#22: Moose, Black Rose Coffee

[00:00:00] Hello everybody and welcome to Drop Temp Coffee Podcast. This is Tim and I'm covering for the much loved and badly being a day off carry Elliot who is not going to be on with us today. Today, I get the honor of talking to my friend, former

[00:00:17] apprentice and the owner of Black Rose Coffee, Moose. Hi, John Moose. I'm going to end up also wanting to say a quick hello and thank you to Primo Roasting Equivent for an amazing Roaster. It does amazing things.

[00:00:34] I want to thank Seattle Coffee Automation for sponsoring us and giving us a great back-tilling device. I also want to thank San Chris of all coffee importers. Would also like to thank Anna Christie at Terranegro Coffee and more to come.

[00:00:52] Hey, by the way we are working for sponsors. Please jump on board. We love to have you. Now, off with that Moose. Thank you so much for joining us today. Is my absolute honor to talk to you. Thank you for joining.

[00:01:05] Oh, it is about time we did this. Yeah, I'm telling you it's been a while. So with that said, first of all, I want to congratulate you on moving things forward as well as you are quite honestly your reputation

[00:01:19] kind of speaks for it and personally I'm kind of proud of you. I'm just saying that. Thank you, you're welcome. And it means a lot like you're the one who introduced me to this.

[00:01:30] We'll get into that I guess but like what I'm doing is because of what you help me do. So I appreciate that but if you didn't have skill you wouldn't be doing it. Remember that. Yeah. With that said, why don't you tell us about the history

[00:01:49] of Black Rose? Sure. I started roasting with you before blind was even a thing and it was a therapy thing for me after I had sort of a traumatic loss of my job. I wasn't in a very good headspace and you invited me over to Rose Coffee

[00:02:07] and it was just it was magic like watching stone cold green beans transformed slowly into something that I actually recognized as just coffee smelling it and seeing it come out of the you know into the hopper and like just the first time I saw

[00:02:24] the auger going around just pushing you know what it was on that 2k mbex or something like that. Yep. That's true. I've never seen that much coffee all at once come out of a roaster.

[00:02:37] So it was kind of magical and the more we did it it just started to make sense to me that this is something I wanted to do. It was hard to convince myself that I had talent you kept saying it but I thought you know you were

[00:02:51] being nicer or whatever or I wasn't such a rough spot there that I thought you were just being friendly but it ended up being what gave me like day-to-day purpose after not really being able to feel like figure out what I wanted to do after my old job.

[00:03:09] Well first of all your old job sucked ass and second of all you deserve better treatment let's face it. Right? And third, do you know something local I think really suits you personally?

[00:03:22] By the way yes there is a lot of love here just in case anyone's wondering yes. Tim and I have known each other for a good minute now. Yeah for sure actually just thinking about that the other day

[00:03:34] uh 2011 in April of 2011 we met at a bar that sounds terrible. You don't drink I don't drink I didn't drink then either god bless support on the timbers by the way we we do love the timbers so yeah absolutely sure said timbers

[00:03:56] with our blazer cup there we go cheers yeah you know that was a magic moment. I've had a lot of people asking me about talent and I'm very lucky to surround myself with talent you know

[00:04:06] who I have in my grocery quicks chat out to a shurea and bolly and jada and kd and jen until all my guys because they are they are the guys also carry that's the brief that's the synopsis

[00:04:24] and you just went a lot of time being very busy lately so why don't you give us an idea where you're at now and maybe we could talk a little bit about how you got there. Sure um basically I passed my last year

[00:04:39] of sales last week by the way past 2023 yeah tattett everybody who doesn't know we are we are currently recording this in May June of 2024. Right oh thank you yep yeah and I don't mean that is like a

[00:04:55] humble brag I mean that is actually a marker of my progress because like it was hard to get going at first and it was really difficult to like find what voice I wanted to give to black rose and

[00:05:08] like who I wanted to be um but like step by step person by person getting regulars who turn into subscribers regulars who buy my coffee as presents for their family and friends like just person

[00:05:24] by person inch by inch I started gaining the confidence to understand that I was like a really good coffee roaster and then I had something going here you talked about how I doing something local suits me

[00:05:37] the way that I promote black rose is literally on foot I deliver my coffee as much as I can on foot I walk around tacking black rose flyers to telephone poles like when I moved to this city I was working

[00:05:53] remotely for a job on the east coast and I felt like I was really missing out on being a part of like what I consider to be like the vibrant culture of the city and of like southeast Portland where

[00:06:05] I live and just like the northwest in general there's a do it yourself attitude here like I always say that you nothing here is given to you but you can get anything if you work at it

[00:06:18] and so just literally tacking my flyers up like channeling all the energy of like concerts and DJ sets and parties and festivals and whatever that do that all around my neighborhood I just

[00:06:30] wanted to be a part of that mess like I like that my flyers are part of the petrified like support structure of some of these you know some of these flyers that have like molded on there

[00:06:42] since the 80s you know by the way they we can't relate to that the idea about being important news when it gets wet paper sticks to telephone poles one of my favorite things is to like

[00:06:55] months later I'll find an old one that I tacked up somewhere and it's still up somehow and like the ink is all run down it's been bleached by the sun or it's been like ripped around

