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Welcome to Students Incorporated, a podcast where we dive into relevant topics and issues

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related to the world of business, technology, education and design.

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I'm your host, Mr. Jason.

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Episodes include student conversations, interviews with thought leaders, and inspirational stories

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with an international flavor.

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This podcast is created and produced with the help of students from the International

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Community School of Bangkok.

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In today's episode, we explore the beloved topic of coffee.

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I'm joined by our co-host, Lion Antasia.

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We also welcome our special guest, Mr. Gary Ford II.

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Thank you for joining us.

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First, let's hear the quote of the day and get some headline news.

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Thank you, Mr. Jason.

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The quote of the day is by the famous Burt Lancaster, an American actor who played tough

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guys with tender hearts, kinda like me.

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His quote is saying, I judge a restaurant by the bread and by the coffee.

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And I know that Mr. Jason judges a coffee shop by its espresso and pour-over.

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Another fun fact for y'all, Burt Lancaster's final appearance in a movie was in the film

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Field of Dreams, which is filmed in Iowa, Mr. Jason's home state in the U.S. of A.

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Recently, residents of a town in Riyang noticed that the beach water had a strange color and

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smell.

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Researchers think that it could be a plankton normally found at this time of the year.

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It's harmless and won't hurt the water.

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In regional news, with the recent tragedy in Indonesia at a large soccer game, officials

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are seeking answers as to why the stadium was so full and why fans got out of hand towards

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the end of the game.

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Sports have a way of bringing out sharp emotions and reactions.

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In international news, Germany and Denmark are currently building the longest-immersed

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tunnel between the two countries.

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The tunnel will be up to 40 meters under the Baltic Sea and will be 18 kilometers long.

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Thank you for that quote of the day and the news headlines.

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I'm really excited about this episode's topic.

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For obvious reasons, it's all about coffee.

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So let's dive in.

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Pun intended.

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Wait, how is that a pun intended though?

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Like, what's the pun there?

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Let's dive in.

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Dive into coffee.

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Dive into coffee, but diving...

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Don't dive into the coffee.

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Don't dive into the coffee.

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Don't dive into my coffee.

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Okay, okay, okay.

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Pun intended.

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Okay, Mr. Gheria, thank you so much for joining us today.

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Our topic and focus for this episode is coffee, as you can tell, right?

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But let's start by hearing a little bit about your cafe and the delicious menu, which I

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personally know that nachos are amazing.

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You guys have to check it out.

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What inspired it and what are some of your customers' favorite dishes?

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Yeah, yeah.

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So thanks for having me.

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It's really good to be here with you guys at ICS.

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And yeah, my name's Gary.

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I own and run La Mesa Coffee alongside my wife.

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And La Mesa, as a coffee shop, we do kind of American-focused fusion Mexican food.

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So in the US, I'm from New Mexico.

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If you guys know of the great state of New Mexico.

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My dad's from New Mexico.

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Cool, cool.

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What part?

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Albuquerque.

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Yes!

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5,000 gold stars for you.

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So yeah, so I, too, am from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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So we do American-style fusion Mexican food, a little bit, or primarily a specialty coffee

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shop.

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So full espresso bar and like a drip bar.

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We do really fun coffee alternatives for those that don't drink coffee at all.

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And then we do American-style pastries.

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My wife's the head baker.

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So yeah, really great things like our American-style New York cheesecake, flourless chocolate cake.

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We have like really great cookies.

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Oh man, it's getting me hungry just thinking about that.

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And then, yeah, we do like all-day brunch.

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Yeah, a lot of things like our burritos and stuff.

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So we have a good profile, kind of something for everyone.

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But I think especially our Americans and kind of local ties, they really just like that

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Mexican kind of flavors because kind of unique to find that here.

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And then we do a unique take on it since it's New Mexican-style Mexican food.

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So shifting to more of a business and marketing type question, how have you been able to maintain

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individuality with your cafe in a very saturated sort of coffee industry and market, especially

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in Bangkok?

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Yeah.

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So yeah, it's very heavily saturated.

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There's not a lack of cafes, that's for sure, I guess.

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But for us, yeah, as we kind of open our business, we, good business always fulfills a need.

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And I believe that good products sell themselves.

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So Russ at LMA, so we really strive to just be unique.

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We really try to just do excellence in all of our products.

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So we kind of have a saying, if it's okay, we don't want it.

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Like we don't believe in like things that just taste okay or that look okay.

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We only want awesome.

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It doesn't like make us go like, wow, oh, that's really great.

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Then just like we throw it out.

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We don't want to be a part of it.

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So we do have like traditional kind of items, but we really want them at a high standard.

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So to an extent, the products, I believe when done well, they'll sell themselves to an extent.

