Raising the bar: a conversation with Patrik Rolf, April Coffee Roasters

0:00For me the biggest drive in coffee and the reason why I'm still in coffee probably the only reason is that I still don't think coffee is good enough. Welcome back to the Fifth Wave podcast, I'm Geoffrey Young, Editor-in-Chief of Fifth Wave. In today's episode I'm delighted to be here with Patrick Ralph, founder and CEO of Copenhagen based April Coffee Roasters and its sister project SP Coffee. Founded in 2016, April is a super premium specialty roastery and brewing equipment company. While SP Coffee takes a wider range of coffees from April's partner farmers and offers a more accessible coffee shop experience. In this conversation Patrick discusses the power of community and slow growth, his relentless focus on quality and how consistency and building

1:00customer loyalty over time has been key to April's success. He also introduces the new April hand grinder and the independent Kickstarter campaign behind it, a huge success that reached its target in just four hours. Welcome Patrick, thank you very much. So tell us what first drew you into coffee? Before coffee I was in the tech world in Sweden, from some based in Gothenburg originally and I traveled the world, I spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley, did a lot of tech related things, sold a lot of things, built a lot of things and I got to a point where one of my customers in the company I had then was a coffee ministry called Damatéo in Gothenburg and especially Muts, the founder of that company, I spent almost a year with him working on, let's say non-coffee related projects and he just got me hooked on coffee. He connected

2:00me with everyone and this was like, I don't know if 15 years ago or something like that. So that was back in the days where BlueBottle wasn't that big and James Hoffman wasn't the most famous YouTube guy. So I met a lot of these people very early on and I got to see coffee from a different perspective and I realized that the industry that I was in, let me feeling not grounded enough, I didn't feel I could in enough value. I got introduced to coffee in a way where coffee was to this value chain and was like farmer in the other side of the world, between big roisteries and small roisteries, especially coffee, not especially coffee. I think a 20-year-old version of myself got really the idea of creating value because I felt I wasn't in time in my life where I wasn't creating enough real value. So yeah, that just got me hooked pretty much. I was sitting at Damatéo first about two and a half years, that's why I started competing coffee,

3:02that's why I started to learn all the basics. We had Nordic approach, green coffee, import in Norway, just started around that same time, lowering as well, the roasting manufacturer, and we kind of used all of it. And I got a very good kind of foundation and baseline there, but what I realized that Gothamberg is sweetened which is too small if you want to go international. So there I jumped on an opportunity to take on a job in Berlin, which I stayed out for about two years. And then I did what happens to most people in this industry where you spend enough time in a company, you get to a position in the company where there's nowhere for you to go, like the owner is the one on top of you and the owner is not going anywhere. So I was at a point in time in my life where I wanted to do certain things that wasn't allowed to do them where I was. So I decided then I'm there to start my own company, which brought me to Copenhagen and April and kind of where I'm where I am today. So what was the year that you started April? unofficially it was the end of 2016,

4:05first official years 2017 pretty much, we're going on nine years now. Wow. Now tell us about that journey. So what was the original vision of April? What's in the name and how did you get started? For sure. So I mean, I got started really out of the need. It's like I always wanted to make coffee better. It was more I want to explore and see what it takes to really try to race the bar for coffee quality. You know, I looked at the lights like Tim and the bow and I was like asking myself like, you know, who who is pushing things now? Who's trying to make things better? And I saw an opportunity and I always had the drive to kind of see if I could be a part of the journey to kind of at least introduce an alternative perspective to how people were running coffee industries, how people did specialty coffee. So the baseline idea of April has always been

5:05to try to race the bar for coffee quality and to show an alternative perspective on what coffee can be. And I think I always looked at coffee and I saw something that perhaps other people didn't see. And I've been trying to put that perspective to the industry in ever sense pretty much. And people as a name, I mean, there's a very short simple honest answer to that. And it's I was sitting in Berlin having a coffee with a friend. I told her of the first time like, hey, I'm moving to Copenhagen. I'm starting a company. And she worked in marketing. So she was just kind of asked me what's the name of the company? And then I just said April. Wow. David, the essence of April has been, well, I refer to as the beauties on the inside. So, you know, we work with no external marketing companies, agencies, nothing like that. It's always been focused on coffee quality, everything else secondary. And then it was really only in the kind of last few years where we've been able to also look at the visuals and like, you know, improve packaging and do things like that.