[00:07:06] by the window and ever but I just actually picked a really ancient one up out of off a telephone hole and put it in my archives because now it's history now that's great but I'll tell you well why

[00:07:18] didn't why don't you start with telling us when you got your business license and officially became black rose coffee sure I incorporated actually in December of 2017 which seems like a long time ago I don't really consider black rose to be that old

[00:07:37] it's really weird like it's when yeah we incorporated it and got the license and a tax ID and all that created the LLC but it was really only about mid 2022 when I finally got a working

[00:07:53] website and that's another thing about confidence I had a website that I didn't trust that said it was like dangerous to visit like for people just like to go and like it's terrible the first thing

[00:08:06] you'd get when you'd sign on to my website was a warning that the site wasn't safe and I kept like I had a friend who was my web developer and I was like dude what is wrong what is happening

[00:08:18] and just no movement on it for like a year and a half and then the pandemic happened and so like I really decided to like double down on the local delivery thing once people were shut in

[00:08:31] created a pillow bag like a really big bag and started like for a while it was the only person that people saw and like that gave me like and it's just it's literally momentum therapy

[00:08:44] it's therapy we I think I think that that's pretty common is the therapeutic nature of coffee I think that's something the unisoned like always agreed on man there's nothing in the world

[00:08:56] like handing somebody a bag of coffee or having to pick out from their door when there's this awful pandemic thing going on and having them smile I can tell you how much they appreciate being there

[00:09:07] that there's something so therapeutic of that by the way I have to share this with you you know we three years before it figured out how bad my website was he commerce is hard it can be a

[00:09:19] coffee roast you're not a web designer oh man did you hire somebody yes all right are they good oh no this one is it's actually like shout out to Squarespace if they want to sponsor you that'll be awesome

[00:09:30] yeah that they saved my bacon the old website was WordPress and it was impossible to edit and like I couldn't type in my font like black rose has a distinct font and part of the marketing

[00:09:45] is tying that all this font up here yeah tying that all together to the branding I didn't feel like there was a possibility to like broadcast out who I was now I can type in my font I can edit

[00:09:59] stuff on my own I don't need to call a pro to do it I I don't mean I'm rough to my I'm sorry that you know I was gonna say thank God for advertising solutions he's currently doing the management

[00:10:11] of my site in hosting and thank God for Sherea who's actually cleaning up everything right now Sherea is doing some magic for me so I agree it's way it's not in my pay rate

[00:10:26] yeah to do website stuff it just isn't there you know that's great I mean I've had people like text me or email me like hey I went to buy a kilo of this coffee and I'm not sure but it said

[00:10:41] it was five dollars is that supposed to be right because like with Squarespace every parameter like because with black rose like I specialize in D-Caf and I do a lot of half caps as well so

[00:10:56] you can select your size whether you want it to be full cap or half cap and you're grind each one of those needs to have the same price right like it's an individual entry that I have to edit

[00:11:09] and make sure that they all line up in that a 350 bag is espresso grind half cap is the same price as a 350 whole bean you know full cap whatever and it's just these little nitpicking things

[00:11:22] that like everyone's in a while I find like or a black rose customer will find a silly mistake I had somebody subscribe to a coffee that I don't offer anymore oh yeah the real world people

[00:11:38] that's real world shit right here that's great oh my god I tried but it's you know it's there's so many parameters I thought I was keeping it simple and it's just there's no such thing

[00:11:49] I got to tell you I know a lot about what you do and what you use why don't you tell people your equipment journey well yeah started off roasting on your M-BX and it was a what a 5k

[00:12:06] and a 2 1.5k lower whatever yeah and then once you so you get you sold me a hot top like a little quarter pound roaster they that little roaster created black rose and did so much work

[00:12:22] sometimes I can't believe how much I produced like a brilliant entire business I can't oh my god it's amazing I swear to God yeah no that's that that just says a lot about what you do that's great

[00:12:35] and then once you moved into uh Elliot and Murray and started creating all that we had Alice the giant old pro bat but that's like again like your guys' equipment but it was when

[00:12:46] you got the pre-most speaking of your sponsors yeah that really kind of opened my eyes to a couple of things that led to the roaster I had now okay one of them was the induction burner or

[00:12:57] the induction heating and the other was a temperature control I had never really considered that before like I thought about gas flow I thought about airflow but like to be able to like cut the gas

[00:13:11] in the way that you do on your pre-most it opened my eyes to what was possible so what I use now is an aliable at R1 let's see here she is we don't have a name for some reason I'm just

[00:13:26] incapable of giving it a name oh no you got a good name but that's a whole mother story no that's great that's fantastic yeah okay so I also know where you're roasting why don't you tell people

[00:13:37] a little bit about about where exactly you are roasting sure so I'm on my back portrait now this is Black Rose World headquarters the room just on the other side of the door here is Black

[00:13:51] Rose's office and store room it's my backing table my grinder but yeah no it is done out of the home that's Black Rose is me and I deliver you know I live in southeast Portland and I have the

[00:14:08] ability to just roast and coffee to my neighbors the beauty of the bullet I mean there there are so many things I could I could talk about this thing for hours the most important thing is that in Montnomah County

[00:14:24] as long as you're roasting under two kilograms you don't need commercial ventilation oh winner so that's nice yeah that's great yeah this it's actually rated for apartment building so it was designed in built-in Taiwan for higher rises wow so it's very safe it doesn't have any fire

