Ready to dive deep into the world of coffee, where the chill of iced coffee squares off with cold brews? That's what we're brewing up in our chat with Michael Harwood, co-owner of Vignette Coffee Roasting. He demystifies the difference between these two summer saviors, explaining why cold brew may just outlast iced coffee in your fridge. But that's not all - he takes us on a sensory exploration of coffee roasting, unraveling the stark contrast between being a barista and the physical demands of toasting those beans to perfection.
The conversation doesn't stop there. We stir the pot on the importance of seasonality in coffee buying. How does it affect your cup of joe? Does it bring more value to you, the coffee aficionado? We discuss how the hard work of farmers, pickers, and processors adds to the quality of the coffee and why it's crucial to buy in sync with the seasons. We even touch upon the globe's northern and southern hemisphere dividing line and its impact on coffee availability. So, refill your cup and join us on this caffeinated journey that's sure to change your perspective on your morning brew.
https://www.instagram.com/betterwithacupofcoffee/
https://betterwithacupofcoffee.com/
Ready to dive deep into the world of coffee, where the chill of iced coffee squares off with cold brews? That's what we're brewing up in our chat with Michael Harwood, co-owner of Vignette Coffee Roasting. He demystifies the difference between these two summer saviors, explaining why cold brew may just outlast iced coffee in your fridge. But that's not all - he takes us on a sensory exploration of coffee roasting, unraveling the stark contrast between being a barista and the physical demands of toasting those beans to perfection.
The conversation doesn't stop there. We stir the pot on the importance of seasonality in coffee buying. How does it affect your cup of joe? Does it bring more value to you, the coffee aficionado? We discuss how the hard work of farmers, pickers, and processors adds to the quality of the coffee and why it's crucial to buy in sync with the seasons. We even touch upon the globe's northern and southern hemisphere dividing line and its impact on coffee availability. So, refill your cup and join us on this caffeinated journey that's sure to change your perspective on your morning brew.
https://www.instagram.com/betterwithacupofcoffee/
https://betterwithacupofcoffee.com/
Hey guys, welcome to Couple Connections. I'm Portia and we're here coming to you from our virtual cafe Better with a Cup of Coffee. We are savoring relationships with coffee lovers around the world and sharing their experiences that have been better with a cup of coffee. I have Michael Harwood, the co-owner of Vignette Coffee Roasting in Greensboro, north Carolina, my hometown, for part two of our episode. I just couldn't do one episode with Michael. I had to do a part two. So welcome Michael.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me back and it's been a pleasure speaking with you so far and I can't wait to see what we get into going forward.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I wanted to share with the audience because it is getting cooler so a lot of times people will go to a warm drink. But I love when I took the class with you and one of the questions was that I want to know about cold brew versus just throwing some ice and some coffee. Explain to the audience about the differences that maybe a lot of consumers don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question because iced coffee is dominating the market right now. This is a wild change from, I would say, even 10 years ago in my service experience, where almost everything was hot. You know, in the summer in North Carolina obviously we'd make a lot of iced Americanos, which is espresso and water and ice, and I felt like an ice americano machine in July and August, but the rest of the year, you know, it was mostly hot drinks. And nowadays, if you look at Starbucks numbers, I think it's like two out of every three drinks they sell is iced. So it's a very, very surging subsection of our menu and it's something we've thought a lot about. And so what are the differences?
Speaker 2:When you see iced coffee versus cold brew, versus iced latte, even I think most people know what an ice latte is. But just to kind of get that one out of the way double espresso, typically, your choice of milk, ice, stir it up nice and refreshing, yeah, add some flavors to that. Good deal, all right. So that's the ice latte, and latte literally means milk, I believe, in Italian. So you kind of get that it's going to be a little more milk heavy. So that's an espresso based typically. Then you get into iced coffee and it depends on tradition here what kind of iced coffee will be presented to you. In many cases iced coffee might be a hot brewed coffee, let's say on a batch brewer like an auto dripper at home, like a Mr Coffee or something like that, and people will brew it hot, just normal ratio, and then stick it in the fridge and cool it. Then that can be okay. But the reason why the industry has moved away from that a little bit is that when you brew coffee hot, one of the beautiful things about hot coffee is that it's got all these volatile aromatics. When you grind coffee, you smell it. When you brew a fresh hot coffee, you smell it. That operative word volatile means they're escaping, they're fleeing into the atmosphere. So when you brew hot and then I said it's not that it will be bad, it just loses a little bit about what makes it spectacular when it's fresher. So there's still cafes that do that and honestly, as far as a value brew for iced coffee, it's pretty good. You do want to watch out on how long you keep that around for. I would say maximum 24 to 48 hours, and then it's going to start tasting not so good on you. That's also one reason why people moved to something called cold brew.
