You're the former world barista

champion. So, we have cups of coffee

here from different supplies. So, coffee

number one. Yeah, I'd be surprised if

that was expensive.

I'd be a little bit outraged if that was

expensive.

That's kind of weird.

That's really interesting.

If you want the best experience for

coffee, this one. I can reveal that is

James Hoffmann. One of the most famous

people in the world when it comes to

coffee.

James has close to 2 million subscribers

on YouTube.

The most popular piece of coffee

broadcasting on the planet. You've

committed a huge portion of your life to

coffee. What advice have you got for me?

Okay. London has some of the best coffee

shops in the world. Don't get an

espresso machine for home. Coffee pods?

They're a microwave meal. How long does

it take to decay?

The minute you open that bag, it's on

its way out and it will happen really

quickly. You walk into the Starbucks,

what do you order? If I'm being fully

weird

Be fully weird.

Fine. Then I'm going to

Say I've got 100 pounds for the

machinery. Coffee grinders are the right

investment. They are more important than

the machine. What's your favorite cup of

coffee?

If I'm honest, it is

Are we addicted? It's the world's most

popular psychoactive drug. But, you look

at the science, coffee seems to be

healthy and have a really positive

impact wherever it's been measured. It's

a great source of fiber. It is like

having another vegetable in your diet.

People tend to perform better on

cognitive tests. It looks like coffee

drinkers survive longer. The problem

with it is that coffee has this really

depressing future. Why?

Quick one. This is really really

fascinating to me. On the back end of

our YouTube channel, it says that 69.9%

of you that watch this channel

frequently over the lifetime of this

channel haven't yet hit the subscribe

button. I just wanted to ask you a

favor. It helps this channel so much if

you choose to just subscribe. Helps us

scale the guests, helps us scale the

production, and it makes the show

bigger. So, if I could ask you for one

favor, if you've watched this show

before and you've enjoyed it and you

like this episode that you're currently

watching, could you please hit the

subscribe button? Thank you so much and

I will repay that gesture by making sure

that everything we do here gets better

and better and better and better. That

is a promise I'm willing to make you. Do

we have a deal?

James

You've committed a huge portion of your

life

to a drink, to a bean,

to coffee. Yeah.

Why?

Uh I love it. It brings me intense

pleasure. Like the whole thing. I think

I fell in love with it 20 years ago.

And uh I tried working in wine. People

get falling in love with wine, right?

Like people with the drink, with the

culture, with where it's grown, all that

stuff.

The same can be true with coffee and

turned out to be true for me. And I'm

uh kind of obsessed with learning and

coffee is so big. People see it as kind

of niche. What I do is a niche, but it's

this global thing. It's in every

culture. There's everything from botany

to science to like health, all the rest

of it's wrapped in this one thing. So, I

can spend lifetimes learning about it

and never be done. It it it's just huge

fun. And it's one of those things that's

capable of incredible surprise. People's

expectations of coffee are very low

often. And and

when you kind of show them what it can

be, that's a very satisfying moment that

never gets tiring. Cuz I just thought of

coffee as a drink that everyone seems to

be pretty

addicted to.

But, I imagine your perspective on on

that is a little bit more artistic and

expansive. I mean, yes and no. Coffee's

existence kind of blows my mind. It's a

thing that we all do that for over 100

years now it's been normal to have the

ground-up seeds of a tropical fruit

plant to sit in your cupboard and you

can steep that in water and drink it.

That's a weird human thing that we do.

And it's just been a part of everyone's

lives for as long as they can remember.

Coffee's just there.

But, it turns out it in sort of the last

20 years we've had this boom of

specialty coffee where we've kind of

showcased how interesting it can be. You

know, it's not just this commoditized

thing. And I think that bit has sort of

changed consumption around the world

now, actually. I see it in every

country. You know, people's opinions and

expectations of coffee have shifted

massively. When I first started drinking

coffee, which I think I was quite late

to coffee, and I think I'm quite a

a low-level consumer of coffee.

Part of the reason I was put off

drinking coffee was because it appears

that the entirety of society are

addicted to it. And it might have this

sort of first principle belief that

anything that has a significant upside

must come with a significant downside.

Sure. And and no one can tell me what

the downside was. So, I was just very

reluctant to engage in an addiction when

I can see the upside. I can see people

are more focused. They seem to be higher

in energy. That's the appearance I have.

But, the downside was never clear.

We are addicted, aren't we?

Do you know I don't like that word?

No, no. It is you know, it's um yeah, we

it's the world's most popular

psychoactive drug. It is the most widely

consumed psychoactive drug. Yes, I would

say it's absolutely bound itself into

society now. It Are we addicted?

Yeah. I mean, addiction's complicated.

I'm not I'm not an expert on addiction.

I would say there's a level of

dependency.

If you stop drinking caffeine, you will

suffer for 24 to 48 hours. It might be a

kind of big old headache. It might be

something else. So, you know, you will

uh have symptoms if you stop consuming

it. But, you can stop consuming coffee

and then go for years without an urge to

consume it again. So, I wouldn't say

addiction's quite the right word for it.

But, yeah, we are I would say deeply

dependent on it. Have you ever stopped

drinking it for a prolonged period of

time? Not for a prolonged period of

time. It's pretty hard for me not to

sort of consume caffeine during what I

do. Like there's just a need to taste, a

need to you know, drink the stuff. I've

stopped over periods I've gotten sick.

I've gone a week or two without it. But,

I've changed my attitude to caffeine

generally. I'm I'm much more careful

around it because I think it is

worthy of concern, the amount of

caffeine you consume. Like I'm very pro

coffee. I want people to drink and enjoy

coffee. But, at the same time, I I am

very nervous to encourage caffeine

consumption that might be excessive cuz

that's definitely not good for you. Why?