[00:14:41] it's electric it plugs into a regular outlet um gives off steam I guess or just vapor smoke suppression system on board right that actually suppresses suppresses all the associated smoke does it also collect chap it does yeah that's great it has a removable

[00:15:02] shaft container you can see I've been roasting so it has this basket here nice also shout out to roast your soaks um yeah this thing goes from looking like this to looking like a brand new

[00:15:17] like gleaming queen aluminum filter in about two minutes it's amazing yeah we we we love that stuff we use a bunch of it it's great yeah I am I am to the chef collector on my on my plum trees and

[00:15:31] by the way to those who might not realize this chap is high high nitrogen slightly acidic works great for all kind of pit fruit uh as well as roses and tomatoes if it looks like a coffee bean

[00:15:48] or has a flavor that is a note anywhere in the coffee world coffee chef is good for it walnuts baby yes walnuts totally you know do you take an pretty interesting arc and

[00:16:05] usually I'll take a couple minutes and ask about what people are doing but why don't we talk a little bit about your selection you'd mentioned this earlier first so I'd like to have people know

[00:16:17] that my friend here is a multi metal winner at Goldenbeen North America is well known for just to cap it and decap coffee see as a several of them that he has taken a lot of time in effort to

[00:16:32] select he also carries some really nice cap-name product and is doing all the sourcing himself as well as all the distribution um and believe me I understand all of that all of that so why don't

[00:16:49] tell people a little bit about the coffee you're currently grossing and how you sourced it sure and honestly like one of the most important things is the ability that I have to use your landing spot

[00:17:00] coast to or oh by the way shout out the coast or oh you should be a sponsor you should be the source fantastic I can't believe how easy it is I'm going to explain this because we're

[00:17:12] we're going out to wider audience most people don't understand what coast or or is coast to or oh is about 70,000 square foot of storage space in northeast Portland that will allow people to rent

[00:17:28] pallet space so they can store coffee off-site and be able to pick from it when they need it and that has been a real gift we do not have a big area it is not easy to stash you know a couple

[00:17:41] bags of coffee in a space that doesn't exist coast or oh is great and by the way if anyone ever needs to contact them they have two locations five and Portland and they are equally easy to reach so

[00:17:56] fame went up in the Seattle area and needs storage called coast or oh they're great definitely and honestly like the fact that you can that they have stock now this mario leapi that I'm drinking

[00:18:09] here I went to buy it from a sustainable harvest and they were like that we actually have boxes at coast or oh you don't have to pay shipping I just bought three like you know 69 kilos

[00:18:24] sacks of coffee one massive decafter replace my flagship and then two of my like my other signatures as barricade's extended for men it's my signature caffeinated they were like you don't

[00:18:38] have to pay shipping we have a weekly truckload that goes up to coast to or oh and it can just land at your spot and I pay you for the privilege of it and it's like how is this so easy yeah

[00:18:50] so like there are a lot of factors that have to line up in order for operation this small to be functional but like because of coast or oh and because of like you letting me use your spot

[00:19:03] there it's it's so easy I don't even know honestly I support anybody who is willing to take on the I hate to use the word journey anybody resorting to take on the challenge that is making maintaining

[00:19:18] the coffee roast three especially today's world deserves support we love giving you support we would do that all day long so yeah about what I offer yeah I mean it's a reflection of my

[00:19:32] creativity and my like curiosity I love just like going after things that appeal to me so I and like they tend to be a little more off beat so like I have three Mexican coffees right now

[00:19:49] Mexico has about four major coffee growing zones that are also distinct that I treat them like individual countries it's really cool the difference between oh wahaka and a vericruz and a nairi and a

[00:20:04] chie-apis like it's really staggering I call it it's like French wine regions so I have the vericruz extended ferment is my favorite it's incredible and it's unique to the climate in vericruz

[00:20:20] the coffee is grown at a altitude that has cooler nights than the average I don't even know then the average coffee being a whatever so instead of fermenting it for a couple hours they

[00:20:30] they fermented overnight and it creates like this baked in I call it like a fresh baked brownie quality to the coffee that I adore um I have a wahaka and I have a a Haitian coffee I adore Haiti

[00:20:49] it's really meaningful to me to be able to like get Haitian coffee which you can also now get it coast to oral that cafe crail has actual coffee on the ground here and then yeah on the

[00:21:02] decaf side I took that up because it was a challenge and also like my mama's allergic to caffeine so one of the earliest memories I have is being in a diner I'm from New Jersey we grow up in diners

[00:21:16] and my mom would want coffee but would have to say decaf so many times and then would get you know they'd even come out with the orange hand on are you sure it's decaf or you sure it's decaf

[00:21:28] so that always was meaningful to me that like my mom drinks decaf okay I got to Portland and I mean I don't mean to be this way but like no one else is really doing it

[00:21:40] and I was like Portland is such a creative adventurous coffee city that also prides itself on sort of doing what's what's not expected meanwhile I'm still the only roaster here with 3 decafs on the menu and in a word-winning half-caf that's like a signature that I have on there

[00:22:00] I'm obsessed with mountain water process decaf it's it's like the people's champion of decaf a lot of people use Swiss water which I respect in all that but it's like a very patented very European process that's done in Vancouver Canada mountain water process is done in

