dave: hey, it's dave asprey with bulletproofexecutive radio. today's cool fact of the day is that it takes about 3 or 4 years fora coffee tree to mature and start producing fruit. once it starts flowering, it will onlyproduce about a pound of green coffee a year, depending on region and altitude and soiland all that. it takes between 3 and 4 thousand coffee beans to create a single bag of deliciouscoffee, so coffee is actually a pretty rare,
maxwell house original roast coffee, special commodity, but you already knew thatbecause you listen to this podcast. today's guest is someone special. dan coxhas been involved in just about every aspect of the coffee industry for more than 30 years.he's been on tv countless times talking about consumer trends, pricing, product handling.he's also one of the few people on the planet
you can go to for coffee legal matters andis actually part of coffee lawsuits when they need a legal consultant. he's also been a3 term president of the specialty association of america for coffee. the specialty coffeeassociation of america called him "man of the year" even. if you were to basically sum it up in justone sentence, dan, is it fair to say that you're old school coffee mafia? is that accurate?dan: i am considered "old school," certainly. well, i hang out with a clan of notoriouscoffee aficionados that really believe this is still a pretty special product and thatwe're all pretty passionate about it. since i have three companions that we've traveledthe nineteen different countries together
and countless plantations and co-ops, so istill really like what i do. i'm very fortunate. i love what i do. i'm considered the top ofmy game, but candidly, i don't believe there is such a thing as an expert. there's alwayssomething new to learn, and sometimes i hear these outlandish claims that i go ... at firsti say, "no way," and yet as i look deeper, there's always possibilities of somethingnew on the horizons and things happening that make this still an incredibly cool occupationto work in. dave: coffee's changed enormously over thepast thirty or so years. it's fascinating because you were there since the first starbucksopened, essentially. you were involved with coffee from that time frame right?dan: yeah. i was really lucky. in the united
states, coffee's been a mature product sincereally right after the revolutionary war. in the early 1900s, at the turn of the century,every town in the usa had a small coffee roaster. that pretty much end with the emergence ofcans coffee which had long shelf lives. number 2, the emergence of supermarkets where peoplewould go into one store to buy baked goods and coffees and any other stuff you can getin a supermarket. that stayed pretty ... our high point in coffee consumption in the unitedstates was 1964 where about 76% of the people drank 3.2 cups of coffee per day. then, it died. it started going backwardsbecause of the emergence of sodas and the great marketing that the soda companies pickedup. the coffee industry pretty much stuck
with trying to attract existing coffee drinkersto change to their brand instead of enticing new coffee entrants into the industry, whichwould be the teenagers. starbucks came along, and they also introduced a species calledrobustas to create price [war 03:45] so consequently- dave: wait. wait. starbucks didn't introducerobusta. that was just the- dan: no. no. no. no.dave: general coffee industry just- dan: yeah. the coffee industry in the late60s decided to fight the price wars. you had the maxwell house, the crafts, the folgers... they knew that people would come into a supermarket to buy a pound of coffee a week,so whatever they put on deal, they didn't feel there was a lot of loyalty in the brands.in order to reduce prices, one of the easiest
things was to do, was to reduce costs of goods,and the number 1 cost of goods was the arabica, so they introduced the robusta beans. if youdo it slowly over time, it won't be nearly as noticeable. the rise of great marketingand sodas, the decline of great coffee, meant that the industry was going backwards. around late 70s or early 80s the emergenceof peet's coffee company in the west coast, a great company based out of oakland californiaand berkeley, california. he was really the instigator. then, starbucks picked up. starbucksdid a great job of making coffee cool, making it a cool occasion, making it hip. although,i laugh because starbucks is probably the number 1 or 2 user of milk products in theunited states. getting a black cup of coffee
at starbucks is actually kind of hard. peopleuse a lot of additives. then in my old stomping grounds, i was the first employee at a placecalled green mountain coffee roasters, which we started in 1981.dave: that's ginormous. just so people know, green coffee mountain roasters is a billiondollar coffee company right? dan: it's actually 5 billion.dave: yeah, exactly. number 1 there. that's phenomenal. what's the latest ... what isthird wave coffee and how is starbucks different than third wave coffee? what's the dunkin'donuts, starbucks things ... give me a little bit more and give people listening a kindof understanding of the amazing business of coffee.dan: well, third wave is now being split into
2 directions. it's pretty interesting becausestarbucks is essentially looking for all of their growth to be overseas, international,pretty much asia. they're very asia oriented right now.dave: are you over there a lot dan? do you see what they're doing in asia?dan: i don't go there, but i am very cognizant of what they're doing over there and their plans.dave: it's nuts. when you walk down any street in a big city, there's more starbucks therethan in new york city. i swear. dan: yeah. well, again, in asia, a normalcity for them can be 4 or 5 million, so over