Sleep. Like ultimately, anything in this

world that interrupts your sleep

perhaps with the exception of children,

is probably to be avoided, right? Like

sleep quality for every outcome, be it

you know, body composition, longevity,

all the rest of it. Like cognition. Uh

sleep's so important. And I feel like we

we didn't culturally prioritize the

sleep the way we are beginning to now.

You know, I think more and more people

are talking about the importance of

sleep. And it's really easy to get into

a cycle with caffeine of

drinking too much coffee in the day, you

have poor quality sleep. You're tired

the next day. I'll fix that with more

caffeine, which will give you lower

quality sleep at night. And that cycle

can go on and on and on. I think that's

very

that's a bad thing.

Basically, I would say that's to be

avoided. So, I'm pro cutting off

caffeine early if you suffer with it in

any way. And there's enough ways to

track your sleep these days. I feel like

everything's tracking our sleep. So, you

can tell if you've had a bad night's

sleep and if you drank a coffee late,

maybe don't do that anymore because you

know, caffeine has about a 5-hour

half-life.

So, you know, even 10 hours after you

drank a cup of coffee, there's still a

decent amount floating around in your

system. Enough that might you know,

delay onset of sleep or reduce the

quality of your sleep. Isn't it bonkers

that people offer you an espresso after

dinner in restaurants?

I don't I don't get it. For some people

they find it very calming and they

really enjoy it. They love it. They have

no issues sleeping. I cannot touch

caffeine after like 3:00 p.m. I have

like a hard cut-off and I'm done.

But, yeah, I find the you know, there's

the idea that it's a

digestive aid. I'm not sure that's super

well evidenced

to be honest having looked into it

anyway. But, if people enjoy it, I'm not

going to get in the way of it. But, for

and some people sleep like a baby

afterwards. I'm always amazed by those

people that are like, yeah, I have

coffee I got to sleep. I'm like, how?

How? And there's big genetic differences

and I think we we're starting to see

those and and you can get genetic tests

done that will give you an idea of your

uh caffeine metabolizer kind of rate.

Are you slow? Are you fast?

But, um yeah, it's it's

it's one of those weird things where

because how coffee's made can impact the

quantity of caffeine in the end cup, you

can't accurately predict how much

caffeine's in a uh coffee from a coffee

shop. Right? There's a bunch of

variables that can happen that will

produce a pretty big variance. So, this

incredibly popular drug, we don't know

how much we're taking most of the time,

which I think is kind of wild. Uh and

maybe not a good thing. And so, I'm I'm

kind of pro mindful consumption of this

stuff if that makes sense. Like just be

aware of it and thoughtful about it. And

still enjoy it. I want people to drink

and enjoy coffee.

But, I I want as much upside as

possible, as little downside.

You used the word drug there. With drugs

you get a sort of tolerance Mhm.

that requires you to have more and more

of the thing to get to the same levels

of

I don't know, psychoactiveness.

Is that the same with coffee where if I

have one coffee today, in a couple of

months' time I'm going to need two to

get to the same level of like alertness?

Yes and no. Okay. Uh it seems to be that

the benefits that we see of caffeine

when it comes to cognition

uh disappear with habitual usage. And

actually adding more doesn't change it.

That first coffee that feels so good is

taking us sort of instead of going from

zero to one, it's taking us from minus

one to zero. It's removing the kind of

withdrawal symptom almost and bringing

us back to a kind of level of like,

okay, I'm here now. And so, if you

really really want maximum benefit from

caffeine, be it cognition or sports or

anything else, then actually having a

period without coffee beforehand will

give you the sort of greatest benefit

afterwards. So, there's a habituation, I

guess.

Mhm. But, it doesn't escalate the way

the drugs do. Like you you don't need to

suddenly be drinking six, eight, 10 cups

of coffee to have an effect. You'll just

feel weird. Uh So, yeah, a little bit

though. Again, going back to my first

principles. One of my first principles

in life generally, and this is why I

often avoid medicine, paracetamol, you

name it. I will I'd rather take the

headache than than start dabbling

because I always think there's a cost to

something. When I think about the way we

live our lives in society, we literally

many people will have three or four cups

of coffee a day. Some people even more.

Some people will just drink coffee all

the way through the day, throughout

work, and then have one on their way

home from work as well. And I look at

that objectively and go, that's

insanity. That this is sort of the

entire Western population is just like

caffeinating themselves just to

function. And then you hear phrases like

I like um

oh, I can't function I can't function.

I've not had my coffee yet.

Mhm.

And I just go oh, this is you know

But I don't know enough about coffee to

understand if that's just, you know,

maybe there is a free lunch as it

relates to coffee or maybe sleep is the

only

I think it's sleep's the primary

concern. You know, if you and if you're

not suffering any issues with sleep from

your coffee consumption, then you know,

if you look at the science, I'm not a

scientist. I really I like to read the

research papers, but I'm not doing the

research. But

on almost every front, coffee seems to

be healthy and have a really positive

impact wherever it's been measured and

across a whole range of different stuff.

So, you know, as to why caffeine's one

part of it, I think the fact that coffee

contains a surprising amount of fiber is

another one or the quantity of

polyphenols in there if you're

interested in the gut microbiome. Like

coffee seems to be really good for that

and I think we know more and more the

microbiome you know, Tim Spector has

taught us all the importance of that

that it impacts us in so many different

ways. So

on almost any front, if you've

researched is coffee good for

you know, longevity? Yes, you see a

reduction in all cause mortality that

correlates to coffee consumption. Is it

good for cognitive decline? Yes, you

tend to see coffee consumption

associated with

less cognitive decline in old age or

liver function, cancer.