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And there's that organic word of mouth from that.

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But for La Mesa, we also really want it to create just like a sense of community, a sense

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of fun, a cafe.

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One of the purposes that it fulfills is just like a place to be, a place to connect with

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others, a place to work, a place to escape.

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So our cafe is kind of like interior, it's really bright, it's really inviting.

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It's a place that you feel like you want to hang out in for quite a while.

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We have like a unique design intake.

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So it's inspired by my home state of New Mexico.

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So it's really like photogenic, it's really Instagramable is what people might say.

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So that attracts people on its own.

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People want to come initially maybe some people want to come initially for that.

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But creating a positive experience is going to get those returning customers.

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And I think that that's been just a key to its growth and success.

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What advice would you give other food and beverage type businesses if the market seems

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sort of like saturated?

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Yeah, you know, sometimes well just asking yourself, yeah, is your business, is your

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product needed?

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If it is over saturated, if there's not a need, then that's definitely a problem.

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But looking for the area of service.

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So there are, Bangkok as a whole has a lot of cafes.

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We're kind of in a unique area in Bang Na, definitely open four years ago.

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We are quite rare, especially the size of our cafe.

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There weren't really things in our end of Sukhumvit and in lower Bang Na.

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So I think that if you see something, you feel like it's a little oversaturated, you

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know, you might look for an area that isn't offering these services yet.

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Now, Mr. Gary, we understand you were just in a local coffee making competition.

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Is that correct?

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Can you describe what type of competition it was and what it was like competing in this

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type of environment?

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Yeah, yeah.

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So in the world, we do what we call like specialty coffee.

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So for those of you in like Thailand, you think of like, what is it, like the Nescafé

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packets, or like for me, I'm a little old.

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But like in America, we have Folgers coffee.

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This is what we call like first wave coffee, or like coffee is mainly seen as a drug, wasn't

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it tastes good.

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And then there was like a second wave of coffee where people started to take about taste a

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little more.

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Starbucks is kind of like the big go ahead from this.

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But a lot of flavor things are artificial and not a lot of repeatable approaches to

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the coffee.

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But now, especially coffee, we call this like the third wave of coffee, where every aspect

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from the seed all the way to the customer's cup, we approach it as a fine art and science.

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So we can use repeatable measurable results.

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So like we know we're getting what we want.

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So like now, like the day and age, like if you know someone that's like, I'm really

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into specialty coffee, they're a nerd, just so you know.

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This is like, this is like, they're a nerd.

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They love like science, chemistry numbers, they're like geeking out.

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So all that could say this that like in the specialty coffee realm, there's basically

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like coffee Olympics is like an easy way to explain it where there's all these categories

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that you can compete in locally in your country to go on to worlds.

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So I recently competed in the air press competition.

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And it's this specific brewing device, where people from all over the world will compete

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locally to use this one device and are given like a secret coffee, they have to create

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a recipe for and then go to compete with others.

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So here in Thailand, we had I was one of 99 contestants and I had to come up with like

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a special brew recipe.

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You also work a bit with like the chemical makeup of your water for that, like the temperature,

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all these little variables to make your cup unique and special.

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So the day of the competition, I made pretty far I went to like the semi finals.

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And the arrow press is really cool because it blends several kind of coffee brewing techniques

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together into one.

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So it's by nature really fun and creative.

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It's an American invention, like guy that created the like Whammo frisbee invented this.

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Yeah, so it's like a fun invention.

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So for my competition, I had like a bit of performance is common for people to like dress

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up in a costume in the past, like people gone is like Pokemon or unicorns or something.

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So my team, we kind of like we went kind of like borrowed out a little bit all together.

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And then in my recipe, I have like a routine about coffee meditation and true flavor room

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of beginning with us.

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So you need like a meditative time to prepare for a coffee.

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And then yeah, I did like a one handed push up press in it.

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So yeah, maybe I can show you guys a little later what we did there.

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But it was a lot of fun and different things.

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But the taste in the cup was what matters the most and having fun.

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So I did really well.

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I didn't win.

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But it was a really great experience.

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Okay, Mr. Gary, while you were at this coffee Olympics, nervous like at all?

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You know, it's just the first experience for me.

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So later on, I'd love to see this more my team kind of compete in some more environments.

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So for me as I'm American, Thai is not my first language.

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So I was a little little nervous a bit just about like, Oh, yeah, am I going to not hear

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something that was said this kind of things is a big environment, but overall, not that

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not that nervous, I guess, you know, I was practice I was prepared.

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It was overall just like really fun, a little bit of anxiety just that it all is in my second

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language.

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But I felt comfortable with that.

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And yeah, I hope to do something like it again.