6:10When April has started as a company, it was very much a pretty ugly company because I didn't have so much focus on the visual aspects of the company or let's say the brand story. It was just all about the coffee for me. The summary is, and I thought the word April might have been spring is here coming. It's going to get warmer, a bit more optimistic. I don't know. When I first thought, what did he choose the name April? That was my thoughts. But is there any truth in that? I don't know. I think it's absolutely truth in that. It's just a truth that came a little bit later, right? Because I think, for me, most of the things I do is some sort of gut feeling, right? And a lot of the times the explanation or my understanding of that gut feeling comes later. And I think you're really kind of hitting the nail there where I think it's a time of the year that I really appreciate personally as a new energy. I mean Scandinavia, it's old. So, it's also a time in coffee where we sample and make decisions on most of the new coffee coming out of the season.

7:14So it's just, it's an inspiring time, I think. And I do definitely believe that it had an impact somewhere on the choice of the name. And initially, I also pitched the name as highlighting the fact that coffee is a seasonal product. I don't highlight that fact to the name so much anymore, but definitely that's part of the brand story, I think. But the story came after the name. So gut instinct. Do you still use gut instinct? Is that your, the way you make your decisions today on things you're moving forward with? I think it's always been, I mean, obviously now like a more, I'm a more educated person now than when I when I started. So of course, your gut feeling changes with the amount of experience and knowledge that you accumulate, right? So I think that the baseline has changed somewhat, but the idea is the same. And it's very much linked to the fact that I started a company to be able to express something that I wanted to express.

8:14I believe that the real value or let's say, April's mission is to bring somewhat unique perspective to the coffee industry, right? Like we're trying to add value that wasn't there before us. Not saying that we always succeed with that, but that is the idea that's what we want to do, right? So then asking the market, what does the market want? We ask ourselves, what do we want to show the market? And that's very much been the ethos of what we're trying to build. Fantastic. And what about today? What is April? You're a roaster. You have a boutique shop there. Yep. Tell us about what April is. Absolutely roaster first. That's always been the goal. We trade our green coffee very carefully directly from a very small selection of partner farmers around the world. We spend a lot of time, most of our time trying to figure out how to become better coffee roasters because that's something we feel there's a lot of room to grow into. Then the course of the

9:17company, let's say, developed a little bit back in 2019 where I brought the first version of the April brewer to the world brewers cup stage. We got second place that year and then launched a product after and from there, really we started to produce various coffee equipment like April related coffee equipment. And a big change there was actually covid goes to world brewers cup and then covid came and covid resulted in the first April store. Like you just visited the second one, the first one a little bit of a smaller venture. It was a really interesting experience because it was the first time I sat in a room and drank our coffee served by us. And then I started to ask myself questions, why is our packaging so ugly? Because I was sitting staring at it at a shelf every day. Why am I drinking April coffee in a cup that is not made by April? And that's kind of leading us up to today and the kind of range of equipment and latest product now that is

10:18alive on Kickstarter is our hand grinder where we're trying to take a first step of complete what we call the April brewing system right. So I always looked at coffee as a as a value training assistant, not just origin to let's say a road street, but also interest a road street to final cup and I'm trying to take responsibility for every variable in preparing a cup of coffee. So that's been a journey in the last five, six years to say complete that system to say, hey, here is every ingredient you need to brew a cup of coffee the way that April likes to brew a cup of coffee. So that's a really interesting step now. Then we do some other small things here and there, but the core thing that we do today is obviously roasting coffee and developing April brewing equipment. Well, okay, let's look at this hand grinder that you've launched. I had a look in and I had the pleasure of having some coffee made from it on Friday. It was delicious coffee and give us what's so special about this grinder that you've created and why, yeah, why have you