All of these things seem to have a

positive association with coffee

drinking.

But

if it's messing with your sleep, I don't

think it's worth it. That's just me.

That's the the line for me of like it's

not such an incredible benefit that that

it is worth the loss of sleep quality.

Mhm.

Yeah, sleep has become just the most

sort of the biggest obsession in my life

over the last year. I think for all of

us. I think it's it's just if you pay

attention to the stuff, you can't help

but begin to obsess over it. I hope

healthily. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, to avoid the

impact of coffee impacting on sleep, you

think the best thing to do is cuz I've

just not been drinking coffee after like

1:00 p.m. It's great. Okay.

that's a pretty good way to go. I think

decaf is still a good option. I think

people are kind of really negative about

decaf because we have this caffeine

first association with coffee. A lot of

people are like, why would I drink

decaf? What's the point? You know, you

see a lot of death before decaf or

whatever. But I I think decaf can be

really tasty, which is good. Like it's a

nice delicious hot drink. And also,

yeah, there's a little bit less of the

downside if you are concerned about

caffeine. I'm so I'm so composed You and

Tim Spector are the two people that have

made the case I mean I think the first

time I spoke to Tim Spector about

coffee, he was a little bit on the fence

as

as to whether it was healthy or not. He

came back a second time and I think

there's been

a

just a little bit of a shift in him.

He's now pro-coffee. Mhm. In terms of

the gut microbiome, which I thought was

super interesting. He says it counts as

one of my 30

Yeah.

a week that I need to get, which it was

really surprising. So, it helped my gut

microbiome.

He talked about the longevity impacts as

well, which I thought was staggering

that it can the study seemed to show

that it will extend your life. Yeah,

it's a reduction in all cause mortality.

So, you're just less likely to die

early, I suppose, is the easiest way to

think about it. Or that's what we see

from the studies. And it's not that the

studies aren't without flaws, but

there's been a lot now and you tend to

see people dying less often or less

early

when they drink more coffee. Not a huge

amount of coffee. And this is a if you

ever go into the research, this is

really important.

A a cup of coffee to you or me might

look like this.

A cup of coffee to a researcher is 120

mils of coffee.

Which is about half of this.

So, you'll see loads of studies say

three cups of coffee, three cups of

coffee is where you see these benefits.

That's not a liter of coffee. That's

more like 3 to 400 mils total a day of

say filter coffee or one or two or three

espressos, single espressos. So, the the

definition of a a cup from all these

studies is really confusing and

problematic.

And I think encourages excess coffee

consumption.

Uh but yeah

three cups of coffee for heart disease,

for

all sorts of things is is is seen to be

associated with

improvement in outcome. Why might that

be?

What is it about the bean, the coffee

bean, that is causing

health benefits? That's probably above

my pay grade. I would I would probably

at this point, I'm probably aligned with

Tim in that it's a great source of fiber

and polyphenols. That it's just it is

like having another vegetable into the

diet. It's more diversity of diet.

Uh I think one study showed that for

some people in the US

like cups of filter coffee were their

primary source of dietary fiber.

Now, that's kind of wild and not really

how things should be, but it is a

significant source of fiber. If you

think about it that way, you know, a

large cup might be 3 g of fiber, which

doesn't seem like much until you start

tracking your fiber intake and you

realize oh, that's a that's a a decent

contribution for a drink. Um so, yeah, I

I I think that's the biggest

part of it. I don't think caffeine

has been shown to be neuroprotective

necessarily. So, I think people are

trying to understand the mechanism more.

Caffeine's been studied separately and

and is much easier to study because you

can dose it, you can look at the effect

of that.

You to really do a study on coffee

consumption

is really hard. You can't really do a

randomized control trial where you raise

people from say 15 to 60 years old, you

control their diet, exercise, sleep, and

you just randomize the coffee

consumption cuz then you might see

something where you could really say

coffee is good or bad. We can just look

at these large epidemiological studies

and say, well

trying to control for diet and exercise

and cigarettes and all these other

things, it looks like coffee drinkers

survive longer or have less issues. And

it might just be that healthy people are

just attracted to coffee. We don't

really know which which way around that

is.

There's no strong mechanism, but at this

point, I'd probably be aligned with with

Tim on this one that I think it's

primarily going to be the gut.

The fiber point is super interesting cuz

he said to me that we're like as a

society extremely fiber deficient.

Yes. I think the number he said that we

needed was about 20 is it grams of fiber

a day? I think so, yeah.

So, if coffee's giving us three or four

of those grams, that's almost sort of

25% of our

um requirement, which is pretty

staggering.

And I never really thought of coffee as

a source of fiber. Neither did I until

he told me. I just didn't cross my mind

that this, you know, it's it's a drink.

How you know, it's not like a thick I

lived the life of like fiber is is

miserable cardboardy brown cereal.

That's fiber in my brain. And the idea

that this was fiber was

inconceivable to me. But you know, then

I read the studies and

uh it was fascinating. What about mental

health? I've always wondered, you know,

even things like depression, anxiety.

I've always assumed a little bit that

coffee because of the caffeine is going

to be bad for anxiety. I would certainly

say

not a doctor, but I would certainly say

that if you someone suffers with anxiety

cutting out caffeine would be something

to test and to see if there's benefits

to cutting caffeine out. The there are a

bunch of studies done on it. They're not

uniform in their outcome. Some found

different results for caffeine

consumption and I think because you're

trying to study what is ultimately quite

a generic term that covers a lot of

different experiences and uh challenges

that people face. So

yeah, I I wouldn't say

consume it regardless, don't think about

it. I think if you struggle with

anxiety, it would be certainly be worth

considering

cutting it out. What about depression?

