#26: The Golden Bean Americas Pt. 2

[00:00:01] Welcome to the Drop Temp Coffee Podcast. I'm Tim and I'm Carrie.

[00:00:06] We're two coffee roasters in the Pacific Northwest talking about the coffee business, the joy of

[00:00:12] being an entrepreneur, all things coffee roasting and our coffee culture and maybe coffee itself.

[00:00:20] Thanks for being here. We appreciate you listening.

[00:00:24] Well, hello everybody and welcome back to Drop Temp Coffee Podcast. This is Tim

[00:00:30] and I'm Carrie. And we are here to talk about number two. That's episode two, the second half

[00:00:38] of our Golden Bean episode. Number two. We're number two. Number two. I don't know. I don't know

[00:00:47] we're number two but we'll explain why in a moment here. Yeah. Well, first of all,

[00:00:53] we want to set the stage that today is the Tuesday after Golden Bean. We very much appreciate

[00:00:58] everybody coming back in for the second half of this episode. The last time that we talked,

[00:01:04] you saw us being very nervous and patiently awaiting the results that we're going to be coming.

[00:01:11] And sick. L and sick. And by the way, I'm not sick anymore. How about you?

[00:01:16] I'm not either. Thank goodness. We were dying. Yeah. It was not our best episode but we're

[00:01:23] going to try and get something better because I would dare say that we're both in pretty

[00:01:27] good mood. How do you feel about that, Carrie? Yeah. I'm above average. Wait, I understated. Well,

[00:01:36] let me see if I can set the stage. So we decided that we were going to have an impromptu watch party

[00:01:44] at a locally watering hole called Three Mugs Brewing. We thank the guys at Three Mugs

[00:01:50] for a lovely evening. Thank you very much for letting us borrow your huge screen.

[00:01:55] Carrie set that up. Thank you, Carrie. Now we, so we sat down and it was right about six o'clock

[00:02:02] our time and they went through the pregame which usually involves an Aussie man singing,

[00:02:09] which is weird. I have no idea why that happens. But then they got to announcing things. So

[00:02:15] I had turned around because I wanted to buy, I want to buy a round for people. And all of

[00:02:22] a sudden I heard my name as a bronze medal winner and all turned to milk. Yes. And really it's,

[00:02:27] it was pretty satisfying. So I turned around and went to go buy the, I went to go buy the round

[00:02:33] and Carrie what happened? Go ahead, tell them. For context they were streaming this live

[00:02:39] on Instagram and the way that they had the screen, they had the slideshow of the different

[00:02:45] winners in each of the categories. Well, that projector screen that they were showing

[00:02:50] the images on, on the live stream it was very hard to see. So we couldn't see it on the TV. So myself,

[00:02:59] Tim and Noraine were looking on our phones on Instagram hoping that we could see the names

[00:03:05] a little bit better. And I remember you're, you got the rounds, you came back and you were

[00:03:11] looking at the screens. I don't know. So you were texting somebody or somebody was texting you

[00:03:16] during the moment. And then they announced the winner of the alternative milk, which happened to be

[00:03:26] you. Now I have to show off. We're going to do it. I've never seen a gold medal before.

[00:03:34] That's a gold medal. And just everybody sees it. That's legit. Can we see that? Oh yeah.

[00:03:40] So, so then I'm going to take this up. We were in stunned shock. There was silence in the room for

[00:03:47] a moment. Wait, wait, wait, we got a backtrack because what happened is as soon as I said, Tim,

[00:03:54] you won, you won gold. For a minute there, I saw the hamster wheels going and you were,

[00:04:00] you kind of seared off at one point and you're like, what? I said, Tim, you won gold.

[00:04:07] And if you looked at your phone and you said, Oh my God. And that's when it hit you.

[00:04:15] There was like, he said stun silence to heart palpitations and numb fingertips. Oh my God.

[00:04:23] His job was so weird. His job was literally down to the floor. He was like,

[00:04:28] Oh my God. Well, then we had the fun stuff, which was the category came to an end and we were all

[00:04:45] in stunned silence. And then we, they had the single serve category come up next. And I'm

[00:04:53] sitting there and all of a sudden we hear, we hear Carrie roasted by mom, which by the way,

[00:04:59] got a sarcastic response on the guys at golden bean. Look, it's a great name y'all. I'm just saying.

