Episode 39 - Terry Casey - The Goshen Grind

We've been living in it since so long.

All

Welcome to episode 39

of Let's Talk Claremont. I am your host, Patrick, and, happy here. Happy you're listening. Thank you for tuning in, and I hope you enjoyed that first taste of snow that we got. It kinda

it made me unreasonably excited for for winter and for Christmas, and Thanksgiving's right around the corner.

I'd I've I'm gonna miss this time of year when it's when it's gone and when we're in, you know, July and it's 90 degrees, and I'm, you know, sweating in the air conditioning. So I'm gonna try to enjoy this time as much as much as I can. So I hope everybody's doing doing good out there.

If you're new here, we'll just briefly go over what we're doing. We're gonna start with some news, then we're gonna go into

our interview, and then we'll wrap things up with events around the county.

So let's get into it.

Let's start off with the, the election results. The unofficial election results are still on the Board of Education's website.

And from what I know, all those vote tallies still stand.

The Loveland Council race, which I believe is the closest at least the closest,

like, council member race,

elected official race,

is still close. And

according to a statement on the city's website,

the volt threshold

has triggered an automatic

recount.

That recount can't begin until each county certifies its results, which must occur by November 25.

After that, the board of election has ten days

to complete the recount. So if you're in Loveland, stay tuned.

I think the results you know, I don't, you know, I don't even wanna speculate on that because I don't know.

So let's just move right along to Claremont as a whole.

Cincinnati's

night of lights is back at the Claremont County Fairgrounds.

Features more than 2,000,000

synchronized lights and holiday music, creating tunnels, animated scenes, and big Christmas displays people can enjoy from their cars.

Runs nightly from late late November through early January from 6PM to 10PM.

Tickets are online and sold per vehicle.

I guess it was more of an event.

I don't know. Seems like it's a cool event, so we'll just keep it here.

Okay. Now for the big one. And before we get into this, I I wanna promise everybody that I'm not just trying to make this a Batavia podcast.

But for whatever reason,

Batavia has got a lot of news coming out of it and especially after the November 5 trustee meeting.

And before we get into this,

I do wanna make a call for any listener that doesn't live in Batavia

and can point me in the right direction for news and issues going on in in your community because we've been talking about Batavia a lot.

And, you know, rightly so, Batavia's got a lot going on. So

with that little preamble,

let's get into some news from Batavia Township.

Now if you remember, there were two projects,

the Drees Home project and

the I can't remember what they're called. Stone Lake Ridge project,

that

went to the, zoning board, and then the trustees voted on it last week, November 5.

So for the Drees Homes project, this is gonna be on the East side of State Route 132, north of Judd Road,

that was approved by the trustees

in the November.

And if you'll recall,

the zoning board

voted on at five zero, which meant it went to the trustees with a recommendation

to approve the development.

They're calling it Arborside.

It's 275

homes on a 124

acres.

There's a traffic impact study that's being reviewed by ODOT and the Clermont County engineer,

and this development will require improvements to State Route 132,

including the addition of north and south run lanes.

The development's going to be served by Batavia Local Schools.

Now the township had a press release on everything we're talking about today, but from the township's press release,

the developer and the property owner have already been approached by the village of Batavia

about annexing into the municipality.

The Batavia Township trustees do not want to see this development annexed into the village

and offered potential tax breaks by the village.

Currently, in the township, the developer is not receiving any tax breaks or incentives.

So that is from

pretty much verbatim from the township's press release.

Now groundbreaking for this development is scheduled in eight to nine months, and the whole thing will take two to three years

to complete.

Next up, Stonelick Ridge project. This is 4632

Ross Road across from Lexington Run.

This was approved by the trustees in the November 5 trustee meeting. Now if you remember, the zoning board voted two two. So this one actually went to the trustees with a recommendation

to deny.

The project is 790

homes on 425

acres

from the township's press release.

At the trustee hearing,

not the zoning hearing, at the trustee hearing, numerous recommendations and requested changes from residents and planning professionals

were implemented into the project plan, including the donation of three acres of property for a future how firehouse

or township park location.

They're also planning a homeorama at the site for according to the press release.

There's a traffic impact study being reviewed by ODOT and the Claremont County engineer, and this development will require improvements to the intersection of State Route 32 in Olive Branch, Stone Lake, which I'm actually quite familiar with because I drive there to go to the gym every morning.

And I could absolutely see how adding 790

homes in that area would require a bit of an improvement

to, to that intersection.

The development will be served by Claremont Northeastern and Batavia Local Schools. Again, this is almost verbatim from the township's press release. The village of Batavia has already approached the developer and property owner about annexing into the village. The trustees do not want to see this develop annexed into the village and then offered potential tax breaks by the village, thereby losing control of the, development process.

The developer is not receiving any tax breaks or incentives from Batavia

Township.

Now groundbreaking is scheduled to occur occur in eight to nine months, and the project will take over ten years

to develop.

Okay. So moving on, the removal of article 36 from the township zoning resolution.

If you recall from the election,

article 36

was removed from the township zoning resolution,

which essentially got rid of planned developments.

However,

the two developments we just discussed will still go through as PDs

since they were before the removal takes place. And any zoning applications already in process

will follow the regulations as adopted until the election results are certified.

Meaning,

until the election results are certified,

PDs are will still be considered by the township.

The township is also reopening the discussion on planned development regulations on Thursday. That'll be today, November 13

at 05:30PM

during their zoning commission meeting at the Batavia Community Center or 1535

Clough Pike,

which will lead us into quite nicely a producer note.

Producer, they wanted to stay anonymous, but here's what they wrote in.

Moving forward, do you feel that Batavia Village has no other choice than to annex a few big subdivisions other places in the township

who actually pay taxes in order to offset the damage that the current village council has done by giving away too many abatements?

And do you feel like the new people voted in will still choose to support the Stonelick project if it comes across their desk? People in Lexington Run are trying to get signatures to block the township's decision.

People in Lexington Run want to know if they should sign. Is the current negotiation a good one? If blocked, the property might still want to sell. Could a worse situation be created by blocking?

No one wants Ross Road opened.

Could the village do that if they annex? I'm assuming they would annex with no tax abatement out of need.

I'm not entirely sure clear about that sentence,

but we'll keep pushing on. The Stone Lick thing would help solidify new fire station with the land for it and extra votes and funding.

The village itself definitely doesn't want more traffic in the village,

but how do they feel about the density of the Stonelick project since it sits so far away from the actual village?

So

I thought we'd talk about this note, especially since it sounds like there's a petition going around to overturn the trustees vote to go forward with the stone project.

And to be clear, the producer couldn't confirm that there is a petition going around, only that they heard about it. So take that under consideration.

I I haven't been able to confirm that there's an actual petition going around.

That's just what this producer heard.

So,

I also want to be clear since we're gonna get into this.

I'm a Batavia Township resident, and I do have opinions on what's going on with the development and the tensions

between the village and the township. And I've said this before that I'm not gonna be shy about my opinions if asked.

That said, I'm gonna try to talk about this as unbiased as I possibly can

because I don't I don't wanna influence your decision

that much. So

with all of that said,

let's kinda go over the note.

So as to whether or not the village has no other choice to annex big subdivisions,

into the village, I you know, I'm sure they have a lot of options. I mean, there's lots of ways to do things

and accomplish goals,

but it seems like annexation and tax abatements are the tools that the village has chosen to accomplish

whatever their development goals are. So, no, I don't think they have any other choice, but it seems like this is the choice they have made.

And in all honesty,

the village

I don't know about tight lipped, but

they haven't been very forthcoming. And I've tried to get someone on from the village,

but I just haven't been able to. And I do know there is one interview that I know of with village administrator Ken Geiss,

and I'll link that in the newsletter. But other than that, I haven't

seen

many people from the village go on record to talk about any of this. So

I I can't really

presume

what the thoughts of the village are. It'd be great to have somebody on to talk to them about it. I just haven't been able to get that done. And, frankly, I don't think anybody else has either.

Okay. So whether or not the new trustee board will support the Stone Lick project or developments in general,

I can't really say that either. I don't wanna speculate

on what they may or may not do. I can tell you I've interviewed Rex Parsons,

a current and incoming trustee, and Danielle Wessel, an incoming trustee, as well as Karen Schwartz, the township administrator, and Taylor Corbett, who's the township zoning director.

And all of those people don't seem to flatly

oppose developments,

but they did seem to express a want to slow things down and think through developments

before giving them a green light, which I think is fair.

I mean, I guess Rex is a current trustee, and he did support this development. So that kind of answers where Rex stands on everything.

As for whether or not it's a good deal, that too, I can't really say. But from the press releases,

it seems like both developers have previously built in the township, and it seems like that work was well done.

I will say too to go through zoning and the trustees and everything like that,

this has had a lot of eyes on it. So

my guess would be this is about as good a deal as you're gonna get.

Could you potentially make a worse situation by signing a petition that eventually gets stone lick, zoning on the ballot?

Maybe.

But, again, I'm not a 100% sure about this, and this is mostly because there are lots of different things that could happen

if that petition got enough signatures and if there was a referendum on the ballot and if that ref referendum actually did pass, effectively blocking the stone development.

For instance, I'm pretty sure the developer can just resubmit of a zoning request with updated plans and for one reason or another, that could go through and

the development happens.

And the village could absolutely annex the property. And from the press releases, it sounds like they're already trying to do that.

If a referendum passes, meaning that the development is blocked because we voted on it and said we don't want this development,

the developer could also sue the township.

And this could result in a long and expensive legal battle.

Now it is important to note that depending on how the township is set up,

they might not have to bear all these legal costs. There are mechanisms that exist that kind of create a pool of money

for

a bunch of different municipalities

to to draw from for legal battles like this. But I don't know 100% of the township is set up like that. So keep that in mind.

Also, from what I found, it is hard for a developer to win a suit like this unless something in the process was not handled correctly.

And that's usually means that something wasn't right with the petitions.

Either the petition language wasn't right or they left off a map or something like that.

But assuming the petitions and the process was done right, the developer would have to if they want to sue, the developer would have to argue that the zoning is either arbitrary

or there is no other suitable economic use for the land, and that's hard to prove.

And, again, that's from what I found, and it it doesn't often succeed for the developer. So

that said, you know, this is still time and resources that's tied up in a legal battle that can take anywhere from one to four years. So, yeah, I mean, that that could make a situation you don't like worse.

If the development is blocked, it also sends a signal that and amongst the other signals from the previous election, but it'll send a signal that Batavia Township isn't open for business.

Meaning that the township becomes less attractive to developers, and we see a drop off of development activity, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. It just depends on on what your perspective is.

Now

based on the election results, Batavia Township is not interested in more residential developments.

Both the removal of article 36 and the referendum against the farmstead development

passed with really wide margins. So I think it's fair to say the township residents know what they don't want, and they don't want more residential developments.

But the next step then is to figure out what we do want.

Growth is coming to Clermont County. That is just a fact. I mean, it just is.

But

I don't think growth has to be synonymous with development or synonymous

with adding more people to our population.

It can be evolving and changing and focusing on what kinds of things we want in the township.

So we know what we don't want. Now we need to decide what we do want, and then we need to take action.

And that action can be as simple as emailing trustees and letting them know what you think or asking them questions.

I found everybody at the township to be very responsive to emails and very, very helpful,

you know, as long as you're polite and, you know, you're asking good questions.

If you're asking silly questions and you're rude, well, you know, you're probably gonna be treated accordingly.

And in any event so

just talk to your trustees. Let them let them know. Let them know what you're thinking. Ask them questions. That's why they're there.

Our elected officials are there to work for us, and they're there to listen to us and to take questions from us. So do that.

You could also form lobby groups. I mean,

local lobby groups. It should be the same idea as larger lobbies

in Washington, DC. It's just a group of people

that has some monetary backing, and they actively lobby local government for changes. You can create that. It doesn't

I mean, I don't know the legal classifications and everything. Like, how do you start that up? But, I mean, essentially, all you need is a bunch of people, like minded people,

and a little bit of backing, and you can go lobby for changes. You could also create a PAC, a political action committee that funds election local election campaigns,

and support candidates that support what you want. I mean, those are those are all things we can do. There's lots of things we can do.

But the first step is defining what we want, which is why I keep asking everybody what the character of our county or township or villages.

That's the key thing we all need to agree on.

We have a lot of power and we can build our communities and our township

however we like.

It just takes vision and a little bit of work.

And so there was a little bit of opinion here, but but here's where I'll get really not really opinionated, but I'll get a little more opinionated.

Like I said, I live in the township, and I like living in the township because it has a rural feel.

We used to live in Felicity. We were on 10 acres. It was beautiful, but it was forty minutes to a Kroger.

It

where I live now has that same rule fear feel, but it's fifteen minutes to a to a grocery store. I really like that.

And I don't like subdivisions.

And frankly, I don't wanna live next to one. Now some people do like subdivisions, and they do wanna live in them, and that's fine. They're just not for me.

Now as much as I don't want a subdivision around my home, I am also a very big believer in property rights. Rights. And that I believe you should be able to do just about anything, you know, within reason.