here 4 or 5 million person city is chicago.their market tiers are so much greater than ours. starbucks feels they've got united statescovered pretty much on 2 fronts, retail in their own stores, and retail in the supermarkets.they'll continue to make some splash, but reality is they're going overseas. dunkin' donuts, which is a pretty interestingeast coast consumer, east coast retailer, they’ve got about 6000 stores of which about5200 are east of the mississippi. most people on the west coast really don't know too muchabout dunkin' donuts. the other big player of course is mcdonald's.mcdonald's with 31000 locations, they decided 2 years or 3 years ago to get more seriousabout coffee, and they’ve done a pretty
good job elevating, mainly through price anda better quality product that, a dollar value ... their biggest product is their cafã© frozencoffee drink. boy, that is going really well for them. they're doing really well.dave: the trick to selling a lot of coffee is sell a lot of milk and a lot sugar.dan: well, that's ... we are a fat, cold, sugar based society. [if i was to saying,07:40] what are the 3 big things we love? we love fat. we love sugar, and we love coldportion. then, distribution. hence, sodas and any product that has a lot of fat in it.the other part ... the third wave now is the small stores, the blue bottles, the four barrels,the people that want to get into making coffee literally dripped by the cup, individual.what trend that their breaking, which is unusual,
is we are so convenience oriented, drive-throughtime oriented, that we live in the era of line speed, the shorter the better. in a traditionaltakeout drive-through scenarios, whether it's a wendy's or mcdonald's, 90 seconds is thegoal, from the time you order to the time you drive away, they want to do that in 90seconds. that's pretty darn quick. a minute and 20 is the next one. to go into a store like blue bottle or fourbarrel, and i love four barrel in the bay area,dave: i went to one in valencia. the one there? dan: yes.dave: i used to work a block away from there, and i know [tao 08:48] that had roasted there.i've written about four barrel too. it's a
great roaster and a cool environment too.dan: it's an amazing one. i was there last spring, and i don't really try to sharp shootpeople, and the good news is nobody knows who the hell i am, and that's fine. when igo in and i'll talk to their server, whether he's a barista or just somebody ... i'll askhim a few questions, and in this case they were serving 3 different kenyan coffees. iasked him to describe the difference between the 3. this guy was probably in his mid-30s.he was really good at that. i was impressed that he knew the regions and he the differentiationsbetween the kirinyagan from one area, and i said "somebody's doing some pretty goodeducation there." the other thing is, it takes 3 minutes. youplace your order. you go get a seat. they
either bring it out to you, or you come back.it's creating the scene of coffee's meant to take time. when you come here, you're goingto spend 3 to 5 bucks on a cup, and you're going to really enjoy it, but it's going totake time. the exact opposite and the third wave that we happening in the supermarkets,is single cup coffee dominated by the keurig brand.dave: yup. dan: this is amazing. none of us saw thiscoming. single cup has been around for at least 25 years, but it was so poorly executedwhen it first entered ... we had senseo. we had pods. they were a disaster because 1,the machines weren't very reliable and 2, the product wasn't very reliable. keurig comesalong and the first 3 years, they bleed right
in trying to figure out how to make this thingwork. they start out in the office coffee industry, switched over to retail, and it'snow holds first 4 of the top 10 selling coffee brewers in the united states are keurig, andout of the top 10, they hold 6 positions out of the top 10.dave: that's why i wanted to offer a cartridge that could work in a keurig machine. oh man,the complexity of doing that! unless you're some billion dollar company, it is reallyhard ,and we finally did it, but it was an 18 month undertaking in order to try and makethat happen. dan: people forget that green mountain has70 people in their r&d. they have nasa engineers down in their massachusetts headquarters,and they are constantly looking at making
this better. the old complaint was the coffeenever tasted strong enough. strength in this situation had a relationship to the amountof coffee you could physically get into a cup, the temperature, the grind, and the time.they initially had 9 grams for a 30 second brew cycle. then, they went to 11 grams. then,they changed the cup, in the vue cup, to 15 grams.dave: that was a good move. dan: it was a good move. it settled with thefact that ... environmentally, all of these things are a disaster. they will fully admitthat a pound of coffee in a bag, a 1 pound bag, 1 bag, and you get about 50 to 60 cupsout of it. in k-cups, you get about 50 or 60 individual capsules that had to be thrownaway, and until recently, were not recyclable.
the industry recognized this is a disasteron environmental. dave: that was one of my problems. the onesthat i make are entirely recyclable. that was part of the 18 month challenge becausei just don't want to make more trash than i have to. i don't think it's good for theworld, right? dan: oh, it's a disaster. here in little oldvermont, and i think there are like 3 or 4 places in the united states, boulder, colorado,berkeley, california, palo alto, california, and burlington, vermont, portland, oregonto a degree, we consider ourselves in the leading edge of environmental concerns, andhere we are ... i mean try to open a landfill in vermont. good luck. yet, the company realized"we’ve got to do something about this."