Speaker 2:Cold brew, instead of brewing with hot water, you're brewing with room temperature water, typically Water right out of the spigot. It's also typically made much stronger in that we call it a concentrate. Whereas a hot cup of coffee is going to be brewed for about one part of coffee 16 part water, cold brew can be as brewed as strong as one part coffee to four parts water, so four times stronger sometimes. And now you have a concentrate that is steeped overnight. It's anywhere somewhere between 12 and 20 hours is what most cafes brew their cold brew for. So because you're not brewing with hot water, you lose that energy with it being cold water, so you need time to make up for it. Yep, so that's the little tidbit of why they're so different functionally in terms of brewing.
Speaker 2:And then the outcome of the brews is also different.
Speaker 2:So iced coffee is going to be like a hot coffee, cooled down, a little more silky, a little more delicate nuance and flavors and a little more full range in that acidity and bitterness and sweetness that you can get from a hot coffee, just depending on what the roast level is, the extraction.
Speaker 2:All that Cold brew is a little bit different in the cup because you're not using hot water, you're not unlocking so many of those acids and bitters. Typically, what you tend to get is a little bit more of smooth, sweet, balanced experience. But because it's brewed stronger, the concentrate is going to be hefty, it's going to be weighty, it's going to have a lot of body. So what most people do is they brew that concentrate and they keep the concentrate in the refrigerator, which, when you have a cold brew concentrate Remember I said the hot coffee cool down lasts about 24 hours, maybe 36, 48 hours. Cold brew left as a concentrate, as long as there's no bacteria or whatever introduced to it, it can stay in your fridge pretty well up for two weeks. Some people do it even longer. It's really interesting, though, because once you add water to that concentrate to make it ready to drink RTD, it lasts about 48 hours again.
Speaker 1:So what is that why you would typically add water when you're pouring the cup?
Speaker 2:That's right at the point of service, that's exactly right. So you get better longevity Keeping that cold brew as a strong concentrate, like that one to four ratio, really, really strong. And it's kind of cool because you have that math, that one to four, and then we know that our hot brew is one to sixteen. So if you think I'm doing a one to four now, you have four parts to equal that same hot coffee. So if you've got your concentrate now, you've got three parts left. Maybe one part is water, two parts are ice. So you divide your ratios with cold brew, rtd, so to speak, like how you prep your cup. You can divide it into four. So One quarter concentrate, one quarter water, maybe two quarters ice, or maybe like it more diluted and it's 50% water, 25% ice, 25% concentrate. Or maybe you like yours really strong and it's 50% concentrate, 50% ice.
Speaker 2:That's how we serve ours here at the cafe and I always tell people it's gonna start nice and strong and then, as that ice starts to melt a little bit, it's gonna reach more of that normal strength that you're used to, and so we like to give people just that little bit of extra Kick, especially if you're gonna put a little milk or cream in it.
Speaker 2:Having a little higher brew strength Does help that coffee flavor carry fruit. So cold brew most people know this. But cold brew also because of its 10 to 20 hour contact time of the grounds in the water, what we call the slurry is gonna have more caffeine per ounce when you drink cold brew. If you drink, let's say, 16 ounce ice cold brew versus a 16 ounce iced Hot coffee cool down, aka iced coffee the cold brew will always have more caffeine. Nice, it's made stronger and it's brewed for longer. When you go to the grocery store and you see those cold brew cans, you're getting long, steep, overnight steep cold brew typically, so increased level of caffeine in those cans that do say cold brew.
Speaker 1:That is so cool, see. I told you an array of information and knowledge being in the coffee industry. It's not for everyone. It's quite challenging. If you were speaking to a group of people or a person who Wanted to get into the coffee industry and wanted to make a living out of it, and it's Specifically being a coffee roaster, what would you tell them? Be honest to yeah.
Speaker 2:So number one, being a coffee roaster is gonna be a very, very different job than being a barista and a lot of younger people who are very excited about coffee and this is no slight. Being enthusiastic About something and caring about something is a beautiful thing, but when you are a barista and you think you want to get in the world of roasting, there's a gut check that I like to give people. Roasting is an amazing job, but it's very different than service work. Here's the nitty gritty. Green coffee bags come in at 150, 152, 154 pounds, so it can be a physically demanding job. Mandy is pretty strong. As a long-time coffee roaster, you know you might look at Mandy and think that person's kind of like average Build, but she picks up a bag and hoists over her head, throws over her shoulder and you're like how'd you do that? So you're on your feet eight, ten, twelve hours a day.
