maybe we'll need to put those together and just have a conflict blend because anything with coffee like coffee shops have blends of like they're putting together blends for that's very witty. I'll be honest. It was dark and witty. But the more I thought about it, the more I was like, that's really terrible because it's one thing for like a customer to make that that joke. Yeah. But then for someone who is supporting these countries, ideally, he doesn't know. He doesn't know. But that was also but the fact that he didn't know kind of pointed to that disconnect. Okay. You know, the fact of like a farm that Amerson and Tony are working with in Columbia, what they are dealing with right now just to get their product out. Yeah. What are they dealing with? So much. I was talking to him yesterday. We were having a a long conversation and it was just it was one of those conversations that leaves you in awe of just how good we have it over here and then how we don't think about anything at all. Everything is just so well placed and we were just, you know, our noses are up in the air when it comes to all of these things. But he's like, I can't get any trains into Bogota. I can't leave like at a certain time. There's so much stuff rising in Columbia. There's no medical facilities. We had to, like when COVID started, we had to remain like as far away from the city centers and there was no medics. There was no pharmacies. There was nothing. It was just us and if we one of us got sick, like picture how that must have been for us. Where if we got sick and someone did, they had to rush in four hours down a very bad road to get them to the nearest kind of clinic, not even like an actual hospital. All of the things that they had to go and then they're like, we went from like having great orders all around the world to only having one order every month and our economic supply just dwindled and it just dried up. So, like all of the things that we're trying to do the good things, the growings and being organics and all those things kind of like, you know, it puts into perspective just how much we have built up and then for it to just go away in all in the matter of like less than a year. So in that setting we've got government though. Both. Because it's, I mean, for that country in that region specifically, like they're already dealing with less rainfall in the year, which is already shrinking their crops astronomically. But it's at the point now in the past year to where their livelihood depends on getting those crops out. But then they have to literally risk their life just to not get the crops out, but try to get those crops out. You know, you risk your life getting to where you can get it to a place to where it can go out. So you're literally risking your life for the sake of your livelihood for your family. I mean, that's another angle is the climate impact on the availability of coffee and what I would assume will eventually trickle down into the price of coffee as it's harder to source it, your average consumer is going to end up paying for that. Well, and that's the that's the other disconnect. Like we, it's like Johnny Go Lucky is going home to his computer and his phone and all that stuff. Meanwhile, that eight dollars is going to support somebody who doesn't have access to all the stuff that we have access to. And that's barely helping them to stay on. Well, I know for Farm Cup, it's a big deal to deal directly with the farmers so that they get their fair share, correct? What is it like for those farmers who aren't fortunate enough to have direct trade with their, their buyers? Let's do some math. Yeah. It's beautiful. Okay. So if you were to go to like one of the bigger traders or brokers in America, they will sell you anything from $1.60 to $5.80 perhaps per kilo of coffee. A whole kilo is $1.60. Yes. So keep that in mind. Most of them hover around like the two to three dollars, four dollars perhaps depending on the regions that you're trading with. So the farmer gets about, yes. Okay. Now let's look at our math and I have no problems like sharing this like our Peruvian farmer gets about $15 to $16 per kilo of coffee per kilo. Wow. Can we break it down to per bag? So most people will know this as like if I buy a bag of coffee at a coffee shop it's between $17 to $25. Right. How much of that goes to the farmer? So if we for example if you pick up one of our Mexico bags $19 for 12 ounces. Right. Which is not even a whole pound. And then we retail it for $18 to the farmer they're getting about maybe like $8 from that $9 from that the rest of it the rest of it is packaging cost overhead cost labor cost shipping all that stuff. So it's a good chunk of the actual part of it. And it just it creates such a better dynamic for us honestly because it gives us fresher product. I tell them directly hey there's a problem with coffee they fix it by the next batch. We have a product that I love and that I can talk to the families directly and I just feel so much more connected with it. It's not just about the monetary it's also in the back of my head I can go to sleep rested knowing that they're not cutting down trees they're not invading into other people's areas they are not having child labor they're not having immigrant labor they're not having forced labor all these things that make such a difference but no one cares about that stuff but I do so most coffee shops have to deal with a middle man or a company and that's where it gets complicated when you get these big brokers or these big roasters you kind of like lose all protections and everything that you kind of like invested into the coffee game because you're getting a cheaper price so they're looking for you also right so if I'm a farmer I'm looking for someone like you how many of you are there in the United States with like basically direct or do they have to play ball with everybody because there's not enough of you there's not enough of me because Costa Rica I'm the only one who sells it in the United States Peru I'm one of the only ones who sells it in the United States Columbia I'm the only one who sells it in the United States I mean there's also the slightly