they’ve been struggling with this for years,and they've got 1 solution, but it's not near there yet.dave: is it true that they're going to partner with the ecohomes people to fill the wallsof homes with old cartridges? just kidding. dan: listen, if you could put it in tiresi would be happy. i don't care, but if you could make home insulation, i'd think they'dbe open to anything we could do. the new capsules, the new k-cups are made with pet #5 plastic.out the vues, there's a tear away feature where you tear the lid, and the filter comesoff, and then the cup itself can be recycled, but you have to do that also when the coffeehas cooled. if you take it right out of the brewer, and you try to do it, there's a goodchance it's going to rip and tear, and you're
getting coffee browns, so you got to waita minute. again, going back to our nature, we are nota culture that revels in things that take time. we are speed oriented, and we are speedfood oriented. but it's a whole another story. the thing that i find interesting is you usedto walk down on a supermarket aisle, and there would be sign that said "coffee" and whenyou got on that coffee aisle, there would be cans of coffee. then, there would be canistersor bins of whole bean coffee. then, there were 1 pound bags of coffee. now, you're goingdown, and you're actually seeing boxes of coffee, and within the box of coffee are thesesingle capsules. within 5 years, you will not even see whole bean, bulk coffee linepriced in any supermarket in the united states.
dave: wow.dan: those are dying quickly. 1 pound bags of ground coffee ... it used to be just wholebean, but ground coffee is now taking over. cans are going by the way. for example, folgersin about 10 years ago, invested tons of money in their new can. it's a plastic ... it lookslike a paint can for cripes sakes. they- dave: it is folgers i mean.dan: this is what for 3 million dollars’ worth of design get you? people can't waitto empty it out, the coffee, so they can use it as paint can. they made the switch recentlyand said all of their focus is going to be on single cup performance. this is a hugedeal, huge deal. craft is now getting into it. most of us never saw this coming. theother thing about americans, which i love
to disparage our fellow citizens, is thatfirst of all, no matter how much you try to force us, we refuse to learn the metric system.it's foreign to us. it feels foreign to us. we don't like it.dave: it's like learning french or something. dan: it is. i absolutely ... something thatdoesn't belong in the united states, even though it's the language of science, and it'sworldwide; it doesn't matter to us. my point is people have no idea that 454 grams equalsa pound of coffee. thank god because if they could ever figure out the math on what thesecapsules cost by the pound, you would say there's no way, but if you say "well it'sonly 60 cents a cup," then "well, i can afford 60 cents a cup. if i go out to my local retailer,it's going to be between 1 and 3 dollars.
what a steal!" then, when you go "wait a second.how many cups do i get in a pound? my god! that's 40 to 60 dollars a pound for coffee!"dave: it is. it's more expensive. dan: the joke of all them is that the number1 product for expense wise in the market is starbucks via soluble coffee in a stick. frommy perspective, it is the best soluble coffee on the market today, and i have tested thiswell over 50 times. it's got regular soluble coffee done very well from columbia primarily,and it's mixed in with some about 15% micro fine ground coffee, which actually gives it[some mouth feeling 16:47] some fragrance. it cost a buck. there's 3 grams in it. ifyou do the math real quickly, you go "let me see. 454 divided 3 is a 151. 151 x 1 ... areyou telling me this stuff costs 151 dollars
a pound?" the answer is "you betcha!"dave: how many grams of coffee does it take to make 1 gram of solubilized coffee?dan: it's about a 3 to 1 ratio. dave: okay. got it.dan: about a 3 to 1 ratio, so their cost to goods, as i figured out all in ... dependingon what the market is any given day, they may have maybe, and depending how much wantto amateurize their research, maybe they get 10 bucks of cost to goods into that. they'reselling it for 151. no wonder they advertise the heck out of it.dave: of course, so that's a super high margin product.dan: yeah. dave: now there are studies looking at what'sin solubilized coffee. the ones that i'm familiar
with, that are looking specifically at moldtoxins in coffee, given that that's an area where i've spent a lot of time doing research,show that on average there is twice as many mold toxins in the average instant coffee.have you looked into that at all? dan: no. i haven't looked into that statistic.mycotoxins in the plant world is ... they're everywhere.dave: yeah. they are. dan: they're absolutely everywhere.dave: you can't get rid of them. dan: you can try to mitigate them as bestas ... first thing is to try to identify them. identify the ones that can really do damage,and is it obvious or is it something we have to dig deeper in? there are some big offenders,and then there are a lot of lesser ones. the
reality is they're everywhere. the questionis what is their level of toxicity, and can we do anything about it? that's important. the first you would like to do is eliminatethem, if possible. now if you can't eliminate them, how can you best control them? thatstarts with a rigorous program of testing. if we look at something like ochratoxin-a,which is a pathogen and it's formed on the mold, on the fungus of lots of different products,but coffee can be one of them, and especially coffee from indonesia or coffee that's beenin the water a long time from where it's produced to where it's consumed. when we buy coffee form indonesia, it's onthe water at least 6 weeks to 8 weeks. during
that time, it can be in a container that'sclosed, but depending on ... coffee's hygroscopic, so it can pick up moisture, and with moistureyou get mold. with mold, can come ochratoxin. you can't have ochratoxin without mold, butyou can have mold without ochratoxin, so you have to test it.in europe, it's regulated by the equivalent of the fda in europe. in the united statesit's not regulated. the problem with ochratoxin is it's in lots of different things besidesjust coffee, but it's not homogeneous. dave: right.dan: you have to do more than just test 1 bag. you have to ... a container has, dependingon the size of the container, between 250 and 300 bags per container, so between 38000and 42000 pounds per container. you can have
hot spots within that. most roasters do notwant to take the time or the expense to do proper testing. there is some thought thatit gets roasted out at the super high temperatures, and the answer is that that's not true.dave: hold on a second. there's always people saying, "ah, the heat destroys mold. doesn'tit kill the mold?" i mean i know the answer to this, but tell people as a 30 year coffeeveteran, what's the deal here? dan: ochratoxin-a is a stable compound likemany things. it's stable which means unless you get to super high temperatures, and supertemperatures [inaudible 20:52] are about a thousand plus degrees. anything less thanthat is just considered "hot." dave: that's what starbucks uses on theirdark roast, right? is a thousand degrees?