I think the same sort of thing is true

there. I I think there have been studies

that correlate caffeine consumption to

depression.

And I think there are people who have

used it and have found benefit from it.

Again, it's one of those ones where

I just wouldn't blindly consume caffeine

assuming a benefit to mental health. If

I have mental health challenges, I think

it's it's a place to check and it's

pretty easy to check. Cut it out for a

month.

It'll suck for a few days.

But you know, you may see benefits or

you may not. But

Another sort of complicated tenuous link

has been made towards cancer with

coffee. Mhm. Most of the meta studies

now seem to come down on for almost

every cancer, there's a lower incidence

associated with coffee consumption.

This that again, that's not universal.

Some studies have found differently.

Again, they're just really hard studies

to do effectively, I think. I think

that's the challenge of it.

I have certainly not seen anything that

makes me uh concerned about drinking

coffee

from that perspective anyway. I think

there's a you know, whatever impact it

may have, I think would be pretty minor

compared to something like a

cigarettes. And I you know, I remember I

think you said

on the internet sometime ago,

uh you think in in 10 or 20 years' time,

people will see coffee consumption the

way they see cigarette consumption.

Yeah, I did. I remember saying that 2

years ago. Yeah. And I And I think to

some extent, there's something in that.

I I think we are getting more thoughtful

about caffeine consumption and I think

caffeine is going to be the root of it

all rather than coffee as a whole.

Yeah, that's what I should have said. I

should have said caffeine. And I And I

think there is change and I think, you

know, we're definitely seeing that. I

don't think I think there's enough

health benefits in the coffee itself

Mhm. that we would benefit from keeping

it around. You know, I don't think

there's any health benefits associated

with cigarette smoking. But I I think

coffee will have some benefits, but I

think our attitude and our relationship

with caffeine is going to change. I

think you're right about that. Yeah,

that's really what I was getting at. I

almost didn't this is it couldn't

pull apart coffee from caffeine because

I'm a muggle on this subject matter. But

what I really mean is that addiction to

this drug of caffeine and how it's like

running everyone's life and we need

three cups or four cups a day just to be

normal and to show up to work and think

straight. I go, Jesus Christ, like

as is always the case with these sort of

health revolutions, we kind of go to one

extreme, then we go to the other.

There's the counter movement. They'll be

like the big decaf movement. There's

now, because of neurodiversity and

anxiety concerns, there's this

jitter-free, crash-free

caffeine movement emerging and things

like matcha and

etc. So, hmm. Is decaf is Are you seeing

a rise in people choosing decaf and

The great frustration of decaf

is that decaf drinkers are typically

very poorly served by the coffee

industry. Okay. For a bunch of reasons,

coffee shop owners tend not to invest in

decaf. Uh

a lot of coffee roasting companies don't

really care about decaf, despite the

fact that decaf drinkers are the ones

who are drinking it just for the taste.

They are the purest coffee consumer,

actually, cuz they just want the flavor.

They don't even want the caffeine, just

the flavor. Madness. So, you know, it it

it's always been an important thing for

me over the years uh that decaf be good,

but yeah, I'd love to see more decaf

consumption going on. I I think decaf

can be really delicious and good if it's

done properly all the way through from

sort of farm to cup.

But, it it's not as available as it

should be to most people, which kind of

hurts me.

What about um Alzheimer's? Randomly

something I've got increasingly more

interested in over the last couple of

years. I think from doing this podcast

and speaking to health experts, but it

has almost felt like this mystery

disease that strikes some people for

a reason that we haven't yet quite yet

figured out. Perfectly healthy people

can suddenly get the news that they have

Alzheimer's. Is there a relationship

from the studies that you've seen

between Alzheimer's um and coffee?

Yes. And I'm going to sound like a

broken record, where you see once again

up to about three cups of coffee a day

saw an association with reduced

cognitive decline and reduced incidence

of Alzheimer's. So, it it it's uh again,

I I I'm not saying that coffee is

causing this. I'm saying in the studies,

the people who drank coffee

had better outcomes.

But, you can't just say because they

drank coffee. There's a really important

disconnect in these kind of things that

doesn't happen often enough.

I had um Dr. Daniel Amen on the podcast.

And one of his He's like a

neuroscientist that scans I think he's

scanned a quarter of a million brains

now.

He is one of the

only people that has really expressed a

concern about the impact that coffee has

on the brain, because he says it reduces

the amount of blood flow to the brain.

Mhm. And that is in that negative thing.

Have you ever heard about

that that point of view before?

I haven't heard much about that. Most of

the studies I've read that looked at

cognition see that kind of lift that

caffeine will give you.

Um in that, you know, people tend to

perform better on cognitive tests after

caffeine than or with caffeine than

without.

Um I'm surprised in that I I had thought

caffeine was a vasodilator, which would,

in theory, allow more blood flow around,

but maybe it's not. You know, I haven't

scanned a quarter million brains, uh so

I'm not an expert on this one, but

that's the first time I've heard someone

talk about blood flow to the brain and

coffee specifically. You know what I

used to believe that coffee was

basically giving me energy. Mhm. And

then it was actually Dr. Daniel Amen,

Dr. Daniel Amen that helped me

understand what's actually going on.

Right. He says it's just like blocking

something.

Yes. It's it's it's stopping a compound

called adenosine working in your blood.

And adenosine calms you down, lowers

your heart rate, makes you feel tired

and sleepy. And caffeine just gets in

the way of that receptor and stops it

working. So, a lot of people experience

a kind of accumulation of adenosine.