Speaker 2:The bagging, labeling, printing of labels, adhering of stickers is both tedious and Requires extreme attention in detail. It is work that not everybody is cut out for, so there is an Attention span that is required for a job like that. While you are being Physically, you know, demanded of, that takes kind of a unique personality. And here's the biggest difference between being a roaster and a barista. With a barista, you spend all day listening and Having dialogue with people. A roaster, on the other hand, it's a very different experience. Generally speaking, it's rather isolating work, and so people who make that transition from the bar to the roaster Number one you don't want them to make that direct jump. Usually what you want to do is open up the roastery, invite them in to help with production, start learning the ropes of how you build bags and the sequence that we're filling bags and labeling and everything you know. Is that interesting at all to you? Is that you know something you can handle Rowing to crawl before you can walk.
Speaker 2:I think it's really important in gaining that understanding and perspective on it and then by the time you're ready to roast, you have that discipline. So not to say that we don't train on the roaster for younger folks or that you couldn't get a taste of it, but there's a world in which you have to kind of learn that approach, because if you just dove right into doing everything, you'd be overwhelmed to be like wow, this is. This is kind of a tough job In my experience. It takes a very specific kind of mindset in person. People who are very dedicated to coffee number one, number two, introverts tend to do well as roasters Because you're not spending a lot of time socializing. Any roaster that had a lot of time to socialize it'd be like is your roaster on autopilot? Or like you know what are you doing exactly with the?
Speaker 1:adjuster yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean seriously, like when Mandy is roasting, the focus on her face and just like her level of like being in that bubble. It's remarkable. You know, I know better than to go in there and ask like frivolous questions, especially during certain parts of the roast. There's kind of like a hurry up and wait aspect to roasting, where certain parts of the roast are easier to manage and other parts is like one, two, three, four, like a lot of stuff is happening very quickly and it's really important that you make a decisions in those moments.
Speaker 1:So it's so interesting because when I did an interview with an owner, he was from Boone, North Carolina it was quite interesting how he said you know, I'll be honest with you, there are more roasters here than there are coffee shop owners, like just coffee shops that sell coffee and they don't roast. So is it a lucrative business? I've always been intrigued by that, Like is it a really, is it a good business to start?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I mean, I think it largely depends on what do you want to be doing, what's your experience in? And again they're very different skill sets. There's some overlap, but again I am more of the retail person and roasting is not my expertise, whereas Mandy can actually do both. I mean, she's very talented, she can do both. But most people cannot Like they have one area of expertise or the other, because coffee sort of demands that at a higher level, that you kind of bring that to it.
Speaker 2:The economics of cafes are difficult between wanting to pay your people more, wanting to do any kind of benefits for your people, wanting to keep prices low enough so that they're accessible. A lot of retail owners are between a rock and a hard place, and so they're looking to help their margins wherever they can. And that is where I believe your other interview was noticing. More cafes are starting to self.
Speaker 2:Roast is not the majority by any means, but I think we're the only concept in Greensboro, for instance, that does roasting and serving in the same space. So there are a couple of roasters that have a roastery in a warehouse and then have a retail space elsewhere, which is a little more common. And then the most common is to just have a retail space and it's just one off independent cafe. Or maybe you develop enough success to open a second and a third. So I think the reality most cafe owners would find is that unless you are in a very highly trafficked area like, let's say, a larger city that's got great pedestrian traffic, you're probably not going to make a whole lot of money off one cafe. That's just, that's just the reality. Now I know there's people out there who have figured it out and what I think you would find with a lot of those spaces is that they increase their average ticket with having a bit of a market aspect, which is great.
Speaker 1:Nothing wrong with that. What do you mean?
Speaker 2:Having other products to sell, like locally crafted products, encouraging that community aspect of local jams, jellies, crafty wood stuff, local t-shirts, bags, barbecue stuff, all that stuff. More successful cafes may also have some kind of food program. This raises a lot of questions about work culture who's doing what, who's getting paid, what? Are there systemic biases at play, and who's front of house versus back of house? It's kind of wild actually how much opening a food program in a cafe reveals some of the negative aspects of our society. But, that said, you need something other than just the margin you're getting on the coffee, unless you're going to sell a lot of coffee. And that is because, even though coffee has a decent margin, its absolute margin isn't very good. It's a small amount of money, so you have to sell a lot.