[00:22:18] vericruz with water from a volcano in vericruz wow wow that would explain why the why you hold body chocolate and lovely okay on all of it really does yeah so yeah I have a

[00:22:34] vericruz mountain water decaf that it's so it's grown in vericruz and decaf donated in vericruz with water from vericruz right I then have the vericruz extended ferment which is not from

[00:22:46] the same place at all it's just a different I found it through another supplier and then when I put those two together I have a half-caf called maybe a Luna that won a metal in the fully caffeinated

[00:22:58] alt-milk category last year please say that again slowly so people can hear it my signature half-caf won a metal in the alt-milk category against otherwise fully caffeinated coffee there is only one decaf category golden beans so I have to get adventurous sometimes and but yeah those three

[00:23:20] that decaf that blend grown produced washed decafinated all in the same state like it's the locally as decaf the lowest impact and it's it's fucking delicious yeah that it's so killer that's awesome

[00:23:36] that's so I can't wait to follow that up this year I must say the creativity you shown and by getting outside the box and looking at for things other people don't get that's a skill set

[00:23:50] that other people don't have I think that as advice to roasters I think it's really important to say that you can experiment and you should you should you should go out and find things that

[00:24:10] can make you stand out in another wise crowded field you don't know it's gonna say it's an amazing job of that thank you it's hard to make noise in a city with like so much coffee

[00:24:21] well and I've always said that I try to stand up by not making any noise that's always been my take you know yeah I mean just do it our way yeah it's absolutely right it's absolutely right all right

[00:24:36] Mike what do you keep using your first name I am Mike but I use moose moose is my is my nickname and I use moose is my professional name it's one of the things that helped me find my voices black

[00:24:51] rose like Mike the roaster didn't work for me and then when I what I got it's all this thing about confidence right I was afraid to name my company black rose because it's what I wanted to name

[00:25:02] that and I was afraid that if I said it then I would get rejected and it would be awful I was wrong about that and then if I was public and out is moose the roaster and as a queer roaster it would impact

[00:25:16] me negatively and people wouldn't take me seriously like it's some sort of gimmick in the end it became who I am you know and the story of black rose is actually the story of me and my journey.

[00:25:30] I think coffee is extraordinarily personal you know it's not just committing flu it's something a chair with friends or complete strangers and enjoy I have always looked at it like that always

[00:25:45] and it's brought so many good people into my life like coffee is just a positive vibe all around the coffee community is awesome it's like I haven't met Nasshole yet what well and if I have I'm not gonna mention them here no of course not

[00:26:01] like and maybe I will one day but I've met enough good people that it balances it out alright we're gonna take that as a compliment thank you very much oh yeah no for sure you're not the

[00:26:15] asshole I'm not talking alright you're not good they neither are you it's been it's been mostly a family I really just like everybody that I run into in coffee you know it's funny everybody that we

[00:26:29] talk to on this show every single person we've interviewed all the people that have supported us all say exactly the same thing they sent a community something it has to be here it's what we

[00:26:41] want to promote you know and we you know that's nice thing about this this show is given us an opportunity to get a voice you know feel that people don't get to see all that often you know I

[00:26:55] had great I so I think that I think that it really becomes important for people to see who we are there's no coffee content on TV so we know I know right but the coffee content it's there is

[00:27:07] great PBS history of coffee oh PB did an awesome super abundant feature on coffee in Portland yeah I think I think the amount of local coverage in media for coffee is pretty amazing I mean we have

[00:27:26] Blam at week all he says the best to Portland I'm trying to say this in a way it doesn't sound like I'm blowing smoke up my own ass being on the final five and best support was an amazing

[00:27:38] is an amazing compliment oh dude absolutely you know congratulations thank you amazing um I think you know we I said this before and I've found you in this we produced 22 metals out of drop-ton coffee cooperative

[00:27:55] as a whole 22 metals glass here yeah and we you know we we want people to feel happy and positive about contact yes because what we do you know I would say have my my own tweaks

[00:28:09] and takes but we're not gonna keep the secret it's all inclusive we should be able to enjoy roasting coffee it's therapy yeah it's therapy yeah and I don't jellously guard my secrets either

[00:28:22] it's ridiculous I'll tell you how I roast yeah like in fact I was going to sort of talk about that if you don't mind because you're asking about the bullet yeah yeah so you and Jen heard at

[00:28:35] genuine origin also amazing awesome person in a good company uh Jen thank you for creating the creep or at least the concept of it uh the idea that you can finish coffee with the power basically

[00:28:52] completely off um the thing that I do with black rose is I step my temperatures down gradually because the bullet allows me to change basically the power fan and drum speed for I mean if I

[00:29:09] had the time to do it I could do it for every degree if I want although that's way overmanaged wow but like what I can do is over time step it down to the point where eventually like around

[00:29:22] 340 degrees my coffee beans are hotter than the uh drum oh interest so like the bullet has a has a uh bean probe and I actually roast based off bean temperature not drum temp so I take the

[00:29:38] temperatures that you and I formulated back in the day in your basement like the idea of what like a 434 or a 438 or whatever would be but that's it's weird because when I think about it we were

[00:29:52] bringing the drum temperature up to that but by the time my coffee gets to my vericruise comes up to 442 I switch the power off I have a button that it just power off fan up to 9 which is

