Taylor (00:05)
makes me super nervous. I'm probably making myself more nervous talking about it, so anyway.

Host (00:08)
OK,

cool. It's all good. Erin, should we start?

Aaron (00:12)
Yes, I

probably more comfortable too because I already know you so

Host (00:18)
That's true.

Taylor (00:20)
How do you know? But do you know that or is that like something you just learned?

Aaron (00:22)
We're in the same fantasy football, who?

No,

like we have a draft every year we get together at Richard's house

Host (00:29)
House.

Taylor (00:30)
⁓

you know him, actually.

Host (00:32)
So it was three times. Like I worked at Timmy's. Richard was my boss. And we'd strategically, I was the morning baker from four to 12. And Richard and I strategically would make, or he would make the schedule so that we were on a sandwich bar for like seven a.m. together. And then we could talk sports all morning. Oh, hilarious. And I would actually wake up early to get the half an hour, is it sports center?

Aaron (00:33)
in real life.

Taylor (00:43)
Bless your heart.

Host (01:00)
Is that what is called? It would like replay the same thing every half an hour. Yeah, so I wake up early so I could watch sports center before I went into work so I could keep up with Richard's sports knowledge.

Taylor (01:12)
I love that. That is so incredible that you put in the time to make sure that you were like with it. Especially guys can underestimate women in sports.

Host (01:22)
Yeah, so Richard had this fantasy football He was really into it. Yeah, and then so we would actually meet in person

Aaron (01:29)
I

understand.

Taylor (01:30)
I think that like Aaron if I can remember I've never met Richard. Yeah, but if I can remember Aaron would say that like he would get quite like Mad if like things didn't go his way Intense he's a word you

Aaron (01:43)
Not really mad, he being te-

Host (01:46)
He's like what you want for somebody running it. Okay. Yeah

Aaron (01:50)
He's

like got pages and pages of notes. yeah. And you're like.

Host (01:55)
Look at clipboard, you'd have a clipboard of all the players and all that.

Aaron (01:59)
yeah,

and Joel and I would literally show up and I just right before printed like the top 200 people and him and Joel and I would be sharing a thing like I guess that guy next. right. I went.

Host (02:09)
not finished with the one year you won.

And then, ⁓ of course you did. And you always wear your San Fran jersey. Yeah. I could never remember his name, but I knew he was San Fran man. Big time. And then when I was, so the first time I walked into your, the coffee house, I didn't know.

Taylor (02:16)
Is there?

I was gonna ask you that, did you know we owned it?

Host (02:32)
I

walked in to get a coffee and I was like, it's the San Fran, it's the football guy. And then I texted Richard, I'm like, what's his name? I was like, hey, how's it going?

Taylor (02:42)
So fun

Aaron (02:43)
And

it wasn't until you said that that I clicked and like, Alison?

Host (02:47)
Because it'd been a minute, it'd been a few years. yeah. nice. Every, I would say once or twice a year we...

Taylor (02:50)
Do you still talk to Rich? ⁓

How long do you work at Tim Hortons?

Host (03:00)
It was the year, I want to say it was just over a year, maybe a year and a half. So I ⁓ had finished university in September, my bachelor of science, and the education program didn't start until July. So I had all this time to kill. So I was the morning baker from four to twelve.

And then I would do kick and run soccer and then tutor and then go play poker five nights a week. I was incredibly bored because you go from studying fourth year classes to absolutely nothing. And when the education program started, it was kind of like a nine to five, Monday to Friday. And so they actually let me stay on and I could work four to eight. the owner is.

Taylor (03:49)
Let you

stay on.

Host (03:50)
Yeah, whoever the owners were, they let me just work a four hour shift. So I'd work four to eight. then. one? The one in the mission. And they also.

Taylor (03:56)
location was it? Was it in Kelowna?

It would have been... But what's their parents names? Yeah, but what's their first names? Why am I blanking out right now? Chris. Chris and Susan. very nice. No, their daughter runs it now. Oh, okay.

Aaron (04:04)
chat ⁓

Taylor (04:17)
and now Lori, their daughter pretty much owns it.

Host (04:21)
Right. do these, they had more than one location. They had the Enterprise. ⁓ they have a lot now. Yeah. cool. I loved, I loved working there. ⁓ It was the hustle and the bustle and it's go, go, go. It, it.

Taylor (04:26)
Five or six.

Aaron (04:27)
And to be honest, they have lucky.

Taylor (04:30)
Yeah.

Aww, that's nice.

still is that but I don't think it's as fun as it used to be. I worked

Host (04:42)
corporate. future is not there anymore, so it's not going to be as fun. Yeah.

Taylor (04:46)
I

worked corporate so I worked on Tim Warren's corporate in Ontario for three years. I traveled all over North America and I used to oversee

Aaron (04:48)
was there for everyone.

Taylor (05:01)
Well, I started out like learning all the things. I learned how to bake, learned how to run a drive-through, I learned all things. And then they used to send us out on trips and I was an operations representative. And we would, as a group, go out and open to Morton's locations, get them all set up, get their equipment set up, train their staff, train them how to bake, train them how to do drive-through, train them how to you know, calibrate equipment, all the things.

Host (05:24)
It's a lot. There's a lot.

Taylor (05:26)
depending on the assignment anywhere from like one to three weeks and then I would go back to corporate. So I was flying around all the time, Canada, US.

Host (05:34)
Really? Yeah. So where are you? Are you from Ontario? Yeah. ⁓

Taylor (05:38)
Yeah, I did an assignment out here. So because we were always opening Tim Horton's locations, if there was ever like a lull period, they would be like, OK, you should go do this marketing event, or, you got to go down and train in the head or in the training center, whatever. We got kind of thrown out all the time. But I worked ⁓ a marketing event out here in Kamelitz for the Briar. yeah, and then got some connections and.

hooked up for an owner out here, to an owner out here who said he's looking for somebody who has like my skill set because I did everything as an operations representative. And so I got on the phone with him and we just like hit it off. He was such a nice guy and he asked me to come and like basically run his to Morton's. So he had five locations and we built it up to nine and I worked for him for seven years.

Host (06:28)
And what part of where is?

Taylor (06:30)
Vernon, Enderby, Armstrong, Lumbee. Wow! Yeah. And so I worked for him for seven years and working for him, I learned so much about like how to run a business. business structure for sure was like a big one, but also how to behave running a business. not just what the small stuff and even the big stuff,

It's going to be what it's going to be. like getting really worked up about it is not necessarily going to make it any better. So, and he just like was super smart with numbers and he'd teach me how to understand numbers quickly in my head. Yeah. so anyway, so I worked with him for seven years and his family and, then eventually had to figure out my own thing because it was a family business and, ⁓ I wanted to do more than just be a general manager.

So how

Host (07:18)
What

did you get into it at the beginning? Did you enter at corporate? Did you apply for the job search?

Taylor (07:23)
Yeah,

funny story. So my brother-in-law ⁓ asked, ⁓ or my whole family kind of knew I was looking for like a corporate position. And then that came available. I'm pretty sure it was like in the newspaper or something back in the day.

He sent it to me. I'm pretty sure he took a clip of it and sent it to me was like, this would be good for you. Cause like I was just single and free and just wanted to like travel and experience things. So he sent that to me and sure. I'll apply.

Host (07:57)
I mean, he cut it out of the newspaper and mailed it to you.

Taylor (08:00)
No, I think he like sent me a clip on a flip phone. Okay. I'm pretty sure I'm really aging myself now. swear it was a flip phone that he sent me a clip on and I was like, when is that? Anyways, um, so, and then I was like, okay, sure, whatever. I guess I should apply. So I applied and I got the job. Of course I got the job because it was not very good pay and there was a lot of travel and it was like, maybe not the most luxurious position to be in, but it was a start for me to climb the ladder. Um, where really quickly I learned I don't want to be on a ladder.

I want to, you know, have my own situation, but I definitely learned a lot from that experience and then had a lot of fun. And we went to the most random places in Canada and even the U S. but yeah. And then I just like felt like after three years, it was just kind of like wearing me down and learning. Like the corporate ladder is just like not desirable anymore for me. I would rather, I don't know.

work really hard at something myself. So anyway, so then this opportunity came up and I was like, this is perfect. And he offered me a fair salary compared to what I was making at corporate. And I was like, you know what? Let's do this damn thing. I really wanted to move to Kelowna, like BC. ⁓ And I was looking for jobs in BC. So it was like the universal line itself. I don't know. It was so crazy. I was looking for something out in BC. And then I was working on an assignment from Ontario in Kamloops.

and the owner heard about me and asked me to work for him in Vernon. just and then my sister's husband got a job at the hospital at the same time so we all just moved out here together. Better. Even better. So I had family, I had support. Yeah. But I lived by myself for the first time in an apartment and that was so much fun. So like the whole thing was like just like such an amazing experience to lead me to where I am now. But yeah and then while working in Vernon and all those

Host (09:39)
even better.

Taylor (09:56)
locations and it would be Armstrong. Aaron was the truck driver.

Host (10:00)
I

was about to say how'd you meet Erin? Obviously through Tim Harkin.

Taylor (10:03)
So

he delivered trucks and ⁓ in the beginning we didn't even like associate with each other at all but got to a point where he was single and I guess I just decided that I would go on a date with him after he asked several times and then...

his defense okay so he asked me several times out and I kind of just like kept fluffing it off like but in his defense within like probably the first hour of our day I was like ⁓ what a great guy so so he won me over really

Host (10:38)
Very nice.