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You said you were you went all the way through the semifinals, right?

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Yeah, yeah.

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Were you happy with the outcome?

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Yeah, yeah, it was really, really great experience.

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It's the way that I the recipe that I came up with for the competition, just kind of

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like I said, my cafe, I want to do something that most people didn't do.

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So there's past world championships, you know, you're able to I did a lot of like I said,

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basically, I'm a geek, I'm a nerd, I really nerded out on my training for it and kind

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of a prep.

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But I wanted to create something that was a different recipe than what's one worlds

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in the past.

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So in this case, that didn't work out for me, apparently, the guy that won the Thailand

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competition, his recipe was more kind of what you've seen in the past is like a champion

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winning cup.

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So yeah, I mean, I can show you guys some of that later on different variables of like,

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yeah, how many filters are you using the grind size of brew time, there's like how much agitation,

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how much pressure stress are you putting the coffee through.

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So my brew method, it looked very intense.

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Like I said, I do a one handed push up, but it's actually very gentle.

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So my process, I did as little agitation to the brewing process as possible.

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And I really was striving to bring out kind of like light notes from the coffee had like

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really natural linchy and like light great notes.

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And I want to bring those out and like a soft smooth but yet like bold way.

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And that's a little different than what like people probably also did.

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So it did well in like early rounds, maybe because it was different.

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That was kind of my hope was that the judges are kind of subjective in this competition,

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you know, given points that it's kind of like point like we like this one.

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So so early on, it just has to kind of stand out a bit.

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And I think that it did that.

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But then yeah, maybe later on, you know, the best cup wins.

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So I'll have to just try again next time.

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Really judging on the flavor or are they really judging on how you made it?

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Yeah, they're judging on the flavor.

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So and it's a the judges are like they're certified judges.

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So these are people that are like certified coffee judges and they do a blind tasting.

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So my routine was quite intense and really like people went crazy.

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Like when I did it, you know, no one knew that I basically like stood up on the table.

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It's like we were kind of here right now.

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I'm like going to make coffee.

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But I just like hop on the table and do one handed push up using a chair.

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So like what is happening?

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The first time they had no idea what was going on, so the crowd kind of like went wild in

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a way that I wasn't expecting.

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I just like didn't think about the reaction, what I was about to do.

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But so for the judges, they couldn't look that they were blind.

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They're kind of like facing the other direction, but they could hear all this having behind

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them.

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They're like, what is Gary up to?

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What's going on there?

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Building excitement.

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Yeah, you don't get any like bonus points and other other barista competitions.

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You're given points off of your presentation, different things, but like, and this doesn't

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matter at all.

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Out of curiosity, you said there was a team that dressed up like Pokemon, right?

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In the past, I think people have gone as like Pokemon.

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Do you remember what coffee they made?

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Well, it's the competition coffee.

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Everyone has to use the same one.

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Are you interested in doing that?

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Perhaps.

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Everyone is like a different Pokemon.

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That'd be really cool.

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So moving on from that, we've seen you have connected with some coffee farmers and producers

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here in Thailand.

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What kind of projects or connections have you been able to make with the growers?

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One of the things that I just love about specialty coffee in Thailand is that it's a really close

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knit community.

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So Thailand is really unique since it has a consumer culture.

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Like we drink a lot of coffee in Thailand, but then also we're a country that produces

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coffee.

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And to be honest, this is rare in the world, especially to our scale.

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So my wife and I, we got into coffee because of connections with rural villages up north.

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Originally doing like medical missions and medical projects in Hill tribes is how we

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first learned about coffee on the ag side.

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So it's been a big kind of passion of ours for a long time.

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And as a specialty coffee shop, you always have a very close relationship to the farm

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and to the producer.

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So yeah, since COVID is kind of ending now, we're looking at re-engaging into just like

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some farming communities again and directly working alongside of them to help them be

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able to improve the quality of their coffee and really bring out some like unique flavors

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and profiles.

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I brought some coffees from the same region today that use two different we call like

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processes.

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One's just like a wash process, which is like the typical way that you would process coffee.

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So we did a project to help them build some drying beds where you like dry out the coffee

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so that they can helpfully be able to produce more unique processes.

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And from that, they can sell them for at like a higher price.

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So yeah, it's really exciting to just see these things happening in Thailand.

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It happens and just like a really close knit way because yeah, we're only about two hours

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in theory from a farm.

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You know, it takes me an hour to fly up north, right?

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And then some cases an hour drive of a mountain, boom, we could be at a coffee farm, right?

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So there's a sort of green coffee bean harvest.

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How could people like improve their quality of that harvest?

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Yeah, so there's so many, you know, coffee is a fruit and it is a grown product.

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So there's just a lot of unseen factors and what can happen to coffee.