Anything you want with your property. And I certainly don't begrudge landowners for making decisions that benefit them economically,

which most of the time means selling to developers.

So

in my mind,

blocking these developments is kind of a short term solution that doesn't really solve the problem we're trying to solve.

Which is if if the township doesn't want any more residential

developments, just blocking a few of them,

Yeah. It might send a message, but the development pressure is still gonna be there. And you need an outlet for that pressure. So the problem really is there are no other financially attractive options for landowners

that want to see a profit from their investment.

Attractive options outside of selling to developers.

So

if we don't want more residential development,

then we need to make some other kind of land use as economically attractive

as selling to developers, and I think that's possible.

You know, economic development tools extend well beyond CRAs, TIFs, and JEDs.

There are agricultural economic development tools, just for an example.

And it incentivizes

keeping land agricultural. It incentivizes

beginning farmers.

There's things like that. There's also conservation groups that will buy the land and keep it a green space.

So there are options.

But I think the key here is focusing on the right issue, and that issue

is developers are the only game in town. If you

want,

to make a profit off your land,

that's who you're gonna sell to. And

that's just kinda how the world works.

So that's kind of the opinion part of this. And I'll caveat all caveat all of this with I am not an expert in economic development.

I am not a lawyer. This is all just my thoughts and

stuff I could find via the Internet.

But I am gonna try to find a lawyer that works with developments and zoning to come on and talk about this stuff. I'm also gonna try to find an economic development expert from outside the county so that they're not biased

to come on and talk about different economic development strategies and and how different approaches to economic development and things like that.

I'd also like to get a developer on. And, actually, I think I'll I'll try to get the developer from,

the Stone Lick development. Try to get him on. Just have him talk about what he's trying to do,

and talk about how developments work. I think that'd be good to hear from a developer,

you know, the things that they do. So

that's all I got for I guess you'd call that a bit of an opinion piece. And a big thank you to the anonymous producer that sent in that boots on the ground report. It's really helpful to get boots on the ground reports about what's going on in communities.

For instance, I didn't know there was potentially a petition going around to, to overturn,

the trustees

decision. So

very thank you very, very,

very much. And

thank you to all the producers that donated under $50

for reasons of anonymity.

I did not get any holiday notes from the donations. But if you did donate this round and you would like a holiday message, please be sure to send a note to info@let'stalkclaremont.com

with your name, donation amount, and a short holiday message, and I'll get that in the next show. And, we're doing all of that because we are running a holiday donation special.

Now until January 1, we are having a half off donation special where producers that donate $25 and above will get a special mention, and they can tack on a short holiday message. And when I say short, I mean a well constructed sentence. I'm not gonna read off a paragraph long sentence that wouldn't be very fair to anybody that might donate $200 and above.

So so donate today. Take advantage of the half off special.

Also, if you want to donate and you still wanna remain anonymous while we're running this special,

just don't send it a note, and that should be good enough to keep you under the radar.

And we do all of this because we are a value for value podcast. What that means is you decide what the show is worth and you give back that value in the form of

time, talent, and treasure.

This model is what's gonna keep us independent, and it's gonna keep us focused on the things that matter to the people in Clermont County.

And one of the most important ways that you can give back value is with time, and that is simply to tell people about the podcast.

Word-of-mouth is a really big deal, especially for podcast. That's pretty much all I find. All the podcasts, I like.

So if this show brings you value, tell people about it. Share it on social media.

It'll really help just get the word out about what we're doing here.

Also, I know I mentioned it before, but let me know what the character of our county is. I really think if we can define this well, then we can create

communities that

everybody

is is proud and enjoy, you know, proud of and enjoy.

And I'm gonna keep asking. If you're interested in sending a high school sending in a high school sports rundown,

get in touch. I'd like to add a little high school sports segment here. I just don't have time to pay attention to all the high school sports going on.

It could be a write up. It could be you recording yourself, whatever.

Just get in touch, and we'll figure it out.

Now for treasure. You you can go to the website. Click donate. You can donate via PayPal or Stripe. And with PayPal, you can do reoccurring donations.

And any

dollar amount is greatly appreciated. It helps us stay independent. It helps us grow the show.

Helps us keep the lights on. Helps us keep doing this.

Any dollar amount, very, very appreciated. But, like I said earlier, for producers, until January 1, for producers that donate $25 and above, you will get a producer

I'm sorry, a special mention on the show and a brief holiday message read on air. For 200 and above, you will get an executive producer credit, and I will read a full note. And that note can be anything.

My my mother is actually,

threatened

to donate. Not all about threatened, but,

she said she might actually donate $200 and send in a very embarrassing note about how much she loves her baby boy.

So what I'm saying that because literally just about anything I will read, I'm not gonna read some hate manifesto or, you know, why your neighbor Bob is a jerk. Well, I don't know. Maybe I will read why your neighbor Bob is a jerk. Within reason, I'll read any note.

And a quick note on the notes. If you do donate above $25,

please email info@let'stalkclaremont.com

with your name and donation amount so I can match it up on the back end. If you don't do that, I won't know who you are, and I won't be able to mention you on the show.

And, again, if you want to remain anonymous while the special is running, just don't send in enough.

And as always, you can connect with us on Facebook, Let's Talk Claremont podcast. We're on Instagram at Let's Talk Claremont. We got that newsletter.

I'm still

trying to figure out ways to spice it up a little bit, but there'll be stuff in there.

Links to the news that we have, you know, special requests, things like that. And it'll come out we only mail you once when a show comes out. So it'll let you know when a show comes out, which is pretty handy.

And, of course, please follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever it is you use for podcast helps show up, and it helps you out because you'll be notified

anytime a new show goes live. And if you wanna send in boots in the ground reports or just say hi,

info@let'stalkclairemont.com.

Let me know what's going on in your world.

Alright. That's all we got for value for value. Let's talk about who we're talking to next Thursday.

It will be Dave Carraway, the owner of Sons of Toil.

Now I know Sons of Toil is not in Clermont, but

it's close enough. And they sell beer at the Bean and Brew, so

I figured why not.

And we talk about how we started the brewery, the brewing process, what it's like starting and growing a small business,

talk about some of the events they have, like stand up comedy, which I didn't realize they did and sounds really fun.

So that's who we're talking to. And I really enjoyed the conversation, and I think you will too. So tune in next week to hear that.

But today,

we are talking with Terry Casey, the owner of Goshen Grind.

I can't remember where in the episode we talked about it, but we did talk about the mural project he was trying to get done for the America two fifty murals. They're trying to raise money for it,

but they've already done that. And the ribbon cutting was last week. So,

again, apologies to Terry for having to put this episode on the back burner while we did all these election interviews.

I really didn't anticipate all the inter having as many interviews as we did. And next year, we're gonna try to plan for that a little bit better. But I'm really glad that they got that done, and it's a really good looking mural.

And the mural isn't everything we talked about.

We go pretty deep in the coffee, and I think Terry would probably agree. He's a bit of a coffee nerd.

We also talk about how they built the grind. He moved here from the West Coast and started a coffee shop in Goshen, which is pretty cool if you ask me.

But I really enjoyed the interview, and I enjoyed the coffee. So if you are in Goshen or around Goshen, check out the Goshen Grind if you're looking for,

I would say a pretty quality cup of Joe. So

alright.

With all of that said,

let's get into the interview, and I hope you enjoy.

And I start all of these with just tell us who you are and what you do. Alright. I'm Terry Casey, my wife, Julie.

We own Goshen Grind

coffee shop in Goshen.

Nice. How long have you lived in Goshen a long time? Probably we're close to twenty years in Goshen. Okay.

And we've been open for nine and a half years, give or take. What brought you to Goshen originally?

Well,

we had moved back from the West Coast, and we were looking for a a place to raise the kids.

And when we checked out Goshen,

it's rural enough for me, but urban enough for her. So you like the rural Oh, yeah. I

remember driving the kids to school, and there was traffic all of a sudden out of on a side on a side street.

And I was like, what's going on? Was there an accident?

No. There was a flock of wild turkeys going through a field, and everybody stopped to, like, check them out, to watch where they were going. I was like, alright. This is a cool place. I love this. I can handle this. Yeah. Yeah. So I instantly fell in love with Goshen.

There's lots of history here. There's,

one of our friends is a bus driver or was a bus driver. Like a school bus driver? School bus driver. And he took a photo of three generations

Really? That he drove to school That's kinda wild. Before he retired. And I was like, alright. People really put in roots here.

And,

yeah, we just we fell in love with it, and, I was a chef before.

And the dream of opening my own restaurant was always there, but it that's just a huge, huge,

thing to get.

And I was sitting there drinking coffee, and I'm like, man, it really needs to be a good coffee shop in town. And I was like, how do we do that? You know?

So, yeah,

originally from the West Coast and Whereabouts on the West Coast?

Portland and, I have family from Seattle to LA, but mainly Portland, Oregon was where we we lived, both Which one did I can't remember which one's the rainy one. Is that Seattle? Seattle is rainy. Portland isn't dry. Where did Nirvana come from? Seattle. Seattle. That's where the grunge came from. Yeah.

But, like, Downtown Portland has had 32 Starbucks.

Just Starbucks. Yeah. And then you can count all of the other chains and the mom and pop places at, like, every corner you could find a coffee shop. And when we came to Goshen, I was like, there's the gas station. That's it. That's it. That's it, man. UDF coffee. None of them are open early or early enough for me. I was, driving down 28 at 04:30, 05:00 in the morning,

and I'm like, I need something. Yeah. So that's why we started talking, and

this property

had been vacant for many years.

And I I was looking at it. It's like, well, there's a traffic light so everybody can get back on 28. Yeah. It's got a big

parking lot, drive through. It was an old This is It was the first bank

Oh, okay. In Goshen.

And so it even had the original drive thru window in there. It was a bunch of kooky stuff. But,

yeah, it was just a perfect location

for everything I knew about coffee shops and

so

we

did a lot of praying, a lot of wishing, you know, told all our family members about it, and luckily, our parents,

both

of us, had

investment

Yeah. Through our parents, and they're like, we think you can do it. You got it. You know? Yeah. So they help us get started.

And,

the first

five years, I worked seven days a week, open to close. And then Julie's an accountant by trade. So she handy. She does really handy. Yeah. Yeah. And you got a money woman. That's good. Right? If you wanna open a food service business,

marry an accountant. Yeah. Just, she'll keep you straight. In general. You know? Like, marry an accountant if you want your books clean. Yes.

So,

and I think those two skill sets really helped us,

grow to where we are now because, you know, I'll have a crazy idea

or she'll have a crazy idea, and it's either

we can't do that with the space. I don't know how to make that, or you can't afford You can't afford that. So

we we keep each other in check for the most part on that. And,

yeah, I mean, I love coffee. I have always loved coffee and,

really just I get to nerd out about it. You know, we we've met,

some actual coffee farmers. Oh, really? Yeah. It was really Where whereabouts?

One did a seminar in Cincinnati.

She was from Honduras. Okay. And she explained how she turned her her father's,

large scale operation into

small batch Yeah. Shade grown,

and, everybody

said she was crazy.

And then the next thing you know,

tourist, bird watching tours Oh, sure.

Said, hey. You've got all this forest around your coffee plantation. Let's bring some bird watchers through.

We'll give you, you know, $10 a person,

and then,

when we're done, we'll all go get coffee from you. Yeah. So she had this entire second revenue source That's by not cutting down the trees. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So,

you know, conversations like that, hearing how they did things. And then, we went to

the Coffee Fest downtown Cincinnati, and I got to go to a seminar with, some deeper roots guys Yeah. Who talked about coffee on a botanist

level. Yeah. Like, super serious about the actual plant and how they, you know, splice things together and they're growing.

It's like, that's amazing. That's I never even thought about that, but I got to try a test

coffee that hadn't even been named yet. It just had a number. Was it good? Oh, it was really really good. It was really good. But apparently, you have to have

the coffee plant growing

for multiple years before you're allowed to market it and name it. Really? Yeah. So this is like an international law? Yeah. Really? To make sure it's a viable

product. Okay. Because you gotta have, like, the the, what would you call it, breed or Right. Whether you gotta stabilize the genetics before you can actually It's It's on a huge, like, totally nerd level of coffee drinking, you know. Like, I just drank T N Dash345.

It was amazing. I didn't even need cream.

I didn't even need cream. Yeah. So, you know, we really jumped in headfirst and,

you know, tried to drink as much coffee as I could, research about coffee as much as I can, and,

you know,

both of us now are like, where's the coffee? We go out of town, we're like, we gotta find a mom and pop coffee shop. We can't stop at a, you know, big chain or anything like that. I don't know what happened to Starbucks, but it's just over the years that quality has gone down. Well, so

Starbucks really started the third wave business, and they, you know, before it was like Folgers, Maxwell House,

because they were the only ones that could afford to bring over

large quantities of green beans.

So Starbucks started by

over roasting on purpose.