Taylor (10:39)
I think the part I like the most about it is like it shocked me because I like I was not expecting that at all. I was expecting let's just get this over with. This guy won't leave me alone. I'm going to make it clear I'm not into him. We're just friends if anything. And then all of a sudden I was like hey wait okay that was fun. That was a really good conversation. Okay wait what else do you have to say? What else do you think? Like just such great conversation.

Host (11:06)
Yeah.

Taylor (11:07)
Very organic,

very intelligent, and just nice to converse with somebody like that at that level that wasn't trying to be the cool guy or impress or not impress and just play the laid back role. He was very much I'm into you. Like, I don't know, let's tell ya. So anyways, so then we hit it off and then, yeah, that's how we got started.

Host (11:20)
You

Very cool. So what's your background before? How'd you get into driving trucks at Timmy's?

Aaron (11:32)
jeez. ⁓ I took a position in the warehouse for Tim Hortons way back in the day. During this Yeah, pretty much. Just kind of looking for a friend of mine worked there. And he's like, wage is good. Hours are good. So I applied there, started working there. Langley. Langley. Yeah, Langley on the coast there. Then I quickly learned I didn't like being in

Host (11:40)
Is this like right out of high school or?

Sorry, Kelowna?

Aaron (11:59)
what it felt like an incubator, like in this warehouse with these yellow lights and just not for me. ⁓ And then they had an opportunity where they would pay for you to get your commercial driver's license and train you if you had a clean driver's abstract. So I applied for that, got that, got training through them and then worked for them for all told 23 years. And then at one point they wanted people to move up to the Okanagan and I took a position up here. So yeah.

Host (12:27)
very cool. All right, so you two are dating.

Taylor (12:31)
So long after he moved to Kelowna, yeah, Kelowna, were dating. Yeah. And then I was kind of, I was traveling quite a bit because I was ⁓ traveling from Kelowna to Vernon every day. So we would talk a lot on the phone. He was driving truck. was like commuting a lot, running around from store to store. Sometimes we'd get a quick call in, but we just talked so much about my desire to open a business. I've kind of always been

I don't know. My work ethic is super strong. I genuinely love working and I think I like making something of nothing almost like like something started so little and turning it into this big thing and then seeing how I can stretch it to it's I don't know best potential.

And so I would talk to him all the time about ⁓ you know, the problem with me I think this is different from most entrepreneurs. I didn't really have a passion and maybe there are a lot of people out there that do have a passion, maybe, but there could very well be a lot of people in the same position as me that I didn't really have a passion about what to open. My passion was running a business. So that's all I wanted to do was run a business.

So I would talk to him about that and working for the family that I worked for in Vernon also inspired me and reminded me that I am capable of that. So I just had such a strong passion for that. if you don't have a passion for a business to run, you're just constantly questioning how am I ever going to do this? what am I passionate about? You're asking yourself all things and I must have gone through a billion ideas in my mind and talked to him about it endlessly. And then

I just never really came up with anything. And then I guess eventually we just were like talking. Somehow coffee got into the conversation. I mean, we both worked for Tim's, but somehow coffee got into the conversation. then, I don't know, he, said, I, I, some, maybe in my feed somewhere, roasteries came up and I just turned to Erin and said, what about a coffee roastery? What about roasting your own coffee?

And I think from that moment on, I lost him. He was in the deep dive rabbit hole of roasting coffee and specialty coffee. And he just went full force, which is amazing. But then I saw the passion in him with the coffee and started getting really geeky about it and really excited. Then he'd buy one little tool and then he'd buy a little bit like a level up and then a level up. And then he just got really into it. And then he'd make me a coffee and I never drank coffee.

Fun fact,

yeah, I didn't even drink coffee. I was like, I think coffee's gross. ⁓ But then he'd start making me coffee with his fun little rabbit hoys gone down. And I'm like, my gosh, this coffee is so good. Is this what coffee tastes like? And then Aaron's like, well, yeah, this is better coffee than, you know, most. then we got really excited about how good it could be and the potential that there was in coffee. And we thought if we are this excited,

there are going to be a lot of other people out there that are very much this excited about how good this coffee is. So yeah, then we just were well, we could just roast and he could still have, you know, a job and I can focus in on the business, but we could just roast coffee and do an e-commerce thing and just be online and deliver, deliver out to Canada anywhere and or the world. And, you know, but then all of a sudden,

we realized quickly if people aren't trying our coffee, why would they we, we need to get ourselves out there. How are we going to do that? And I said, I'll never open a brick and mortar because I just was worried about failing. Right. I think ultimately, I think I just had an epiphany right there. I think that's what I was worried about. If I open a brick and mortar, that's more face to face failure. Um, so anyways, we ended up, um, deciding to continue on with the online thing, but not necessarily.

having the opportunity for it to progress quickly and I'm not a patient person. So I'm like, this isn't working. So then one day I was just going for a walk and I sat on this little spot and they said it was available. And so we rented it out and we designed and Aaron built the whole place. I designed the whole place and we started this brick and mortar and it's just taken off.

Host (16:59)
Can ⁓ you tell me more about your progression of trying things at home? what were you buying? Did you have any epiphanies of like, just tell me more about that.

Taylor (17:13)
Erin definitely is.

Aaron (17:15)
I think we had an early experience with friends, family, friends that really helped us. So we met somebody at a wedding that was a roaster in Calgary, invited us out. We were on our way to go visit this person. And then another family friend said, we actually know these other people that are roasters in Calgary. So we sat with them and they were amazing. They really helped us, you know, look at it in a different way.

and didn't make it bigger than what it needed to be. They would always say, that's just hot brown liquid, you know, don't overthink it. It's about sourcing. And then just kind of bringing it down, just making it feel like we could attain that if we had a hard work ethic and they've still been good contacts for us. And then from that point, we felt, you know, trying stuff that we would buy a little mini roaster. So we bought a little mini roaster. Then we're bringing all these different samples in.

Host (18:09)
You mean different types of beans? Like star-senior beans?

Aaron (18:12)
We were we I think we bought 50 different ⁓ One kilo lots of coffee and then with this micro roaster that was still used for sampling coffee and dialing in profiles we Still remember this little lazy Susan we had and we would maybe start with one coffee and we'd roast it eight different ways And then we'd sit there and cop them with our buddy Joel constantly ⁓ Then maybe we would

take eight different coffees and roast them the same way and try all those. And then we were just doing all these different variations of stuff. And then we'd invite our buddy over. It's always Joel. He'd come over and he'd be like, Hey, how did it go the next day? Cause he's had a family and a job. He's like, I was up till three in the morning. I couldn't sleep. I'm like, I'm so sorry, man. You know, you don't have to come anymore. He's like, I love it. So he's always been a big supporter. And then you're trying all this stuff and you're seeing how good it is. And even to this day, I'm

almost confused at how bad most coffee tastes. Like most coffee just tastes burnt and doesn't taste great when there's so much good potential in there. So looking around, we were almost kind of saying, well, we must be missing something here. Like somebody's got to be doing this. And there are other people doing it, but at the volume, considering how much people drink coffee, specialty coffee is like super underserved. So 96 % of the coffee in the world, commercial coffee, you know,

3 4 % specialty coffee in around that range. So we're just looking around and we're saying, what's going on? Like somebody's gotta be doing this and it wasn't really happening. And then we're seeing all these parallels to wine in coffee. Yeah, and it was just really exciting, really fun to do. And you're trying all this stuff and you're realizing coffee can taste like anything and it's just super exciting.

Host (20:00)
developing your palate probably over all that as well.

Taylor (20:03)
And on the business

end of things, he kind of just rushed quickly past the fact that we bought this mini-roaster, which was a huge investment. that time.

Host (20:16)
What

say mini? is... I think of my mom and dad's roaster on their back.

Taylor (20:21)
It's like it's not much bigger than I don't know, like a...

Host (20:28)
Like that toaster oven?

Taylor (20:30)
⁓ it's probably a bit smaller than that. It's like more narrow. It's kind of like a... Yeah, it's kind of like the size of like a... Yeah. And then it's, it just does like a very small amount, but also like we did not have any cashflow to buy that. So we had to borrow from my credit line to buy this. And it was like this...

Aaron (20:33)
AST thing and a little longer and a little

Host (20:37)
a foot and half tall and okay.

Taylor (20:56)
incredibly expensive purchase for us. I don't even remember how much it was. I think eight thousand dollars. And that was like our first big commitment to roasting coffee because we thought we got to make this work. And if we can't make this work on this thing, maybe we're it's not a good idea. Right. So anyways, that mini roaster has so much memory for me as the business and thinking how much money.

we put into that with just that was kind of that okay, hold your breath. Let's hope it works. so that was that was taking a big leap of faith.

Host (21:25)
this.

it.

Well, because now you're

Taylor (21:33)
I know.

Aaron (21:36)
We never leave it at the.

Taylor (21:37)
Yeah

Host (21:38)
Too easy

to steal. You're a roaster ⁓

Taylor (21:44)
Yeah.

So anyways, that was just when you had said like the mini roast, like that is just a big part. It's an Akawa and we definitely, I don't know if I said that properly, Akawa. Yeah. And it definitely was a huge stepping stone for us in our business getting that. And then also the excitement that came afterwards when we realized we can roast really good coffee.

Host (22:04)
that's exciting. And 50 bags of beans isn't a small change either, I would imagine.

Aaron (22:11)
No, that was a big lot for us. were fortunate. The contact that we made was also not only a roaster, but like a green sorcerer. So he was had all these crazy lots and we literally just said, this is our budget. Give us as much variation as we can. Because he knew what we were doing. He actually recommended buying the Akawa. So he just sent us this box with all these different coffees, stuff we'd never seen before. And we're just trying it. It was just so much fun.