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So what we did in our project was the coffee as fruit has like an outer pulp and then the

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inside that we eat as coffee is we call it like the cherry or it's the pit.

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If you think of it compared to like another fruit, it would be like the pit, like a mangosteen

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or a balanchy, something like this.

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So and then that's set out to dry and after that's dry, it's roasted.

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So during that time, there's just a lot of things that can go wrong.

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There's a lot of things you can control to get kind of unique flavors.

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There's to control fermentation and all of that.

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If you're keeping it free from pests, you know, outside forces, there's a lot of ways

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to bring out really unique flavors and tastes.

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The approaches that we use in the coffee industry, they're very similar to what will be used

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like the wine industry, right?

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Because grapes are also like a organic product that you're using and you're finding factors

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to manipulate it, to control, yeah, to get the results that you want.

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So yeah, really cool time.

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And yeah, you can check out on our page.

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We're sharing a bit this week.

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Coming up is International Coffee Day, actually October 1st International Coffee Day.

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And a lot of it is focused on the like circular economy of coffee, of yeah, how we're all

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connected from that, even as a customer supporting local coffee shops.

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You're always going to be giving back more to the local economy and that increases exponentially

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for the village as well.

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Wait, you said coffee was a fruit?

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I thought it was a bean.

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Well, yeah, it's a fruit.

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Yeah.

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So looking at coffee kind of raw on a tree, it'll look like a cranberry maybe to you.

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So it's a fruit.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And once they're ripe, they turn kind of bright red.

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Looks like, yeah, very, yeah, very kind of Christmassy.

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So it'll be like bright red on like a dark green leaves.

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And then once the coffee's dried out completely, we call those, like you said, the green coffee.

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And the green coffee is what's then sent to roasters to roast.

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And it's only after coffee is roasted that it turns brown.

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Mr. Gary, we all know that every industry will face some changes sooner or later, right?

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Right, right.

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Now, so if you're looking into the near future, what changes or challenges would you envision

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in the coffee industry will have like, OK, let's break it down to three areas, right?

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The producer level, the roaster level and the retail level.

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Like, what kind of changes or challenges do you expect?

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Oh, man.

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Well, that's a very big question.

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So one thing that is just like a big challenge in the world, you know, is climate change.

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Climate change has a major effect on the coffee industry.

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So one of the things that one reason why we have such a strong emphasis on helping villages

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is because there's estimated like a global coffee shortage.

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I remember the number in my head, but there's like a coffee crisis at hand.

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Technically.

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Do you know about you know the time frame by any chance?

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No, I don't.

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But that's something 12 years.

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Yeah, something like in I forget what 15 years there's no more coffee, something like this.

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So yeah, there's a lot of crisis.

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The alarmist out there.

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Right, right.

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So this is based off of major producing countries.

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So a lot of countries that are right.

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Yeah, like Brazil, these places where they're producing coffee at a really high scale.

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The villages that we work with, we call them micro coffee producers, micro coffee farmers,

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but from pesticides, different things, you know, climate change.

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Last year, the coffee crop in Thailand was really affected from all this rain that we're

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having.

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So all of this, yeah, is just makes things very challenging.

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I think across the board, one thing that we're going to see is just what we've talked about

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is the coffee community coming together to help one another all the more.

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So I think that for the producer, that's really going to be key for them is having that relationship

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where people are already investing, they're getting money up front to be able to help

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their community to be able to help their crop for the future.

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And then same for us, where we know kind of come up ahead that we have good quality coffee

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coming in our way because we've directly been a part of its production.

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We've got some good news for the ICS community.

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Our first semester break is just over a week ahead.

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It'd be a great time to relax and have fun.

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Make sure you clear out any leftover homework you may have and stay safe, everybody.

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We are back with part two of our coffee talk with Mr. Gary from La Mesa Coffee.

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For part two, we will be breaking from our normal format.

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We want to provide you with something just a little bit different.

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We have a lot of coffee experience sitting in our studio today, so we will be making

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coffee for you, our listeners.

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Now unfortunately, we cannot push the aroma or the cup of coffee through your speakers.

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However, we will be bringing you the next best thing.

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So sit back, relax and enjoy the sounds of coffee.

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Cheers.

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pasta

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Ew...

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sounds exciting

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one small potato

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brave grating

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ソリ、ソリ、ソリ。

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The

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Please stay tuned for more episodes about exciting and engaging topics.

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As always, this podcast would not be possible without the hard work and support of our International

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Student Production Team.

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All music and sound effects are courtesy of Pixabay.com, a vibrant community of creatives

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sharing copyright-free images, videos, and music.

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And we're signing off until next time.

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We're Students Incorporated because your voice matters.