And so, while they're consuming coffee,

their body's trying to put out

adenosine, lower the heart rate, calm

them down, it's not working. And

eventually, your body clears the

caffeine and you have a kind of crash

afterwards, where you suddenly just feel

extremely tired, because finally, your

receptors are clear to receive the

amount of adenosine that's in your

blood. So, yeah, there's there's a kind

of downside that way.

Again, big doses tend to come with

bigger crashes. You know, I think a lot

of people now are pushing the idea that

you should delay caffeine consumption a

little bit later in the day. Uh

I think Huberman is big on like no

coffee for the first 90-120 minutes

after waking to help sort of mitigate

this effect and sort of clear out

everything in your bloodstream before

you start inhibiting

adenosine

uh reception. Is that why people get

like

crashes and stuff like that? Cuz a lot

of drinks that are coming to market now

that are like caffeine-based products

are promising you that you won't get

crashes and jitters. So, I was wondering

if the Right. You see a lot of people

pushing L-theanine in there as a

product, which seems to have a

synergistic effect and and help people

feel a little calmer while sort of

maintaining the benefits from that. I

think the evidence is reasonable on

that, but um

again, those products tend to be a bit

more sort of thoughtful about the amount

of caffeine in them. And and I think the

amount of caffeine is really kind of

key. You you know, um

you might have something with say 100 mg

of caffeine. That's a That's a pretty

acceptable dose. You might find that in

a single espresso or in say a small cup

of filter coffee. If you take a

pre-workout, that's often 300 mg of

caffeine. And so, there's all these ways

that we can consume caffeine quite

easily. Coca-Cola's pretty low. I think

like 50-60 mg of caffeine in a can or a

bottle of Coca-Cola.

But, you can easily end up drinking

200-250 mg in coffee as well if it's a

lower quality coffee. It tends to have

more caffeine in it. If it's brewed as a

sort of very strong filter coffee.

It's just knowing how much you're taking

that I think is kind of key.

And why why does that matter? Is that

again about sleep or is it just because

if you take huge doses, then there'll be

significant consequences like crashes

and stuff like that? Yeah, I I think

it's the the more you dose, the longer

it's going to take to clear from your

system, the more that will be in your

blood come time to go to sleep. You

know, I think the the lethal dose of of

caffeine is really pretty high. A few

people have got there, sadly, but it's

it's it's a huge amount of coffee. It's

usually done with like pills or other

sort of forms of caffeine consumption.

To do it with just cups of coffee is

like

I think 50 or 60 cups of coffee in a

very short time frame. A very strong

coffee would be about what what was

necessary for a small person to hit a

sort of caffeine toxicity. So, it's

quite hard to do. And you you die of a

cardiovascular issue or I think it's

more unpleasant than that. Um as I

recall. Yeah, I think it's a sort of

neurological thing as well. It's not I

don't think it's a good death, if I'm

honest. Um not that you know, maybe

there are good ones, but yeah, I don't

think it's a good way to go.

Coffee was originally a snack.

Kind of. Kind of. Yeah, the coffee fruit

was. So,

uh it's kind of Most people don't think

of coffee as fruit. And coffee fruit

grows on these trees. They're usually

about 2 m tall, full of these sort of

ripe, red, cherry-looking things. We

call them coffee cherries. They're about

the size of a grape, but inside there's

these two seeds kind of like a peanut

facing each other. And they take up most

of the fruit. Uh so, if you eat them,

they're not very satisfying. They're

mostly seed, bit of skin, and a little

bit of kind of fruit flesh for want of a

better term on the inside. But, it is

delicious. It's kind of like a tangy

watermelon taste. Coffee fruit's very

delicious. I recommend if you can try

it, definitely try it.

Um caffeine exists in coffee primarily

as an insect repellent.

That's why the plant produces it, so

that if an insect attacks the fruit, it

gets a whack of caffeine and it's like,

"Nope." And it leaves the fruit alone.

So, that's its function in nature. Other

plants produce caffeine. There's some

interesting stuff about how uh caffeine

improves the memory of bees, which helps

with pollination. Uh that's kind of So,

some of flowers produce caffeine uh and

they think for that reason. But, the the

caffeine in fruit in coffee tree

specifically is basically insect

repellent, which is why the higher you

grow coffee, the less insects there are.

Actually, the lower the levels of

caffeine you tend to see the plant

produce.

You became a

competitive coffee I don't know what you

call it. Do you call it a player?

Barista? Barista. You became a

competitive coffee barista when you were

what, 25 years old? Yeah, about that.

Yeah. And then by 27, you're named the

world barista champion. Yes.

I I I think I went hard.

Uh you know,

it couple things. Yeah, what I really

fell in love with it. You know what I

mean? Like like I got into coffee at

like 23. I didn't like coffee, didn't

drink coffee.

And then I read a book uh called The

Devil's Cup that just

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a fun book.

It's it's I don't know how well it's

aged, but it's just travel writing. So,

he traces the route that coffee took

from Ethiopia to Yemen through kind of

Turkey into the Mediterranean, how it

spread around the world. And what got me

about that book was like coffee's in

every culture and it's different.

Italian espresso culture is totally

different to Scandinavian coffee

culture, totally different to Australian

coffee culture or, you know, what coffee

culture is in the US. I was like, "Well,

this drink's kind of interesting." Like

it's a part of every society now.

And then I started to drink it. I fell

in love with it. And I just went deeper

and deeper and deeper. And um yeah, in

2007, I won the world barista

championships.

So, if you're the former

world barista champion Yeah.

and I am a muggle

which I am on coffee

many things. What do I need to know What

are the like the biggest myths and

misconceptions about the drink of coffee

that someone like me should be aware of?