Okay. So this That's why everything tastes Yeah. That's why everything takes burnt because they burned it on purpose because,

in the fifties and sixties,

they actually roasted coffee to not have flavor. Really? They wanted it baseline.

No highs. No lows. Nothing different. The same type of cup every single I guess you want consistency. Right? Right. Like, if you're a giant corporation Yeah. Folgers, you can't have inconsistent Right. Just a colophonist. So they were making, you know,

coffee that tasted like brown water on purpose so that every cup you had tasted like brown water. Right. And Starbucks came out with this darkening darkening roast and, you know, the the beans are almost sticky. The oils

are coming out of them. So they really started the trend of,

coffee tasting different everywhere. Right.

So I get you gotta give them props. Yeah. I mean Oh, yeah. I'm not saying, like, when they first came out, that was

you drink a Starbucks, you know, I've never had coffee like this. Yeah. My god. What have I been missing? That was what they intended to do. And by doing that and then the market has slowly grown away from,

I don't want something to slap me in the face. Yeah. You know? I want Kinda like beers and IPAs. Yeah. Yeah. It's like people were leaning really heavy into the hot Oh, yeah. And I think now people are like, you know, I wouldn't mind a lager. Yeah. Like, just Let's let's try something

different that doesn't, you know, dry up every ounce of moisture out of my mouth. Yeah.

So,

you know, we got into

single origin coffees and

finding out more about where the beans come from

and how they market or how they grow.

Like I said, I talked to the Honduran farmer Katya, and,

you know, it was

her and the people in the village around her. Mhmm. And

that was it. Yeah. I mean, they're still using, like, shovels and rakes. They're not out there with giant farm equipment doing Imagine something like the the stuff you get from Folgers and everything. That's highly mechanized.

More mechanized, but also not graded. So if you imagine a barrel of coffee beans.

Yeah. The bottom of the barrel

gets thrown into the mix of

randomness. Yeah. So if you're not really caring about highs and lows and you're just going to

put some darker roast, lighter roast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So and then there's acidity levels and things like that.

Well, before we get it because I do want to get into the nerdy stuff with

okay. You said you started as a chef out in on the West Coast. What kind of restaurants did you? I've done everything from cafeteria to fine dining. Yeah. You know, greasy spoon diners and,

I absolutely love

well, what I thought was I loved cooking. Yeah. But it turned out I love feeding people more. Yeah.

So people always ask me what's your favorite thing to cook? And I was like, I don't know. What do you wanna eat? You know? That's that'll be my favorite thing. Yeah. I'm not really, like,

you know, top chef, flimflam.

You know, you're gonna get meat and potatoes if you want meat and potatoes.

I might garnish it with some chopped herbs or something, but it's more important that, hey. I just made you dinner, and, the herbs are from my garden. The zucchinis are from down the street. You know, things like that

were more important for me.

And

I absolutely love the culinary,

the

food service business,

but,

it's not really like life sustaining.

Yeah. It'll tear you up.

I've worked as a bouncer

and a bartender

slash

server. Not for very long. Right. But, I mean, it's

it's kind of a wild life. Yeah. It is. I mean, birthdays,

I mean, I was just talking to the Plain Street Cafe people, and the restaurant manager and the bartender were there. And, you know, they'd have long careers in the service industry. And, you know, they've worked in restaurants, and then, like, the sales side, like, selling food and

stuff like that. So I guess my point is there's a career to be had if want Oh, definitely. But you gotta love it. You gotta like it. Julie always called it, being a culinary widow because Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday, holidays, my birthday. She's like, aren't you gonna take your day off?

No. I I gotta party. I gotta I gotta go prep, you know, 700 pounds of chicken tonight. Yeah. I'll be like, That's the other thing too in the and especially in the restaurant industry. It's like if you don't show up or you call off, they'll just find somebody else to do it. Yeah. There's

no oh, we'll do that work tomorrow. No. No. No. It's it's not what works from

home. Take this 50 pounds of potatoes home and peel it. No. No. No. No. You gotta be That's not what works.

So and, you know, as bad as some of the days, you know, eighteen, twenty hour shifts,

you know, working for somebody else, cutting

blood, sweat, and tears quite literally,

it really helped prepare me for

owning your my own business and operating. Well, especially in the service industry. I mean, you're constantly putting out fires. Oh, yeah. It's like dinner service is nothing but putting fires out. Yeah. You know? It's like trying to juggle all your tables, making sure they're all happy. Mhmm. Inevitably, somebody's not happy.

Absolutely. You're you're not gonna please everybody. No. My mom, she was an event planner, and she said you can only please 50% of the people 50% of the time. If you're doing that, you're doing you're doing a pretty good job. Pat yourself on the back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So how did you get into coffee? I mean, so you went from chef to to coffee. Is it Right. Did you already enjoy coffee? Oh, yeah. Is it a big Coffee was like, you know,

necessity of life. Yeah. You know, working that as many hours as I did,

in the kitchens and late hours. I was always drinking coffee.

And then,

you know,

somebody was like, oh, have you tried that cat poop coffee?

I'm like, no. I don't know if that's for me. Was it really called cat poop coffee? Well, there's a fancy name for the actual cat, but,

original

Kopi Luwak. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know it. It was in, the bucket list. Yeah. Yeah. My dad watched that and thought it was hilarious. I think he wanted to buy this coffee. I was like, no. That's Yeah. Gross.

So twenty, thirty years ago, it was a natural product. Like, the people picking the coffee beans

would find these

turds Yeah. And pick them up and save them. Yeah. And it was, the coffee beans actually fermented in the intestinal tract of this cat.

Well, once people realized they could get $500

a pound for it, they started, like, breeding and capturing these animals Yeah. Keeping them in cages and force feeding them coffee just to collect that. Part of it too was is the the wild cats, they would because their nose they had a good nose for it. They would they would find, like, the perfectly ripe beans. They would only eat the specific

Yeah. Bean that they liked. And you're, like, force feeding them. Right. Yeah. So now that's kinda yeah.

So don't don't get it. You know, try it if you want to, but don't don't, mortgage your house to buy into it.

But it was things like that that got me interested in

the deeper,

coffee, like, finding out about the honey method or, you know The honey method? Yes.

So after they pick the coffee

coffee is a cherry, basically, is what they call it, and

the bean is actually the pit. Okay. So it's not a real bean. But so they'll pick the cherries. They'll lay them out in the sun,

and

the more they stir that is the different levels of honey. Okay. So a pure honey, they just leave it out, and the sun will sun dry the cherry on the outside,

and it'll start the fermentation

process naturally,

and then they remove it in the paper that is around the bean.

But it creates a different flavor. Okay. Different profile. Well, I guess, actually, I don't mean to interrupt you. Yeah. Could you just give a basic overview of how coffee gets from the little cherry fruit to my cup?

So

not to be too complicated, but there's many ways. So they'll pick the,

pick the cherries,

and,

Katya once said,

it'll look like a pack of Skittles. So if you imagine a cluster of grapes Mhmm. On the grapevine,

but each one is a different color. Okay. So they only want the red ones.

So if So each bunch has different colors. So you have to go into the bunch Yes. And get the ripe ones. So on the perfect harvest,

they're all red. Okay. And she showed us a picture that, you know, is if you Google coffee cherry,

this picture of these bright red cherries on the branch,

Katya said that would make her cry.

That is that is the Mona Lisa.

You know?

That means you come in and harvest once. Yeah.

Instead of the pack of Skittles,

you have to keep bringing people back out to harvest your beans. So once they do that, though,

Ethiopia, they do a water method. Okay.

So they put them in a big tank of water, and when they sink or float, they pull them out.

Costa Rica, other countries like that will do the honey method. We'll lay them out, dry them. There's,

another mechanical way that you can put them into, like, a pulper. Okay. So it doesn't break the bean, but it chews the cherry off of it. Okay.

Almost like peeling a potato. So this is all ways to get the fruit off of the pit. That's all at the beginning. And the longer they leave the cherry on the bean,

the different flavor, more fermented flavor, the acidity will come through or the sweetness. You're starting a fermentation process. Okay. And,

once they remove the bean from the cherry, well, then it's dried again.

You know, they screen it out, try to get all of the branches

and thumbnails or fingernails, things like that out of there. And then

they're taken

over

they, you know, they transport to a roaster

who then roast the beans

to however they like. And if you're familiar with any of wine drinking, sommeliers

Yeah. Yeah.

They're in the coffee world too. Yeah. And they actually have the coffee flavor wheel

at our roasters.

And it's like,

one of the sections is, like, rotten cheese Yeah. And bad socks. And I was like, why would this even be on there? I feel like sommeliers

are just having a laugh with some of the Some of the descriptions. Some of the descriptions they have. I think one guy

because my wife really likes wine. And we'll go to China. I went to Jungle Jim's, and they've got a really good wine guy there. Oh, yeah. Like, you go and you tell him kind of But you can even tell him, like, the specific

feeling you're trying to evoke at your dinner party, and he'll be like, oh, I've got the perfect wine for you, and he does. But he was like, oh, this tastes just like pencil lead. I was like, what?

I thought first off, how do how do you know what pencil lead is? Who's licking their pencils that way? Well, yeah. I know. It's just I think they're having a laugh. Yeah. I don't like stinky cheese and dirty socks. Right. That that's not those aren't enjoyable. Why?

Impossible. Well, they told me that they're on there so that you can identify that off flavor. Okay. It's not just the good stuff you wanna identify, but the bad stuff. So you know that there's an issue with the beans Yeah. Or was it over roasted or something like that.

Julie and I went to a cupping class where they actually,

they take the grounds, boiling hot water, and you slurp it with a spoon and spit it out. So it's a lot like a wine tasting, but Yeah. Yeah. A little less enjoyable because you're it's so hot. I was gonna say.

But

she

so they laid out the cups, and they're like, write down what you

think you taste.

Mhmm. No no restrictions.

Just just do that. She wrote down beef stew.

I was like,

what?

Where do you get beef stew?

So in my mind, I'm trying to imagine a big pot of beef stew, and I go to take a taste, and I was like,

it's roasted vegetables,

roasted carrots, roasted salad. Well, to be fair, you are a chef. Yeah. But I totally way you have a palate. Yeah. I could totally

get her direction of where she tasted the stew because this the beans just tasted

overwhelming

roasted,

vegetables. So,

you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So you taste something, I taste something, we could

imagine it being completely different. But with coffee then, the aroma

has different notes. The palate has different notes.

I try to tell my employees to try the coffee cold Mhmm. And hot

because when it's cold, you it'll stay on your palate longer, and you'll be able to pick out some other flavors. Do you ever dilute it with well, I know that, like, with Scotch and whiskies. Right. Yeah. You wanna put a little bit of water in there just to kinda open the Scotch up or the whiskey. And that's the same way by bringing it down in temperature. You can keep it in your mouth without, you know, needing the emergency room. Right. And then swoosh it around there and try to get your entire, row of taste buds, not just one part of it, which is when it's hot, you're just drinking it really fast, and you'll get the finish, but you won't get the beginnings.

I I tend to pick up a lot more of the acids in coffee.

Is that just your particular palate? That's just my particular palate. I drink black coffee all the time.

So lower acid coffees typically are darker roasted, and I that's just what I prefer. Yeah. But nobody had really defined it or told me that's why I like darker coffee. Yeah. Yeah. So after tasting, you know, a thousand different kinds, I'm like, you know what?

I don't like the acid. Yeah. I like yeah. So,

you know, and again, this is like a rabbit hole of coffee that you can use that. I didn't know I was gonna show up and go down a rabbit hole of coffee, but I'm not angry about it. Yeah. And,

I've had several people, like, start a conversation, get in their cup of coffee, and I was like, oh, you gotta you gotta tell me if you can taste hints of melon. Imagine cutting open a cantaloupe and smelling it instantly. That's what this tastes like. And they're like,

it's, you know, it's 06:00 in the morning. Yeah. I I tried to get to work. I gotta go I gotta go to work. Stop talking. Yeah. It's like, oh, sorry.

I'm already 12 cups in by the time the coffee gets here, so

I can be chatty.

Do you wanna talk about different regions of coffee? Oh, sure. And that's something if you're just buying, like, you know, store brand,

any of the brands, Folgers, Maxwell House, any of those,

they'll say, like, 100% arabica. Well, 99.9%

of the beans sold in America are arabica. 100 arabica. So I'm trying to find a Robusto blend just so that I can start tasting those because nobody nobody has them.

But the Arabica beans are higher in flavor,

lower in caffeine.

Okay. So the Robusto,

higher in caffeine, lower in flavor.

It still tastes like coffee, but it's gonna be those

dark,

almost like cocoa powder or bittersweet cocoa,

flavors. So it's not that it's bad, but it's just not the American palate.

So It's kinda like European dark chocolate and milk chocolate. Right. Right. Right. We would prefer a Hershey bar to a baker's chocolate, but

who

wouldn't? Europeans, apparently. Right. Right. So

and,

the different regions and the way they,

dry out the beans and the cherries and, you know, you you look at Juan Valdez

was a marketing guy. Yeah. He wasn't a real person. He was a dentist Yeah. That they found, and they're like, hey. Handpicked by Juan Valdez.