darker side of what free trade has become right because it doesn't really mean anything it's usually at the expense of the farmers to get that to get that accreditation is literally just the ability to trade that's all it actually means we can screw you on the process but as long as we're trading if they want to be able to compete in certain areas and they have to have that required on there it costs them a certain amount that they don't get anything back for right and it's also it goes into so many things like I'm not a stickler for you have to have a organic seal you don't have to have the European Union organic seal because it costs a lot of money and we're talking about and this is another thing it goes back into the history of the countries and it goes back into the currencies and just how bad it is for these growers because bigger countries richer countries meaning Europe and the United States have come in and they're like no, no, no it's not what price you set is what price I want to buy it for and screw you if you don't want to where are you going to sell it to and that's where I came in and I'm like oh I'm going to buy it from you at the price that you want because I want your family to be okay I want you to not have to look at it and be like well if I start cutting down the trees and if I start just like burning everything then I might be able to make more coffee but at a lesser quality and obviously the price is not only the price that we pay but also the price that the environment pays so that's where I came in and there's not many of us I haven't met another coffee shop so far and this is a story that you want to tell absolutely we have to it's my responsibility why well because if there's a way that I can reach even just 100 people or 1000 people to begin seeing this not as a drink but as a labor of love that people have done then it might just invite them to understand that the $3 cup of coffee it's not to make you feel guilty but it's for me to tell you hey this might not be the best way not the most a because it has huge repercussions in like the human scale and also the environment scale and I want them to be told I want them to understand that not only is the growing part difficult but getting it over here making it for you and then creating an awesome drink out of machines it's a whole process you know and a lot of them a lot of baristas a lot of like customer service people they get terrible things thrown at them because people just don't care people don't care for once and in your head this is a story there's an arc in my head there was a story of well the passion was in the first part of the story right and his passion combined with the fact that the coffee business in LA in the past decade has just exploded you know it used to be only two or three in town but now it's growing at such a rapid pace that it's hard to keep up with whenever a new coffee shop is opening and then you counter that with the fact exactly what Emerson said is people just don't know everything that goes into it you know people don't understand that the sustainability of his business in the long term is going to depend on the survival of their livelihoods in their farms in the long term that's a good way to put it like the sustainability of this whole industry kind of relies on I think a seismic shift in how the industry operates you know as I'm hearing about the the guy in Peru who would ferment the soil in the paper basket is something like that scalable like could we do that on a level that would service all the coffee provided in say Starbucks no yeah no it wouldn't be sustainable and I mean let's begin by saying something really really bad and this is you know I'm going to drop something on you guys an invasive species to America shouldn't be over here it's a it's a very interesting plant that draws in America like American continent not the America that we know the United States but there are some in Hawaii right Kona coffee yeah Kona cow all that stuff when I think of coffee though I'm thinking Central America I mean that's Central America South America Brazil being the number one producer of coffee like it's an invasive species to the America basically we brought it over here you know when we did the great exchange of all the foods when we discovered the old world and then your world and basically when it comes over here it never grew in America and in this continent so it grew very well because we also obviously have a great temperature climate for it but it is also very difficult to get it you know going because it's not its native area and then once it grows it leeches out the actual soil so it is a plan that has to be it's kind of like a double-edged sword where when you grow it you have to be very good at what you're doing otherwise you can cause a lot of environmental trouble and a lot of people do use pesticides but also if there's no rainfall then you're going to have to be looking into other water sources that it's causing scarcity everywhere else in those countries because there's no water there's really no water our farm in the Galapagos Island close down it's done after four generations it's gone because there's no more water coming on the Galapagos Island so how do you view that problem how do I view it yeah do you say this is a result of climate change absolutely absolutely whether patterns change you know the rainfall patterns have changed seasons have become longer the dry season is longer there's all these changes happening that we obviously have created and cost and at this point it's like how do we make something that people don't really care for to pay that much for because they don't understand all the process and all the danger that is behind it the environmental danger how do we change that idea how do we create a better dynamic learning lesson for all these people so that they understand that it's in peril you might not be able to get a three dollar coffee anymore it might be ten dollars it might be fifteen dollars I'm going to go left for a second so here's the trouble this is happening in real time right now in Los Angeles the farmers need more water and there's an agreement