[00:05:06] So she ended up winning her first medal. Yeah, there's more than that. They were running her

[00:05:12] first medal to became a multiple medal winner over two years in the single serve. Now,

[00:05:18] in the same way I looked over and Carrie had this big cheesy grin on her face. I'm not going

[00:05:23] to lie. It was the warmest thing ever. It was fantastic. So they kept progressing down the way

[00:05:30] and they moved into the categories for the gigantic larger people. If you have more than five shops,

[00:05:37] you're considered a large chain and they announced the large chain winners and most of the,

[00:05:42] most of those guys were the one to expect Haven and, and so on. So by the way, much love

[00:05:47] Haven. Well done. Good job guys. However, when it came back around, we started getting names

[00:05:55] mentioned a lot. Noreen ended up winning two medals. Yeah. Carrie ended up winning a medal. By the

[00:06:02] way, second melt for Carrie is in the most populated heading in poor over filter and to

[00:06:07] give everybody an idea. We entered four of those. We got two medals. Carrie ended up

[00:06:11] two for two this year. Well done, Carrie. Nice job lady. Well done. Bravo. We ended up cleaning

[00:06:18] house. We ended up with nine bronze medals and a gold medal. And we still have to see where

[00:06:23] that goes. I'm so proud of the staff ended up doing so well, but now we get to finish with

[00:06:28] the really funny stuff. So we were revealing because there was this number thing. We had no

[00:06:33] idea really how medals, how many medals we had at one point. We thought it was seven

[00:06:37] at one point. We thought it was nine and another point we thought it was eight and he kept going

[00:06:42] back and forth. So to clarify earlier today, we ended up going over the medals. He sent a certificate

[00:06:51] in a private entry listing that you have that that shows you what won medals. And we reviewed

[00:07:00] and realized that we've won nine bronze medals and a gold medal, which is amazing. We've never

[00:07:04] won 10 medals in a competition before. Shreya and Bowie both took in two, but the thing that really

[00:07:13] the thing that really ended up laughing making us laugh was the fact that I tried to put Nicaragua

[00:07:23] pineapple as an entry name and it came out Neralja pineapple and I didn't realize

[00:07:29] and here's the fun part to let you know how it is around my rosary. Shreya, my business manager

[00:07:36] didn't bother asking me about the name because she thought it was just being a weirdo. The guy who

[00:07:42] had named existential support and don't be a dick is number names of coffee. She thought I meant

[00:07:48] to name it Neralja. She never asked I don't know how that happened. AI is not that intelligent,

[00:07:59] y'all. Neralja pineapple pineapple so good it'll give you Neralja. Oh my god. Wow.

[00:08:08] Yeah. Well now we're gonna. That must be a really good coffee. Oh, hey, it's really good.

[00:08:13] It'll give you a neurological condition. Oh my god. Oh Lord. Hey, you're talking to someone who

[00:08:19] has a functional neurological disorder so it's freaking hilarious. Yeah, you know,

[00:08:26] there you go lifetime conditions. Who knew? We mean no disrespect to people who suffer Neralja

[00:08:32] but the idea that word would show up for Nicaragua. I don't know how the hell that

[00:08:36] happened. I have no idea. As it goes, we were nice enough to have Jan Legal who at one point owned

[00:08:44] Fresh Cup magazine pick up our medals for us and we're lucky enough to get him picked up today

[00:08:49] which is amazing. Thank you, Jan. Thank you, Fresh Cup. And we want to send out our best wishes

[00:08:57] to the Edwards family. You know who you are. We're all thinking about you a couple

[00:09:01] losses in that family recently so we send our heartfelt condolences and hope you guys are

[00:09:09] doing super well in the meantime. Thank you for putting on a good show and please be healthy

[00:09:15] and be happy together. Thank you. I just wanted to say that quick piece. Well, Kerry, how about you?

[00:09:20] You know, we know that it's going to be relatively short but give me some observations.

[00:09:25] Tell me the fun. Tell me what was fun. What was fun was that we got to see

[00:09:33] another friend of ours, Brenda Enyart. She's been on the podcast before. She's the owner of

[00:09:41] Savvy Island Coffee Roasting Company. Brenda is a very talented, another woman-owned

[00:09:46] coffee roasting company. Her shop is actually based in Beaverton but she lives on Savvy

[00:09:54] Island. So for those who know Savvy Island, it's mostly farm in Marshland and so she named it after

[00:10:03] that. Actually, I went into Brenda's shop one day because I don't know, I was doing something

[00:10:10] and I needed coffee so I happened to stop by their shop and Josiah who is the lead priest

[00:10:17] of there, he told me that Brenda entered into Goldabean and I said, oh really? So I text

[00:10:23] to Brenda and said, hey what's up? I heard you entered into Goldabean. She said, yeah,

[00:10:26] I have my decaf coffee and I submitted that for Golden Bean and just submitted one category.

[00:10:35] We were watching the winners of the decaf category for Golden Bean. Savvy Island Coffee

[00:10:42] Company won a silver medal in decaf. So I texted Brenda immediately and I said, OMG Brenda, dude.

[00:10:53] I guess she was visiting with her family and she goes, what happened? And I said girl, you won

[00:10:58] silver. She's like no way. And I said, way. She was like wow. So shout out to Brenda,

[00:11:06] congratulations on your silver. That's pretty amazing. Well done Brenda. Well done.