[00:30:08] tough and it slows the drum down into spins it's the cooling mode it goes from 420 to 442 in about a minute it's not oily it comes out like a rich dark medium my my decaf I roast a 451

[00:30:26] but I cut the gas at 420 or there's no gas but I hit the power at 420 so that's 30 degrees of it just finishing on its own heat with its own kinetic energy and by the time we're at 420

[00:30:40] the drum is at like 380 wow it's kind of amazing the beans are hot and the drum is so it allows me to roast decafs and natural processes and mario ebay which is so problematic like it's it's

[00:30:54] big fussy bean that doesn't like really anything except what it likes I get very delicate right I can do that on this bullet the mario ebay has its own setting I created its own recipe

[00:31:09] but between my dark light delicate and and that other special small batch setting which I usually use for like 200 gram samples wow yeah because it's so delicate but it just like my my design is to

[00:31:27] catch the cold like you know you drop two pounds in this thing of just cold dead weight so I use the power at its peak just until the second word it quilibrates with the drum temperature

[00:31:44] and then it starts to reduce power and let's the bean finish on its own and I think that there's something special about that we talked about creep and and I think having it having it creep like

[00:31:57] turning off for those home rosers who are out there I give a strong advice to learn at what point you can turn off the power or the gas or whatever it is you're using to power your roser

[00:32:12] and the wet it cruise up the scale because that is a good way to go it's funny we've actually moved to all of our stuff's done on bean temp all of it yeah and totally everything we do right now is being

[00:32:26] temp an ambient temp it's not not drum temp it's actually a mean temp and yeah that primo really open my eyes to the possibilities there yeah by the way we do support and love primo and

[00:32:41] they have they have a new row serve people has to get their hands on it's a 3k that's got all the bells and whistles all of them it's so awesome is that the one on the cart yep that's one yeah

[00:32:55] that that's probably gonna be my next one after after the bullet after we outgrow the bullet well I'll tell you what that's coming next week so let me know

[00:33:03] you can't ask it you know the other amazing thing about the bullet is you can chain roast on it yeah well explain that explain that a little bit love people know what that is sure um basically

[00:33:16] you don't have to cool it all the way down and heat it all the way back up in order to roast I can start it pre-heating as my previous roast is cooling and then like

[00:33:30] basically do back to back to back to back roast so even though I'm only roasting uh roasting grams it just works out better that way I sell my coffee and grams it just is what happened

[00:33:42] so I roast 750 grams at a time which yields about 640 grams at the end so if I need a kilo that's two rows it used to take I mean on the hottop it would take me about

[00:33:58] four hours to do that but now I can I can get that done in 15 minutes total and if I need to do a lot of roasting what I can do in two hours of consecutive roasting on this is enough to like

[00:34:13] to do anything like except a massive overnight order like I got when I had to come in and use your roaster and that incredible bagging machine which saved my app by the way thank you again Seattle coffee

[00:34:26] automation for the best small bagging machine ever made after that thing is incredible thank you Seattle coffee automation one day I'll be hitting you up for one by the way our promises do not go

[00:34:39] on heated we mean that I happen to know for a fact that you are motivated by the city of Montreal and I would like to talk a little bit about that short the city Montreal holds a special spot in your

[00:34:55] life can you give me a little outline on what that is and tell me about the coffee that there? Yeah absolutely Montreal is not where I'm from but it's where I'm from. I was born where I was born

[00:35:09] in New Jersey my parents are professors they're from New York it's really weird but my dad took me to Montreal he speaks French and he took me there in seventh grade and I just I was home I was home

[00:35:23] right away it's my favorite place in the world it's where my heart beats a speak French and I speak Quebec law French I the accent the Montreal accent just happened to me over time and yet it has a coffee

[00:35:37] culture that's this interesting combination of Europe and North America my beef with Europe is you can't get a mug of coffee say they don't respect the mug of coffee they think that a big volume of coffee

[00:35:51] means no flavor Montreal is not like that at all Montreal is a city where you can get a big you know cafe filled you know a coffee a filtered coffee from a local grocery like I've been going to

[00:36:03] Bernoulli send a knee for a long time yeah shout out to them and like so many different rosters it took me fact out as the French word for that you see them popping up all over the city now

[00:36:18] black roses design is subtly attribute to Montreal the like background I use for my coffee or the stickers from my bags are dots which are the symbols used for the subway lines in Montreal

[00:36:32] there's the blue line the grain line the orange line and the yellow line those are basically the colors of my coffee if you dig deeper into it the orange line in Montreal is sort of the biggest

[00:36:43] most like commuter e line it's not glamorous but it takes people from home to work or whatever so my orange coffees are like the the crowd pleasers the ones that I have a lot of the ones that

[00:36:56] I do high volume over whatever the green line is the right line that runs through downtown and is like the like the tourist line it's the glamoury line it goes to the you know the plus days all it goes

[00:37:09] to the bell center it goes to all the towers downtown so my green coffees are the roast your specials they're the fancier ones that I only have unlimited quantities the yellow line is a one line

[00:37:22] one stop train that just goes from the island of Montreal the city is on a giant island in the middle of a river it connects to the south shore of the island which is a big like suburb so my