11:22made a grinder in the first place? I think that it all starts with the roasting. We made the April brewer because back in around 2019, obviously the landscape in coffee brewing equipment has changed a lot the last few years, but back then most brewers that was developed were developed from cultures and companies with very different approaches to roasting than what April has. So there obviously, let's say the three most famous ones, chemics, Haruobi 60 Calita, are all based on different cultures and all produced in a time where we roasted very differently. So that's where initially April brewer came and the grinder came out of actually a very very similar idea because how we roast the coffee, what kind of coffee we roast, obviously the brewer we choose to use dictates what that grinder needs to do and able to give us the cup of quality that we want to.

12:24Reality is the grinder is such an important factor, such an important variable of the final cup quality. And if we're looking at a specific roast style and we're looking at a brewer that is shaped in a certain way with the paper filter, also built in a certain way, all going to impact extraction, it's going to impact raw downs, all of those variables that creates a tasty cup of coffee. In the end of the day, if we don't control the grinder, there's two big of a piece of the puzzle missing for us. So it was just about trying to create very specifically a certain grind distribution, so a certain particle distribution that would then fit or align perfectly with the April Brewer. It's interesting because I don't think there is a lot of grinders in the world, the grinders that basically attempted to be made specifically for one brewing system. Because most grinders, obviously you want to make a grinder that you can use for every brewer in the world because you can sell more grinders. And then April comes and we go, I don't know,

13:26we just created a brewer for the April Brewer or a grinder for the April Brewer. That's interesting, but it's like, I mean, you just have the experience, right? Like you can literally come to April and you can get a cup of coffee that, okay, we don't own the farm, we don't want to own the farm because we have too much respect for farmers, but basically the cup of coffee you had Friday, like we literally created every single piece of that system. And that's really interesting to me, right? First step, bigger, bigger brider plants in the future, which we hope we will be able to introduce one day, right? But that's always step by step. Okay, so this kickstart is live. What are you looking to raise? And what, yeah, we reached our goal and like the first four hours. Oh, okay, so that's too easy. Fairly, there's a lot of worth that we're into that campaign. So now, you know, we were just looking at, at Financing, that first production run, basically making a grinder, making any product is a very expensive endeavor. It costs a lot of money, both interests and development of a product, but also then just

14:30in pure production of a product, right? And April is, we're still a really small company. I'd like to say that we're potentially like we're a bigger brand than we are a company. We don't have endless resources. We don't have external investments. We still have to to take baby steps and kick starters really away from us to try to launch a new product while still being financially responsible. And it's also way for us to give back to the community, like the people that have been supporting us for a long time. They had the opportunity to go in and grab a grinder for a lower price than what we're going to put it out for accurate. Okay, so what were the, you know, for those that are, yeah, there'll be a lot of entrepreneurs listing this and always interested in how do you, how do you raise funds in difficult times like this? What was the offer that made it so successful and what are those who invested? So they're investing in getting a grind at the grinder cheaper than they normally get it. Is that right? Is that the main main pitch? The main pitch is to bring the whole product to life, right? Because without a successful campaign, we wouldn't be able to

15:33have the cash flow to move in and do it. Yeah, what we did initially was that we gave a pretty like, let's say solid, I don't like to use toward discount, but I guess that's the most appropriate word. Okay, still about like you can get it for like, I think it's about $50, $60 below retail price after the campaign, like that's still available. So basically it's a, it's a really support, but it was really focused here was to, we know we built a community over the years, said, support for what we do and then we wanted to give them that opportunity and obviously say hi to any new users of the Apple Buying System as well. So how many grinders have you pre-sold now? So right now we're touching about 500 units. So still a small, oh that's a good start. It's a start, right? And I think we always have to start somewhere, right? And anything from the first road stay I ever had, I roasted 90 kilos of coffee and the first time I sold a Napro Brewer was like, you know, 10 brewers. So we all have to start some, yeah, we're thankful enough to have a community