Speaker 2:Remember how you were saying brises are always, always working. Hustle and hustle. I mean, that's what a good cafe needs to survive. Is that kind of flow? Or you have very low overhead. You know you have some kind of like sweetheart rental deal. You know you're keeping your costs down.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we try and do with our wholesale partners is that, even though we put a premium price on our coffee because we're paying farming producers that premium, like we're paying better for coffee rates. Our coffee is going to cost a little bit more than some companies, but we're trying to bring value through shared preventive maintenance. You know, keeping you up and running, decreasing waste, having better dial ins, better quality and all those things factor in because it's your core product to bring more revenue, decreasing your loss, so like we can help on those margins. And I think a good coffee shop owner has got to understand those things to be successful. It's not about like micromanaging employees so much, but like setting some expectations about Dose, waste, quality, all these things and falling through on them. So compare that to a roastery, where it's a lot of hard work to get it set up. There is higher cost involved to start a roastery, like significantly higher, because a roaster itself can cost 30 to $50,000.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I mean a brand new espresso machine can cost a good bit too, but you can typically find a used espresso machine or a lower cost espresso machine to get you going.
Speaker 1:There are certain areas where you, as a coffee business, you know the ins and outs of specific companies that sell these products at a lower cost. Do you have specific places where you guys go?
Speaker 2:Our goods. Right now we're not buying in bulk for much but, like our bags per se, we have a supplier called Tri-Clor Bronflex. They're a US company and they're great to work with, and our bags are all compostable as a result, based on the material. It's called Biotree. That's why we went with them. It's one of our values is to reduce our waste and impact where we can, so that is one thing. That kind of helps us keep our costs down as we work with suppliers like that.
Speaker 2:We do support local. Like all of our groceries or I should say probably 95% of our groceries come from Deep Roots Co-op here in Greensboro. We are a member of the Co-op. Wherever I've lived, I've always found value in what a local Co-op brings to its community because it supports local farmers. There's usually good food subsidy programs at Co-op. They make it easy to donate to those programs, which is a good thing.
Speaker 2:Again, that kind of like pay, as you can model a little bit where neighbors are supporting neighbors and what you will find, I think, is most cafes probably end up trying to find purchasing efficiencies from places like a restaurant store or things that require an initial membership at low cost but will give you access to more like wholesale pricing on things. Our economy is largely based on quantity, making things more affordable, and we kind of go against that in craft coffee Like we're kind of like hey, take this micro lot, take this smaller lot, you take this family sized farm. So that is part of our value. But certainly a responsible cafe owner or roastery owner will have to find some cost efficiencies unless their market can bear higher prices. Otherwise your profit margin is not going to be there and you can get by on a little bit less, but at a certain point it's not going to be sustainable for the business.
Speaker 2:So that's a million dollar. Question is can you sustain it? It's pretty low success rate from what I understand, and having done this for a year, I can see why Mandy and I are in a unique position to be able to focus exclusively on our business and support each other, and we're very, very fortunate that we can do that. But for people who have families or other important needs, loved ones in their life that they have responsibilities to, I mean, giving as much of yourself as this is can be hard and honestly, nobody should be forced to work this much to make ends meet. We're just doing that ball up the hill and make it so that we get to that sustainable point and then we can hire, be good leaders and provide for our workforce in a way that we had always hoped that we would be treated and in some ways have received good treatment, but just looking to make it even better as we go forward.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things that you had mentioned to me when I visited and I wanted to make a point of mentioning it was when I was talking about the type of coffee that I wanted to incorporate into my business. You were asking me a series of questions, but then you also said something key. You said you have to get the coffee in the right season too, and didn't you say that? You know a lot of people don't focus on the season. If you want, say, if you're a business and you want Colombian coffee, or you want Brazilian coffee or Guatemalan coffee, they just sometimes they just get the coffee. But your emphasis was you have to buy during the right season, and that is a full circle.
Speaker 2:Coming back to the consumer, which a lot of consumers don't realize, that you and other people like yourself, professionals, educators is that getting at the right season gives you a better cup you're getting more value for it and ultimately there can be a lot of pretension in craft coffee about flavor notes and all this, but earnestly we feel like you getting more bang for your buck is a big thing that we're after. You know, we feel like people have been a little taken advantage of in coffee and other food stuffs for a long time because there's not necessarily the education out there.
Speaker 1:Do you mean the consumers being taken advantage of?