And then I remember when we were trying it to begin with, you know, you're all over the map. really trying to dial in our palettes and we wouldn't show each other what we got. It would be very secretive. And I remember at certain points, you know, Taylor would flip over her sheet. Joel would flip over his sheet. We all wrote blueberry and we're like, Oh, we're we're getting better at this.

Taylor (23:08)
And the funny thing about all those coffees that we bought, the 50 bags, we purchased those. We were how do we get our hands on coffee to try it? We didn't sell them. We purchased them and did nothing with them. We just purchased them. We're like, OK, this is part of trial and error budget, whatever.

It's just come full circle to the point now where farmers are sending us samples without requests. they're just sending us samples. So we went from point of yeah, buying all these coffees to try thinking nobody's going to send us their coffee to now people are just like asking us to roast their coffee. yeah, it's really cool.

Host (23:36)
feel like.

That's really cool. How did you narrow down what to have? Tell me more about the process of then going from there to then what are you actually going to bring into the store?

Aaron (24:01)
currently right now or when we open?

Host (24:03)
When

you opened.

Taylor (24:04)
funny conversation

him and I had very early. feel like, I'm sorry, I feel like I'm talking so much, I...

Host (24:11)
It's the point of the pod. So

go for it.

Aaron (24:13)
I talking so much on an audio podcast. ⁓

Host (24:16)
Please.

Taylor (24:16)
Because I'm like, I'm not good at this stuff. then I'm like, OK, I'm like, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da

we can't scare people off. don't want to bring something that people aren't ready for. And there definitely are people out there ready for it. They love it. They love light roast coffee. But the majority, think, I mean, look at it out there are drinking, you know, very, very dark coffee with like Tim Hortons and Starbucks and all these big industries just burning. Yeah, the crap out of coffee. And so for

Host (25:07)
Bitter, bitter. Yeah.

Taylor (25:13)
him, he was wanting to hone in on that light roast or at least light medium. And I was no, no, we need to go at the very lightest medium because I just didn't want to scare people away or make people feel like they didn't know that, like they didn't like it, not knowing that they could. So I thought let's tip toe in and do medium roast and a dark roast and get people to try it.

And then people tried it and they, some people still thought it was too light, but some people were that's the best coffee I've ever had. So they really liked it. And I was like, okay, once we establish that we can make good coffee, we can now give people the trust in us to try our lighter roasts. And now those are some of our most popular. So.

Host (26:00)
I just want to interject. I always was under the impression that if you were a true... I don't know where I got this from. I always thought if you were a true coffee lover that you drink dark roast coffee.

Taylor (26:11)
which is such

a miscontent.

Aaron (26:12)
Yeah, that's what they want.

Host (26:14)
I thought like light roast coffees were for people who didn't like coffee

Taylor (26:18)
I think that would be a good opportunity for you to talk about the difference between light roast and dark roast.

Aaron (26:22)
Yeah, so the further you the further you roast coffee the more you taste roasting and the less you taste the agricultural product so ⁓ Assuming you're sourcing good quality coffee and assuming you're roasting well With enough development in your coffee You're gonna get more complexity of flavor in lighter roast coffee and you're gonna taste closer to the agricultural product inherent in coffee So we often talk at our shop about the parallels between wine and

coffee and how wine is over 200 notes detectable to the human palate and coffee has somewhere in around over 800 notes. So four times as much nuance in coffee as in wine on your palate. Of course, if you're just drinking commercial grade coffee, you're getting the same three or four notes that you're allowed to like, but we always say it's fun to try the other 796 notes. So when you are drinking commercial coffee, and unfortunately, if that's all you've had, which a lot of people have,

You've never tasted coffee, you've tasted roasting and that's okay, but you haven't actually tasted the agricultural product and that is intentional because if it's not a well-farmed, well-sourced, hand-picked coffee, there could be some defect in there, whether it's storage or mold or whatever it is, the quality is not high. So if you have a lower quality product, then you roast it really dark so that you don't taste any imperfections, but you also don't taste any good stuff. It's quite like a good quality steak.

If like a brick, you're not going to taste any flaws in it, but if it's a good one, you'd probably want to have a little different. Then again, if you just like a really charred steak, you just wouldn't buy an expensive steak. Yeah. It's not right or wrong. It's just preference. But all things being equal, if you sit down and try things of a high quality, people tend to prefer something that's been farmed better and roasted better.

Host (28:13)
Very.

Taylor (28:13)
So I like to think of the coffee bean in Aaron. Please correct me if I'm completely off on this because he's the genius behind coffee. But I like to think of it as the bean itself is like a chamber. And as you're roasting it, you're slowly opening up that chamber. the further you roast it, the chamber is like completely open. All the oils are spilling out. That's all the flavor. And so if it's not a good quality coffee, it's not really.

doesn't really matter because you don't want those flavors to come out anyway or you like or you want the flavors come out but you don't really you just don't want the flavors to exist you just want it to taste burnt but if it's a really good quality coffee if you can keep those flavors intact in the bean and then you grind it and extract it at home all the flavors are then coming in your cup

Aaron (29:00)
It sounds right. I feel like I'd have to just sit on that illustration. ⁓ I think the premise is accurate. I think that when you're roasting coffee really dark, goes back to the way coffee came on the scene back when

Host (29:08)
I that out.

Aaron (29:19)
when coffee first came on the scene, farming practices weren't very good, shipping practices weren't very good. you know, gets to the end destination, you have mold issues, farming issues, you roast it really dark, that became traditional coffee. So when you think about how coffee is extracted, know, most easily extracted compounds were acidity lies, followed by sweet compounds, followed by bitter compounds.

And then how Italian espresso, is kind of traditional espresso is extracted. It's Ristretto very short. So they're actually trying to pull as much acidity out of the coffee as possible. And that's just tradition. And that just became the way it was. I would like to think that if coffee came on the scene now with better farming, ⁓ better shipping practices that people would roast to the bean itself. And I'm super biased about how good our coffee is in our shop, but

you know, 90, 95 % of the reason that that coffee is so good is because we source from good farms. We're sourcing a great agricultural product, a farm product. That's why it's so good. And then when we get it into our roaster, we are just trying to highlight the hard work the farmer has done and not ruin it. So the roaster's not a magic machine. If you don't put a high quality product in, you're not going to get a high quality product out. And that is a reflection of farming and processing.

at the farm level and that's why our coffee costs a little bit more per cup but you know you get what you pay for a lot of times and quality in quality out. That's right.

Host (30:49)
So how do you source your beings?

Aaron (30:54)
that is a long process. used to just use my buddy or our buddy Cole at Forward Coffee Importers, but he's since moved to just importing Panamanian coffee. Just coffee from Panama. ⁓ yeah. You move to Panama. So now we source from all over the world. The process can be quite extensive because we have very high standards for our coffee. So like anything, even specialty coffee, there's degrees.

Host (31:05)
that like a variety?

Aaron (31:22)
There's low end specialty, there's high end specialty. We're also curating a menu. So we're not always just picking the quality that maybe we love the best. We want to hit all palettes. We're trying to have different countries, different processing, trying to have something for everybody so that specialty coffee can grow. Somebody comes in and you love nutty chocolatey coffees, we got a couple for you. Like a sweet coffee, we got a coffee for you. You just want to try some weird stuff. We got stuff for you. You want to try something that has a hint of that roasting note.

We got you covered there. So it's curating a menu too, but it's about making sure that all the coffee is always fully traceable. We know what's going on at the farm level. There's generally are almost always a give back to the community at large. And then most important, it tastes really good. And then we, we taste a lot of coffees before we get them. takes a while to curate the menu. And then of course, once you purchase it, sometimes you're purchasing it ahead and they're waiting for the farm to farm it. And then sometimes you're just waiting for it.

to get there. Wow. Get to you. So sometimes we have a coffee that we expect in our menu on a certain date and the farm will say, you know, it's not going to be available for another couple of months. Right. And then you just, you're waiting. Yeah.

Host (32:32)
Now when you when you roast your beans is it can is it pretty consistent in timing like once you found the time and the temperature is it kind of always consistent or does it fluctuate per batch?

Aaron (32:46)
So for us, we spent a lot of time researching what roaster we wanted to use. So you can buy a much cheaper roaster from countries with lower labor standards. We did our research. We bought a roaster built in the Netherlands. So it's a thousand pounds of steel. It's beautiful. It's a Gieson. We got it from our friends at Rogue Wave in Edmonton when they upgraded their roaster. It roasts really true because once it's heated, it's going to maintain that. So we think we're creating...

conducting a grade eight science experiment when we are roasting coffee or when we're brewing coffee and being able to be consistent is super important. So we have some temperature probes in there. We have a recipe we're following and then that's why our coffee is very, very consistent. So we're, if we're gonna make a change in our coffee, we're intentional with that change beforehand. It's not an accidental change. And then we can, you know, cup the coffee, see where it's at, make sure that there's a progression there.

but we're always following a recipe that we set up. Each coffee is different. What you're trying to highlight in each coffee is different. So if you have a beautiful coffee that has characteristics of nutty and chocolatey flavors, you might want to have a little bit more development. So a little bit more caramelization of those sugars to highlight that natural note in it. Whereas if you have particularly high elevation coffee from say like East African countries, which grow slower and become sweeter, very fruity.

you're probably going to want to have a lower drop temperature, so a light roast coffee with a little bit more development time to bring out those sugars and highlight what's inherent in that coffee to begin with. And then the rabbit hole goes much further, Alison, with processing and all the other things that you can have. So if you think of coffee less as ⁓ the way we are in the commodity realm of just having a coffee flavor and just move it over to the wine industry and think about how farming is super important and how processing is super important.