16:37that allows us to do some straight, crazy stuff sometimes. But curious to see where this can take us in the future. It kicks out is still open for now. I mean, it's like 20 more days or versus end of end of the month. So it's a plenty of time actually. Okay. So what would you ideally love to get as your kind of final numbers, they're a threshold, you're going to get, we're going to just stop there or could go to 10,000. I mean, the way works is just going to take a long ride. And I think we I've always said in Danish crowns because I mean, these currencies are confusing sometimes, right? But I say if we can touch about a million, that's a successful campaign. Also given like the amount of work it took for us to actually make the campaign and all of this right. But then we're in a good position to move forward. Right. We'll see we're about 825 something like that. Yeah, we're about 175 short of why personal. I wanted out of this. And if I'm doing my calculations correctly, that's about 100,000 pounds or about 150,000 US dollars potentially something. Yeah. So maybe

17:42more. Yeah. Oh, well, that's incredible. So as an entrepreneur, what is the keys to that success? You must have had a good database or is it social media? What's driving that engagement? That's an interest because I get that question a lot. And I think like for us, it's like we actually keep things very simple. I think a good database is probably the key thing here. And for us, that just means let's say consumers. That's really happening. We worked very hard over the years to, you know, we're never going to be the biggest company, but we're a company that take every product very seriously. Right. Like you can date back or if you look at our YouTube channel and go back like six, seven years, you see me talking about how I want to make a hand grinder. Right. Yeah. And I test like every hand grinder in the world. Right. That's like we do everything very deliberately. Not always the fastest, but I think we're proven to some degree that we take a product very seriously. And let's say followers or customer base we have, they appreciate that. And they seem to allow us

18:45to kind of continue to develop our coffee journey. I think just consistency over time being very genuine. Like we just want to make the coffee from the perspective of April. Right. So yeah, I think that's about it. We haven't done it. There's no paid marketing. There's no fuss. There's no. We keep things very simple. And I personally believe that if you want to grow sustainably, make sure you can grow by yourself. If you just take in a bunch of external capital or or you just do paid marketing, I could just, it's just not necessarily giving you the security or the knowledge that you know you have a customer base you actually can grow on. Right. So yeah, we kind of decided to take the slow path rather than the fast one. But yeah, as long as it allows us to do these kind of products, then I'm quite happy. Yeah, fantastic. Well, that's definitely a great

19:46result. And certainly the entrepreneurs listening out there, this is good learnings. This is good learnings. Not running too fast. And I guess as well, the fact that you've, what a risk to design a grinder just for your own brewer, you know, in a sense. So that must say a lot about how successful the brewer is. The April Brewer is. Yeah, I mean, I'm obviously going to crunch some numbers, right? And you look at how many April Brewer's have we actually sold? And then you go, okay, but what if, let's say 70% of those actually buy an April hand grinder within the next few years? Let's put it like this. It would be a very sound financial investment, right? So it's not a completely random product of course, right? But it's also just genuinely me wanting a grinder. And the thing is my goal is not to make a hand grinder. My goal is to go into, you know, more,

20:47let's say substantial grinder projects, but you have to start at a low entry cost to hit the market, come in, prove that you can actually produce grinders to make a difference. And then you can build on grinder quality after that, right? And go into electrical grinders and so on. So it's, it's all just, you know, baby steps, right? But of course, there is a little bit of business sense in all of this, right? But it's also just your quality first. Yeah. And like it took us, it took us almost five years to do this because I wanted to create a version of a grinder that genuinely made a difference for us. And when I say for us, it's obviously us tasting the result to the April brewers and feeling strongly enough that this really makes a difference to launch it. Because frankly, I could have put my logo on a grinder three years ago, put it on the market. Like, wouldn't necessarily be a problem with with the climate today. But yeah, which we try to do generally,