[00:11:12] Yeah, we also had a few local companies, a compass coffee roasting base out of Washington,

[00:11:21] Vancouver I believe. They had a lot of entries in. They won Gold for single serve.

[00:11:26] For three categories? Yeah they won. Single serve? Right. Which I'm jealous of. I'm not gonna lie,

[00:11:33] I'm a little bit jealous. I know, I know, I know. It's okay. Well here's the thing,

[00:11:37] I don't think compass has entered much but they crushed a bunch of categories.

[00:11:42] And hey, that just shows how talented their team is with compass. I mean I was very,

[00:11:50] I was a little bit envious here because I was hoping that it would actually get silver or

[00:11:56] gold again in this category. But hey, I'll take bronze. At least I got my coffee in

[00:12:04] and I, and like you said, I was two for two. I walked away with two bronze medals.

[00:12:10] Compared to last year where I had actually four entries and I walked away with one silver medal.

[00:12:15] So you know, I'll take it. Well I've always considered this to be growth. I mean let's

[00:12:20] face it right if you stop improving, you're probably dead. Like you should always be

[00:12:26] looking because someone's always better than you. Someone's always got a fresh idea.

[00:12:31] And honestly the feedback that we get from this, we're going to look at the review the scores and

[00:12:37] and what we said about our coffee. So we ended up improving. I mean sky's the limit. Be great

[00:12:42] to go back in there and do this all over again. I never thought that I would get that.

[00:12:49] You got it. Never. I never thought I would get that.

[00:12:52] And Tim's been doing this for 10 years. 10 years all of, 10 years of hard work,

[00:12:57] dedication and I have to tell you Saturday night was Tim's night and he deserves every single bit

[00:13:04] of compliments and congratulations he can get because he has worked his butt off for it.

[00:13:10] I really appreciate that, Kerry. Thank you. There's a lot of hard workers around our building.

[00:13:15] A lot of motivational people. You included.

[00:13:18] I was going to say you also have an amazing crew that absolutely loves you. They are

[00:13:23] working. They're dedicated and they absolutely are motivated to bring out the best in BCR.

[00:13:34] You got some talented, talented people on your staff. So this not only this one was just for

[00:13:41] you but it was a win for everybody that night. So wine coffee roasters as a whole was a win for

[00:13:49] all of them. Well, and here these are for Bowie. There are two of them. Well done, Bowie. Bowie ended

[00:13:59] up winning for a DR Congo coffee and have getting two medals in it. One for espresso and one for

[00:14:07] milk based. And then these are Sharrayas. And Shraya ended up getting an all milk based medal

[00:14:16] and an espresso medal. We all we all meddled in espresso. I think that's amazing. There were a

[00:14:25] thousand entries in espresso and they only gave medals to the top 19 finishers by points. Now

[00:14:35] there were ties, same thing in pour over one of the most popular things. By the way well done

[00:14:40] in pour over, Carrie. That's the thing. You know we talk about about the things it takes

[00:14:49] in terms of coffee but you have to have the talent at the roasting stand as well and honestly

[00:14:58] I can motivate every day by watching the people that work at our shop do their work.

[00:15:04] So much talent there. So many good roasters. So lucky. I am going to draw this episode to a

[00:15:15] close so I want to say a couple good things and please jump in there Carrie if you got anything

[00:15:20] else but I think we got our point across. What do you think? I think for the most part

[00:15:25] it was something that we all look forward to each year and that we work hard and

[00:15:31] I have to say that there's some people out there that are like why do you do this? Why do you

[00:15:38] go through this? What is it about this competition? Why do you want to enter into this? And from

[00:15:45] myself as a roaster, as someone who is a crafter, an artist, that I am taking something

[00:15:54] that a coffee farmer, a coffee producer had worked hard and long for for years. They have

[00:16:03] labored for this for a long time that we took the coffee that this coffee farmer, we took that crop,

[00:16:12] we roasted it and interpreted it into the way that really represents the farmer in that perspective.

[00:16:20] So for us it's not so much about our art and craft but it's also

[00:16:26] representing the art in the craft and the hard work and dedication that the farmers have put into

[00:16:33] when it comes to growing the coffee that we're able to use in competition. That is a win so

[00:16:41] it's not so much us but when it does come to us as roasters it allows us to have that validation

[00:16:50] that we are doing something right. We know the quality of our work. It is a competition,

[00:16:57] it is to have fun but also to say to folks I'm serious about what I do. I am passionate

[00:17:05] in what I do and it may sound silly that I do this out of love entering into a competition.

[00:17:15] It's a validation of my work and my craft that I do to bring great quality coffee

[00:17:22] into your home every single day. I agree on that validation. I also agree in the amount

[00:17:30] work it takes farmers to get there but as a competition I see this as personal growth.