It was a great idea. But

having that growing up and then trying a single origin Colombian coffee,

that I can pinpoint it down to, like, the

the county. Yeah.

That is Do you have

Yeah. We have a couple right now that they give us as much information as they can on it. Go ahead. Some of the farms actually have gotten pictures of the the owners of the farm or the family that owns it. And,

so it's really great. Oh, okay. I can see this guy. I can be that guy. I could you know, he could live next door to me. I don't know. And then you taste it, and you're like,

woah. Juan Valdez messed up. He picked the wrong beans because this guy's got it. This guy's got yeah. So and then, like, Ethiopian beans tend to be fruity. Okay. And we've gotten a couple through the store that,

I wanna say it was Urbana that had an Ethiopian. Mhmm. I'd almost taste There's, like, two or three yeah. Two or three cities,

that are the mass producers in Ethiopia.

And, the I had one that was strawberries. Yeah. And this guy brought it back, and he's like, why'd you put jam in my coffee?

What are you talking about? It's a black cup of coffee. He's like, all I taste is strawberries. And I was like, oh, let me give you something other than Ethiopia. So sorry. But, yeah, strawberries, blueberries,

very, very fruity. And it's just the soil and how they treat the beans. I'm not sure. It's not like wine. You know? Oh, it's amazing the different soils. It's packed. It's amazing the references. Terroir, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. And then,

you know, the mocha

that everybody knows, thanks to Starbucks, the mocha latte, that's actually a city in Yemen. Oh, I didn't know. Yeah. And the coffee that was grown there

naturally tasted chocolatey. Really? So, you know, back in the days of pirate ships, they're like, oh, what is that you're drinking? Oh, it's Mocha.

It's from Mocha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's from Mocha. And that term, that city is now

I didn't even know Mocha latte was referring to a particular type of coffee bean or coffee. Well, the mocha latte that we know now is chocolate, espresso, and steamed milk. So it's a chocolaty coffee. Right. But But it's called the origins

come from that city

that,

their coffee just naturally tastes chocolate. That's wild. And then,

Java

Yeah. That that's an island Yep. In Indonesia,

one of my favorites.

And you you know, what what are you drinking? A cup of java. Cup of java. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where those names come from. So I really like taking it,

a vacation in a cup, you know. Like, like it or hate it,

it's neat to say, like, I can I can picture this place? I can see it on a map. I can look it up on, you know, Google, see what's going on in that country or that city.

So it's it's really great.

Hawaii and Jamaica

are the two coldest growing coffee regions Okay. In the world,

which is why

the Kona beans are amazing. They're great. So is the Jamaican Blue Mountain,

but they'll never get rated

as high as the other beans Yeah. From Central And South America because of the temperature that they're growing. Although, I don't know. Although So it kinda gives it a bad name. Yeah. I mean, there's so many things, like, you know, for years and years and years, people would consider it bad. Yeah. And then suddenly, people discover something else and, you know, they Well, it's like California wine versus French wine. That's that's that's a great example. Old world and new world wine. Well,

just because it's, you know, from

a block over doesn't make it worse. You know? Let's let's taste it. Let's give them a try. So,

a a lot of the coffee

language that we have now is just from,

I don't wanna say ignorance. That seems kinda mean, but,

what our parents and our grandparents had as coffee Yeah. That was it. That was there were no choices. There wasn't

oh, like, give me a triple macchiato.

No. There was that wasn't around.

So we are in this third wave. It's

they call it the third wave. It's not work. It's not home. It's the coffee shop. And you're there for an experience. You're there to, like I said, take a vacation in a cup, try a different country that you haven't tried before, and

see what it's like. Yeah. So what what are some of your favorite regions and and why? I do like the darker roast. So the Javas, the Sumatras,

typically are my favorites.

They have a light cocoa,

but not overly chocolate.

I appreciate the Ethiopians, but sometimes that the fruit can really, like, wow. Yeah. I didn't want to taste strawberries.

You know, the Mexico has some great beans.

Puerto Rico was actually getting ready to, I mentioned Robusto.

They actually were getting ready to release,

a premium Robusto

Okay. Coffee. And then that, hurricane came through and wiped them out. That sucks. So, yeah. I was like, oh, that was so close.

So,

you know, in all of these regions, people are experimenting.

The newer generations are like, hey.

Grandpa and dad did it this way, but we can do it differently, and let's see what happens. I think it's happening in,

well, a lot of industries. Yeah. Farming in particular, I think more and more

younger farmers are coming online with, like, drones and mapping. Right. Different ideas. Like, tons of different ideas. Yeah. So before, they would clear the rainforest or clear the land and start growing. Yeah. And then after five years, they rip those up, plant again, and rip those And you ruin the soil. Yeah. Those are just killing the soil. You're not really trying to get the best coffee bean. You're just trying to get the most.

So now that the small batch or single origin beans are coming out, these farmers are like, hey. If I do it

the way I wanna do it, that I've dreamed of doing it, I can actually charge more Yeah. Because it's it's cool. Yeah. You know?

So,

that whole wave of things just means there's there's gonna be even more cool and different coffees coming down the roads in the air.

Surprisingly enough, there are a few countries

that, still to this day,

a woman

cannot sell beans. Can't sell them? No. Really? So if the female takes over the plantation,

I wanna say Ethiopia is one of them. I could see that. Guadalupe,

maybe?

So every country has, like, different rules and regulations. You I couldn't just go down there and start planting coffee and being a farmer. Yeah.

Well, again, not to draw too many parallels, but it's kinda, I think, the same in France and Italy with wine. It has to be this. It has to be. You have to do this. You have to do that. Well and

then take it another step further, there's countries that you have to,

get approval

Okay. To sell your coffee beans. Okay. So you're taking it to, like, this middle man Yeah. Yeah. Who may it sounds shady to me. I don't I haven't experienced it. Same thing with vanilla in Madagascar.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like some weird process where Yeah. You can't sell directly to the market. You gotta sell to some guy. You know?

So the several countries do that. Several countries still have,

a

woman who owns the coffee farm has to hire a man Really? To take the beans to market.

That's wild and inefficient. Yeah. Just seems crazy. It's just, on the face of it, inefficient. But love in The USA,

American entrepreneurs,

females,

businesswomen

are going to these countries

and buying direct.

Okay. So they're saying

we're empowering other women. We're gonna buy direct from you. You don't have to worry about this middleman that you literally have to hire.

Everything you grow will buy.

That's cool. And so if you see any women grown

coffee bags out there That's kind of a bigger deal than you think. Yeah. Snatch them up. Take them,

take them for a spin.

So all these regions, all these stories, it's

it's just kinda neat to go down, you know, picture yourself there. Yeah. Like hanging out.

Actually coffee. When I

I was in college. So I played rugby for

a team around here called Queen City

Queen City. Why am I blanking on the mascot name? Doesn't matter.

Every two, three years, they go on tour where it was it was basically just an excuse for a bunch of old rugby players to go drinking in a foreign country. Oh, yeah. Which was I don't know if you've ever hung up with rugby players, but it got a little wild.

We went to Costa Rica. Mhmm. And one of the hosts, he had this farm on top of a mountain.

And he actually raised fighting cocks, like fighting roosters. Right. But it overlooked all these coffee plantations. It's these rolling hills of coffee plants. So,

I mean, it's

the plantations are beautiful, but I I get what you mean. Like, you can picture yourself in these locations, and they're just beautiful locations.

And then, you know, the dark side is,

coffee and cocaine grow in the same climate. Oh, yeah. And so

So are there people that are actually, like, hey. We have a coffee plantation, but they're really growing, like, coca? No. They're more, like,

don't

walk out past the coffee beans. Yeah. Yeah. Because the people on the other side are not good. They're not very friendly. No. So,

that's the dark side that these you know, they're just trying to grow a crop, and they have to So there are places in, like, Columbia where literally you'll have

a coffee plantation farm. And then the next hectares is It's just coca leaves. Coca leaves. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. So and it

you know, you get the cartels involved, and then there's, you know, kidnappings. There's greed. There's robberies.

So Anytime you get the cartels involved, it's typically not a good idea. A good thing. So these poor farmers are having to deal with, you know,

pests and weather

and just trying to get their crop to the market. And then at the same time, they gotta worry about guys with guns.

Yeah. You know?

So,

you know, anytime you see a single origin, that's

money going to an individual farmer or an individual county.

So that's definitely where you wanna spend your money. I'm not

super big on fair trade organization.

I like the thought. What is that? Because I've seen that before. I don't know if I'm allowed to. Right. The FTO, fair trade organization, is somebody that,

gets paid to make sure you get a fair trade. Okay. So if You have to pay them to make sure Right.

So that's the thing. It's kind of a head scratcher. I think the mafia ran something very similar.

So

it I'm not saying that they're bad. I'm not saying that they are doing it, but my skepticism

is I'm paying somebody else to make sure

that I get a fair deal. Why don't we just do a fair deal to begin with? We could just have a fair deal. Which, you know, the female

business owners in America buying from female coffee growers,

that's that's the fair trade. Right. You don't need another person. Right. You don't need to put a stamp on it. But then how is this fair trade organization gonna make money? Right. Right. So,

so that I mean,

okay. Yeah. Maybe.

And then the, certified organic.

That was I've heard lots of things about Yeah. So if you talk to any farmer that

grows organically,

but they're not certified Mhmm. It's because of the checks and balances and hoops that they have to jump through. I think it's expensive to get Well, it's it's expensive, and then,

I wanna say your

farm is open to inspection twenty four seven Oh, really? At a moment's notice.

Oh, that's a pain in the neck. Right. And I understand the thought of we wanna do this to make sure you're not using chemicals and pesticides. And if we tell you you're coming, you're obviously gonna hide it. I've heard even if you are certified organic,

there are ways of kinda getting around it and using things you're not supposed to. I don't know. I I'm skeptical of the whole organization. And that's anytime someone puts a stamp on a bag or on a product,

you know,

what why? Yeah. Why did I need to know that? Why is this an important Especially, I mean, I don't know about about you guys, but living

because, like I said, we live in Batavia. It's not like the country, but we're country adjacent. Right. We get our eggs from a a local egg producer. We get our beef. We're gonna get our pork, our chicken.

I don't know. Veggies. My my father-in-law grows a huge garden. So it's like,

we know where our food comes from. I don't need it stamped Right. Organic because

I literally know the person that grew all this. Right. So So, you know Not everybody has that luxury. Not everybody has that luxury, and a lot of people are comforted with the fact that, you know, big brother is watching over the tomato farmer. Yeah.

Okay.

So, you know, those

stamps or seals,

these farmers aren't like I said, they're not using heavy machinery. Yeah. It's a family plus

the

locals that come to during harvest.

You know, there's probably shovels and rakes right outside their door. Yeah. You know, pest control is grandpa's 22.

Right.

Yeah. They're not doing they're not actually spending money to buy harmful chemicals

They're out there working with their hands on their hands and knees.

So,

you know, I don't necessarily

like, oh, organic. You know? It doesn't it's not for me to think it's become a marketing thing too. It is. It is. So you need to stamp organic on something. Stamp it.

Yeah. Isn't and you slap it on there, and then you can charge x percent more just because it's organic. Right. Meanwhile, there's people who are growing like that that just Yeah. Either don't have the time or can't afford that kind of certification.

Then you can walk down the street and get local. Yeah. You know?

So too. Just because it's organic doesn't mean it's good. Right. You know? I mean, there can be things that Or it's better. Yeah. Right. I mean, there could be things that are grown in very modern tradition or not modern traditional, but very modern ways and still be good and just be okay for you. It's not like it's gonna kill you. We're not splicing genes of a tomato with a halibut. You know? We're not we're not worried about that. Get a halibut. Yeah. Tomato halibut. Yeah. They actually, were studying that to see if they can get a,

tomato that could withstand freezing. Really? Because the halibut has a natural cryogenic They were actually trying to do that. Yeah. That's wild. So they took the gene because a halibut. Where'd you read this? Again, I'm a nerd. I read anything about food and I'll I'll read it. But the halibut Was it the National Enquire where No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No

is that phonetically spelled, but,

they want it fresh. Yeah. So they'll

found out that you could put all these live halibut in a in a tank and lower the temperature down to 30 degrees. Just just right around freezing time. Yeah. And they hibernate. Yeah. They go everything slows down. Then they take them out of water, put them into a box with dry ice, and ship them to Japan.

And then when they get to Japan, they throw them in a tank of water and raise the temperature slightly. And they're alive? And they're alive. No. Dry ice? Yeah. Yeah. They've been out of water for the entire shipping process. Yeah.

And,

the so they scientists were trying to get the gene that allows the halibut to do that, take it out, and put it into a tomato. God. Because what could possibly go wrong. But it sounds like a great idea. Did you ever watch the Simpsons? Oh, yeah. Yeah. With Tomacco? Yeah. Where they cross Tomacco into Mitch's? True story.