I'm trying to have better coffee. I'm

not, you know, I'm not I'm never going

to be like a coffee

snob, but I'm I want to make I want

nicer coffees that are good for me, that

are healthy

um and that taste great.

What do I need to know? What are the

misconceptions? There's there's probably

less misconceptions now than ever, I

would say. Like the the I think more

people are coming around to the idea

that coffee is not just a bitter,

painful experience that you go through

to get to the caffeine on the other

side. Like it's a little trial each

morning that we come to enjoy. I think

people now understand more and more that

there is an astonishing sort of range of

flavor in coffee.

20 years ago, there wasn't. 40 years

ago, there was no diversity of flavor in

coffee. Coffee was brown and mean and

miserable, and that was it. And now, you

can have coffees that taste kind of

fruity and floral. You can have coffees

that taste earthy and rich or chocolatey

or whatever else. Like so,

I I think the thing that I want to kind

of get out into the world is whatever

you enjoy, I'm pretty sure there's

something you could enjoy more, cuz

there's so much out there. There's so

much diversity. That's the first thing.

I think that the second thing

that I think people do understand is

that

you know, coffee's kind of made three

times in a weird sort of way. Coffee's

made at the farm level. And we would

understand that with wine. Like a grower

grows the the they make the wine at that

point. And the producer of raw coffee

carefully grows fruit, harvests the

seeds, processes them carefully, and you

can do a good job there or a bad job.

And you've kind of got a peak quality

moment there. Coffee is made again when

you roast it. It's transformed

completely from a kind of green

plant-smelling thing into one of the

most aromatic things in the world. And

then it's made again when you make it.

And at each of these stages, you can

lose the quality completely. You can do

a terrible job roasting it, make it

taste awful. And you can do a terrible

job brewing it and make it taste awful.

And I think for a lot of people, coffee

making was not particularly a skill.

Coffee making was not complex or hard,

and it shouldn't be complex, but it it's

easy to get wrong. And I think you can

be disappointed by a coffee that you've

made without really understanding why.

And a lot of what I'm interested in is

like, okay, you don't need to understand

everything about this process. You need

to work out what are the most important

things to understand and get those

right, and then you're most of the way

there.

I don't think the the kind of average

consumer is necessarily uninformed or

confused, but potentially overwhelmed by

choice still. Well, I I see a variance

in the price, so I assume there must be

a variance in what I'm putting in my

mouth or and I'm I'm not sure what's

marketing and what's, you know, quality.

Yeah. Um I've brought five different

cups of coffee Yes. from five local

shops, outlets, etc. And I'm going to

I don't know which ones are which. So my

team got me these five cups of coffee.

Jack is just bringing them in now. So,

we have five different cups of coffee

here from five different suppliers.

You're smelling them all. When you're

smelling them, is there

anything you're noticing just from

smelling them?

Yeah, like um

So, the one of the things I can assess

pretty quickly is how darkly the

coffee's been roasted. Yeah, when you

have uh the longer you leave coffee in a

roasting machine, the darker the color

of the beans will be. And for a long

time, I think people associated darker

roast with with better coffee. Oilier

beans looked kind of fancier. Whereas

it's swung the other way, and lighter

roasts now are considered

better or more expensive cuz they kind

of preserve more of the inherent

qualities of the raw materials.

Um so, these are all reasonably dark

roasts just from smell. So, I can kind

of the the smells I'm coming off there

are more in the

kind of heavier not burnt smells. Well,

some of them actually smell a little bit

burnt and kind of uh harsh.

But uh nothing's particularly fruity or

floral smelling. So, it's just for me a

a kind of gauge of where things are

going to be. So, there's going to be an

expectation with that of bitterness.

In in perfume shops, they give us

sometimes coffee beans to smell to kind

of try and wash out our

Yeah, yeah. nasal senses, I guess.

Does that work?

Yeah, it totally does. We we we are

It's why dogs sniff really fast. They

You're looking for change. Your sense of

smell works quite well on change.

Uh and so, yes, you will get what's

called suppression if you smell the same

kind of smells over and over, they

become less and less intense. It's why

people end up wearing too much of the

same perfume they've worn for 20 years

cuz they can't literally can't smell it

anymore. We can, they can't. And it's

also evidenced when you go for a run and

then cuz you can smell yourself, you

have to ask your friend if you smell.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

"Dave, do I stink?"

Do I stink? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuz your

brain your nose, I guess, is habituated

to the There's a good hack if you ever

want to break apart how it like

something like Coca-Cola smells. If you

take a component smell of Coca-Cola like

lime, right? Cuz Coke just tastes of

Coke to people, but it's actually lime,

neroli, cinnamon, orange, nutmeg. And if

you smell a bunch of cinnamon and then

smell Coke, it smells weird cuz you've

deleted cinnamon from Coca-Cola's like

aroma profile. And you can do that with

say lime smell, and it's like, "Whoa,

I've thrown the balance out by kind of

deleting that and suppressing that."

It's a dull but fun kind of trick. The

interesting thing with talking about

Coca-Cola there is I remember those Coke

and Pepsi studies from back in the day

where

people would rate Pepsi as tasting

better unless they had it in a Coke can.

So, when they could see the brand of the

Coca-Cola, they rated it better, but

when they could see it in a plastic cup,

they rated Pepsi better. And I wonder

here as well because you you don't know

what these coffees are. You don't know

what brands they are. And neither do I.

Yeah.

Um

what the results are going to be. So,

coffee number one, Yes.

have a taste and a smell.

So, that's a

to me a pretty standard kind of

commercial coffee taste.