That's what specialty coffee is. So you're gonna have natural coffees, wash coffees. You're gonna have these funky fermentations, natural anaerobic, carbonic maceration, all of these little things that you can do to change the inherent flavor profile. The same thing they do in wine all the time.

Host (34:55)
I get, my personality would get lost in the variables that you could roast the beans at.

Aaron (35:02)
For sure, like there's drum speed and there's airflow.

Host (35:05)
That talent. That is professional talent.

Taylor (35:07)
It ⁓

is and he always kind of plays it off. Of course it's the farming of the coffee that's super, the agriculture, everything is super important, but he always plays it off it's good because the beans good. he's put so much time and effort into learning how to roast.

Host (35:26)
He's becoming a master roaster. there a name for roasters?

Taylor (35:28)
That's what I call them.

Aaron (35:33)
Like in coffee for certifications you can become a Q grader but that more has to do with green coffee purchasing. Which is a cool thing to do. Congrats to anybody that's done it. Our friends that have had it before have said they didn't really feel it was worth it because you got to recertify all the time and you're better off to just like drink a lot of coffee. But it's a very cool thing but we're not professional green buyers for an importing company so it's not really worth it for us to do it. ⁓

Host (36:00)
So when

you get a new, ⁓ sorry.

Taylor (36:02)
I was gonna say another cool part of the whole process is we don't just bring in a and say, okay, let's roast it. for sure it's going out on the shelf. So it's very much we roast it multiple different ways and then we cup it multiple different ways. So like there's a cupping process which Erin can walk you through if you're interested. And then there's also for me, what's important. And this once again might be just like a business side of things.

I want to drink it from a customer's perspective. And so I insist that we try it not just in a cupping state, but also in a pour over, a ⁓ espresso, espresso with milk, espresso, maybe add a bit of water. I just want all of those states to be examined so that we can say,

How is this also like best? if we do decide to put on the shelf, we can say, we like this best brewed as a drip or we like this best pulled as an espresso or whatever it might be. But there's so much that goes into us making the choice to put it on the shelf. So it's his roasting obviously that is a huge factor after of course we get the beautiful coffee. His roasting is a huge factor, but then also for us to

not just say, okay, now we have the bean, put it on the shelf. he roasts it multiple different ways. And then we cup it multiple different ways and multiple different people try it. And then we all come to a consensus which should stay, which should go, which is really fun.

Host (37:39)
Are you able, in your giant roaster, are you able to roast, because beans are so expensive, I'd imagine, are you able to roast small, just a little bit, or are you committed to a certain amount?

Aaron (37:49)
So that's where the

Akawa comes in, right? So when we are doing these eight different roasts, we're doing 50 grams at a time in our little Akawa.

Host (37:56)
That's nice.

Aaron (37:57)
Yeah,

so we're and because it's a different roaster, so the Akawa is an air bed roaster and the Gisin is a drum roaster. So they are different style of roasting, but you can still tell, you know, when the bean first cracks, how it takes on temperature. So some beans absorb temperature at first crack, some give off temperature endothermic exothermic reaction. And so that's going to tell you, give you some information about how to control the heat at that point. Like, should I turn down my heat?

before it cracks? Should I turn up my heat before it cracks? What do I want to do with it? And then you can see ⁓ cupping all those things blindly, which one you prefer. And sometimes you think you can't tell the difference. It's one degree off. So when we were doing competitions, which is one of my favorite things that we did, ⁓ you have this one coffee that you get blind, all these different roasters get it. You don't know what it is. And you start off with these roast profiles that are very wide ranging. And then you hone on on one.

hone in on one that you prefer and then you tweak that roast like six different ways and then you tweak that roast six different ways then you tweak that and just keep doing that and then you go back and you try them all and you're sitting there and it seems so silly as you're watching you're doing doing a proper cupping process as that coffee cools down you can really taste the difference you're looking at these two coffees that you're narrowing down you're going there's one degree temperature difference and like

maybe three seconds different drop temperature and you're sitting there in disbelief saying, I like this coffee better than this coffee for these very specific reasons. ⁓ Pretty fun. Now I will say the average person, even myself just drinking a cup and not sitting there and thinking about it, I'm not gonna tell the difference. But for us, we're always trying to be like 1 % better all the time. And that might not.

with maybe our average consumer there, but I think what does hit is the consistency. So the consistency is always gonna hit that every time you get a coffee, you feel like it's so good over and over and over again because we're geeking out on the little things for you so that when you brew it at home, you're like, this is just good coffee, it's just good. ⁓ So that's what we're doing. We did this competition that no longer exists. We did finish third in an international roasting competition from the Forward Lottery.

So that was really fun to do. It's a friendly competition, but it's so much fun. hope they bring it back. But it's a nice thought experiment to just really hone in on something and focus so solely on something and just really notice the difference. it's really fun. ⁓ And yeah, it was a lot of fun, but it really tells you that there is something there that you can just tweak. Of course, again, I know I said it before, like it has to be a good agro.

Host (40:44)
Yeah, you got to start with, yeah.

Taylor (40:47)
But also we have had ⁓ a lot of support and help and assistance from good friends, people in the industry, or a friend of ours who genuinely just loves coffee and has been drinking coffee for, I don't know, like seriously drinking coffee to dissect it for like 15, maybe 20 years. he has such a...

an incredibly developed palette for coffee that we just admire a lot of the advice that he gives on he could literally hold a coffee bean in his hand, that you placed in his hand without any idea of what it was. And he'd be able to tell you exactly where it came from. Yeah. So he's very, very impressive and we've been so fortunate to meet him and we've had so much fun with him with the coffee, but he's definitely

given us a lot of perspective and help and assistance and support with coffee. And he's not the only one. There's so many others, so many in the industry that we've been able to reach out to a lot of roasters, ⁓ RoSo, RogueWave, Forward. I could name so many, even just in town, we've had so many local roasters come in and want to geek out with us about coffee. Model Bean, ⁓ Erla, Neon Coffee Roasters.

sprout. We've had so much amazing support from not just locally, but also within Canada, outside of Canada, just to help us educate ourselves better, but really the support from the community as well has been huge. So it's just kind of all, I don't know, it goes into one full circle, but it's just been incredible to learn as much as we've learned, but it doesn't come without a lot of the people that have had a

handed it all and really helped us understand coffee as much as we do now.

Aaron (42:45)
They're so.

So much good specialty coffee out there. There should be more and in Kelowna, there's a lot of good local roasters That we just want them to do well because the more people that taste quality coffee the more people will realize that commercial coffee is just not that good and That will you know increase the market share for specialty coffee. So we want all those people to do a good job We've had a couple pop up roasters in our own shop for that very reason ⁓ just to highlight and say like we're on the same team like if you're buying from

or know model bean or neon local there are multiplied they are friends they are people that are looking to source good coffee there are people that are trying their best to roast good coffee and you are much better with coffee from them than the grocery store or any of these big trains that are just buying commercial grade coffee

Host (43:38)
The same similar vibe with the craft beer in town too, they all help each other. It's a huge underbelly of people just helping each other.

Aaron (43:44)
Why not?

Taylor (43:47)
Exactly

and I love that. That to me makes me feel more confident and supported in a way that if we can all be in this together and all support each other we're all gonna do well. And to kind of leave the other you know big commercial coffee guys out of the picture and really kind of band together and say look we're all in this together let's all put our product out there.

And, and coffee lovers, they want to jump around. want to try new coffee. They want to try different roasts. They want to try different styles. There's plenty of room for all, for all of us, but it's just a matter of us all continuing on this friendly team that we have and support that we have for one another that has just been, that was shocking to me coming in the industry that I didn't.

necessarily expect or not expect. I just never really thought that when we started the business and we opened our brick and mortar, other people were going to pop in our shop and say, Hey, not just roasters, but also local businesses and say, Hey, welcome.

name off the top my list, but definitely a couple big local brands in our town, that have very much established themselves and been very successful and very well liked by the community made the point to come in in the first three to six months and say, Hey, I just wanted to say welcome. And it was almost like they didn't say welcome to anything. It was just welcome. it was just we were kind of like, that was so cool.

When, they would come in our shop, we're Oh my God, those were the owners too, such and such, or those were the owners. We still do that. we're still people coming in and be Oh my God. And I still think to this day, some, so many local businesses come in and announce, cause it's kind of weird to walk up and be like, Oh, I have a latte by the way, did you know who I am? So obviously people don't do that, but I wish they would. Cause I would love, love to get to know more entrepreneurs and small businesses in town, but.

Aaron (45:32)
That's so cool.

Taylor (45:54)
There's just been so much, an overwhelming amount of support from other small businesses. to the, to this day, we still are just like blown away at how many people are supporting us. So.

Host (46:05)
It would be really cool to have ⁓ is there any place in Canada that we have the the winery you can come here and wine hop all these amazing wineries we now have the Craft Brewery District you can go and just pub hop try out all these amazing beers it'd be so cool if there was like a craft coffee culture of the same thing. Come here to experience craft

Taylor (46:27)
Totally, and I think it's not far.

Absolutely. I don't think it's far from from the future. I think they're far from us in the future. I think like we definitely will see that coming. ⁓ We've seen incredible brands. I specifically remember rustic real kind of did something where they What was it they were doing something with coffee where people were was it hot chocolate or something? No, they were doing something with coffee where the coffee crawl

Aaron (46:59)
Happy crawling.