[00:17:38] I think that for us you can generalize flavors in coffee and here's my thing right

[00:17:45] we both used the same coffee and roasted it differently and both ended up winning

[00:17:51] and this is something that's amazing. Everybody can buy the same coffee,

[00:17:54] it's what you do with it otherwise it separates you. That is validation in the

[00:17:59] fact that my career as long as it has been is headed the right way. I don't think you can

[00:18:05] never be satisfied with one way of roasting. I think you need to modify and certainly there

[00:18:11] are people that have influenced us especially over the last year to become better at what we do.

[00:18:19] However, and I've said this before the people who put the coffees into our stock that allowed

[00:18:28] us to roast them, Kvoja and genuine origins this year both represented an amazing quality of coffee

[00:18:38] that then allowed us the joy of fiddling with it to see if we could get done.

[00:18:43] I also wanted to jump in and give a shout out to Hasina Coffee Source because the coffee that

[00:18:51] I submitted was left over from their roasting competition a few weeks prior. Shout out to

[00:18:59] Hasina Coffee Source for the amazing coffee that helped me get a bronze medal.

[00:19:06] That's a thing during our time Cafe Creole by the way hello Joey and staff at Cafe Creole

[00:19:13] has represented a number of medals for us. Their coffee is amazing. We have to look at

[00:19:18] everybody that sold us coffee everywhere from Cafe Zamora by the way much loved to Cafe Zamora,

[00:19:26] La Manita have much loved La Manita. We have to look at the other people who come in and sell

[00:19:33] us even one bag at a time to let us represent what we do well. If we don't have that quality to

[00:19:40] start I don't think we do as well as we do. I will say this all the coffee that we enter

[00:19:46] is actually on our menu. It's something you can actually buy from us. This year like most other

[00:19:52] years we tried to do that. We tried to make that something that's completely accessible.

[00:19:59] So please if you ever want to take a look at what we're doing please let us know.

[00:20:03] Which reminds me we want to talk about getting us closer to 100. We are on the way. We're

[00:20:09] on the way to 100 subscribers. We're going to give some coffee away. Yeah. We're on the way.

[00:20:14] With that said please can you know I'm going to end up getting to our sponsors in a second.

[00:20:19] For the both of us I think Primo Coffee Roasting deserves a huge shout out.

[00:20:25] Beyond the fact they help support us and keep us doing this. Their machine has won us both

[00:20:31] medals all the medals we've won have come off of Primo. I can't give a higher recommendation

[00:20:36] ever. These guys make amazing equipment. They're easy to work with. They step up when

[00:20:42] something's wrong. That interview with Christian a couple of episodes back was very telling.

[00:20:47] Christian is a great guy as is Brandon. Thank you guys. We appreciate all of you. Thank you

[00:20:53] so much for what you do. I think we're going to end it strong. We'll give it to the other

[00:21:00] people out there. We want to thank Kool-Aid Coffee for their support and the upcoming amazing

[00:21:05] single serve device that will be available soon. We also want to say thank you to Seattle Coffee

[00:21:14] Automation for an amazing bagging machine. Thank you guys very much for an amazing,

[00:21:20] amazing relief on our employees to not have to do things by hand. I also want to send a

[00:21:29] shout out to San Cristobal Jacob. Nice to hear from you again. Next year we know that your coffee

[00:21:37] is going to be in there as well. Generally speaking Anna Christie. Hello Anna and Tara Negra.

[00:21:47] By the way, any shout outs from you? Just shout out for Golden Bean for hosting a really great

[00:21:52] event and shout out to all the people that are listening and supporting our show. We hope that

[00:22:02] you'll be able to spread the word with others and share our episodes with your family and friends

[00:22:07] because it would be really nice to be able to give you guys more content and more episodes

[00:22:13] like this with you guys listening and you guys being interactive with the show

[00:22:19] that really helps us and it helps us create content. So any feedback that you have,

[00:22:26] you can always email us at hello at droptemp.coffee where you can email us for any questions,

[00:22:34] inquiries, anything like that. So thank you to all who's listening. Yep the final thing if you

[00:22:40] like Keri and you want to try your coffee you ought to go to roastedbymom.com because

[00:22:46] she's got some great coffee on that website. I smell it every single day. And if you want to try

[00:22:52] Tim's Gold-winning Coffee, Zambia Fruit Cup, check out blindcoffeeroasters.com. Thank you guys have

[00:23:00] a great one we'll see you at the next episode. Thanks guys. Thanks for joining us. If you like

[00:23:07] our podcast or our coffee give us a five star review whenever you listen to podcasts. You

[00:23:16] can either go to roastedmymom.com or roastedmymom.com. Got a question for us? Go ahead and email us at

[00:23:22] hello at droptemp.coffee.