dan: oh yeah. at least, maybe 2000. to getthat charred effect, you can't do it easily. no. no.dave: no offense starbucks. we love you. dan: no. no. actually the darkest roastedcoffee in the united states is peet's. they roast it slightly darker. the range is traditionally375 to 450 degrees fahrenheit. that is the range, and then you've got to throw in thetime it takes, anywhere between a 15 and 20 minute roast. then, you have to work in what'sthe moisture content of the coffee as it's coming in. moisture content comes at about4 or 5 variables, but if someone said "the average roast temperature of coffee is 400degrees for 15 minutes for a 2 bag roast of 350 pounds," i'd say that's a pretty goodgenerality, but at those temperatures, things
are created. acrylamides can be created, butthey can't be destroyed, so you can't destroy ochratoxin-a, furan, or some of the othermycotoxins at this temperature. it can't be done.dave: the spores are dead, but the poison left by the mold that made the spores is notdead ... well it was never alive but it's present and still biologically active. okay.dan: yes. the other issue is because technology allows us to get further and further intothe dna of anything, we can see things that used to be measured in parts per thousand,parts per million, parts per billion; now we're into parts per trillion. you do haveto put that into the old paracelsus adage in that the poison is in the dosage. i trulybelieve in that. if i was to look at my food
source and say "my god. almost everythingi eat has the potential to be toxic." [i always go, 22:52] "you're right." let's just calmdown and figure out what we need to test, what's reasonable and what's not reasonable. when people come up and they figure out whati do and they say, "well god, i drink 10 cups of coffee a day," and i go, "well that's yourproblem." you're not impressing me because you can consume so much coffee. is the issuethe coffee or is the issue the caffeine? the caffeine again is another one of these stablecompounds. people think the coffee is roasted darker, so it has less caffeine because it'sbeen roasted out. fundamentally, absolutely not true, not true. it's a stable compound.it's the same amount than you began with,
then you ended with, no difference. now, espresso'sa little bit different only because the throw weight is different.the espresso you just drank looked like it was about 2 ounces.dave: yep. dan: we drink about 1 and a half to 2 ouncesof espresso, and that could have 80 to 100 milliliters of caffeine, whereas an 8 to 10ounce drink of regular coffee may have 100 to 150. because it's so highly concentrated,it has more caffeine just because it uses more coffee, but it does not have more caffeineby the pound. it's the same amount. sometimes people also think because it tastes stronger,it has more caffeine. caffeine for the most part is tasteless and odorless until you getit in its purest form.
dave: you may not know the answer to this,and i don't know the answer to it. i've always noticed that an espresso, i feel it before... if i chug down an espresso and i chugged a room temperature black coffee or something,i'll feel the espresso speed my mind up faster than the coffee. i believe it's because thecoffee's essential oils are still intact, and they help to escort the caffeine and someof the other phytochemicals into the brain better, like that fat plus caffeine has adifferent effect than just caffeine. have you seen anything about that? is that partof your ... ? dan: yes. that's absolutely true. caffeineis a phenomenal carrier of all sorts of things. it also gives a lot of people a sense of alertness,a slight sense of energy. most of the studies
i've looked at feel that the number 1 reasonpeople drink coffee in the morning is for the caffeine. it's not necessarily for thetaste of the coffee. when you see it used in the pharmaceutical industry, specificallymedicines like aspirin, it's not because the caffeine they feel is necessary a great additive.what it is, is a great carrier. it gets the other essential ingredients in the medicationto you very quickly. just like the old product dmso, i don't know if you knew what that-dave: yeah. i use it. dan: yeah. it was used in horses for recoveryof horses. dave: right.dan: well that stuff, you'd rub some of that on your shoulder and within 10 seconds, yourbreath would really smell differently. researchers
said, "hmm. how can that work so fast. webetter look at this because it could be a great carrier for other things." the pharmaceuticalindustry, obviously the soda industry, is the number one user of caffeine in the world.pharmaceuticals, soda industry because it has a slight amount of upliftingness to itand energizing. certainly, in coffee producing countries now, especially in brazil, they'reusing cafã© lattes and cafã© au laits for children in elementary school because it makesthem more alert, and they actually are proven to be better testers. unbeliev-, up here youwould think "oh yeah. this is just a coffee guy trying to sell more coffee."dave: i posted on facebook a picture of my son drinking 2 ounces of bulletproof coffeemade with my mold toxin tested beans plus
the grass fed butter and the brain octaneoil. my kids get it every morning. they get about an ounce or 2. you know what? they feelgreat. it makes them happy. they're not addicted. they don't go hyper. they're just calm andfocused and happy. i don't think i'm harming them. in fact i know i'm [crosstalk 27:00]dan: no. i don't think they're getting shorter. they're not turning browner. they're not hyper,running around beating on each other. no. i find that in the studies ... i see studiesall the time that the ... i think the publicity has turned the corner to where there are morepositive attributes to moderation in coffee than negative ones. there are certainly stillsome negative ones, but the industry is starting to say "hey. wait a second." everything fromcolorectal cancer, breast cancer, alzheimer's,
there's some stuff going on here that we needto look at closer. i have no problem. my daughter's an adultnow, but when she started drinking coffee when she was around 10 ... i think first ofall, i think she's somewhat influenced by my wife and i. secondly, she liked it. shejust plain liked it. she liked the taste of it.dave: i didn't think i would give my kids coffee until they're older, but when my daughterwas 1, i said "well, i'll give her black coffee" because she was reaching for my cup, and ifigured she'll make a face and ... i had to fight her to get the cup back.dan: that's a little unbelievable. dave: yeah. i was surprised, but they’vejust been like that, so a couple tablespoons.