There's not uh a lot going on there.

Relatively high in bitterness to me. I'd

say that's a fairly bitter cup of

coffee.

Um and that's coming, I would say,

mostly from roast. And it's not

something's good or bad. It can be bad

because it wasn't made that well that

day. It could be bad because it was not

great raw materials. And finding why is

sometimes tricky. I wouldn't say it's

particularly expensive cup of coffee.

No, it didn't taste

petrol station coffee.

You can say that. I like that.

I like you can say it. Yeah, I'm going

to just lead you into saying terrible

things, and I'll say nothing.

Yeah, yeah. It It tasted like it came

out of like a vending machine or

something to me. Yeah, I'd be surprised

if that was expensive. I'd be a little

bit outraged if that was expensive. What

would you rate that one out of five?

Let's do 10.

Um for me and what coffee can be, I'd

say that's like a two. I would say that

was a

five out of 10.

Yeah, I think that's I think it's kind

of fair. I probably should be fair and

call it a four out of 10 cuz I've tasted

way worse than that. Let's go for number

two.

Now, this one will be a little bit more

divisive for a lot of people cuz it's

got a little bit more acidity in it.

It's like a little bit of It would be my

describe it sourness almost. Like it's a

little zingy tasting.

Generally, acidity is is associated with

quality in coffee, which is a real

sticking point for a lot of people.

It's down to the fact that

when you grow coffee, the higher you

grow it, the slower it grows, the the

sweeter it will ultimately be, but you

do get more acidity in higher grown

coffees.

And some people don't want that in their

coffee. They really don't want sour

coffee. So, that tastes like it's got

better raw materials in there for me

than this one. Roasted a little bit

lighter, brewed a little bit better. I'd

like it to be a less kind of sour thing.

It's a little bit old, obviously. It's

sat around for a while. But I would say

it's a for me, it's a better cup than

this one.

Like it's got a little It's got a little

characteristic to it. Like it tastes of

something that's a little bit fruity in

there. Yeah, it's got a bit more of a

personality, hasn't it? The aftertaste

is a little bit something going on

there. Mhm. And what do you rate that

out of out of 10 in your preference?

There's things I'd like to change about

it. So, like six, seven, somewhere

there. Like

um but the it has, I think, better raw

materials in it that that does appeal to

me.

Okay, I'm going to say six as well.

Okay.

I can reveal Mhm.

that number one

Yes.

was McDonald's coffee.

That's not surprising. That's That's

kind of what I would have expected

McDonald's to taste like. And it was

that cup of coffee cost us £1.30.

So, probably the cheapest thing here.

Feel like McDonald's are aiming at the

kind of cheaper end. Okay, your

assessment now is probably fair. You did

originally give it a two out of 10.

I

I feel not bad about that, but it's

fine.

There you go. So, um number two,

you talked about there being sort of a

bitterness to it and an

like a

Little bit more acidity in this.

Taste like the raw materials are

of a higher quality, certainly than

number one.

That is an independent local coffee

shop.

Yeah.

And that cup of coffee is double the

price of the McDonald's one at about £3

per cup.

Let's move on to number three. Okay.

Very different taste.

For me, it's more akin to number one

than anything else. Like it's again,

it's a darker roast. It's got a bit more

body to it. Feels a bit fuller, a bit

little bit richer, bit earthy, but at

the same time for me.

Um

It's fuller, isn't it? It is a little

bit fuller, and The first one was quite

watery to me.

Yeah, and that's in part going to be how

it's made, in part how it's roasted, in

part, you know, where it's from. Um

price-wise, I wouldn't expect it to be

much more than the McDonald's, if I'm

honest. That that tastes again like a um

Yeah, like a a reasonably commercial

grade coffee. I wouldn't say it tastes

bad. Roasted a little dark.

Yeah, it's another kind of

um

Yeah, three, four, three, actually.

There's something about the There's a

sort of earthiness that I don't enjoy in

coffee. Some people really like earthy

flavors. I really don't, and that's just

a preference thing.

So, that is Costa Coffee. Interesting,

yeah. Number four.

You're doing a swirling, I can see. You

can do doing a real I try I like to

slurp usually. You do a lot of aeration,

but down a microphone, it's brutal. Um

Okay.

So, that's um

probably the darkest roast of all of

them.

I would say it doesn't taste like the

raw materials are particularly bad, and

so I could have a guess at who that's

from.

Um but it is definitely a darker roast.

So, more bitterness. Again, quite full.

Um

So, you know, my gut says that's sort of

Starbucks style thing to me.

Try the last one as well then before we

reveal. Before I get in trouble.

That's kind of weird. Um

It's a little bit vegetably to me, if

I'm honest.

Um

It's not It's not my favorite. Again,

it's it's within the world of coffee

roasting, it's darker. It's not as dark

as this one.

Yeah, I like it probably less than this

one here, so I'd probably be back to

like a four again.

So, number four, which was the one you

gave five out of 10, is Pret. Is it?

Yeah. Wow. And number

three,

sorry, number five, Yes. is Starbucks.

Is it? Yeah. There you go.

So, of the high street chains then, the

coffee that you rated highest in our

taste test,

Yeah.

was Pret. Yeah. Second was Costa,

and then third was Starbucks. But I

would say from my point of view, the

variance between them surprisingly

small. Yeah. They're not I don't think

they taste particularly different to

each other in a in a big way. I think

the independent stood out a long way.

From the others, right? It was clearly

different. It has a lot more flavor and

character going on, which is good, which

is what you know, I I like about coffee.