The Simpsons

are like fortune tellers.

But, yeah. So, you know,

I don't necessarily want

genetically modified to that degree.

Yeah. I don't I don't eat fish genes in my coffee. Right. Yeah. Or in the you know, Julie got some milk that had omega three fatty acids in it. I was like, okay. Omega threes are good. Yeah.

Second ingredient

was tilapia.

I

was like, oh, I don't want fish milk. I understand the omega threes where it comes from, but Yeah. You actually dried and powdered fish Fish. Oh. And mixed it with the milk. Oh. And then I paid a dollar extra for it. Like No. No. I'll tell you, if you wanna pay more for milk,

you should get on the raw milk train. Oh, yeah. I mean, my wife and I, we started drinking that,

maybe two, three years ago. And I can't go back to normal milk. I mean, I was I was kinda weirded out by it at first because I've grown up on pasteurized milk, and I don't wanna get some

weird

bacteria or something. That's the, the big fear about the bacteria

and, you know, not all bacteria is bad. Yeah. The raw milk is really good for your gut health.

The, you know, the good bacteria, the probiotics, pre prebiotics.

But

if I don't like it,

I don't need it to be removed from the shelf. Right.

You can leave it there, and I'll just go to the next aisle Right. And get my tilapia milk It's not popular.

And, go about my day. You know? So

so if you like raw milk, give it a try. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm assuming you don't drink raw milk if if that's a wrong assumption. No. No. I do. I do. Okay.

You know, most of my milk consumption would have been in coffee, but I drink it black. So Yeah.

Occasional bowl of cereal. But we know several of the

dairy farms. We've got one. We now use their pasteurized

version. Okay. But we could still go and catch the cow that they do it.

So that's the important part, but with, you know, legal

regulations right now, we we can't

use it. But Yeah. Well, not at the restaurant. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can get a dairy or herd share. Right. Well, and then we,

have friends We can sell it as pet coffee. Yes. Our friends at the collective,

you can pre order it. Okay. So it's all done through them, but,

you don't have to get a herd share. Oh, that's kinda nice. So you can get, like, a half gallon every couple weeks if you wanted, or you can get, you know,

20 gallons. But yeah. Get two gallons of because we've got a

daughter of

five, a young boy. It's one and a half. And then we just had a he's like a month old at this point. Wow. So we're going through a lot of milk. Yeah. Especially with my son who loves milk, and I'll drink milk in the morning. So Alright. We get, like, two gallons a week. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of a lot of raw milk. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. The, we tried the herd share, and then, our kids were You're not drinking a lot of it. Yeah. One went into the navy, and one went to college. So,

you know, we a gallon of milk would go bad before we could drink it all. So getting it by the half gallon and things like that was much more with the raw milk because it is more at least ours is more expensive than once you get at the grocery. Can you taste the hay? The wholesome barnyard.

Yeah. So and that's the other thing. Not all raw milk is the same. Yeah. So, you know, look around, try different kinds, try different,

dairies.

The one we got now has a less

barnyard flavor or hay flavor, I think.

And it's got to do with what the cows eat, how they graze, and things like that. So it's not bad. It's just different. Yeah. I mean, the the the hay barnyard flavor is not it's not like I'm drinking straw. Right. Well But you can notice it. I've had a couple that hours. Oh, have you? Oh,

well, this is like

you didn't even wash the utter off, did you? And this is this is pretty wild. Yeah. As raw as it gets, it's still warm.

I haven't I haven't had anything that bad. We've we got burned on the cow.

We bought half a cow. Mhmm. I think it was just we kinda

like, somebody had backed out of the deal, and so we kinda came in. We're like, yeah. We'll we'll buy that from you. I think it was,

like, a just an old cow. Yeah. I was like, oh, this isn't good meat. Yeah. So we found somebody else, but and no names. Yeah. Put anybody in the spot. Yeah. I mean, it's not their fault. No. Like, how do you how do you know if the cow is good? Yeah. It's walking around. It looks good. Yeah.

Well, I doubt you it wasn't. It wasn't very particularly tasty.

So

how do

you how do you source coffee? How do you source your coffee? So we,

got hooked up with LaTerra,

who's our local grocer. Why does that sound

familiar? They're in a bunch of,

other mom and pop coffee shops in the area, not super close to us, but,

down in Milford, there's one. Loveland, there's one.

Their, you know, their vision

really aligned with ours. We wanna have fun. I wanna have a

great cup of coffee that has a story to it, but no snotty, no snobbery. Yeah. You know, if you want 10 sugars in your coffee, my eye will twitch, but I'll do it. You know? Like, is it fine? It's fine. It's fine.

You know, I've had somebody that was like, I just want a black cup of coffee. I don't want anything fancy. I was like, alright. Well, here's your black cup of coffee. Just so you know, it was shade grown,

3,000

feet in volcanic soil. And the guy's like, you're ruining it. I was like, no. It's still just black coffee.

You're ruining it. Yeah. So, you know, the single origins,

you know, their their vision of how they wanna run their business and and still have fun with it.

You know, they did a double fermented coffee

just to try it. They did,

bourbon barrel.

They took unroasted coffee and put them in a bourbon barrel Yeah. Yeah. Thirty days and then roasted them, and it tasted like Baileys. I mean, it was amazing. Did it really? Yeah. I was surprised. But, you know, just have fun. They're you know, keep

you know? I had asked them once to get me a dark roast Ethiopian,

and the answer was the beans don't wanna be dark roast.

I was like, no. I want a dark roast. Want that. He's like, no. These Ethiopian beans, they wanna be light. They wanna be light roasted.

So he, like, refused.

He's like, no. I'm not doing that. I'll pay you. No. No. I don't care. That bean wants to be light.

Okay. Alright. So Line. So they have their I like that. Line in the sand. I like that they'll push back on it. Playful. Yeah. You know, they're not just there for the dollar. They're there for the bean itself, and,

we've learned a lot from them through them about coffee. And,

so that that right there,

picking a supplier that has the same vision as you, because there's plenty out there that just wanna make a buck. If you just wanna make a buck, go for that. But, really picking someone that, you know, they've got my home number. I've got theirs.

Case of emergency, I can call them up. There's one time I went to pick up beans, and they're like, are you driving by Milford by any chance? I was like, oh, yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Would you mind dropping this off? I was like, if you throw in a T shirt.

Like, that's it? I was like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Give me one of your T shirts, and, I'll drop off, you know, your delivery since I'm going that way. Yeah. You know, that's the type of relationship we have with them,

and I would never, you know Business, I mean, relationships like that, if you find a relationship, like, especially in business, you gotta really foster it. Well, and it has to have

more behind it than just

the dollar. Yeah. If you're just in it for a buck,

you you know, it could be anybody. Yeah. You don't need to know names or faces, but,

having that relationship where,

you know, I can call them up, call them all by name. You know, if there's a problem, it's instantly fixed because, oh, man. Hey. You guys screwed up. I screwed up. Whatever. Let's get this fixed.

It's not like some giant corporation that's like, no. So sorry. You have to wait.

No. So,

sourcing our beans through them, and then when they get something,

neat, they'll they'll let me know. Like, they had a Geisha

micro lot, super, super small,

batch of coffee. I think they had, like, maybe a 100 pounds unbreasted coffee. Okay. And it sold out in, like, a month,

but it was a $100 a pound wholesale.

And I'm like, I cannot

I don't know anybody. None of my friends would be like, $100 a pound? No problem. Whatever. So for Christmas, I ended up getting two pounds. Okay. And I broke them out into

one pot

bags. Okay. So there's, like, three and a half ounces in each bag, and then I brewed some. And I was like, you you guys wanna taste a $100 a pound coffee? Come in and taste it. And if you want Christmas coffee, because that's the only time I could rationalize

spending $20 on one pot of coffee.

But, you know, come on out. And so

I had a lot of our regulars and and whatnot come in just to sample

what $100 coffee. Yeah. Most of them were like I'll be honest. That's a great marketing. I I like, that's a great way to get people in the door. Well, and and Well worth every year. Bucks. I I've done worse with $20, you know, than buying this. But then but you get to taste it. Yeah. So if you can't afford it, you can at least take that vacation. You can at least Yeah. Yeah. Envision it. And overwhelming majority of them were like, this is really good coffee.

I'm not spending a $100.

I'm not gonna buy it. And I'm glad you let me taste it. That was a great experience. And, you know, we had the flavor, the tasting notes, and everything like that. So there was, like, five of us sitting there smelling the cup, nose in the cup, taking a sip. What I mean, what did it take? Was it was it a good coffee? Oh, it was it was a phenomenal coffee. But Was it worth a $100 a pound? Or I'm like, when do you get diminishing returns on it? If you go back to, like, wanting to

know how they picked it and know where it was and who did it and how it got here in the journey,

Yeah. That whole story is worth a $100. Yeah. If you want a cup of black coffee,

it's it's not gonna be worth it. But it was great. We had the, list of tasting and and aroma notes and things like that,

and I was challenging people to find them. Yeah. You know? Like, keep sipping on it. Keep smelling it. Just try to find it.

And none of us could get

the

fresh melon. Okay. And I was like, I don't taste melon. I was thinking watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe. What is what is it? And that's when,

I had took my lid off the cup, and I took a really big sniff. And all of a sudden,

I realized I could smell that freshly cut candle. Yeah. That that odd aroma that you get. I was like, oh my god. I found it. I found the last flavor. You know?

So we were all then sniffing coffee

Yeah. For another half hour. Well, I imagine a lot of the tasting too. I mean, your nose is, like, 90% of your taste anyway. Right. So, I mean, that's And it's very subjective. Yeah. You know?

But,

like, I I tell my employees, you know, just smell it. Take a sip. You don't have to like it. Yeah. Just kinda see it. Be able to confidently describe it. Right. Right.

And, you know, a lot of our employees are younger kids,

or nonserious

coffee drinkers. Yeah. You know, they'll get the fraps and the Yeah. Yeah. You know, super sugary stuff. But, you know, giving them a black cup of coffee, you might as well smack them across the face. Yeah. Why are you doing this to me?

But getting that experience and and being able to taste stuff is, you know, that that's just a journey. It's a vacation. I feel like every American should know how to drink black coffee. Right? Just once in your life. Come on. Just I mean Well, we've had several of our regulars that have said,

I don't need as much cream in my coffee Yeah. When I get your coffee. I was like, that's because it's not horrible coffee. That's the only time I'll put cream on my coffee is Oh. It's terrible coffee. We stayed at a hotel and they had free coffee in the lobby. Yeah. And I poured a cup and I was like,

is it? Free is too expensive for this coffee. Like, I can't do this. We we we have to go directly to a coffee shop right now. Now is it hard to to just be out in the world and just have normal like, can I imagine it's tough to go to a UDF and get yourself a cup of coffee? You know, we did a road trip, and at two in the morning, you you're not there for flavor notes. You're there for caffeine and to wake yourself up. So,

you try to put yourself into

the situation. Yeah. Yeah. So if I'm you know, we went to a coffee shop in Portland a couple years back,

and it was

stark white hospital. Yeah. Everybody was, like, hushed tones, and,

they had, like, LP records on them to play,

everything like that. It was very, very fancy. Yeah. And,

it took me twenty minutes to get a cup of coffee. Mhmm. It was good,

But would that be my regular coffee place? No. No. Not really. You know?

But It's tough to find a good coffee place. But it was a experience. I enjoyed it. It was alright.

But, yeah, with your with how you drink coffee, it it you know? Do you wanna take the vacation in the cup? Do you wanna know it's shade grown? Do you wanna know the name of the farmer, or do you just want something hot brown and plenty of it? Yeah.

For

Veterans Day, I

had I was talking to a couple veteran friends of mine, and I was like, I I wanna do, like, military

honors

coffee. Yeah. You know? I was thinking maybe in a canteen cup or a mess kit or something like that.

And the friend who was in the army was like, well, I'll tell you what. Take a cup of coffee, make it nice and hot.

Put some dirt and sand and some bugs in it,

and then maybe some mud Yeah. And then try to drink it while people are yelling at you and you have to move around.

Military coffee was not a great experience.

I was like, okay. So maybe we'll scratch it. A vacation in the cup I'd like to go to. No. I I think it would be fun to drink out of a, you know, World War two mug,

but

we'll save that for later.

I'll work on that marketing.

So

I'm trying to figure out how to frame this question,

but it has to do with if I'm just a person

and let's say I wanna drink a good cup of coffee, but I wanna spend a lot of money on it. Mhmm. What kind of brands or places would you go for?

Maybe, like, your every morning drip coffee. I'm going to work, but I don't want just Folgers. I want something a little bit better. What kind of coffee would you go for? Well, so like I said about me drinking black coffee, I prefer the lower acidity coffees. So if you go to a coffee shop,

a lot of times when I go incognito,

you know, not as the coffee guy of Goshen, but I'll go into the coffee shop, and I was like, oh, I see your house coffee. Where is it from? Mhmm. And if they say the warehouse,

you know, I was like, oh, okay.