i think it's fine.dan: if your child doesn't like it, they're going to tell you real fast. they're justgoing to push away and say "no way. get it out of my face." if they do like it, usuallyi'll go back to put some milk in it. you don't have to go crazy with sugar, but usually thefirst sip, if it's somewhat diluted with some milk, it certainly should be palatable.dave: let's go back to ... you said that coffee has some positive things. my own researchand experience has shown me that when i look at the list of negative aspects of coffee,and i look at the list of negative aspects of mold toxins that are commonly present incoffee, there's a shocking overlap there. that when i experience coffee that is testedto be extremely low ... like you said, there's
a part per kazillion measure that i'm surethere's one of those, in any coffee bean because there's so many parts. but when i drink exceptionallow mycotoxin coffee, i feel different. i even did a little study with executive functioncomparing 2 different coffees, and it showed that there was a difference in executive functionbetween the 2. you mentioned earlier the european standards.they test using probably not the most accurate test on earth, but they test for ochratoxin-awhich is one of the 27 different things that i look at in the upgraded coffee beans. theytest for that and they say "all right. this coffee isn't up to european standards." whatis the current european standard in parts per billion, do you remember off the top ofyour head?
dan: it's either 3 or 5 parts.dave: okay. cool. my research says it's 5 and it used to be 8, but it does change occasionally.i don't always get the latest update right away. 5 parts per billion, very small. okay.there's a container load of coffee. they tested it. it didn't make it. where would it be testedin the supply chain? is this at a broker? would it be tested before it shipped fromthe source country? how does it happen? dan: the best way to test it would be begin... because mold can accumulate and start en route depending on where coffee's comingfrom, is you want to test it as it left port and you want to test it when it arrives. importerswill only do what they're asked to do. then, they're going try [for-live-bit 30:27] topass that cost on to the roaster. if the roaster
demands it, the importer has two choice. "okay.i'll test it, but i'm going to charge you for the test," or "no. i don't want to gothrough the aggravation of testing. you're not big enough for me to do this [immediatemyself 30:43] in theory, you would want to test it justas it was loaded onto the ship, and then you would want to test it again, depending onthe length of travel on water, once it got there. most roasters ... i mean the most commonway of testing ochratoxin is through the use of what's called a fluorometer because itcan be fluorescence. we have it in our labs. we have the capability of testing this. ittruly is a pain the neck test to do. oh my god. you have to extract from green coffee.grinding green coffee is like grinding mustard
seeds. all it does is gum up your grinders.you have to freeze it to begin with. if you’ve got some liquid nitrogen around, that worksreally well, but not a whole lot of people have that. we freeze the coffee which makes the cellstructure brittle. then, we grind it. then, we have to go through at least 6 phases offiltering it to where we finally get about 2 or 3 mils of this colorless liquid thatwe put into a fluorometer. then, 30 seconds later we get a result. it's about 65 minutesof prep for a 30 second test. that can cost anywhere between 150 to 300 dollars to doit. until you automate it, it's very labor intensive.dave: now, that test when you're doing it,
what's the sensitivity of it?dan: very sensitive. i think the thing if you're really going to look at this, you wantto go right back to the source, and you want to figure out how can we create conditionsthat these things won't ... how can we grow this stuff that will lessen the chance ofit forming. dave: you're starting to sound kind of likethe bulletproof process there. dan: yeah. it's tricky. it's really tricky,but there are niches for everything. i mean i look at now ... 15, 20 twenty years ago,the organic supply and farmer to table now ... so we pay more for organic foods if wecan have assuredness that it really is organic. we like buying local now. where you are, there'sa lot of opportunities, but the thing that's