around the water sources around how it's used and so there's agriculture gets a percentage and then the city gets another percentage for their needs and the state and blah blah blah and so this is all a negotiation that happens on an annual basis around water supply what's happening to me in real time as a developer is I am being forced to find a way to capture water and put it back into the city into the city's water table now what does this mean specifically this means specifically I have to now pay for a tremendous amount of underground plumbing I got to pay for a pump I got to basically pay for a way of when it rains which we know is rare here in LA to capture all of it and put it back in the water table this is a significant cost increase on the real estate side okay so when I hear what you say and I think about the Galapagos and this is going to make it simple you can look at it a few different ways you can say climate change okay cool we all agree but now it's a function of California is literally doing something I am literally feeling the effects of California trying to capture more water could we say Ecuador and the Galapagos missed the boat I don't know not here to argue that but my point is like there are things being done and I think the ultimate problem right so if you really get done like the problem it's a water problem now water today maybe year because you're in the coffee business see it as a oh this is interesting this is affecting coffee but it's actually affecting everything it's not just coffee right and so I'm just careful about that about how we decide to say oh climate change because it's actually governments can do things and it's happening to me and I'm feeling the effects of that in real time which is basically dollars to capture water for a problem that exists but at least there's a solution and the solution is me being you know a developer having to pay a lot more money but there's a solution and the government is imposing that upon me in real time and so the question is almost like when you think about the future is the governments the governments to some extent are part of the story too absolutely they're definitely acting too slowly and America is always a leader to some extent there's a broader story to but that's the interesting as it relates to water when you think of just you know regardless of like what one's political views are on Israel when you look at what Israel did with irrigation and water in the middle of the desert you have to tell everyone what they did look it up we don't have this whole time for it but just the fact that you're able to do that I mean there are these indoor farms in Qatar and other parts the Middle East that are just indoor dairy farms because coffee's been exploding there and they have no access to that kind of stuff you know cows can't live in Dubai having to kind of be creative in how they do that and it's almost like I mean it is the political problem of like cutting through the bureaucracy of having the will to kind of do those things that are bold and not necessarily fully proven but would be a solution but I think also what you were saying about you know the government doing something the southwest of America has always had this problem we are a desert we are not the tropical lush landscape with palm trees and we are not supposed to have grass in our front yards and you know 25 million people living like you know in Southern California it's not really the most stable place to find population growth right but when you look at our farms or when you look at the coffee belt water is supposed to be raining because it is the rainforest all the time water is supposed to be very yes and no Peru if you go to Lima, Peru Lima, Peru is a desert if you go to the Andes also in Peru it's a rainforest same country I know I hear what you are saying around California what are they growing coffee in Lima of course not they are not growing anything they can't grow anything my point is it's a government thing it's the country of Peru stepping in and being able to do something it's the country of the United States agreed it has to happen on a much bigger scale than the individual but I think it's a good decision so the sustainability of this entire industry rests upon both governments and corporations changing their practices because one hand is going to wash the other and eventually help everyone out as well is this a water documentary it's essentially changing into a climate an argument for why we should give a shit about climate change if you don't already so I'm always cautious about this because people don't want to be force fed they don't want to be force fed no no no like wool culture is not there's two camps one I love it two I run away present that side of the story though to omit it would be irresponsible this is not the entire show you can tell all that through the story of the family trying to survive in Colombia yeah are you the host of the show how do you view are you the tour guide yeah I am your host the jokes the one crying the camera I'll do it but wait what if what if a network said hey look you're not the right look no no shh shh shh I didn't say you're not the right look by the way you did I think you have okay continue continue go go go if they said Emerson you have the perfect look of course you're not a celebrity yet I don't care let's bring a celebrity on and you tag team who comes to mind yeah like so I don't know if there's a celebrity out there that's like super well versed in coffee or farm country I would say and I know it's a it's a fucking long shot but someone who no no like I mean there's probably like three people to choose from you know frankly like if you were to just be like who like who comes to mind not who you choose three people you can already think of I would have met I don't again not a coffee I'm not a coffee expert I just think like who who would be that person in your head in my head the top three people like there's no right answer I know I know I'm just trying to think I'm just trying to think because then I just don't know well you don't even necessarily need a host it's not J Lo you know it's not Mark