They're not gonna be able to tell me if it's acidic or Yeah. Yeah. You know, anything like that. So if you're looking to get deeper into the coffee and really enjoy a cup of coffee that's catered to your taste,

then go to a place that has more information about Yeah. Other than, like, breakfast blend.

Could be absolutely anything. It's a made up name.

French roast just means dark. Yeah. Like, okay. That doesn't really give you enough of why you like that. So try to try to find if you like chock full of nuts or, you know, whatever, that's that's fine. But look at I I noticed on one of the cans at the grocery store, they actually had, like, the light, medium, dark meter Mhmm. And they actually listed some of the countries they were from.

So start there. Okay. Start with what you're buying now. Where is it coming from? Is it darker? Is you know, tasted black, tasted hot and cold. Is it acidic?

What is it that you like the most about that flavor? And then you can go on to the more expensive coffees

and be like, okay. So my coffee is dark with hints of cocoa,

and it's from Colombia Yeah. Or Java or Sumatra. And then you go and you look at the more expensive coffee. Hey. That's from Sumatra. It says it has hints of coffee or hints of cocoa. So try that. Yeah. And I would also effectively spend your money instead of just going out. Don't just go and because it's got the fanciest bag or the stampiest

bag.

I'm guilty of that. Oh, yeah. They get me all the time. Oh, the marketing is it. Oh, that's a cool bag. I they get me all the time with that.

So, yeah, find out what you like first

with what you're drinking, whatever it is, and it doesn't matter, and then go from there and step up trying to follow along those those parameters.

But,

you know,

I I say this a lot. Coffee is like snowflakes. Yeah. Everyone's different. Yeah. People will tell me that the their idea of a perfect cup, and I have to laugh like that is nowhere near Yeah.

But, you know, that's that's fine. That's how you like it. That's how you get it. But then try to find out the whys. Why do you like it? Why don't you like Starbucks? What is it about it? Well, it's

over roasted. Yeah. Okay.

Well, not all coffee is like that, so try another place and, you know, see how they do it.

So,

delving deeper into your cup to to the wise. When my kids were little and they said they didn't like dinner, I was like, don't just tell me you don't like it. Connect your brain to your tongue and tell me what it is that you don't like.

And I would accept that answer. Like, I don't the texture, it's too mushy. I don't like the way okay. Okay. I like that. Or it's too greasy or, you know, that's fine. You, you know, you gotta describe it. If somebody who's cooking for your family, then you could do something. Right. Like, if you if you just don't like it,

what the hell? I I don't like it because it's green. Well, you're you're in trouble. There's there's lots of green things you're gonna be served.

So, yeah, I mean, I I love coffee, so it's

really hard for me to get a bad cup of coffee other than the,

like, the free stuff in the hotel lobby. Yeah. It's

obviously been sitting around for a long time.

Oh, my dad.

Oh, sorry if you're listening, dad.

He he's an accountant.

He's retired, but

he the cups of coffee he brews, it tastes just like

what you would probably find if you walked into an accounting office right now. Right. Just sitting there boiling and reducing

There had been a cup of coffee on that, you know, bun coffee maker for, like, five hours, and it's just,

oh, it's so I would say for people at home that wanna make

their coffee,

measure. Weigh.

Don't use the scoop. I was actually gonna ask you Yeah. About weighing because And that way you can compare

brand to brand if you're weighing

exactly three ounces or two and a half ounces of your beans. And that so this is how I like it. This is a different brand.

I'm gonna do the exact same method. It's more scientific.

Yeah. So people have said, oh, I didn't like your coffee. Well, why not? Well, I took it home and I made it,

and it just didn't taste well,

wait. How did you do it? Well, I took the scooper that I usually scoop, and I eyeball it. I'm like, okay. But there's no science involved in that. You know?

You weigh it out. It's not repeatable. Right.

Weigh it out.

Grinding to order is always the best.

You I mean, it's not gonna kill you to grind it the night before and have it ready to go, but, you know, grinding is,

once you grind it, all the oils and stuff start drying out,

the moisture content breaks down. So once you grind the bean, you've started to clock. So that keep it whole bean, grind it to order, or at least the day before,

to get the maximum quality out of it. But weigh weigh weigh your beans.

Absolutely. Especially if you're on the hunt,

and you wanna try a more expensive coffee Yeah. Weigh it. Weigh it, and, you'll get a much better result out of it. So because the one thing I've noticed

I lived in Columbus,

oh, man, probably ten, fifteen years ago at this point. But it was around the time when coffee shops were springing up everywhere, and there's pour overs and contraptions and all these different things.

Can you simplify all of these weird like, what's your favorite brewing technique? And then what's attainable for, like Right. A person? We French press at home,

and that's

Why do you like to? I I don't mind the French press. I just feel like I can't get as much coffee as I can with a drip. Yes. And I drink a lot of coffee in the morning. So we'll usually split the first French press. As soon as we pour the cups, I start another French press just for me Yeah. And a little bit of top off for Julie.

But,

it's like we had

a $10 French press Mhmm. And we bring it in our suitcases when we travel.

So that way,

if it breaks, I'm not really worried about it, but I know I can make my French press

anywhere I I go. Yeah. So that's nice. The Mr. Coffee, you know, drip coffee pots,

the technology in those is is exploding right now. You can find ones that do just about everything.

So So there's nothing wrong with just like a drip coffee? No. No. No. There's nothing wrong. I would say some people would say, like, oh, you can't do that. No. You gotta have the water at this particular It's surprising if you have a French press and a drip coffee to do them side by side. Yeah. Different flavors will come out of it. Really? Yeah. And then the Bunsen Burners set,

looks like, you know, the science lab in your ice cream. That stuff.

That's a really fun way to wait twenty minutes for your cup of coffee.

We we had a pair of friends who will remain nameless.

We went and visited them,

and we woke up in the morning. Like, oh, do you want some coffee? Like, yeah. Sure. And then for, like, pouring stuff over, and they've got beans and everything. And I'm just looking at my wife, like, looking at my watch. Like, I need coffee. Right. I need coffee now. Yeah. Like, what I need coffee to make coffee. Right.

Yeah. So we went to one place in Seattle that, they I swear they had a seven foot

beaker system.

Oh, it's so nice. Ran on Thursdays. Yeah. And you could sit there and wait for and watch the distillation of the beans. I'm like,

oh, okay. That's like Instead of going to dinner and a movie, yeah, I'll just sit here and

watch the drip. That's you only run on Thursdays. Yeah. They've got a pool started. Yeah.

So and that's it's interesting. It's, you know, the geeky side of me is fun. We went to another place that had two different brands of espresso machines. And,

Friday nights, they would turn on the other brand.

Oh, that must have been a big night. People were lined up out the door. No. They weren't. Yeah. I was like, part I mean, part of that, I think, is marketing. Oh, absolutely. But I mean I believe it was a Slayer machine. It's a brand name of a spray it's an awesome name. Yeah. Oh, yeah. From the eighties glam rock.

Yeah.

But,

yeah, it's there's different ways to do it for,

different

end results.

You and I both

I need, like, a 128

ounce French press.

They don't make them that big, unfortunately.

There's AeroPress, which is,

basically, a plastic

tube instead of the French press. I think we've got one. That was nice. Oh, no. I'm sorry. We don't have one of those. We just Pour overs are are great.

You can if you're serious into math and science, get a pour over and try to do it the, like, perfect

way that they say it has to be done with the grounds and the water.

You bloom it first, and then concentric circles in a clockwise pattern with a Looking at the Orion.

Sock on, you know.

-Chanting this particular incantation. -Right, right. So, I mean, it's however you Iike to make it at home.

-But if I get, Iike, a nice,

bag of coffee beans -Mhmm. -And I'm getting coffee. Iook myself.

Talking in a minute. Anyway, if I get a nice bag of coffee beans,

you know, relatively expensive. Right. I take them home. I grind them, and I put them in my drip machine. It's not like I've just ruined No. No. No. No. And the French press is because French press is a really cheap

piece of kit. Yeah. I like the French press because it it Makes it a little stronger. Right? Yeah. You get a little stronger. You get I I mean, you can adjust the beans how you like it. But a lot of times, the flavor profile and the boldness will come out more in a French press than it will in a drip. And that's just because the water's still on the beans, whereas the drip, it drips through. Right.

And, you know, the machines that they're coming out with now, you can set a pause so that it'll fill up the filter Okay. And then wait thirty seconds for it to drop down, and then fill it up again.

And yeah. So there's there's ways to extract that flavor that you're looking for, and it depends on how you like it. One of my friends, his dad, made coffee for him, and he was like, I had to wait till I was down the street to dump it out. So Dad is it with people's dads? Yeah. They took the coffee the leftover coffee that was still in the Mr. Coffee Just how they've been making coffee in corporate America. Into the machine Oh, boy. And turned it back on and, like, reran it? Reran it. He's like, I made you some coffee.

Yeah. So, I mean, there are ways to totally destroy it, like putting ketchup on a steak or, you know, things like that. But for the most part, if that's what you like and you're in the privacy of your own home, Do whatever you like. Do whatever you like. I think that in the privacy of your own home. If you want to do anything coffee. Yes. You're more than welcome to do. So yeah. And,

it's time.

You know, when I was getting up and going at 04:30, 05:00 in the morning, I didn't really have time to do a pour over Yeah. Or sitting there staring at a French press for three and a half minutes, like, go. Go. No. Hit the Mr. Coffee. Yeah. Turn it on. Have it programmed so when my alarm goes off, it starts brewing. Especially because my wife and I in the mornings will blow through a pot of coffee

easy. Oh, yeah. Like, super easy. We both drink a lot of coffee. So it's like a French press just isn't practical. Yeah. Is the for me, a Keurig or the pod systems Do you like Keurigs?

You know, I like the convenience. Yeah. But the fact that I'll drink 10 cups of coffee, make it completely

not, you know, not profitable, not a good idea. You know, Julie will drink one, maybe two cups of coffee by the time I'm on fifth Yeah. Fifth or sixth. Like, hey. Let's go. We gotta drink some more coffee. And I was just you know, we had the Keurig spindle when it was really popular, and I drained the thing in the weekend. Yeah. Like, completely gone. Yeah. Now what?

You know? Like, makes no sense whatsoever to do that for me. Are you just naturally because I know, obviously, coffee's got a fair bit of caffeine in it. Sounds like you drink a lot of it. I do.

Have you always been able to handle the caffeine level, or have you, like, gotten a tolerance to it? No. I've always

been,

like, you know, go go go. Yeah. Yeah. Just drink some coffee. You got it. Because I know some people, they have a cup, and they're they've just lost their eyes. Well, Julie and I did the, genetic testing,

and,

you know,

she thought I was gonna do it for, like, you know, like, medical and see what's wrong with me. Yeah. And the thing that I got out of it the most is I am genetically,

predispice

Predisposed? Predisposed. There you are. Preduspicious,

to caffeine tolerance. Okay. And it actually said

your level of caffeine tolerance can actually,

get to toxic levels. You could you could drink a toxic amount of caffeine? You know, they say don't drink too much caffeine is bad for you. Yeah. My body will not stop

drinking coffee

until I have a heart attack and die. Like, boom.

So

but, yeah, I was just like, will you get a load of that? Like,

my birthday is actually International Coffee Day. Oh, wow. So it's kinda like Yeah. A lot of things lined up for you. Yeah. Yeah. So You're genetically predisposed to drink a lot of coffee. Yeah. You're born on International Coffee Day. It's,

it's fate. From Portland? Yeah. Like, the the place where Starbucks So, ironically, Julie Seattle. I'm sorry. Well,

the the Pacific Northwest is Okay. We'll lump those into one That's fair enough. The good West Coast.

But Julie and my daughter, Lily,

do not have that gene. Oh. So one cup I get it. And they're they're shaky. They're like, oh, how can you how can you keep going? My son and I are like, hey.

Let's try this, you know, monster Red Bull espresso,

like

it it actually has a warning label. You gotta sign it. Like, let's try that. See what happens. Yeah. It's alright. I've been the same way with caffeine. I can always so I've always been able to handle it. The only time it got a little bit much is I was writing a paper in college, and it was, like, you know, the night before.

I was also smoking Marlboro Reds,

like chain smoking them and, like, drinking pots of coffee. By the end of the night, I was just,

like, staring at a computer screen shaking.

That probably was a bit too much nicotine

and Yeah. Yeah. And anytime you're you're,

mixing stuff, you metabolize

Yeah. Differently.

Yeah. So it's funny. Coffee does not bother me. I can go drink cup of coffee before bed, like, sitting in bed.

But tea. I have quite the tea collection, and I really love it. But that caffeine,

I have to watch out for slower burn. Oh, like like, it's inside. Coffee

where I feel like I'll peak really high Mhmm. And then kinda come down for tea. Because I drink a lot of unsweet ice tea. Like, I just a lot of it. And it always just kinda feels real gradual and smooth to me. But it's not the same for you at all. No. No. So I love Earl Grey.