really amazed me is why are our systems sosensitive to gluten all of a sudden? now we go down a supermarket and there are aislesof gluten free products. what's going on here? dave: i think i have a pretty good theoryon that one. gluten cross reacts with funny enough, toxic molds. we changed our soil bacteriaabout 30 years ago by spraying a potent mutagen on it. we've been having these aspergillusmostly, soil microbes that are typically harmless that have become less harmless that have alsomoved into our homes because they live basically anytime there's moisture in a home. they produceimmune stimulating molecules that have the same 8 amino acid sequence that's presentin gluten and casein. i believe that's one of the underlying reasons; it's not the onlyone, but it's one of the underlying reasons
that we're seeing this explosion. i've experiencedmyself in palo alto. there was a toxic mold growing behind a dishwasherin a place where i was staying. when i got exposed to that, my relatively minor glutenallergies just exploded. the same thing happened to my wife. it's a known thing. it's justone of those complex systems out there, and i'm a canary for toxic mold, and that's whywhen i drink a cup of coffee, i can tell you if it's got ... i've had cup of excellencecoffee that tasted amazing. it was blissful and orgasmic, but 20 minutes later, i'm like"yep. there's mold toxins in it." dan: there's something in there.dave: yeah. dan: well, i'm just amazed that the industryled by the big industry leaders, the kellogg's
and the general foods of the world, generalmills of the world, have realized that this segment of the population is asking for it,so we better pay attention. my wife is a gluten sensitive. consequently, we go to a couplehealth food stores, and she goes down that aisle and now there are gluten free pizzas.dave: i have some bad news for you dan. have you seen the studies about coffee cross reactingwith gluten? dan: no.dave: yeah. there's actually immune ... it's proven by one lab in one case, but get this,they used cheap instant coffee. there are a ton of people who don't drink any coffeeother than upgraded coffee because they react to it. i'm the same way, but when they drinka coffee that's tested for molds, they aren't
getting basically the gut problems that they'regetting from normal coffee. that can be a trigger for immune sensitivity. if you'relike the celiac or crohn's side of things, the quality of the coffee you're drinkingis a factor in- dan: you betcha.dave: how you react. i don't know if your wife has paid attention to whether coffeeis triggering any gluten allergies in her or whether it's triggering symptoms of glutenallergies, but it's worth noticing. dan: well she switched years ago to decaf,and she's a diehard, 2 cup a day, decaf drinker. she drinks the best decaf on the market thatshe can find. she seems to be fine. dave: i need to ship her some of mine if shehasn't tried it. i didn't realize that she
was doing that because ... i mean what isthe best one that you know of? because i'll tell you, i always get sick when i drink decafcoffee because they use low quality beans because they know they're ruining them anyway.you’ve found a super high quality one? if anyone on earth would know ...dan: there are ... you have to look far and wide to find them. they're usually small micro-roastersthat are willing to pay a lot more for coffee. i find if you were the big brand, the onethat's most common right now that i think does a pretty good job, nespresso decaf doesa really good job. dave: no kidding? nespresso. i wouldn't havepredicted that. dan: nespresso. it's a subsidiary of nespresso,of nestlã©. consequently, they're making a
lot of money, so they do a pretty good jobsourcing coffee especially for the- dave: in terms of flavor or ... ?dan: oh yeah. oh yeah. dave: okay.dan: yeah. yeah. yeah. i would say, from a capsule standpoint for dark roast, they'rethe leader in the field as they should be because of taste [taste along 36:58]. theverismo by starbucks has been less than successful. they're not selling very many in those machines.the rivo from green mountain coffee is kind of dead in the water, not selling very manyto make espresso based beverages, but an espresso still leads the pack by far.dave: you find a consistent high quality, high flavor decaf?dan: yeah. yeah.
dave: i'm going to ship some of our decafto try. dan: ship it away.dave: the reason is that i take the original tested beans, and our roasting is in portland.we ship it over to vancouver to do swiss water process and ship it back, so it's a very shortship time because caffeine's also an anti-fungal agent in the coffee. it tends to be ... infact, i'll you it's the only decaf that i don't react to.dan: do you ship it over to the plant, the swiss water plant?dave: yeah. absolutely. it's only about 6 hours because portland to vancouver and backis easy. dan: now, i went to that plant in september,and i am very high positive about the plant.