21:52it gets it's allowed to take time. And we're just happy we came up with something that actually makes our coffee taste better. So what were the challenges that you had in launching this grind? What's unique about it and why couldn't someone else, or why doesn't someone else help they have it already? It's a very good question. And I've got them die questions so many times, just the last few days mainly due to the campaign, right? And yeah, people are always a little bit disappointed with the answer because the answer is not so sexy. The answer is really the bird geometry. So the bird geometry or the shape of the actual bore is what allows a certain particle distribution. And obviously now we're going into very kind of nerdy details here in coffee, particle distribution is a relatively complicated thing, but very easily explained it allows the water to go through the coffee in a certain way. And the April brewer has certain very specific

22:55details in its design that forces the water to go through the coffee in a certain pace. By also adding a specific particle distribution or bird geometry to that, I can actually manipulate the flow of water even more specifically. So we actually made it more April, which is, it doesn't mean you can't use another grinder, right? It's the same. I usually take our paper filter as an example because today we have our own production of paper filters and when a large day of a brewer is the first two years, we didn't have a paper filter because we didn't know anything about paper filters. So we were like, use Calida, that's fine. And to some degree, it is fine. But everything is fine until you find something better. And I always believe there is something better around the corner. Like three years from now, I'm going to look back at our, the grinder we have now, and I'm going to say Patrick, why didn't you make that better? Yeah. Just as we've done new iterations of the April brewer's continuously,

23:58also, right? But the main thing is that this specific particle distribution or bird geometry simply doesn't exist. Does this mean it's night and day from any of the grinder that there's no grinder in the world that is even close to this particle distribution? No, there is one or two that are fairly close. But there are also a lot of them that are very far away, right? So the specific ness is really in that. Then the aesthetic and the visuals is, we try to make it timeless, we try to make it able, clean, minimalistic, a little bit of color in there to be a little bit playful. But it's really the balance of that. But the real thing here is the, is the burst. The burst took forever. Yeah. And that's what we can do the most for us. Fantastic. Well, details for that will follow in the show notes. Where should I listen? There's also go to get this deal. If you want that, you need to, well, you can obviously you can head to the April website and just kind of click the way through to the Kickstarter page you've gone to. But basically it's it's

25:02it's on Kickstarter until the end of this month and then after that, we're looking to launch publicly, most likely in January next year. Yeah. But then we're looking at our retail price. This sits, yeah, 60, 50, 60 pounds above what you can get it for at Kickstarter. You also have run a separate coffee bar next door called SP Coffee. Really curious because you got this absolutely finest quality super curated store. And then you've got something that's a little bit more, I would say accessible SP coffee. What's in the name? SP coffee. So SP coffee is short for sustainable profile, which may or not be a potential terrible name, but it's actually it's an interesting product and it's something that is a good representation of what we kind of just talked about. What it's so proud that

26:05came out of very genuine concern. So like SP coffee has actually been with us since 2018, but became a coffee shop only last year. And what SP coffee is is it's a conversation with one of my partner farmers, Alejo Castro at Molkanasur. We met up in Bordeaux in France at Belco at Green Coffee and Porter and we recorded a podcast that I was hosting at that time. And that was about two and a half years into April. We were a company that mainly bought, you know, the fanciest coffee you can buy from the farm, the Gaysha coffee, the limited stuff they have, right? So when I talked to a farmer like Alejo, it was always, um, we can buy you a Gaysha. I had no interest in anything else. So when we did this podcast and this is live somewhere in the April kind of archive, somewhere in that podcast, I asked him, does April create any value for U.S. and he just answered no, which was like an identity crisis waiting to happen.

27:12And in the moment, I didn't really know what to do. Like I just, I kind of continued the conversation. And then on the plane back home, I was trying to figure out like what, like, what does this mean? Like, you know, we are especially coffee rosters. Everyone has transparency, you know, value for farmer on their website, because what we do, we create value for farmers, at least that's what I've always did. And then you have this farmer telling you, you're not creating any value. So basically, I just called them. It was very simple. I called them and say, hi Alejo, it's been really troubled by the fact that you say that I'm not creating any value for you. So how can I create value for you? And he was basically, well, Patrick, you're just buying the best stuff I have. That's like 1% of my production. You need to buy a wider range of coffees and you need to buy more coffees. And then I had a problem because April was all about the best coffee. And I didn't want to include any other coffee at April. So the result was SP. I simply created a