You know, we've probably got 35 different teas I saw your tea collection because I like tea as well. I mean, you got some nice tea. Yeah. I was told I wasn't allowed to get any more until,

the shelf gets bigger? Or

I'm full of So you're at home building a shelf now? Yeah. So I love teas, and that's another vacation in a cup. And I love to try it, but two cups of Earl Grey Really? And I'll start sweating. No kidding. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. So I don't know. It's everybody metabolizes

caffeine from sources different. Yeah. So energy drinks, I do not need those. They yeah. Well, those They go straight to my brain. Poison and jelly. Oh, yeah.

Coffee, I can drink all day long with very little issues.

But tea, I have to actually, like, just slow down. Because like I said, with coffee, I'm a say, I could drink coffee before bed, and I'm I'm not I don't have a problem. No problem. You ever seen the movie Coffee and Cigarettes, by the way? No. I haven't. It's a Jim Jaremouche film, I

think. I really it's so it's little vignettes

about people just sitting down, drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes.

Like, Tom Waits isn't an honorary Tom Waits fan. He has a scene with Iggy Pop,

and they're in this diner. Oh, yeah.

There's a oh, there's a famous one. This is a bit of a tangent, but

it's with are you familiar with the Wu Tang Clan? Oh, yeah. Yeah. RZA, GZA, and Bill Murray.

And it's like RZA and GZA are sitting there in a booth, and they're drinking coffee.

And then Bill Murray, you don't see him at first, but he's, like, the guy serving them coffee in this diner. And then they tell you, he's like, is that Bill Murray?

What are you doing? He'll be a Murray.

It's kinda like the,

Cars and Coffee.

Comedians and Cars Getting Coffee. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that one. Entertaining. And, again, it's,

you know, it's just regular people. They can they could be our next door neighbor, and here they are

driving around, stopping for a cup of coffee. Well, that's what's so great about coffee too. I mean,

that sounds kinda cliche, I suppose, but it's just a nice thing to have. Like Right. I remember going over to my grandparents when I was young, and it always smelled like coffee. Mhmm. Then when everybody was done with dinner, everybody kinda sat down and had coffee. When I went to my other grandparents, it was my dad and my grandfather that always just be drinking coffee and talking about

whatever it is you talk about. There's a lot of, you know, big life moments,

for me

that coffee played a part of. Yeah. Or was there you know, I always joke that coffee is a great role role model. Yeah. It's hot when you're cold, cold when you're hot. Yeah. Yeah. It's sweet when you're bitter. You know? Like, you know, you know, coffee can help in so many different ways. Your personality and the people around you.

But, yeah, coffee's

coffee's great. Miracle fruit.

And I'm are there health benefits to it? I mean, it's one of those things where it's like every five years, it's healthy to drink wine, then it's unhealthy to drink wine. Right. So anytime you hear that, always look to see who did the study, who paid for the study. But

so one of the things that came out was,

coffee, black coffee specifically,

when it goes through your kidneys and liver,

helps

flush toxins out. Okay. Part of it's diuretic. Yeah. So I'm sure, you know, spicy food And anybody can do that too. Yeah. Yeah. But, drinking coffee actually helps,

heal your liver and by flushing out toxins and things like that. And these are not approved or recommended by the FDA. I'm not a doctor. Don't Yeah. None of this is medical advice. No. No. No. But so they're you know, and it's the moderation. Yeah. If you're getting a 128

ounce Big Gulp of black coffee

four or five times a day, no. That's not really No.

One of my doctors had said, like, how much coffee do you drink? I was like, how much coffee do you drink? A lot.

Well, I started not filling my cup all the way up. Okay. Because I'm here. So then do you drink twice as many cups? Well, no. I'll send it on. That would break down. Yeah. So

but

I started filling my cup up halfway. Now I just I can go back as many times.

But

I've learned that, you know,

it used to be when it was empty, I would refill it instant. Yeah. Or, oh, it's getting a little cold. I'll warm it up. Yeah. Fill it back up. No. Now I'm like, okay. We'll just, you know, sip on it throughout the day

and go like that. But

but, yeah, the the nurse was like,

so you drink a lot. What is that? Like,

two or three cups?

Like, in an hour? Did you tell her you own a coffee shop? I was like, I actually have coffee tattoos.

That's how much I like coffee.

She's like, okay. So like a pot? I was like,

in the morning? Yeah. Yeah. Before lunch? Yeah. Oh, I'm good for at least a pot of coffee before lunch. I thought I keep bringing up all this,

pop culture. Did you ever watch Parks and Rec? Oh, yeah. Yeah. When Ron Swanson goes in for a checkup, and they they ask him, how much alcohol do you drink? And he goes, one. You only have one drink a week. He goes, one shelf.

Oh, we count beers too?

Yeah.

You know, so

coffee can be good for you.

There's bronchial.

They've they've noticed that, like, in an asthma emergency, just in an emergency.

But if you drink some hot black coffee, it'll actually stimulates your bronchial

cavities or whatever they're called and, can help you

get to the hospital

for your asthma inhaler and things like that. So there are some lung benefits. There's some liver benefits.

But, again, if you're putting

15 packs of sugar and half a thing of cream, well, then you're adding fat,

carbs to it. So

depends on how you like. It can be good for you. Yeah. If you I most like anything. Yeah. Moderation's key. Right.

Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. If you eat polar bear liver,

there's a toxic level of vitamin a. Is there really One serving of How do you how do you know

how do you know that one serving of polar bear liver I read a book. Will kill you for vitamin a. Right? Yeah. So Who's out there eating polar bear liver? I don't know. The Eskimos, I guess, but they don't eat the liver. Oh, fair enough. Yeah. Yeah.

Alright. Well, let's let's switch off a off a coffee

real fast. Let's talk about this mural you're trying to get. Oh, yeah. Because that's how I originally saw that post, and I was like, you've been on my list of people I wanted to talk to. I thought, oh, ask him about

what he's trying to do with the mural in Goshen because it's part of the America two fifty thing. Right? Right. Okay. Right. So two hundred and fiftieth birthday

of America.

And it just happened that our historical society had found

seven revolutionary

war soldiers Okay. That settled in this area. Not just Goshen, but, you know, in the county. Yeah. I think that was a fairly common way to pay the soldiers is they would They had land. Land. Right. Right. So I think

four of them were three or four of them were actually in Goshen. They're buried in Goshen. And then a couple other

out towards Owensville,

Williamsburg, something like that. But they had been,

fixing up their headstones

and trying to find

where they're from and whatnot, and

they were like, oh, wow. These these seven guys,

after the war was over, came here. Yeah. And we need to really celebrate them. So

they put out a post the historical

society did about does anybody have a wall that they want a mural? And Julie and I had always talked about doing something in the back. A great space. I Yeah. Driving in. It's

when our son was little, they actually did movie night. Oh, really? Back of the building. They put up a sheet and That's really cool. So I knew it was I feel like you should do that just

in general. Right? Like, I would show up to that. Right.

So and, we met with the historical society and said, like,

how what do we wanna do?

Nobody has any money for it, so we're crowdsourcing.

We're fundraising for it.

And the

idea was to have revolutionary war soldier turned farmer. Yeah. Okay. In the mural. Yeah. So on one side will be the soldier plowshares. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so that's the

the basic idea for it just to celebrate those, you know,

not necessarily ancestors, but forefathers of Goshen,

that, you know,

started off

turning this into what it is now.

So like I said, we've we've got this building,

the back wall. We've always wanted to do something, but it was always like, I don't wanna just do a coffee mural or, you know, you know, let's wait and see what

what happens. And and this idea came up, and I was like, that's great. Let's do that. I'd love I'd love for something,

you know, conversation piece on the back wall, basically.

Oh, yeah. And if you're interested in, like, doing more exploration on into history,

historical societies,

you can see the Anchorage House, which we named our house coffee after. Is that up there? Yeah. That's the stone building there. Nice. One of the first houses in in Goshen.

And then on the other side in the school property is the cook cabin, which is literally, like,

one of the cabins. It's actually two pieces. Okay. So it was

one of the original cabins

cut down to make the second cabin. But,

so there's a lot of history here. The, you know, the Pioneer Cemetery is just up the road. I didn't know that either. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I gotta find somebody from the Goshen. If you know somebody, I might ask you after this because I'd love to interview somebody Oh, yeah. Historical society. Yes.

The Anchorage House has,

tours available and,

you know, one of the

there it's full of,

antiques Yeah. Yeah. Period pieces. Do you I mean, if you like

historical museums and societies, if you ever get out by Williamsburg,

the Williamsburg

Historical Museum is Oh, wow. Is really nice. They don't Yeah. And there there's a lot of history attract No. Yeah. There's but There's a lot of history in this area. You know? We've had Morgan's Raiders come through here.

We've Well, you you listed as Grant Right. From around here.

Just up on by the Ohio River. Yeah.

So very, very close,

you know, one of the one of our regulars,

guy must have been close to a 100 years old. He said,

Goshen used to be really quiet, but always has fast cars going through it. I was like, really? Why is that? He goes, moonshine.

Yeah. So they would grow it in Kentucky

Yeah. Or distill it in Kentucky, bring it up here, and you can get thirty minutes

Yeah. To anywhere from Goshen. Well, that's why if you look So we were distribution hub for moonshine. I was like, that's great history. I gotta I gotta look up more about That's one of the weird things about Cincinnati

is I think

it's a day's drive from

75%

of The United States. Right. So for logistics,

including illegal things Right. It's like a really good distribution

pump. So, you know, if you're trying to sell paper towels,

good place to distribute your stuff. If you're trying to sell illegal moonshine,

also

a good place to It was. It was. We don't do that anymore. No. No. No. No. Of course not. But,

yeah. So, you know, some of these farm roads, there's,

there's still the watering stations for the trains.

There's still wells out there. The the tying,

there's rocks

that was

where you tied your horses off. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them are still in people's yeah. Hitchhoused type deal. They're still in people's yards. Yeah. And I it just looks like a big rock to me, but, no, it's been there for two hundred years. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Wild. And, also, I misspoke. I've I have not been to the Williamsburg. It's Bethel. Oh, that's Okay. Historical system. I don't know if I've been to Bethels. The bet

when was it?

I guess for the podcast listeners, we're outside, which is probably why you're hearing a little bit of wind. So hopefully, no way got in the car. No. No. They were just trying to make the light. No. I've done that before. Yeah.

But so, yeah, the historical society, like I said, I love history. I love, you know, seeing a rock and finding out where it came from. What is it for?

And they're great people, and they've been,

teaching the history of Goshen and,

you know, pointing out things like, you know, that house.

It's called the Anchorage House because

one of the last families to own it,

was big into nautical themed. Mhmm. Really? So there was anchors and boats and things and stuff. So

it

that's why it's called the Anchorage House now. It's because of that. But you would never know that. No. Oh, okay. It's Anchorage. Is it the anchor of town? No. No. No. This guy just really liked anchors. Like boats. Right?

Alright. No. I mean, I guess if you really like boats and So two hundred years from now, somebody's gonna go to my house and be like, wow. It still smells like coffee.

So So where are you in the fundraising efforts, Ed? We're about, what, quarter of the way?

Look. We're just over quarter of the way.

We're gonna do so at the Goshen Grind, we donate our tips every week to different causes and organizations.

So this month, we're gonna donate our tips to the mural project,

to try to really, you know,

if you see any of these big murals popping up as part of the the big push to get the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary murals up. Oh, yeah. So we're really excited about

getting one of these in Goshen,

and, you know, we're putting money into it. Our employees are, you know, working to put money into it.

We've got I think somebody dropped off a dollar. I was like, that is amazing. Thank you so you know, that that really makes me feel good. Like, this is all I got, but I wanna help. But I wanna help. And I appreciate that. I thank you very much. Little money becomes big money Yeah. When you put it in the pool.

So,

yeah, we're, you know, we're hopeful.

One of the artists did say, like, if you want a ten foot tall guy, it's gonna be a little more expensive. But if you want a seven foot tall guy with a lot of sky,

I'll put some clouds up there for free. Yeah. It'll it'll look nice. Yeah. It'll look nice. It'll look nice, but we'll work with it with your budget. So it's gonna happen. It's just,

you know,

weather depending and, donations.

And, if people wanted to help out, how how can they do that? We've got a well, Julie's got a Venmo thingy,

little QR code. Thingy. Yeah. Do you wanna do you wanna say,

for more specifics? Yes. Yes. So Go ahead and introduce yourself. So I'm Julie Casey,

the other owner the other owner of Goshen Grind.

So we have a Venmo account set up. It's at Goshen Grind.

We also have our tip jars if you're in the area.

Our Venmo is at our drive through window and at the counter, so you can just scan it with your phone and donate right there. And we'll also share that to our Facebook and Instagram pages.

Awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. We brought in the big guns. Yes. Yes. The

the Snapgram and the Instachats

things I don't do. So

I've had to start doing it for this podcast because I try to get it out in the world.

I hate every minute of it. I apparently have an Instagram, and I don't even know. I think That's I messaged you via Instagram. To get onto the the grinds Instagram because somebody said they posted a funny picture. And all of a sudden, I signed myself up for my own Instagram.