i've been to the plant. i've seen it beforeand the after. i know the management. it's the real deal. i think they're probably oneof the best decaffeinated plants in the world. they do a really nice job.dave: that is amazingly validating because i don't have the experience to have lookedat different plants like that, but they impressed me with just the quality and the whole process.i wanted to make a decaf that not only tasted good, but also was very low in toxins becausethe studies, that i've come across where they look at levels of various toxins in decaf,not the ones that come from chemical decaffeination like the solvents, but actually ones fromthe fungal toxins, they're phenomenally higher because usually you throw robusta beans, youthrow lower quality beans because you know
you're ruining the beans by decaffeinatingthem, right? dan: it's the old crap in, crap out.dave: yeah. dan: same thing with soluble coffee, if you're... [i taste soluble coffee of a lot of people. for 38:54]many roasters said, "well, it'slike taking your car to the demolition derby. what's the point? don't take a good car, takea crappy car." i said, "well, you can't possibly have good tasting coffee if you start withbad beans. now it's the processes ... are there better ways of making decaffeinatedcoffee over the year? the answer is yes. the swiss water people do it in small batches.i think there's something to be said for that versus a continuous decaffeination process.it really starts with the water. the water
that comes out of its decaffeination plantshould be drinkable. it should be purified that much through the system that it can berecycled and drinkable. when i've been to decaf plants in switzerlandand germany and france and mexico and the united states and in canada, that's the firstthing i'll say is, "i want to see the water that comes out of the last batch, and i wantto taste it." if they won't allow me to do that, i know there's a problem.dave: wow. okay. that's a pretty high standard. dan: they haven't cleaned it enough to beable to use it in the next batch. it takes time, and it takes money to do that. it takesa lot of money to do that, to constantly filter, filter, filter. active carbonation, i thinkcarbon is the answer, but to a lot people
just don't want to take the time.dave: it's funny you mentioned active carbon. if i'm in a situation where i'm going to drinkcoffee that isn't mine and probably 90% of the time when i go out here, i can tell, likemy brain doesn't do the things i'm used to at doing when i do that. yeah. i'm a delicateflower, whatever. apparently other people have a slight reduction in mental capacityversus say like feeling as bad as i would, but they're noticing they don't have a dipin energy later. i take the coconut charcoal capsules, whichis ... actually, it's almost identical to the carbon that's in those water filters,although it's a finer particle size. i take those if i know i'm going to be in a situationlike a coffee tasting. i'm going down to costa
rica to work on expanding the number of plantationswho can do the pre-harvesting steps the way i like them done. i know i'll be tasting stuffthat's not as clean as i want, so i'm going to be popping charcoal all day long to filterit in the stomach. dan: yeah. carbon's a very good catchall fora lot of good stuff. you might be thinking, "well i think i'll swallow a brick at a day."i say, "well, that's not the worst thing in the world that can happen to you at all."dave: yeah. i manufactured it for internal use. it's just worth using it. if i'm goingto be drinking strange coffees, i will do that. one question, we talked earlier aboutthis european coffee you tested before it goes on to the boat. you test it when it comesoff. now, we're somewhere at a port in a europe,
and we tested coffee, and the coffee's bad.it doesn't meet european standards. what do they do with that coffee?dan: well, we don't like to talk about that. dave: oops.dan: i can't tell you exactly what happens because i don't live in europe, but if it'swritten into the contract, and if i was a european roaster, i would write it into thecontracts. the first thing the roaster would say is, "it's rejectable, and it's your obligation,importer, to replace it with like coffee without the toxins, obviously." then, the importerhas to figure out "what do i do with this?" it's never going to be shipped back to theproducing country. that's laughable. now, they have to sit there and say "okay. it gotrejected because the level of whatever; the
mycotoxin is too high. now, do i resell itto someone else? do i retest it, or do i just dump it?" then, there's transportation issuesinvolved. if they want to try it, sell it to anotherroaster that doesn't have it in their contract, they can do that. that's the 1st avenue. tryto sell it to somebody who doesn't care about the mycotoxin. if that doesn't work, thenthey could sell it to other countries that don't have regulations. in our country, that'scalled dumping. you're intentionally selling something to us that you know has a problem,whether we have a regulation or not. that's not really cool. that doesn't fly very well,even if it's sold at a discount. but there are many, many roasters that are,i would say, less than ethical. if they have
a chance to pick up something that is a lotless expensive, that's unregulated, they'll do it. it's very simple. they'll just do it.dave: is there any possibility that the companies, with the coffee that they know has a problem,and that country might not notify the buyer in the us about the product?dan: of course they will. of course they will because it's not regulated. why would i intentionallytell you, "oh by the way, the coffee that you're buying was rejected in belgium becauseit had an ochratoxin level too high,†when they're saying "well, these people don't care.why would i even tell them?" dave: yeah.dan: yeah. dave: if you were at a us company, and youhad even say internal standards, you could
buy some higher toxin for less and have somenominally lower toxin, mix them all up to get the average parts per billion down. isthat ever done? dan: i don't think it's being done. i'm obviouslynot at the larger roasters. i don't that's being done intentionally, but i have no proof.there are a lot of crooks out that, work that way. that's why i think dealing with peoplethat are incredibly reputable is the rule of day. coffee is incredibly fraudulent. for example,there is more jamaican blue mountain coffee sold every year than is grown. there is morecolombian coffee, 100% colombian coffee sold every year than is grown. same thing withkona coffee. there are a lot of unscrupulous