Anthony right it's Daddy Yankee there you go that one landed a Spanish speaker yeah yeah yeah no it doesn't even necessarily need a host you could even do it as just a voice over yeah that actually may be kind of cool he kind of cares about that stuff a lot more honestly like someone someone who is really really well versed and the environment would be Leo like the nerd at the camp he's like super cool and all this stuff I'm just saying I know part of Leo's crowd Toby McGuire is actually a big coffee nerd he was at the shop one day was he he was at this one one day at Sunny at Sunny at Century City oh gotcha he was walking by he's a huge coffee nerd that's awesome cool Toby Spider-Man he's a huge coffee nerd I always think of Jose Andres Jose Andres yeah I think of Jose Andres he's just such a wonderful individual because I think his he carries a lot of clout is about feeding feeding people and I think he really he goes to the places that he tries to do that and there's a there's a care there that I think this concept needs yeah or could benefit from and people love him it's a woven tapestry of everything and it's not it's not just a history but it's taking back the actual country going to the country understanding the culture itself because every country has a different coffee culture itself and then just bringing back everything that you can so the person can understand the history of the farm the history of the actual country and just the food and the drink that is combined so for example like in Mexico you're supposed to have coffee in the morning and it's cafe de olla and you're supposed to have certain things for breakfast you know it's a little cafecito with pan right and then in Costa Rica there's like ocho redero you know which is a completely different way of drinking coffee so there's a there's a whole different history and different brew methods to talk about and that's what I want people to know there's just so many things like the misconceptions of going to these places that are not your Lima and Peru your Mexico City or Cancun in Mexico like there's other places to explore there's some passionate people out there that you need to speak to if we tie it back to your point of the government angle versus like the climate angle you know part of what inspired me to talk to Amerson was this country the United States you know as 3% of the world's population consuming roughly 40% of the world's resources like I think we have an inherent responsibility a moral responsibility to have a better understanding of everything we're consuming where it's coming from whether it's you know the shirts I'm buying from Zara whether it's the coffee I'm drinking from farm cup whatever we have a responsibility to be as aware of that as we can and that in turn over time stands to change government policies and actions more than anything but at the same time I think it's more effective if people understand the stories behind what's going on on the other end I think that is the most powerful thing to show the universal experience of like a family trying to survive whether it's in Santa Monica or Bogota or wherever or Addis Ababa essentially this becomes a story of how your purchasing power affects the global economy and how it is your most powerful voice right for how you can impact global change right wait so that's interesting and so to some extent you you repurpose money right you awaken consciousness to repurpose dollars purposeful purchases that's fascinating I mean no one thinks we don't put it out there but whenever you're purchasing from us it's not just the money that's going to the farmer like we have adopted so many animals in Costa Rica and released them into the wild from the purchases that people make and we have protected acres in Brazil from the Amazon rainforest and you know those are things that we do that we feel that it's our duty so what I'm curious to hear your guys' opinions of is season 1 of this concept is pretty cut and dry you know you follow the journey of coffee from bean to cup and with that comes everything that we just talked about on a much more macro scale what do you think the future of this project could be could morph into I mean Diego and I were talking earlier that we think that a second season of this could be the same process of following beer from grain to your pint glass but there are so many other avenues in which we could take one of which is denim there's a lot of stuff that goes into manufacturing denim from the blue dye to the cotton there's always this very compelling storytelling to do about how something came to be and something how mundane like jeans are you know and then really understanding just different procedures to creating this you know like thinking about Levi's in the early 1900s and then going back to Japan getting the end to go done so on and so forth and how bad it is to the environment I think it's great I think there's just a lot of things that you can do and then you can really get into the micro and the macro levels of everything and extrapolate and not only the like the way that certain branches have taken off into their own lively like things that they've done and created a product that it's above everything else that you have like seen and then it goes into like a lot of politics and a lot of like problems social, economic da da da da da it's cool I like it but is there anything else that you'd like to take a deep deep or dive into matcha tea interesting well because that carries a lot of like things with it it's really heavy if coffee was heavy tea is even heavier oh wow I think there's a story to be told in tech it's like I don't think when Mark Zuckerberg decided to have the idea of creating Facebook that he thought at some point he would have to monetize it which would mean creating an advertising engine and then it deviates from the original idea to create something that he can no longer change it's too late now so like once companies start raising capital they have an obligation to their investors a decision is made once they go public now they have an obligation to a lot of shareholders a decision gets further implemented and once it's