Taylor (47:01)
So it was the coffee crawl. we like people they would create this program that essentially invited people out to all the local coffee shops in town and then each coffee shop would just have to donate a small, know, like completely up to them but say a bag of coffee or for us it would be a coffee tasting experience and a bag of coffee and then they put together this basket so then

these people would go and get their stamps at each coffee shop that they went to and then submit their stamp. And then I think the way it worked is maybe they just pulled it out, ⁓ know, out of a basket type thing. then whoever won got the whole basket of all the local brands that donated and the exposure that brought to us Rustic Real doing that and putting aside any

competition mindset and more we're here to support everyone and it was admirable and definitely something that I learned from and see and think okay how can I support new up-and-coming businesses or whatever but yeah that was really cool there's also the hot chocolate festival that ⁓ who has the best hot chocolate and sure we're not a hot chocolate shop but

Certainly people come and try the hot chocolate and I didn't even know you guys were here. I saw your name and thought, what is graph 42? And so the people that put that on also are very much supporting us. it's just yeah, all of us little guys and little businesses and local, just trying to work together to help people make the right choices. And funny enough, now we're in a situation and I think we always should have been, it may have always been a little bit, but very much so in a situation.

where people are wanting so badly to support local for all the political reasons and whatnot. it's so great to see people coming in and being I heard about you guys and I just really want to support local. It's OK, let's always do this. This is so great. So it's been so fun to experience.

Host (49:02)
I walked into motor work last week because our car wasn't getting... And then your coffee's all up on the wall. I'm oh, you have a craft fry. Because they always ask, do you want a coffee? And usually I don't say yes. And then I saw your coffee and I was like, oh, of course I have to have a coffee now. that was really cute.

Taylor (49:07)
Surf and test.

Motorwork is a prime example of ⁓ another local business reaching out and supporting us and above and beyond support. Just what can I do to make you more successful than you already are? just so kind and so generous with their time and space. They

reach out to us and honestly, I can't say enough about that brand. They are incredible people for sure.

Host (49:55)
There is something really special about business owners. Once you're a business owner, you understand the risk and the struggle and the behind the scenes and the sleepless nights and the stress and the big what if questions I keep coming to. So it's like you're in the club. You're in the club of people know. Other business owners know. And they knew what it was like when they started. they see you starting. And then they remember those feelings, right?

Taylor (50:23)
And I don't know if they ever go away those feelings nope, even still. Yeah. Like we're, we're trying to talk about where do we want to go with this business? Do we want to expand? Do we want to get bigger? we do. We do definitely, ⁓ for multiple reasons, but more so just to provide more opportunity for our customers to.

Host (50:35)
Do we want to? Do you?

Taylor (50:48)
feel like there's enough space when they come see us. Cause as of now we're, you know, like a bunch of sardines in a can, or we're just bursting at the seams with all of our equipment and our bags of coffee and all the things. so for me to feel like a customer really wants my coffee this morning, but the lineup's too big or there there's not a table inside to sit at, or there's just too many people. And some people just don't really want to be in an environment where there's too many people. I just, if I can somehow

I don't know, make that less an issue for people and just provide a bigger space, mainly to support a family. So if a family wants to come in with kids and a stroller and all the things I know as a mother, that is just so frustrating to go somewhere and not necessarily find parking or not necessarily find, ⁓ or be able to like bring your stroller and then it's like, okay, I gotta like.

lug all my kids in and I can't just leave them sitting out in the car. So, for me, I would like to expand for that reason to really support the community. And I think as long as they'll have us, we'll always like to stay in our little spot that we have, but possibly to expand in the future. ⁓ Definitely in the near future, hopefully. But yeah, those feelings don't go away because even still, when I did the first small location, there was all that negative self-talk and like...

Host (52:05)
You

Taylor (52:13)
You're not going to be able to do this. It's going to fail. Nobody's coming. remember. No, but I'm saying if we get the second location, that's where I'm still telling myself, but do I want to do a second? Okay. can we do this? Will we fail and will it be bad or, or will they like the design? there's just so many, just never stop questioning your capabilities, even though you, you, have proof that you can make it happen to an extent.

Host (52:17)
Wait, were you in a location before? ⁓ okay. missed.

Taylor (52:42)
⁓ so whenever I meet other entrepreneurs, just having that like almost unspoken, I don't know, ⁓ knowledge of each other that it's like, I know, and you know, we've been through it. Yeah. And I know, and you know, we didn't read a handbook about how to run a business and we didn't read a handbook about what the government wants. And we didn't read a handbook about what the city wants and engineering and all the things like there's so many moving parts that you're come

completely unaware of when you're in the moment of starting your business and building your business that you become aware of and you're okay, wait, how do I, how do I do that? Or, I was supposed to do that? I didn't do that. So how much is this going to cost me? And or how much am I going to, you

Host (53:33)
compliance for bylaws or how...

Taylor (53:35)
No, not bylaws.

We've been pretty lucky there actually, health and safety, but more so just like the costs of things and just making sure your, yeah, there's just so many things. Like your corporate tax, your GST tax, your PSD tax, and then WorkBC wants. There's so many ⁓ avenues of responsibility as a business owner.

Host (53:53)
your health tax now.

Taylor (54:02)
that you kind of just learn along the way. And of course we know the basics, but you really don't. I never went to business school. I did go to university, but I did not go to business university, which is something I wish I had done at 18. I didn't know this is what I wanted to do. But I think like if there was a little handbook that could have led me along the way, that would have been helpful. ⁓ but like you learn and honestly it's super fun. It is fun. It's scary, but it's fun. And then you just get the confidence that when I go to do this again or

when I go to duplicate this or maybe start something else, I've learned and I can you know, the whole thing about failing isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's if you make a mistake or something happens, it's like, just keep going until you figure out and you learn it. And if you just like make a mistake and say, I can't do this and walk away from it. Well, then yeah, you're never going to be a successful entrepreneur. But if you make a mistake and you learn from the mistake,

And then you can only like get better from that mistake. Then I think you're a successful entrepreneur. So just to have those conversations and big one that has been for me is the support I've gotten from the woman. It's just been incredible to have women come in my shop. So many successful women come in my shop, welcome me to the industry of entrepreneurial, you know, dreams and success.

And just tell me, we support you. we're here for you. If you ever need anything, let us know. And it's just, yeah, it's overwhelming. It really is. it's, it's, I want to do that for the new ones coming into the industry as much as I possibly can. ⁓ but yeah, just the women have been so friendly and so supportive and so kind. So that part has been fun for me too. That's cool. Yeah.

Host (55:56)
That's

heartwarming to feel. There's such a good vibe in the city when through these podcasts you just hear it again and again and again of just the support everybody has for each other. Even you two coming on to support my little passion. You know it's like oh sweet yeah it feels so good. it's yeah yeah I can't speak enough about it.

Taylor (56:10)
project.

It does.

Aaron (56:19)
I think that no matter how well things are going to, you still have a bit of imposter syndrome. Like, okay. And when things are going well, sometimes I'm always like, Hey, I'm just a truck driver over here making coffee. Like, no, not anymore. But that, that doesn't go away. So even when things are going well, you're kind of like, okay, all right. Yeah. I mean, things have, things have gone great. And like, we really believe in our product and how good it's going.

Host (56:41)
Really?

Aaron (56:49)
And I think that customer service has really been a focus of ours. We always say coffee is like 20 to 30 % of the business. It needs to be really good, but the rest is customer service. And it doesn't hurt to have somebody that's really good at business running the actual hard part in behind the scenes of doing all the stuff she just described, because what I get to do is way more fun, I think.

Taylor (57:13)
It's fun for me. actually love it.

Host (57:15)
You

two work well together.

Taylor (57:18)
It's yeah, it's the yin and the yang and honestly, I think too with the other I would say variable that we haven't really talked about that's been just like so challenging is trying to raise a family. was. Two. Two, we have kids and ⁓ together and Well, I mean, we opened Craftware 2 when I was pregnant.

Host (57:31)
Just thinking, you got a Two, you have kids.

Taylor (57:42)
And I worked up in pretty much up until the day I had her and then went back to work. think, I think it was back in the shop like two or three days after having her. and serving the counter with her in a sling on me and it, don't know. Women are so incredible. what we can do in persevere and just the pain and

just ignoring all the ways we're feeling three days after giving birth to a child and just like persevering and getting through the day. It's incredible that women are able to do this and no offense to them.

Host (58:18)
I'm in awe that you could do that.

But you're in time. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron (58:28)
She's very good at birthing children.

Taylor (58:30)
⁓

And honestly, just think aside from, you know, having the children, we already had one and then we had the second. Well, when we opened the business and people always say to me why would you do that now? what you're having? you're pregnant. I don't know. I like a challenge, I guess. But also, I don't. When else are you going to do? I don't know if there's a better time. And also now we have.

Host (58:50)
But when?

Taylor (58:56)
Now we've gotten through the worst of it, I think. Like if I can open a business with a baby and a toddler and do it successfully, well, what can I do? I feel like I can do ⁓ whatever I want. I just, yeah, I really, I'm really having a lot of fun with it, but the kids and the business and the mix of trying to juggle it all. now keep in mind, we're trying to have our kids in, well, mainly our oldest cause he's six, but

have him in athletics and extracurricular activities. And we have him in a French school. We're trying to push him to learn a new language. we are not just, you know, pushing ourselves to the furthest extent in the business. We're also doing outside of the business. And then we're trying to mesh those worlds into one big.