28:13separate brand with coffee purchase from the same partner farmers I have in April, but we're buying their larger lots. So still, especially coffee things for short, but they kind of coffee we can grow on. The kind of coffee that we can actually build financial value into the farms. And that's been a very successful wholesale retail products since 2018. And then last year, I was like, hey, let's just turn this into a coffee shop. Let's see what people, let's see what happens if we give people what they want. Also, a bit of a playful expression. So very much an April project, but as you also experienced a visual and taste experience and a service experience that is more like your traditional special coffee shop. Wow. I mean, that's very innovative. And you just still buying from the same farmer, and that's all you're buying from other farmers. And as we were buying from Alejo, and then the way we purchased coffee today at April is that we then go into the farm and we still

29:16ask, you know, we're pretentious enough to still ask for the best stuff. But then we say, hey, we're also have the SP project. So we're going to go in, try to get the best stuff you want to share with us. And then we're going to go look at the volume coffees. So today, 80% of the April partner farmers are also included in our SP project. Oh, yeah. And that's really how we build us where the name comes from originally as well. Like we wanted to, it was us trying to build in something sustainable for our partner farmers. And very often being sustainable toward your farmers means an increase, let's say, echo investment into their work, right? Basically, buy more coffee. And Alejo is a good example. Today, we buy about in total volumes about 25 tons of coffee from him. Yeah. And then 20 tons of that is SP. So it gives you a good idea of the ratio rate. Yeah. Well, that's that's that's a great story. And broader, I mean, you know, it's in

30:22the name, sustainable profile. And by that profile, is that mean the profile of the coffee in terms of the grading? Or is that what you mean by profile? And initially, initially was, and again, like I said, kind of admitted before, it's just simply not the best name in the world. And I think that's why I've gone back to like calling an SP rather than sustainable profile. The challenge I had back then was that and no disrespect to any roastery here, but I think it's fair to say that almost every roastery in the world, especially golf in the roastery in the world has let's say an SP product in their lineup. Some kind of volume coffee usually goes for house espresso that they roasted most of. It's true for post roasteries. And the thing with April is that I just didn't want that to be what defined the April quality. So sustainable profile of the name of the profile, the part of that was really like alluding to the whole like it's a different profile

31:26as a different concept. Still through us, you get the quality of some of the best farmers in the world. You get the roasting from us. But it is different because we also using it as a way to highlight the quality that April is. So we're saying, okay, but go here, SP is SP is this an April is this. There's a quality difference because if we did what most of the roasteries are doing when they just put in, let's say the same quality of coffees, SP into their main brand, in my head that's taking away value from the quality aspect of that brand. So that's why I wanted to separate it early on. Yeah, great. What's in your view embedded in the name of sustainability? Clearly you identify looking after farmers, making sure that you're buying enough so that you can support their livelihoods, etc. What are the other dimensions to sustainability that you consider?

32:28It's a huge question, right? And I think as a company that goes, you can ask that in so many different perspectives, right? Obviously, the word sustainability is very much linked often to origin. So in our case, it's just as important for us to say, know the people that the factories that produce the hangarinders, the factories that produce just the April brewers. It's the transparency and the understanding of their value chain and how we play a role in that value chain. One of the key things for us, I believe it has always been actually linked to financial value as in we never had a price conversation with a farmer. They tell us what they want for the coffee. We either say yes or no. In most cases, we say yes, but it's never no. We can buy this coffee before a lower price. We often pay more than what they're asking for to try to incentivize

33:32better conditions. That's mainly it means work conditions at the farm and so on, right? But for us, the key thing has been we team up with partner farmers that we trust we see value in both as individuals, but also interests of the coffee that produce. And I genuinely believe that if we can build more financial value for them, then these are people with the integrity, perspective, human decency, if you want to call it that, that would know what to do with that money in the best possible way to improve everything at the farm level, right? Because improving something or being sustainable is a tricky thing in many ways. So we're trying to work with people we trust and give them the financial means to choose their own, let's say, direction and support that direction as much as we can. And what about the actual running of your own business, any elements of important elements of