So that's the level of tech savvy I am now.

Like, I don't know. My phone stops working, and I shake it.

Does that work? No. No. But it makes me feel better. It just makes me feel like I'm doing something.

Well, I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm kinda out of questions. Yeah. So I'll I'll always give you, at least all my guests, the opportunity to tell us again who you are. And then because I imagine it looks like you got a farmer's market. Just tell people what you do Yeah. Around the So we were approached by somebody that wanted to

to try to get another farmer's market in Goshen. I think four or five people have tried, and it's just difficult to start. There's not a lot of great spaces,

but we used the we gave them the back parking lot, and,

you know, it it's doing well for, you know, for the first year.

We've got a veggie guy.

We had chicken. We had pork. We had sourdough. We had soaps

and

and,

you know, veggies, of course, things like that. So we got a some honey back there and things. So it it's kind of neat. We wanted to make sure that it was

local

and made. I don't wanna see bananas

Right. At a farmer's market in Oh, the Ohio bananas? No. No. If you get if you got a pawpaw, I Yeah. I'll be ecstatic. But I would love to find a pawpaw tree. Yeah. I make mead, and I'd and I'd love to do, like, a paw paw mead Yeah. Or even just a paw paw wine. I don't even know what that would taste like. But Tropical? Yeah. That would probably be a little weird. Yeah. Yeah. But it's worth a shot. Yeah.

I'll ferment anything. Yeah. I'll give it a try. I'll drink anything. But,

yeah. So and then, you know, we we're trying to do little classes, and,

Julie's really good on finding things that people like to do and artsy craftsy type stuff, and I keep

trying to find the perfect

barbecue

smoker

Oh, yeah. That somebody that'll come out and give us, like, a barbecue one zero one.

I noticed a lot of our,

engagement,

social media platforms is through is from women. Yeah. So in Julie's girls night classes and different things like that, you know, 99% of them are women. Yeah. So I was like, let's get a guy out here that can show me how to, you know, clean a chicken.

Like, let's let's have an archery.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, how to clean a gun. You know? I don't know. Let's let's try some

different things to try to get a different demographic. And,

so, yeah, those are things we did, canning classes,

which was really amazing to you know, again, going back to the history. And if you didn't have grandma teach you, how do you learn? Like, well, hey. Check out the coffee shop.

So we're always trying

to bring stuff in that's not just

part of the business, but fun. Yeah. I I think it's a there's a knife making class that I think the historical society Yeah. Through the blacksmithing? Yeah. Yeah. They're they're making skillets

right around my birthday. So I guess you'd need a forge here to do that. So that would be a little difficult. That would be a little difficult. As I said that out loud, I was like, well, I'm not gonna be blacksmithing,

forges,

next to the high school. Yeah. Yeah. And, they do knives. They did My wife actually took out knife making class. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She made a really nice looking knife. Yeah. It's it sounds like fun. If you never do it again in your life, it's no big deal, but you can say you did it. I took a hunk of metal and turned it into something. And you get that, like, habit at the end of it. You know? That's what's cool. I think I have a trowel for my garden that was from that.

It's pretty cool.

But, there's there's lots of things to do, and we're trying more and new,

you know.

What's what's the rock painting?

Mandela rock painting. Mandela rock painting.

It's

Mandala? Mandala rock. Okay. I'm pronouncing it wrong. Mandala.

Coffee painting class? Coffee painting with coffee.

Painting with coffee. Yeah. As the,

medium. Medium. Medium. Yes.

Where yeah. My Tea Talks. If you wanna learn more about tea Oh, you have Tea Talks? Yeah. So it started somebody it was a homeschool group, and they wanted to come in and have a little class on coffee and tea, so I started that. And then somebody that was doing a book club,

that the book the theme of the book was tea related or something. I forget which book it was. But so they wanted to do with their book club

a little tea talk. Yeah. I did it up at the library.

And all of a sudden, it's a thing, and people wanna know more about tea because

I try to tell people tea is a verb.

You know? If you go into a store and say tea, especially here, I'm like, I have 35 kinds. Let's take a trip. Like, let's let's talk about what you're you're wanting. Yeah.

You know,

Lipton tea

is, like,

step one. Yeah. Alright. Let's go to step 100. Let's let's take it all the way. So we do, tea talks where, you know, I'd tell you a little history of tea

and different things like that and get you to try some different

oddballs. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we're gonna add, tea drinks to this round. So,

I found a But I can't talk to you about tea. Tibetan

recipe that calls for yak butter.

Yak butter? In the tea. And the Yeah.

And the really thing Where do you, procure yak? Jungle Jim's got everything. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm sure it's Not I'm sure it will work. I can't believe it's not yak butter, you know, but, Yak margarine. The the monks would actually put that butter in their tea

as a fat Yeah. Yeah. As a meal replacement like we do the bulletproof coffee. Yeah. Yeah. But

the benefit was,

it would coat their lips with grease,

and that buttery would keep it from chapping in the winter. That's a nice So it had this, like, unintended,

benefit.

Yeah.

But yeah. So and they're still drinking it today and using ChapStick. I don't know why.

But yeah. So we're gonna

try some, new and different Yeah. Butter. Yak butter coming soon. Coming soon. Just for the class. So I'm gonna Yeah. Don't don't come and ask for yak butter. I I won't sell it to you. Just for the fun class.

But and, again, it's a way to experience more than what you're used to.

You know, it's not sweet tea or a nonsweet tea. There's

there's thousands of different things out there, and, it's a lot of fun. Yeah. Cool.

Yeah.

Well, like I said, that's all I got, man. Alright. I'm gonna call it Successful Podcast. Okay. Yeah. Well, if not, we each had a cup of coffee. So that's that's a good way to end the day. Well, and I'll probably come back and do this again if you don't mind. Oh, sure. Because we didn't even talk about tea then. Yeah. Yeah. That's my other love. Yeah. Yeah.

Cool. Well,

thanks again. Absolutely. Thank you.

Well, thank you again to, Terry for sitting down with me, and thank you for the coffee.

I hope you enjoyed that interview. I enjoyed talking to Terry, and we'll probably try to have him back on to talk even more about coffee.

I I like coffee, and I like talking about it. So

and, again, apologies to Terry and the Goshen Grind for not getting this out sooner.

I I am really glad you got that mural done, though, and it looks great.

So thank you very much, and I am sorry. So

alright. Let's move on to some events.

Starting off, we have a Caring Place annual dinner auction on November 14 from 05:30

to 10:00PM

at the Oasis Conference Center is a Hollywood themed

charity gala and fundraiser. Guests enjoy a sit down dinner entertainment

and both silent and live auction.

All proceeds support a Caring Place, a nonprofit

providing

free confidential counseling and resources to women and families facing pregnancy or financial crises.

Tickets and reservations are required.

Table and individual pricing is available on the Claremont Chamber of Commerce website.

Next up is winter at the Mustard Sea Market, November 14 through the sixteenth, the Claremont County Fairgrounds.

Now this is interesting that you pay attention because each day has different times.

On November 14,

be from four to 8PM,

November 15 from 10AM to 4PM,

and November 16 from 10AM to 3PM.

So those are all the times.

So in addition to shopping, the market features live music, food trucks, and family family friendly activities,

stuff like hot cocoa and photos with Santa

to kick off the holiday season.

I've and I've said this before. I've my family's gone to the mustard seed market. We've actually interviewed Sarah Cox, the person that who runs the mustard seed market. It's a great event. And if you get a chance to go out there, I would highly recommend it.

Moving on, there's a used book sale November

the eighteenth at Miami Township Library.

This is a multi day sale of donated gently used media for all ages.

Shoppers can find bargain books, audiobooks, DVDs, and music.

Opening hours begin Saturday, November 15 at 9AM, then continue Monday, November 17 at 10AM, then Tuesday, November 18 at 12PM.

Sale runs during normal branch hours on all of those days.

The event is a public sale, no ticket required, and proceeds

typically support the library.

Next up is Loveland Legacy Foundation fall in Loveland

gala,

November 15 at Indie Hollow. It's a seated fundraising dinner and party hosted by the Loveland Legacy Foundation.

The event includes an open bar, beer, wine, and signature cocktails. Always good to have an open bar.

Catered dinner, live music, and dancing with Big Daddy Walker productions,

photo booth, and high value raffle items. Attire is country club casual,

and proceeds support local families in crisis.

Tickers are tickets are sold in advance via the foundation's

website.

Moving on, we have Nature Jewelry Making, November 15, 10:30AM to 4PM. This is a a drop in, so it doesn't run from 10:30AM

or it does run from 10:30AM to 4PM. But you don't need to be there the whole time. You can just come at some point between those hours. It's gonna be at Chilo Lock 34 Park.

Drop in at the River Museum to create natural keepsake jewelry with forged materials and resin.

All ages welcome. It is free, and there is no registration required.

Moving on, we have the iNaturalist

workshop and hike on November 15 from 3PM to 4PM at Clingman Park. This is a thirty minute presentation on using the iNaturalist

nature app

followed by a guided hike to practice making observations.

It is free and open to all nature enthusiasts.

And I actually have the iNaturalist app, and it's pretty cool. You take a picture of something, and then you kinda send it out to the app, and there are, like, scientists on there that will

identify whatever it is you took a picture of, like a bug or whatever. It's pretty cool.

I'd highly recommend picking it up, especially if you like nature.

Okay. Moving on. DIY suet and woodpecker hike, November 19 from 5PM to 06:30PM.

This is gonna be at Clingman Park.

Learn to craft a bird friendly suet feeder, a protein packed seed cake, and then hit the trails to spot hungry woodpeckers.

All ages are welcome, and it is free, but you do need to register. And I'm sure you can do that on the park's website.

Next up, Miami Township holiday parade, November 20 from 7PM to 9PM. This is gonna be a long business route 28 from Miami Plaza to Meijer.

Meijer, the grocery store, that is.

In the evening holiday parade featuring illuminated floats, high school marching bands, local businesses, and civic groups.

Families line the route to enjoy the sights and sounds of the season. It is free to attend,

and that's it. Free to attend.

Alright. Moving on.

Homeschool Discovery Day Nature Crafts, November 21, 1PM to 2PM at Clingman Park. This is a nature themed arts and crafts hour where homeschoolers and others

can create sustainable art from natural materials. It is a free program, but pre registration is required. Again, you can do that on the park's website.

Forged Tea Time and Hike Rose Hips.

November 22, 11AM to 12PM at Clingman Park.

Learn how to forage wild plants.

This session features rose hip tea from wild roses

and enjoy a guided hike. This is geared towards adults, but all ages are welcome. And it is free with registration required, and you guessed it, you can do that on the park's website.

Last but certainly not least, Newtonsville

Wayne Township Holiday Craft Fair. It's gonna be November 22 from 9AM to 6PM, Wayne Township Fire Station fifty five. It is a full day holiday craft fair showcasing

local local crafters and vendors.

Free admission, and it is open to the public to shop for handmade gifts and seasonal goodies in a festive

small town atmosphere.

So those are the events that I got for you. And a quick note on the events, I do the best to find as many as I can, and I know I don't get them all. So if you have an event or you know what of event you'd like people to know about, just send an email, info@let'stalkclairmont.com.

And

let's do the last pitch for value for value. We are a value for value podcast. And what that means

is when you listen to the show, if you get value from it, you determine what that value is, and you send that value back to the show in the form of time, talent, or treasure.

For time and talent, tell people about the show. Share the show. Write in. Give, you know, boots on the ground reports are

really, really,

valuable.

And let us know what the character of the county, township, or village that you live in is so that we know what we're trying to preserve in the face of all of our dis development pressure.

And

if you like high school sports,

and you wanna do a high school sports rundown, get in touch, and we will figure that out.

Now for treasure.

Any dollar amount is greatly appreciated. It helps keep the show going. It helps us grow. It helps helps a lot of things, really.

But

because we're running that holiday special,

for producers that donate $25 and above, you will get a special show mention

and a brief holiday message, brief as in a well constructed sentence.

And for donations $200

and above, you will get an executive producer credit that I'll vouch for.

And I will read a full note within reason again. I'm not gonna read some hate manifesto,

but

I'll read a note on air,

and that's what we have for donations.

And, of course, you can connect with us on Facebook, Let's Talk Claremont podcast, Instagram at Let's Talk Claremont. We got that newsletter. Head over to the website, www.let'stalkclaremont.com.

Hit the newsletter tab. Put your email in there. Only gonna email you once a week when a new show comes out. And moving forward, we're gonna try to put some fun little goodies in there,

so you have a reason to sign up for it.

And please follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever it is you use for podcasts.

It helps the show out, but it helps you out because you'll be notified

anytime

a new show goes live.

And, of course, if you have a boots on the ground report or,

you know, just wanna say hi, whatever,

info@let'stalkclaremont.com.

Alright. Well, I really appreciate you tuning in and listening. I hope you enjoyed this show, and I will see you next week.

Let's Talk Clermont