Aaron (59:42)
Well, having your own business is both the most flexible job you'll have and the least flexible at the same time. Yeah, you can leave at two to go pick up your kid. That's great. But also if something happens, you're working today or if something happens, you got to go in and like it's been a really busy week. So you're going to be in the shop till two in the morning doing whatever needs to be done. So it's you do what needs to be done. And then when it's

a lot going on, get it done. And when it's not, just try to like, we'll look at each other if we get a couple of days off and off is a relative term, like not physically in the shop. There's always in and out. We had a, I think a day for the first time in forever, like last week where we were just driving around. We were still doing deliveries and doing stuff. We were still worked. Like anybody else would say it was a work day, but we're like, this is nice.

Taylor (1:00:18)
physically and

Host (1:00:20)
something.

You told

me today you had off and then I went in to get my morning coffee. I'm like, you two are both in here.

Taylor (1:00:38)
I definitely

did not. I definitely did relative off. Well, there's no days off. No, it's your business now. And as a mom, just don't, yeah, there's no, I don't know. And I don't know if I'd want it any other way. I really do love being busy. I'm not someone who just sits at home and watches a show. I love.

Aaron (1:00:41)
No such thing.

Host (1:00:46)
Yes.

Taylor (1:01:00)
I get lost when I'm not busy enough. I start to deteriorate and think my gosh, what, you know, my brain just gets too, you know, complicated. So I'd rather be busy and do all the things because it just excites me and challenges me. I think what's so important for me is for my kids to see us succeed and for my kids to see us work really, really hard.

They'll remember like coming in the shop and we're sweeping and mopping the floor and cleaning toilets while they're sitting at the bar playing with Lego or coloring a picture. I do genuinely believe they'll remember that maybe not exact moment, but in their, I don't know, just memories in general that we force them to hang out at the shop all the time. Why are you laughing?

Aaron (1:01:49)
out to time, a first time customer and for whatever reason, one or both of the kids are there and it's absolute chaos. And this, the customers always find it so amusing. We assume we haven't had a bad Google review about our kids there yet. Stay, stay tuned. But generally we're like, just in case you were wondering if this is a family owned business, it is, you know, it's, very real. And most of the people like

Taylor (1:02:02)
No, I mean, we're generally

Aaron (1:02:18)
I had kids or I have kids or I get it or the amount of people that I've offered to to hold our youngest one who would never in a million years let anybody hold her because she'll just absolutely lose

Taylor (1:02:29)
Of course she had to be that way as starting a business. She's like, and I will make things, I will add another challenge.

Aaron (1:02:35)
Our eldest was the easiest and we were naive. like, and after the baby's born, we'll just set up like a playpen in the roastery. Never once did that ever happen. Never happened ever.

Taylor (1:02:45)
But hey, in her defense, in Maverick's defense, one, she's like the sweetest thing, but also, thank God Layton came first because he is just so, he was easy and gave me the ability to groom like the whole parenting role. with her, she is very sweet. because she's...

Aaron (1:03:06)
She has some thoughts.

Taylor (1:03:12)
But what I will say... Qualifying. I love her so much. What I will say... It makes me kind of proud that she has this like strength and will to say, I want this, I want that. give me the things that I want and won't settle for anything but that at such a young age. Like she's two. And I'm not saying she's going around saying, I want this, I want that. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying she knows what she wants. She will very much...

Aaron (1:03:17)
sweet

Taylor (1:03:42)
She will very much make sure it happens. And if I was gonna have one of the two of them be that way, I'm so glad it's the girl because we are fed with a few more challenges. And I just thank for her to be so strong-willed and so ⁓ determined, determined for sure. ⁓ That makes me proud. And I just like look forward to what she does with that.

Host (1:04:05)
But we have two girls as well, and you see that in ⁓ difficult to parent when they're young, but better off when they're older, I think.

Taylor (1:04:14)
I

literally say all the time, think they're gonna flip a bit where my youngest has been just like smooth ride. It's just been so chill and he's so, so intelligent and so articulate and so able to just hang out with us and have conversations. you almost feel like sometimes is he's really only six? But I do have a funny feeling that the roles will change where he's a little bit more challenging as he gets older, he gets into trouble.

And Maverick will just be like even keel and hanging out with us all the time and wanting to stay close because she very much wants to stay close all the time. ⁓ And so I think it will they'll they'll flip roles, which will be kind of fun to see. But are not so fun. but yeah, the whole idea of being able to run a business and run a family and. Like Aaron and I haven't killed each other yet. Yeah.

Host (1:05:13)
Yes.

Taylor (1:05:16)
⁓ But yeah, it's been just like the biggest challenge and the best challenge. Like it's been super fun. I wouldn't want it any other way. ⁓

Host (1:05:23)
Yeah,

you do have to tell me the story of the The craft for you. you're thinking of your kids.

Taylor (1:05:29)
Which one? Yeah,

I'm like Maverick. I'm like great name. no. ⁓ Craft 42. So Craft 42 Roasters. So when we first started talking about the name, we hired a marketing fellow, Ignite Design, and he is phenomenal. Yep. Mike from Ignite. And he is just very, he makes it very personal and he makes it very

Host (1:05:48)
Is he local?

Aaron (1:05:50)
mic.

Taylor (1:05:58)
comfortable and easy when you meet him. ⁓ So we told him our thoughts on a name and he was like...

Host (1:06:08)
Did you have a whole list of?

Taylor (1:06:10)
⁓ We just had

one ish name that we were kind of like playing around with the words with and it basically was like craft Okanagan roasters Okanagan craft roasters. Yeah, like we were back and forth with it. There's so many like little back and forth, but basically that kind of idea

Aaron (1:06:18)
I it.

Like right down the middle. No character.

Taylor (1:06:28)
Yeah, just says what it is, right? And so he was like, there's no, I don't know, I just don't feel a lot of heart in that. I don't feel a lot of passion that like you guys talking to you, you're so passionate about this and you're so into it and your, you know, your light face or your face lights up when you talk about your family and your face lights up when you talk about, you know, your upbringing and your parents and like, how can we connect that to a name? Because this is just boring.

Aaron (1:06:58)
He's like, it's fine. It's fine.

Taylor (1:06:59)
But he's

like, you have to remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's not a specialty. We needed a specialty name.

Host (1:07:00)
This is commercial.

Aaron (1:07:07)
We learned nothing here.

Taylor (1:07:12)
So when he said that, he also reminded us this is a name that's going to carry your brand forever. once you get that name in stone is pretty much the name. I mean, of course you can always rebrand, but he's like, you want this to be well, you don't want an afterthought name type thing. So he's like, what do you like when you were talking about your family home, you were saying, ⁓ I think you said you were born and raised in Stony Creek, 42 Hills Drive.

Host (1:07:26)
of Rebrick.

Aaron (1:07:41)
you told them that you had like another name, but like, I don't know.

Taylor (1:07:44)
Oh, that's right. That's right. I had said, well, I kind of thought about like tying in my family home and he's like, yes, you were talking a lot about your family and you got your face lit up. You got super passionate. He's like, let's, let's, let's do that. I'm like, okay. So we started brainstorming all these things. then anyways, somehow I said, I love the number 42 and I love the number 42. I mean, it has so many positive attachments to it, but the one for me personally is that was the number of the house that I was.

Born and raised in, my mom and my dad built that home with their own hands and with their buddies. And the tradesmen were my dad's friends from school. And they built it, designed it, did the whole thing. And while we were young little kids, like my mom was pregnant. ⁓ So I just wanted to somehow like attach that once he started bringing up the importance of the personal touch.

And so he said, well, you're crafting the coffee. And then we came up with craft 42 roasters. And the thing about my family home is my family home. was so, so fortunate and privileged to be raised in a home that taught me really good values and morals and how to treat people and basically just lead with kindness and be grateful for what you have, but also like work hard, strong work ethic. Don't.

yeah, don't settle for any less from yourself. So if you can work hard, there's so much you can achieve. So I guess I saw my parents working really hard at their whole lives and to, to, to give us what we had. And I just wanted to somehow incorporate that. Also, my dad has three girls, so we're never going to really be able to, I mean, I guess we're all kind of deciding to take on our partner's names.

which I've yet to do, but we've been engaged for a long time. but anyways, and when we are all taking on our partner's names, of course his name will get carried on. And I just figure why not just somehow involve something that will really mean something to my, my parents and even my friends from like,

Host (1:09:45)
⁓ Really.

Taylor (1:10:08)
High school have reached out to me and be like, oh my God, 42, I love it. Cause it was very much a home that like a lot of the friends would come to and hang out at. And so people very much made the connection quickly that knew us. And that was fun too. But just looking back, Mike was right from Ignite, like the importance of connecting something personal and having a story to tell.

And I get excited about telling the story versus like Okanagan Craft Roaster. I have no story about that. I'm sure I would have made up something, yeah, cause we live in the Okanagan. I moved out here, but I don't really have anything personal to attach to it. So I think even if I were to give advice to any, other entrepreneurs or people starting a new business, definitely attaching some sort of personal connection to the name.

And it doesn't mean that everybody else has to understand it. just, because people love our name. get compliments on Craft 42 Roasters all the time. They're like, what's with the name? I love it. Or I love the sound of Craft 42. It's such a cool name. And I just think it just worked. But I think a lot of the reason why it worked is because we added a personal touch to it. So if any entrepreneurs out there are trying to decide the name, I mean, don't overthink it, but definitely attach something that means a lot. Yeah. Cause I did that. Yeah. It's hard not to.