34:32sustainability that you're working on that you're trying to push forward? We're trying by both. I mean, small things as you know, pack material, how can we make that sustainable? I can we make the work environments we have, yeah, sustainable, right? Like we invested a fortune in like acoustic treatments in a roastery, which you normally don't do. It's a small things like that. We have shorter work hours for the team that are normal company, to allow more kind of balance between, let's say, free time and work and more focus while you are at work. We're trying to do a lot of different things. There's always so much room for improvement. So just be right. But we always, like the people that have been with this for a while, like I think both kind of externally looking at April, but also working in Saturday, we know that we keep on pushing, like we, whatever money we make or don't make, we invest in trying to improve what we do, whether that's a product or something in the roastery in the store or whatever

35:36that might be right, because we see and know that we can do better and we always genuinely try to to do it better. Wow, that's phenomenal. And competitions, are you still interested in competitions? And you've achieved a lot. Want to talk us through some of your highlights? Highlight is probably, probably a second place in Borerskab, I guess, I mean, in terms of titles and the world championship, I really enjoyed I had this two year run where I was in two, like WorldBerst, a championship, Final Center row. I think that was really interesting because I really like espresso. Yeah, I'm very into espresso, so beverage. I'm always going to be, let's say, first of all, one thankful for like being able to compete in coffee, I think SCA is done a tremendous work with all of this. I think it's a big part of like, if I was ever on the way out of coffee,

36:37competitions are what kept me in coffee, because I think it's been a very inspiring journey, especially to meet producers, coffee competitors, judges. Then I mean, let's be honest about the fact that the let's say stylistic choice of coffee being used in these competitions doesn't necessarily align so much with my personal mission of what the best coffee in the world is. I think that has changed and trends kind of come and go, so still very interested. I think everyone actually wants to win something. I think also in my case, until you, it's like my big brother said when I was second place in Borerskab, he was patric if you don't win, you lose, it doesn't really matter if you're second or last. Which I agree with, right? So I think I have it in me to try to win something at some point, but I'm going to wait until the style of coffee being used in competitions, some better aligns with my own kind of ambitions. What is the difference in style that

37:39you're detecting or you're perceiving that, yeah, kind of question here. Yeah, for sure. I mean, easy answer and I don't think there's any, there's no reason to hold back, but the main thing is the introduction of flavored coffee or infused coffee into the competitions. Yeah, often mistakenly mentioned as co-ferments. Yeah, that's also a big topic to discuss individually, but basically a flavored coffee, I think, is the easiest way to put it where the industry is chasing a taste potential in coffee that is necessarily there or potentially is there, but we were missing out on because your child, a very good roaster in the US said this very nicely in a podcast. He was, he said something along the lines that were so busy flavoring coffee now and it's such a shame because we're still trying to perfect how to do a classic wash process of a coffee at origin. So

38:44we will lost our way a little bit as a top segment in the industry. You will take in some shortcuts and competitions is a big part of that because it's in those competitions, these coffees has kind of been validated. If there's one thing you will not see able to do during the time I'm involved in April is let's say co-ferments or infused flavored coffees because that shouldn't be a part of the top segment in the in this particular coffee industry if you ask me, but of what's next for April coffee? Yeah, I mean, that's a big one. But what's next is so interestingly enough, this year will be the, how do I say this in English? I forgot the language sometimes, but it's actually we're roasting less coffee this year than ever before. Yeah, which from a business perspective, people go, you're crazy, what's happening? And it's a deliberate choice. I'm linked to what I've talked about before about let's say a new style of coffee,