[00:37:34] espresso blend the station that the yellow line connects to is the only station that touches every other line so the blend line is the yellow and then the decaf is blue because the blue line runs on

[00:37:48] the other side of the mountain Montreal has a mountain in the middle of it, Mount Royal and on the other side like the monovilla I guess that's a Portland reference but utcomo in Montreal is the other side

[00:38:02] so decaf is like the other side you know it plays that role it's underrated it carries a lot of people but if you're a tourist you don't go to the blue line right you've never seen it before in your life

[00:38:14] so yeah I give the decaf the blue line and then actually the pentones the blue is the Quebec flag blue the grain is timbers grain the yellow is the yellow of of wattford my football club in England

[00:38:31] and the orange is bourbon I've always felt that you go a little darker than I do I want to impart a story for people that is not meant to put you on the spot but it certainly

[00:38:45] makes me laugh and I still look at all the time. I was like a certain batch of very expensive coffee from Haiti they ended up being torched oh my god now would never happen now no no it would

[00:38:59] not and the reason I wanted to impart this there was a very very chaotic moment in our rosary early on where we had a very large set of orders coming in and Mike was nice enough to come in and help me

[00:39:14] roast and Mike at the time is and still it's one of the best conversational is sign. No Mike got really involved in a conversation while we had a 40 pound batch of really good stuff really good stuff

[00:39:34] but the fact is when you realize there was a mistake you looked at me and you you always had a tear in your eye and the reality what what I say so don't worry about it mistakes happen right

[00:39:47] yeah I hope people liked it you know what it turned out to be the most expensive espresso anyone's ever bought in their life we found a dog by the way. Yeah yeah you can't really throw

[00:40:00] that away you gotta find a way personally fucked up by moose the rosary. That's funny is hell but like it's so true and I think that like that was on Alice. Alice has no controls at all no I say that

[00:40:14] Alice is like the black pearl from the parts of the Caribbean movies. Yes exactly right the compass doesn't point north but we're not trying to find north like none of the gauges on that

[00:40:32] are actually what it is I love that machine though. I also call it the Millennium Falcon. I have I know well it's the Millennium Falcon before it could take off. Yeah the fastest hunting

[00:40:44] junk in the galaxy. Yeah especially if you get away from you. Oh my well yeah that roast absolutely got away from me got hot quickly. Oh man yeah I think here are a couple things to say first a

[00:40:58] shout out to the Capital Press coffee, Norring Lanfeer and the ability to make Alice sing and dance to this day like I you know I roast a lot of coffee and that machine before we got Oscar the

[00:41:11] rosary. Right yeah I'll tell you right there that my skills got way better way quicker on Alice just being you know, I told let's see if I can make a face. Yeah right. Alice teaches you the rosary

[00:41:27] quick or you're gonna end up being a charcoal man. Oh man you know that's and that's kind of the thing right luckily our taste developer our skills developer our bodies develop whatever right

[00:41:40] though the whole thing is that we end up getting better than then who we were and where we were right. By the way I'm really glad you saw that mug I have exactly two of those left. Awesome.

[00:41:54] History. Maybe one day I'll have a mug to give you. Oh you know that might have been true to rather way or I'm just saying man I think it is like we're getting close to doing some

[00:42:06] merchants and expanding of whatever quick shout out to Columbia River coffee rosters in Astoria Oregon honestly great coffee right by the Astoria Bridge. What a good people out there

[00:42:19] a lot of good rosters out on the coast of Oregon said the end up coming up here's really a good place to go. Really good coffee. It's incredible how much good coffee and how many quality rosters

[00:42:31] there are in this state it's its silly. I know I know I think it surprises people but when you're in Oregon right there are moments when you need something to brighten another white stark

[00:42:42] brewery gray gay right yeah and for me coffee is always done that always always. My espresso is called morning sunshine for a reason and like it was intimidating to try to get into the coffee

[00:42:55] game here you know everyone is so good. My kids mentioned a couple of times about the alter ego moves and the idea of having confidence I think it's important to stay that if you ever turn

[00:43:12] on a roaster if you ever drink a coffee and ask yourself how you can make it better. If you ever look at a shop and you can tell that the drink is or isn't what you want from a distance I

[00:43:29] would say that you probably have more than enough skill to be a fantastic coffee roaster because opinions count right and you said something very interesting about the amount talent here there is

[00:43:44] a ton of talent. I mean I've got a room where I've got I've got two associate rosters that are as good as anybody that we're worked with and both have valid opinions about what to do

[00:43:57] right and I have you and a couple of apprentices that are super skill that desire to improve this one of those things we find in Oregon that we don't find in other places. A lot of people

[00:44:10] just are happy with what they get. Yeah I'm never going to be satisfied. I'm just going to keep I'm just going to keep wandering like black roses part of my wanderlust. I have coffee from Thailand

[00:44:21] right now like yeah Thailand Haiti, Wajaka, Vera Cruz. I have this Mario Weepay from Nicaragua. Oh nice you know a couple weeks ago we went camping over in eastern Oregon and just going over

[00:44:40] Mount Hood you passed by Mount Hood roasters. I still remember you taking me out there. I believe that was other than oblique over like sort of in my neighborhood the first roaster that we really

[00:44:52] went to see together and that was the first time I saw Mario Iepay. The elephant band these things are twice as big as a big coffee bean as big as three or four pea berries. It's really silly