Host (1:11:28)
hard not to do

because it's your entire like brand at the very beginning yeah it's your brand that's going to carry forward through the year so

Taylor (1:11:35)
Totally.

And even when we settled on craft 42 and I don't mean settled. just mean even we finally decided to take on that name. I probably still was like, I hope, I hope that works. I hope people like that. You know, you're always questioning every decision you make, even if you're like, that's perfect. You're still going to be like, but okay. So like don't overthink it in that sense. mean, I just think definitely add a personal touch to it. That doesn't have to mean

Everybody knows what the heck it means. It just means something to you. And then you have a story to give. You have something you can personally connect to throughout your business all the time.

Host (1:12:14)
do you have a picture of your father or your family in front of that house?

Taylor (1:12:17)
I do. I have that door. It's

on the website. The house is so, so cute. It's like orange bricks and just like a beautiful little home. and my dad groomed the grass so meticulously and they just put a lot of pride into the home. And, ⁓ so we actually have, my parents sold the home to move out here and we have a real estate pamphlet that

Definitely has all the pictures of the home through it. And so it's fun to go through once in a but we have it at the shop. So, and, and the home's on the website too. So yeah.

Host (1:12:57)
Very cool.

Aaron (1:12:59)
for the name, think it always adds curiosity, people asking why. And that's kind of also in line with our whole brand is like curiosity. That's why we turn the espresso machine so you can see what we're doing. So you can know why you're doing that. Why you're doing this. ⁓

Host (1:13:16)
That coffee machine you have is a beast.

Taylor (1:13:20)
It's like

25 years old. think 20. La Marzocco. They're beautiful machines. So fun story about that. That machine we saw on Kijiji and we were like, I said, Darren, what about this one I showed him? goes, yeah, that looks pretty good. Ask our friends over at Rosoh and we messaged.

Host (1:13:24)
That means it's gonna laugh.

Aaron (1:13:25)
Yeah,

it's a Lumberzilkos. ⁓

GG.

Taylor (1:13:46)
Jessie and she was do you want me to go get that? Because it was in Calgary. and yeah, goes, do want me to go get that for you right now? Because she's from Calgary. my God. What a dream. just such a kind person.

Aaron (1:13:56)
running

a large corporation with all these locations. She's like, Oh, just run and grab that for you. We're like, okay, thank you.

Taylor (1:14:03)
So like I'm not gonna make her do that but anyways that it was just such a steal of a price that they gave that we were able to find that machine at. The next morning we we literally packed it so we found it. of year?

Aaron (1:14:11)
We- ⁓

I guess it was in the baby's little, it was the summer because we.

Taylor (1:14:22)
We knew it.

Host (1:14:23)
remember

if it was winter. It was the summer.

Taylor (1:14:25)
We

love

Aaron (1:14:25)
Moving

in to we knew we were gonna take over this place and start doing so we started to Accumulate the things we would need because you never want to buy under pressure because then you overpay so we just continually looking nice continually looking and then we had a room that we were storing everything in and Yeah, so we drove with the next day. They had like a grinder that we would never use but we flipped it. It was like great

Host (1:14:51)
Yeah.

Taylor (1:14:52)
Yeah, so we found it that evening, I think it was like seven o'clock at night on KG. We messaged them and we said, we will come pick this up off of you tomorrow morning if you would just hold it for us. I'll send you the money, whatever. And we drove out the next morning, picked it up. It couldn't have been a nicer couple. It was being used in a church. Yeah, right.

Host (1:15:13)
wow.

Aaron (1:15:13)
One side was,

one side steam valve wasn't working, but we got it. looked on the, opened up and looked on like, it's just like a ball valve. Like I can just replace.

Host (1:15:24)
Yeah. ⁓

Taylor (1:15:25)
Erin and

I are both, I would say like super handy, nothing Erin more so than me for sure. I had quite a handle on a lot of the equipment in Tim Horton's world too. I'm not afraid of an old piece of equipment. Like I, and I, and a big suggestion for new business owners I would say is like, don't go out and buy a whole bunch of brand new equipment. Like, definitely do your research, figure it out, but you.

Equip high quality equipment is built to last. so the Lamar Zoco was one of those things. We still kind of laugh sometimes, I can't believe that machine has never really not gone, would give it us a problem. but I mean, of course we've had problems with it, but we always maintain the maintenance of it. And then we don't really, really run into too many issues. ⁓ just for us, it's like, ⁓ we have to replace, replace the O-ring or, we have to replace the steam wand or whatever.

Aaron (1:15:54)
and maintenance.

You clean

it every night. You run good waters through it. You clean it every night.

Taylor (1:16:21)
Yeah,

so I think, I think, yeah, that was a fun, that was a fun little drive out. I think we yeah, we made a little trip of it and had so much fun with it. So yeah, I think. ⁓

Aaron (1:16:34)
I still

remember that we had a the coffee machine in the back of our Subaru and we stopped and visited our friends at forward Jesse and Cole and we bought like three bags of coffee because we'd save on shipping we thought it was so much coffee our whole thing was like

Taylor (1:16:49)
So

much coffee a bag of coffee can range anywhere for us between like I mean $800 to infinite amounts like some Big bags. Yeah, they can be you know, most of our coffees are Are very very very expensive 800 being one of the cheapest coffees we've ever gotten I Don't think we even get that anymore. Yeah, but at the time we were getting a really good deal on these three bags

Host (1:17:00)
Because you're talking about the big, big, big.

Aaron (1:17:12)
don't know if we get anything from that.

Taylor (1:17:19)
And I was so stressed about buying these three bags, but at the same time I was like, well, we're in Calgary, might as well pick it up safe on shipping.

Aaron (1:17:26)
Just stuffing everything in there.

Taylor (1:17:29)
I swear the car was lower for sure. it was just so much coffee in the back of our car. But anyways, it's, yeah, you look back at all those experiences and we'll have many more in the future for sure. But yeah, just it's been so much fun. to, to, to discuss quickly what Aaron was mentioning about that machine being on the back counter, a huge part of our business for me, the second I step out of my car and in fact, even before that,

my primary focus is the customer. So if I'm not saying hi to you when I'm walking by, it's probably because I either was in the middle of a million thoughts, but otherwise, I will go on my way to address every single customer. If possibly by name, I can because I know, it just warms my heart so much that those people worked all day, earned a paycheck and decided to spend even just a little bit of it in my business.

So to just really treat my customers well and really be fully transparent with them about what we're doing and intentional. And so by putting the equipment on the back bar, we just wanted to keep that conversation available and open. And when sometimes there's just a plethora of equipment on a bar, you can't see, your customer and you're almost looking over it, like, who had the flat white? And you're

trying to find somebody and they don't see the craft of it. So for us, we really wanted that bar to be completely empty. One for conversation and two for transparency and just like allow people to be able to see exactly what we're doing. And we thought if they can see what we're doing, they can ask questions and are a lot of what we want to do is help brew better at home. So then we can get into that discussion about, you know, how can you brew coffee better at home so that you're not going out and spending.

seven to ten dollars a day on coffee or whatever it might be. So all of the equipment on the back bar was very, very intentional and has done so much for us. sitting at a bar is very much a normal thing, know, at like an alcohol-based bar. Like people will sit, have a beer, have a wine, and there's no interruptions. There's no barrier. But sitting for a coffee, you don't always get that. Yeah, I never thought

Aaron (1:19:29)
Yeah.

Host (1:19:48)
have

that in store right now. It's unique experience, especially in the house.

Taylor (1:19:49)
Yeah.

In fact, most people say that. Most people say that their favorite thing is to come up and sit at the bar and chat with us. Erin is full of banter and people find it quite fun and exciting. for me, it's recycled material that I continue to entertain. No, ⁓ it's honestly so fun with the customers and I love the banter he has with them. And I love the

Aaron (1:20:09)
Time.

Taylor (1:20:19)
and all the ways we can get deep into conversation. ⁓

Aaron (1:20:26)
Big things coffee education and coffee tasting experiences and like Taylor said brewing best at home, but just it's curiosity It's we don't have all the answers for coffee. We just love coffee If you have a new fact about coffee, we'd love to hear it. You have an idea of something you want to try Literally, we'll go try it. I still remember a guy coming in was telling him about a Aeropress that I saw that you pushed it through a slice of lemon and he's like, yeah, that's so cool We should try it one day. I'm like, yeah, we should came back like an hour later with the

lemon and we brewed this coffee just as a thought experiment. But just like that kind of stuff, people are like, oh, I heard this. Oh, that's interesting. And maybe you're like, oh, no, that doesn't really line up or oh, that's, that's interesting or let's try it. And just like the idea is that there's so much to learn. There's so much fun in there. And we're not sitting there saying like, look, we have all the answers. It's just, we think this is really fun. There's a lot of enjoyable experiences to have here.

And coffee is kind of like, always talk about like if you had a Venn diagram and it was like meeting up with friends, you know, a date, you know, business meeting in the middle, would be coffee.

Host (1:21:36)
interview, interviewing employees. It's quite often at a coffee shop too.

Aaron (1:21:40)
So, you know, it's at the center of its communal, its conversation. It's supposed to be fun. ⁓

Taylor (1:21:46)
And the

thing I love about the small space is sometimes the entire shop is engaged in one conversation. it can be so fun. Sometimes we're all either talking about a song that came on or the meat or the coffee that we're tasting or something that just happened. I don't know. we just can sometimes all get into and just laughing our butts off and just like having so much fun. It just seems

such a fun environment. Our customers are so fun.