39:51which makes it more difficult for me to find producers that can deliver the kind of quality of coffee I'm looking for. Yep. And if you look at the bigger scheme of things, like the April Brewers, now the April Hangwinder, it's also me understanding many years ago the direction by the industry is going and that the April expression in taste of coffee is going to fall out of trend, like it has now, like the trend is this new style of expressive coffees. So that's why we kind of, we're going to double down on just focusing on the quality of April, make sure that that is maintained. We're going to say no to growth for the next few years from a roasted coffee perspective. We're going to focus on the equipment. That's where the growth side is. And we're going to open up April stores in most major cities in the world. That's more on like Patrick Wishlist, rather than a specific plan at this point. But that is where I will put that focus

40:56on the board. Well, we'd love to see you in London. Sometimes, please come. I think that would be so amazing, right? Yeah. Let's see what the future has next. Yeah, great. Now, you've met some amazing people and Matt's clearly a very big person in your life in terms of having an influence on your career. Any other any thoughts on mentorship and you know, there's I mean, I think there've been there've been so many. I think there's been a few. They kind of you know, stood out from, let's say, a far also like obviously you have Mr. Tim. Tim that'll you know, can't say I know the guy personally, right? But they're early on he was he was an inspiration. No doubts. You have the likes of James Hoffman. But there's also been a lot of like, let's say many different people. And I mean, they know who

41:57they are. The people that everyone said, well, I'll join my journey kind of reminded me why why I'm still doing this so to speak right. A lot of those are linked to the competition scene and coffee or farmers that I met as well. So yeah, there's there's so many people. And I think that's one of the key things really, I think with the coffee world still right where we have some amazing people and it and there's some people that are doing fantastic stuff. And that's also why I'm trying to let's say earn my right or precision in the in the coffee industry, right? That's why we put in the work to to make sure that we can live up to to all the hard work that everyone else is putting in, right? Is that come from like what drives you to keep pushing those boundaries? Is it to be the best? Is it what is it? I mean, I think and I think this is also to link back to the

43:00April hang grinder, right? Because saying we make make a grinder only for ourselves also pisses on people off, right? Like, I think there's a there's a big part of the world today that thinks that everything you do has to be for other people, especially in business. But I think for me, the biggest drive in coffee and the reason why I'm still in coffee, probably the only reason is that I still don't think coffee is good enough. And that includes myself and the work that April is doing, right? And I don't necessarily say that as a negative thing is more like I see room for improvement, like I see the way forward. Where that comes from, I don't necessarily know, it's just always been very clear to me how I can make things better. Then I can't always do it overnight because it's a business. There's cash flow to consider, there's certain timings. But

44:01I've always been very curious and it's not just a coffee thing. I think it's, you know, we get one chance at life. Why not try to be the best version you can during that time? Fantastic, Patrick. Great way to leave it. Thanks so much for joining us here today on Fifth Wave. Thank you for having me. And that's all for this week's Fifth Wave podcast. If you've enjoyed the show, please subscribe and share the link with a friend or colleague. Also, if you're on Apple or Spotify, we'd really love a five-star review to help us increase our reach across the industry. To stay informed, visit worldcoffeeportal.com to get access to all the latest global coffee news, including the weekly coffee dose, collecting all the big coffee news stories. Links are in the show notes. This episode was produced in the one and only serendipity studios in glorious Camden North London. It was produced by myself, Jeffrey Young, Hannah Heath and Sound Engineering by Chris Prister. And this week's song in collaboration with the Coffee Music Project is Wake Up by Lexi.

45:03Until next time, stay safe, stay caffeinated, stay curious. So world is ending, I'm asking you don't bother me. Till I head my cup of coffee. Bring closer, dash over, and a little greater girl could dream, won't stay anything. And I'm on the Earth piece. And if she believes. It's a sunny Sunday morning, and my dad is watching Trash TV. It's no less, no world is ending, I'm asking you don't bother me.

46:06Till I head my cup of coffee. So world is ending, I'm asking you don't bother me. Till I head my cup of coffee. Bring closer, dash over, and a little greater girl could dream, won't stay anything. Coffee, we go on till the hammer cup of coffee.

47:14Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute, smell the coffee. Wait, wait a minute, wait a minute. There's no more coffee, but I'm waiting for you. Wait, wait, I smell the coffee.