successful that's it so in this case with coffee there's almost a happy ending where there's an awareness and now we can ideally change you can change people's perspective on coffee in a real way you can literally educate them right? something that we take for granted you're not educating them and hopefully it changes behavior something in Facebook it's like the idea started capitalism entered behavior was changed now you're stuck but you as the person on Facebook or on social media is aware and so you have free will so there's a lot of different way I don't know I think about it like it's complicated but that's an interesting one it's definitely a little bit of a departure from something like a tangible product that's grown so when you go to these places have they ever enjoyed like a latte you've made or a coffee that like a creation you have here? have any of the farmers ever enjoyed any of that? nope and I am so excited to go back there and actually do it because remember we did it at the beginning of the formation of the brand and right now it's been years and COVID happened and we were supposed to go to Mexico and I wish we would have done it down there but no not yet do you think they'll like it? I don't know actually that's a really good question I don't know and that's because there's a reveal there but it could be like this sucks but remember back to the original idea my dumb idea the podcast that we did remember that little diagram that I had shown you of all the things that we were going to have the poor over stations? yeah so I was supposed to like really personify those those countries with those poor overs with flavors that I brought from those countries and you're right I don't know how they would react to it and be like dude this is like fucking gimmicky what are you doing? but I thought it would be interesting to close the loop in a sense so Glenn the farmer in Costa Rica he grows these beans he ships them to you and you make delicious concoctions out of them and sell them to customers but in that Glenn has no idea necessarily what what you're you're doing on the other end with the beans that he grew and so I thought it would be interesting to have it come full circle where you know you'll bring the beans that he's sourced and then grind them up make them into a cocktail of sorts a coffee concoction and it'd be interesting to see his reaction to it to see if if he's like blown away if he's disgusted by it whatever it might be I think that to have these farmers see the I don't want to say like the potential in their product because they can clearly they see the potential in their product but see what the product can become see what it is like on the other end of the chain the supply chain that's just scary dude because they I mean again it's people who've been doing it for decades even before I was born and then here I am like I'm going to take your beans and do whatever the heck I want and here it is you could almost see a whole range of reactions from like how did you come up with that to I'm never selling to you again I I realize that I don't think it would ever be that one I truly don't I think it would be interesting to see them experience it because you've been there and experienced it from their end but I don't know that they've ever or they can say that they've experienced it from your end and that's what I think would be the interesting part to close it out with that would be really cool there could even be some who say oh so if that's like if that's the versatility you're giving my product then I can now charge you this instead of this I don't think they do that I don't think so I don't think they would do that no I think they they would be surprised especially because we here at Farm Cup we think of like the drink itself as a person so we're creating a different person for them and it's like oh I never thought you would be able to do this with my coffee unless part of that loop is going back and doing that process with them but you're doing it with everything that's already there in Costa Rica or Mexico it's not taking the spice cabinet from West Hollywood it's actually going oh well let's look around at what you have let me see what you have here let me show you what else we can do with this right because then it's what Nick's saying you're closing the loop but you're also creating something completely new right because you're showing them a way to utilize their product in a way that they probably haven't thought of right with all the resources that are already around them versus like everything you're bringing in from here if we want high drama then we can do Haiti and Papua New Guinea those are the only two countries that the growers are like don't come why do they say that? well because Haiti is very unstable violent but also the farmers have been coffee doesn't really grow in Haiti because the Dominican Republic steals it from them so they're very aware that anyone who does not look like them is going to come with bad stuff so they're very apprehensive of you coming and talking to them and with Papua New Guinea they just don't have the infrastructure for you to go in and be like oh I'm going to go to the farm and I'm going to enjoy it there's nothing like that so we're going into that country as a foreigner basically people are lovely I'm sure but there is a lot of like things getting into those places that is really difficult and both of them both growers have been like don't come it's cool we'll just meet somewhere else this is just the first step and there are many more details that will need to be hammered out over the coming months before we begin production on this concept as always feedback is welcome on this or any other aspect of the show you can reach us on all social media platforms at Startup to Storefront you can always go back and listen to any of our other episodes available wherever you get your podcasts and on our website StartupToStorefront.com our All Start team consists of Diego Torres Palma Natalia Capolini Megan Conrad Owen Capolini Lexi Jameson and me Nick Conrad all of our music is composed by DoubleTouch thank you for listening we'll see you next time