people ... [inaudible 44:40] the fish, comeon. the fish industry is rife with this right now. you go, and you think you're buying chileansea bass? good luck. we are very open till we're very gullible. in this case, you'vegot to know your retailer, and you've got to ask your retailer to back it up with somesimple requests. we don't want to bust your chops too much, but if you're saying thisis this, i need to see your authenticity. wine, old wine ... i just finished readinga book, the billionaire's vinegar. it's fantastic story about how these people paid zillionsof dollars for old bottles of jeffersonian wine that were never tested, and you wouldn'teven know, and most people don't even want to open the bottle anyways but what's theprovenance? how do you check on the provenance
for some of this stuff? very difficult. very,very difficult. dave: it turns out you're not just a coffeeexpert, right? you're a cigar guy and a wine guy as well and a harley guy and porsche guy.you kind of like the finer things in life right?dan: i got to the stage where i was very fortunate that i had the ability to make some choiceson how i want to spend my time and who i want to spend my time with. cigars and coffee isa natural. when the cigar craze of 1990 hit, i was among the first to really get involvedin that. marvin shanken at shaken communications has done a wonderful job with cigar aficionado,and i did a lot of coffee tastings with that magazine. wine, i started a wine club with2 other guys in the late 80s, and i would
say i'm a sophomore, but i'm a pretty educatedsophomore. i just saw the video somm, s-o-m-m, which is one of the best videos on how difficultit is to become a master sommelier. i love wines. i'm trying to teach my daughterthe difference between really good wine and just average wine. wine will be a lifelongpassion. a little bit of speed, yeah. when i got divorced,the first thing i did after my divorce was i went and bought a motorcycle. i had 25 verygood years of that. i still do one trip a year with the guys. i sold my bike about 10years ago, and i bought a porsche, so i moved up into 4 wheels. a bunch of us i go out with... ben and jerry are good friends of mine and a bunch of other business owners, andwe do one trip a year. we would pick a part
of the united states that we haven't beento. we fly out there. we rent bikes. last year, we did the coast of oregon. incrediblycool, started in portland, went all the way down to the coast to california. turned, cameback in, crater lake area, bend, end up in mount hood ... it was just incredible. i think my motorcycle days are coming to onetrip a year, 5, 6 days on a bike is about it for my age now, but the porsche's ... ican do this for a long time. yeah. dave: when you're on a road trip like that,do you stop in small towns and drink coffee of questionable origin?dan: i would stop and drink coffee, but we try to find single chains. i have to admit.i go in an within a minute i can pretty much
scope out if these people know what they'redoing or not. it is fun. there are a few chains that if i have to, i'll stick with. for example,i happen to be a fan of panera bread, caribou coffee. they both because they know a lotabout where their coffee comes from. they do a pretty good job. peet's of course doesa fantastic job. i'm looking for the four barrel types. that'smy pride and joy, is to find those little places in the middle of nowhere that takeit pretty seriously. dave: the odds of getting a cup of coffeethat won't basically knock me out the way a lot of coffee does are higher at those places.i read a blog post once that said, "you walk in the door and count piercings and tattoos,and the more of them you find, the better
your odds." is that accurate?dan: no. i would say ... no. i would say that's a really tell, but i would not say that that'snecessarily the indicator of good coffee. it might be a certain type of cult or craftbut ... yeah. i don't necessarily subscribe to that theory.dave: it's fair not to because it's not always true. it depends on the part of the world,obviously. i do ... when i travel, and i travel a lot, i brew my own. i bring the equipment,and then i do it because i just got used to feeling a certain way all the time. i willgo into those places, and sometimes i'll sample it, but i usually don't drink the whole cupbecause unless it feels right ... i can tell you if it's going to know me out.dan: i agree with you that many times, especially
in foreign countries, it's kind of sad thati will bring coffee with me to a coffee producing country because i know they export their best,and they don't have the right brewing technology and equipment. it's kind of sad. it's justkind of sad, but it happens all the time. i just came back from a little island in thecaribbean called culebra with my family, and this is a great family vacation. we ship coffeethere before we get there. it's kind of weird, but that's what we do.dave: i was on roatã¡n, which is a similar region, coffee growing part of the world.i went in on a coffee buying expedition, not to buy coffee for bulletproof, but just becausei wanted a cup of coffee, and i didn't have a grinder. i had my beans, but no way to grindthem. at the end of a whole day of riding
around in a taxi and doing back room deals,i didn't end up with any coffee that was drinkable. in fact it had sugar mixed in with it, andit was instant, but i did buy a mortar and pestle, and i ground my own beans on the cruiseship later that night. it was terrible, but ... the things we do for coffee, right?dan: no. it's very common to see a new line of to-go coffee brewing and grinding equipment.it's from the aeropress to these hand grinders. they're everywhere now. now, i have to apologizedave, but- dave: it's time? okay.dan: i'm going to sign off by saying- dave: thank you.dan: thank you very much for this opportunity. let's keep talking, and it's a joy to be aguest on your program.
dave: have an awesome day. thank you.hi. it's dave again. thanks for listening to the 100th episode of the bulletproof executivepodcast. thanks for making it the number 1 rated show on itunes. i started this podcastwith the same intention that i had when i started the bulletproof blog itself, whichwas that i could offer a ton of free information that would help you supercharge your body,upgrade your brain, and live in a state of high performance. it took me about 20 yearsand 300,000 dollars to learn how to do things that aren't supposed to be possible and thenuse them to be a better entrepreneur, a better husband, a better father. featured
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