Aaron (1:22:15)
you think

when you have an idea about like coffee tastings in particular, which is a very unique thing, that it might just be you and your friends that think that that's interesting. And I can still remember on a few occasions, it's one of the, I have a very vivid memory of one time on a weekend where we had a large group at the bar doing a coffee tasting and I'm loud and obnoxious and I'm whatever. And the vibe in this place is great. It's loud and it's bustling and it's just packed. ⁓ And then so we're talking, we're getting ready to start.

And then I'm like, okay, like I'm going to start my coffee tasting. And then the second I started talking, everyone just like, stop talking because they wanted to hear about the coffee. And I'm like, this is so cool. Everyone's like, everyone's like, wait, okay, hold on. get to talk about the coffee. I want to hear this. And you're like, oh, they all want to hear about the coffee. Well, this seems like a successful day.

Host (1:23:07)
You're onto something, I think. And it's nice that you have ⁓ your little pastry options too now. ⁓

Taylor (1:23:09)
Yeah.

Well, actually, I was bringing.

Yeah, good questions. I was just going to bring that up. Speaking of small business, like we're really just like obsessed with the idea of like supporting small business and the we were very fortunate that the next door neighbor is the kitchen from carrot. Julien is an absolute genius and gem at what he does and.

We're lucky enough to get his pastries every morning very fresh ⁓ right from the oven and the best in the city to me ⁓ in terms of like chocolate pastry chef. ⁓

Aaron (1:23:55)
French pastry

chef.

Host (1:23:56)
The ham and

cheese croissant we had this morning was

Taylor (1:24:00)
he's incredible and has been so generous to us with allowing us to put his product when ultimately as a shop just, you know, a couple blocks over, but he allows us to carry his product.

Host (1:24:13)
Did he always do? Did he always do? Like he started just chocolate?

Taylor (1:24:18)
I

think he started chocolate, I don't know the exact story. But his pastries are just I don't know. I've had so many customers be like, I have tried pastries from Europe and his are better. he really does an amazing job. ⁓ big time. And then we are so honored to have Sprout stuff. I don't know if you've ever had the cheese and chive scone from Sprout. my gosh, it is.

Aaron (1:24:32)
Very humble about it too.

Perfect.

Taylor (1:24:45)
It is perfection. The crumbliness of it. The moist.

Host (1:24:50)
⁓

my gosh, have to try it now. is. Next time I'm in.

Taylor (1:24:53)
So good. don't know what they're doing with that scone. literally. But they are so good. And the salt level is, I honestly feel like they measure it down to each little grain of salt because it is perfection every time. ⁓ Yeah. Bakehouse, which what a lovely bunch there. They have so many options for us to choose from.

And we're so honored to have their product as well. There's so much love and care put into that. And they have their new location now in Spall. So we pick up from them fresh. And then we have one of my favorite options, which is Big Fat Lion. Big Fat Lion is free from the top 10 options, but we like to say not free from flavor. ⁓ She does a phenomenal job.

Most people are shocked that it even is an allergy-free type product.

Aaron (1:25:54)
People will defer to her cookie over other cookies a lot of the times.

Taylor (1:25:59)
And to like no egg, no milk, no butter, no nuts, no gluten. don't, I honestly, it's

Aaron (1:26:07)
The oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. That's her best work. Yeah, oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, perfect chew. It's, yeah. her I said that. It's really good.

You can watch Brielle stuff as well.

Taylor (1:26:18)
yeah, really good. And

then we have Brielle from the Lazy Batch. so Casey and I have become really good friends, which is amazing. I have made so many amazing close connections and girlfriends with a lot of the women who also have small businesses in town and just it, I don't know, it's exactly what I needed in my life. And so coming from Ontario, I didn't have a lot of friendships out here.

The people that I've met and connected with, it's just crazy. Casey being one of them. Also, Brielle is amazing. She has the Lazy Batch. don't know if you've ever tried her cookies. Yeah, the best cookies. Her marketing is just on point. The Lazy Batch is so on point. The fact that you don't have to do anything. You can just take four cookies out of this frozen bag of cookies and put it in the oven. And they are phenomenal. She nails it.

Aaron (1:26:50)
The best cookies you've never baked.

Taylor (1:27:10)
And the best product that she has, in my opinion, is the edible cookie dough bites. It's literally a cookie dough bite that like, you don't have to worry about raw egg or raw flour or whatever. cooked flour. ⁓ And she nails it. Once again, salt ratio is perfection. You're about the salt. Give me a bag of chips. Yeah, exactly.

Aaron (1:27:34)
She is a song.

Host (1:27:37)
Salty baguette.

Taylor (1:27:40)
Just the plain ruffles. That's all I need. But anyways, so she really nails it. And those are like a perfect little treat when I have kiddos come in the shop. Sometimes I'll just like open up a bag of those and I'll just give them a little cookie dough bite. ⁓ But she really does a phenomenal job and she's got a new little thing starting here, but it's really starting to blow up. She's got her product in so many different little ⁓ areas in Kelowna and we are the only ones who carry her cook.

cookie because everything is held raw in all the other shops. So we're super excited to showcase that and to just get her product out there. And she is an incredibly humble, smart, good human being. You'll have to reach out to her.

Aaron (1:28:19)
podcast.

Host (1:28:21)
reach out to her. There's

a few. When I edit, I'll make a list of all these amazing people and reach out.

Taylor (1:28:27)
Totally. I just, once again, I cannot stress enough about how amazing the women have been and just like the compliments that we give each other and we come in and we tell each other, you're looking great today. Or, you have this. All right. We are all doing this with each other. It's not that like catty-ness. I don't know. I've, I've definitely experienced that in my past and this is just so different from that. I can't tell you how much, one of my staff members, which

By the way, we have not mentioned how incredible our staff is. staff are, I don't know if we would have the business we have if it weren't for them. ⁓ One of our staff members, Paige, and everybody knows who she is because she's the most fit human and she very much shows it. She is just so, so incredibly fit. And she, I would say like probably two, three times a day compliments another woman because she just,

Aaron (1:29:01)
for sure.

Taylor (1:29:19)
says, well if I think it, because I'm like, oh you're so nice always complimenting people and she's like, well if I think it why wouldn't I tell them? It's not gonna make them upset. Right. So there's a lot of yeah and there's a lot of that in my shop. Like I hear other women saying, oh my god I love your hair, oh my god I love it. There's just such a positive vibe and environment in my shop that it just makes me smile. It makes me so happy to hear. Yeah I just wish there was more more of it. I think that it's definitely out there.

Host (1:29:48)
when you open your second

Taylor (1:29:49)
Yeah,

well, exactly. Well, hopefully, Hopefully we can manage that. yeah, and back to the staff, will say our staff have definitely set the trend. some of the ones that we've had for quite a bit now have set the trend of hard work ethic, kind, friendly. Customer comes first. Appreciate each and every customer that walks in. They're so amazing. I have not one.

bad thing to say. They'll stay late even when we've asked them go home, go home, like they want it to be done right. They want our business to be successful. ⁓ They study the coffee. my one staff page, a staff member literally created a slideshow on all the coffee so that she could study it better. wow. ⁓

Raff is a chemist and he is so knowledgeable about a lot of the chemistry behind the coffee. So if you ever do a tasting with him it's super fun because you can go down that deep dive of the science behind coffee, not just the coffee, the water, everything about it. ⁓ And then Ben is amazing too because he has this like, well first of all he's very well liked by the ladies physically. got this beautiful face.

But he also he does he does they all know everybody knows about Ben anyways and but he just has such I don't know a hard hard work ethic he will do whatever he would take his shirt off his back for our business and just the way he shows up and he's there for us whenever we need him and also just like commands a room when he's in it when he's when we're not and I don't know it's just really really cool to see

He's gonna go big places as well. And then we just hired a new one Liam and he's from New Zealand and we thought that would add some fun to the mix and He's a DJ and he is also like does some acting with some young kids and he He's a drama teacher. He just is such a Fun easy going every time you ask him. Are you doing? Okay. yeah. I'm good. Like he's just so chill We we've had many from the past as well and hopefully many more in the future ⁓

Aaron (1:31:40)
Thank

Taylor (1:32:02)
We're so fortunate to have the people that we have, but they set the tone and they, think, make it very clear that if you're gonna work here, this is gonna be the tone. It's gonna be kind, friendly, show up on time, work hard, make the customer a priority. Study the coffee, know the coffee. And if you don't know the coffee, get to know the coffee. ⁓ So anyways, it's really cool. We really have been so honored to have them all.

Aaron (1:32:17)
Minor t.

Host (1:32:29)
That's really cool. It's really cool. And you can feel it. You can feel that energy when you go in. And you know what I also like? I'll be walking by and I'm not getting coffee. No, but they'll recognize you and just offer a smile. And just that little moment, it feels like that community connection. You're like, oh, yeah, okay. I love that. know? that's pretty. Because you always have your door open when you can.

Taylor (1:32:38)
You can hear Erin out of the door.

Yeah, whenever we can. and they are. They're all so just like, they're incredible people. I genuinely don't know how I got so lucky, but yeah, it's a great team to have for sure. Yeah.

Host (1:33:04)
think we should wrap it up.

Kittles are going to get off school soon.

Taylor (1:33:08)
That is actually a very good point. have 10 minutes until we got to go head over there and pick them up. But thank you so much for having us. I'm excited to see where you go with this podcast. I feel like you're going to be amazing.

Host (1:33:13)
Well I

I appreciate it.

I