Speaker 2:To a degree. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say the farmer producer as well, I mean the middle people of that chain. You know specifically the roasters, I feel like, and many instances were just kind of like who cares about it, quality whatever, we'll just put a price point on it. You could argue that when it was like really affordable, maybe there was some value in that, although not for the farmer, I can assure you. These days, taking everything into account of the whole custody chain, you know prices have to be higher to honor where that coffee's provenance is. Who grew that coffee, all the people that picked that coffee process. They got it to you.
Speaker 2:It's not a good look for the roaster to be greedy and take advantage of the farmer producer and then the end consumer and say I'm going to buy the cheapest I can. Who cares about the quality? At the end stage, you're going to drink it regardless. So that's not a good deal for anybody. It's going to result in really dark roasting and that dark roasting is only going to paper over defective coffee that has boozy flavor or it could taste like Band-Aids or really, really funky bad flavors and it's not sustainable for producers. We've seen a generation of farmers, children move to cities, just like we did in the States. Right, because better jobs were in the cities. Why stay out on the farm? Well, let's give an incentive better coffee, which takes more work. It absolutely takes more work to produce better coffee, a lot more. Not just more work, but more attention, more care, somebody who really knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1:And that's why buying in the right season, you were telling me, is so important.
Speaker 2:Buying seasonally honors that level of work that's going on. Because if I buy 100 bags of coffee here for our registry just to get a volume discount on it and I'm selling you that coffee two years from now because it was cheap for me, now your coffee is going to taste like cardboard and wood and stale and you might be like I'm a bad home barista. I don't know how to brew coffee, and it ain't you, it's the roast. They're taking advantage of you. So you know it is hard to buy 100% seasonal, but it is a worthwhile goal. And I say it's hard because you try and buy the right amount for maybe two to four to six months. So you're projecting how much you're going to use. Sometimes you're selling more than you thought, sometimes you're selling less. So it is hard. I'm not saying it's easy for any roaster, but doing your best to keep coffees coming in fresh will be a better value for your guests, for your wholesale partners, for the people coming in your cafe. And what we also try and do is again just open that door and say this is one of the reasons why this coffee smells so vibrant, why it's got sweetness and body for days, because coffee is only four months off harvest. You know it just came in last week.
Speaker 2:So in that northern hemisphere versus southern hemisphere dividing line is really what's telling us where to buy? Countries in the northern hemisphere like Mexico, costa Rica, ethiopia, sumatra. They may be pretty close to the equator but they're still north of it, which means that their coffee is being harvested around our winter holiday season. And then it's going to take a couple months, maybe two to three months, to process that coffee, to dry it, to rest it, and only then is it ready to package and ship in those 150 pound bags that are usually a grain pro liner to keep it smelling great, to keep weird smells and moisture out, to keep air out.
Speaker 2:And then you've got that natural fiber bag we often see as jute fiber or CISL, which are very renewable, affordable resources in many origins around coffee and they make great liners. So you've probably seen those jute bags make great things and recycling those, upcycling those Gardeners can find uses for those. So, again, just upcycling, reducing waste. But seasonality is paramount here and I know you love the Brazil in the night shade so that Brazil goes away for a few months and then it comes back Because it's on a seasonal cycle. So, although we don't have the Brazil in the night shade all year, we try and keep it around for a chunk of the year and then, in the months it's not there, we substitute it with another lower elevation, rich full-bodied coffee or two, so that keeps you coming back and expecting a similar but unique product each time.
Speaker 1:That is so interesting that you said that I never realized why your coffees like the dark roast that I love may not be in your shop at that particular season or moment, Because it's not the right season. But then it'll go. Oh, that's so neat. Oh, my goodness, Michael, when can people find vignette coffee? Or you have your own website. What is the name of the website?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you just go to vignettecoffeecom that's our website it says V-I-G-N-E-T-T-E coffeecom, and then we have our tasting room here on West Market Street, at the intersection with Guilford College Road, here in kind of like Southwest Greensboro. So we're here those three days a week. We also do classes, as you know and mention.
Speaker 1:And if you guys are ever in the neck of the woods, it is not a long drive if you're in Greensboro and it is worth it because it's an experience and I think my audience you know. We're about enjoying stories, kind people, getting more educated about coffee and experiencing different cultures. So I'm grateful for you being on the show, michael.
Speaker 2:Thank you for being with us.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I'm Portia White and I hope you've enjoyed today's conversation. I'd like to give a special thanks to our sponsor, betterwithacouplecoffeecom. If you like what you heard, please rate and review our podcast and join us again soon at Couple Connections.