[00:45:07] and I was fascinated by it and I think I took that home with me from that trip and I wanted to do it ever since but just like it's intimidating and you mentioned before about me roasting darker

[00:45:20] than you it's because you do a lot of natural process and the flavor profiles that you're looking for lend more to that style of roasting. I buy my coffee based on the flavor notes. I literally

[00:45:33] just read notes and I'm like I can do that I can do that and I tend to like chocolate and nuts and like either berry or stone fruit or something like that but I've started to venture into

[00:45:46] the more effervescent fruity lighter flavored stuff. I have this this 72 hour anero big fermented sugar cane decaf from Colombia. I call it Aurora she's got a pink label like not everything's the Montreal subway some things have their own labels or whatever but Aurora is it's basically like

[00:46:07] a black label decaf it's so much different than everything else I do like I think people are almost afraid except for the people who buy it and they realize that it's good but it's a light roast

[00:46:19] that you know has a lot of strawberry and a lot of like vanilla and just like sort of unexpected flavors that like I wasn't confident in roasting really until this year and like having the bullet

[00:46:37] having enough experience knowing what I thought light roast was and then changing it to like really customize the roast to the bean and it's like okay if it's a natural process it needs this

[00:46:52] if it's just a regular wash but it has these notes it needs this if it's an ultra fussy bean it needs something else and it then becomes a fun challenge for me to get right you know it's scary

[00:47:06] because I do I'm stupid I buy a lot of stuff sort of sight unseen I don't patch roast a lot just and like oh that sounds good let's buy it right so I bought the Mario E. Bay 35 pounds of it

[00:47:19] and it's you know the first two roasts weren't as good or weren't as right as I wanted I think we're now talking about where the styles of roasting are a change between you and all

[00:47:34] there are times when you have to buy a coffee based on the notes you have yeah right like time is short or you need something different or you're looking for something that mixes with

[00:47:46] something else like all those things become important but I would say that one of the stylistic changes that we have is that you will change your roasting profiles for different coffees and what I'm looking to do is to highlight the differences in the coffee based on various similar

[00:48:04] roasting styles of between colleagues so give me a little bit more information on what it was about the first year roast in the marga hebay that you did not like and what you did to get it

[00:48:18] to where you do like because it's such a sensitive being it's sort of prone to getting a little would you mind jumping into and just give me a some idea of what is about being that makes it so sensitive

[00:48:32] it's the variety itself is one part of it and the second part is because they're so big they're they're not dense so they're actually they're actually sort of the opposite of dense they're like

[00:48:43] puffy so they burn easily or they like you can roast the notes out of a coffee you know what I mean like you can basically erase it and make it just sort of generic if you really like if you just

[00:48:56] roast it until it's done instead of to when it's supposed to be roasted to or whatever right right what I noticed was that my drop temp was still too high so I literally lowered it a hundred degrees

[00:49:09] wow we're really yeah so it comes into like usually I charged to 545 and this charges to about 430 wow I also with the marga we bay it because of its size I roast

[00:49:25] 600 grams at a time instead of 750 but it takes up the same amount of space if not more like by the time it pups up that's why you're already temperature you're scorching the outside of the beans

[00:49:38] you're exactly interesting and natural processor a honey process or like a delicately noted coffee if it gets scorched for me it sort of starts to taste like pennies like it gets like a sourness

[00:49:52] and like my molars have really sensitive sour receptors that can make me like almost uncomfortable sometimes my partner Casey is like a sour candy and sour fruit-fiend and it's just like laughs every time I like shutter because something is so sour but like you know in reality the

[00:50:14] coffees and black rose are roasted to the place that I like them like and that's really when when I found the voice of black roses I wasn't trying to do what I thought people would like

[00:50:25] I made coffee that I want to drink and that like I can appreciate the sweeter and sour notes and coffee without it like making my mouth feel too like buzzy to even taste. By the way so true you

[00:50:37] have to roast to what you believe and you have to roast that way yeah yeah I drink my coffee yeah like by the way I also drink my coffee and I'll drink your coffee and I drink coffee

[00:50:51] you give me coffee I'll drink it right we're we're good. I think it's super important for people to get involved with a coffee in a way that they intimately understand what it does and why it's there exactly. Every bean has its own profile like every region every country

[00:51:09] bean coffee just comes out differently and they take to roasting in their own way and I sort of I try to like get into this psychology of that I don't know like that's part of the adventure for me.

[00:51:20] I don't try to avoid that I mean one of the things I discover lately personally is that you have to change what you're doing you need to change it up and make it a little more

[00:51:33] experimental in times you know totally and that's why I love having specials and the black label like it's because I have the orange line and like the decuffs and my regular green line

[00:51:48] which is probably always going to be a Haiti and then another like coffee that I find interesting but like the reason why I keep doing specials is because I'm like an extraordinarily ADD

[00:52:04] curious like person who's never really satisfied and so I need to keep doing cool new shit or else I'm going to find it but not me. No you know what just don't don't change that I think I think I've described two different kinds of coffee drinkers

[00:52:24] one of which does not fit either of them and the other one is us to a tea the coffee snob likes one coffee one way no changes no variables same cream or same sugar you know

[00:52:37] create you exactly the same way in the same size cup no variation right and the coffee nerds which might be all of the coffee people that are out there cannot wait to try something new

[00:52:52] right totally yeah like I love my love being able to do that yeah me too I love the core coffees okay see you you have already answered the question about what's been what's been great

[00:53:04] even roasting lately which is fantastic how do you like throw in your own coffee what what are you doing your growing coffee at home I usually use I have an OXO vacuum brewer

[00:53:18] all interesting okay yeah it's really good it I love mugs of coffee I'm not really in espresso drinker it's a little too acidic for me and that's the other thing like because of my

[00:53:29] personal profile I try to make coffees that though darker not acidic and I have a bunch of customers who are like I appreciate how not acidic your coffee is but like when I'm trying to

[00:53:43] really understand how a coffee tastes I'll do a shot of espresso with that incredible machine that I got from you it's a really really high quality machine and you you know one of the many things

[00:53:56] that you've done to help me like to give access for me to like increase my own coffee awareness and understand it to like understand it on deeper levels but yeah I'll do a shot and then I'll

[00:54:11] brew a pot and we'll see how it plays one way or the other I actually like I'm embarrassed I don't have a pour over right now I don't know where my clever went I might have lost it or

[00:54:23] then we have a flare also which is really fun but yeah I tend to drink pots of coffee and I drink it black but I always say like I will like you I will never tell my drinkers what to do with their coffee

[00:54:37] put whatever shit you want in it do what you want to make it yours just because I'm just just because I'm this obsessive you know supremacist ass coffee roaster Uber like that's the thing like

[00:54:51] I have whatever this looks like and then inside I'm the worst not you've ever met like if I don't like a coffee I won't put it out there yeah yeah no so

[00:55:03] well that's exactly that's exactly the right way I mean honestly I think it's important to hold your coffee to as high as standard as you hold yourself yeah exactly right I won't I won't serve

[00:55:19] mediocre coffee I just can't do it I don't blame me at all Mike I would like to give you an opportunity because I think we've gotten to a point where we're gonna leave a really good interview I think we're

[00:55:33] good right I want to give you an open forum to talk a little bit about your company how people can find you so go for it man tell people how they can find your coffee appreciate that so much so

[00:55:46] BRPDX dot net BR like black rose PDX like Portland's airport and dot net because the guy who had BRPDX dot com tried to charge me $20,000 for that domain and so BRPDX dot net or

[00:56:04] black rose Portland dot com because I got them both okay you can find me at black rose PDX on Instagram and there's a link in my bio to my website as well I'm not as up to date with Instagram as I should

[00:56:17] be because I just am not I'm a little shy and I'm a little like a little afraid still a little lack of confidence to put myself out there this summer I'm really gonna try to promote more but

[00:56:32] if you live in Portland you'll see my black rose flyers on telephone poles in a neighborhood near you if you see him it means I'm delivering to somebody in your neighborhood because I tend to put the

[00:56:42] poles up around my deliveries or I walk to my deliveries and put flyers up along the way right now you can use a promo code bloom like a flower bloom that'll get you 15% off

[00:56:56] I deliver free across the entire Portland Vancouver metro area that is my problem not yours but yeah you'll get your call if you order it today you'll get it probably tomorrow

[00:57:09] if you order it in the morning and it's the right day you might get it later that day if it's an emergency you can text me like the black rose experience is that you're getting me

[00:57:20] and you can reach out and ask me a question and that might lead to coffee it might not really black rose is a conversation between me and you BRPDX.net come find me black rose PDX on Instagram yeah that's right I'm not in any stores right now because

[00:57:39] just didn't work out that way I'm not in any restaurants yet because it's hard I'm trying working on it came close a few times oh and they serve my coffee there's a wonderful vintage mall in inner southeast Portland called the memory den okay yeah yeah yeah

[00:58:02] they serve might they have a little coffee stand that serves black rose coffee it's the very cruising standard for me my baby my favorite coffee and yeah go get it and if you like

[00:58:14] if you love coffee but have trouble with caffeine let's talk about half-caf's let's talk about de-caf like I can change your mind that's what I'm here to do is to bring coffee to people no

[00:58:26] matter how they take it and it's it's seriously just a pleasure every day oh yeah and yeah I'm moose come find me I'll sign all I hand right all my like all my tickets like so you'll get a

[00:58:38] brown paper bag with a handwritten note and a little smiley face on it and yeah that's black rose that's awesome thank you Mike thank you thank you to me by the way to an absolute pleasure

[00:58:52] again we're gonna end this strong with a couple of quick shoutouts to people we want to thank Santa Christmas ball we want to thank Terranegra we want to thank Seattle coffee automation we want to thank Primo Roasting equipment you know we want to thank the people who are

[00:59:10] listening and by the way if you like the content we're doing we would love you to to subscribe and give us a thumbs up maybe share it out we'd love to find people who like

[00:59:23] finding us in the meantime you can reach me at hello I drop temp coffee you can also reach me blank coffee roasters.com or you can send me an email at hello at blank coffee roasters.com

[00:59:42] so please feel free have any questions contact me chat thanks for joining us if you like our podcast or our coffee give us a five star review whenever you listen to podcast you can order

[00:59:56] our coffee at blank coffee roasters.com or roasted my mom dot com got a question for us go ahead and email us head hello at drop temp.com