But um

you know, I think the the chains

the brand experience may be different,

but at the root there's not a huge

variance in the coffee experience.

really I wouldn't really I mean that

there are I can taste differences, but

but it's not as a profound difference as

the McDonald's taste and then the

independent taste, which was really full

of personality. Yep. And interestingly,

the

price variance is the independent cost

£3, Costa is £3.20, Pret £3.20, and

Starbucks is £3.60.

Really? Yeah. It always blew my mind for

years and years. I'd work with loads of

like essentially startup coffee shop

owners. And their mindset would be, "Oh,

I need to be like the same kind of price

as Starbucks or maybe a little bit

more." And you're like, "What are you

possibly thinking? That you have the

same kind of supply chain that they do?

That you're going to make You know, they

make great margins. You You're not

buying 20 million paper cups a week."

Mhm. You know what I mean? Like nothing

makes sense, but people feel very tied

to this idea that

you know the price is set by the chains.

And I think that's changed now and and

people are more comfortable charging

above that. But for a long time, people

were terrified to charge more than the

chains even if the product was

noticeably better.

And you know a real frustration for me.

And and that's why I'm always going to

bat for independents because it's not

like you can spend more, you can get a

better product by someone who cares

deeply about it. And and and I think

it's There's a risk in going to an

independent if you're traveling and you

know, Starbucks the model is built on I

know where to queue, who to talk to,

where to stand after I place an order.

What kind of food I can get there? It's

very safe. If I dropped you in Moscow

and told you to get coffee, you'd go to

a chain cuz you know how it works and

you get it done. Independents feel like

a risk, but the reward I think is often

there for sure. And there's more

independents and they're better than

ever now. So

you know, I'm I'm very pro independent

coffee shops.

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get on.

You You have a quite a lot of

businesses.

I read somewhere that you'd started I

think 11 or 12 different companies.

Getting on for that I think at this

point now. What are What are those

businesses? Um

It's a good question. My first business

I started back in 2008 just after I won

the World Barista Championships,

which is a coffee roasting company.

And that still is I suppose my primary

business today even if I don't run that

anymore. And there's an

amazing MD in there. I just sort of

try not to start fires and be useful

where I can do.

Over the years, we've started other

things, distribution companies kind of

importing stuff or we have a coffee

shop. We've done training businesses,

kind of education, that kind of stuff.

Equipment businesses, kind of the big

commercial espresso machines in there.

I started a coffee coffee recruitment

business

that I ultimately sold a little while

back.

I'm trying to think of other things. I

started a magazine. I've started a bunch

of other stuff. And then this, you know

getting into YouTube that's become a

weird in and of itself that I didn't

plan to start, but is now a kind of

all-consuming business.

With With the YouTube business, you must

have learned a lot about what people are

interested in as it relates to coffee.

Cuz you'll see you talk about certain

things and people just seem to gravitate

towards those subject matters. Yep. What

What is it that people care so much

about as it relates to coffee in your

audience care about? That's a great

question. Because I think coming into

this, I I for years and years, as people

did back then, wrote a blog. And I wrote

a blog to sort of share information

about coffee cuz it was great for me to

learn and also there's a benefit to

sharing. I think if you give, things

come back to you in the world.

And then people stopped reading blogs

and I started making videos. And I think

having worked in the coffee industry for

20 years, we had tried to talk to people

about coffee and nothing really hit. And

people weren't really interested. They

didn't like the way we talked about it.

And suddenly YouTube, I found a way to

connect with people. And it turns out we

vastly underestimated how broad and how

deep people's interest in coffee is.

Yeah, people care about which machine

should I buy? And that remains a

question that I will be asked I think

for the end of my days. Excuse me, so

which machine? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm

genuinely want to know which machine I

should buy because

Well, I don't know. Like it depends what

your needs are. Like what's your budget?

Like what do you want to spend? What

kind of experience do you want? Right?

Like But I love an espresso and I want I

like speed and I want

I mean I'm like everybody. I want it to

be super fast and really nice.

So the the problem with espresso

specifically Okay. is that good espresso

is a little bit tricky. And it means to

get really great espresso at home, you

kind of want to have it as a hobby. And

if that does not appeal to you

then don't get an espresso machine for

home because you will spend a ton of

money and you I can get you the best

machine in the world, put it on your

counter. After a week, you'll be like,

"I just can't be bothered. I don't want

to do this." And I think suddenly the

£2.50, £3 that the independent business

charges you, you're like, "Oh, that's

great. I will happily pay you to go

through the pain of making espresso."

Because it's messy, it's slow, it's

convoluted, it's tricky, it's

frustrating. And as a hobby, really

rewarding, but as a way to caffeinate

yourself in the morning

not the best. What about an Americano?

Like a great Americano.

a great filter coffee? Yeah. There's

There's definitely options there and and

you can buy

a a machine and grinder and spend

Well, you can get an incredible setup

for like £500. Bearing in mind espresso

machines, an incredible setup will be

two, three, four thousand pounds. If

you're looking at the like the the top

end of stuff. You can go all the way up

to I could spend 10 10, 15 thousand

pounds of your money if you let me. Uh

uh

If that's that's where the budget sort

of top out in in home espresso. But it's

kind of at that point it's like home

home audio where people just they want

the best possible thing and if they have

the budget, that market exists. I'm

moving into a new house, so I'm like

right in the moment now of thinking

about how to solve this morning coffee

problem.

So I'm trying to find something I can

maybe install.

And and the thing with me is I don't I

ain't got a huge amount of time. So I

kind of would just want an iPad. I

Ideally, I'd just speak to it and say,

"Please give me coffee." And it would

just come out, you know. Yeah, we're not

there yet. Okay. We're not there yet.

The coffee industry is improving and the

automation side is improving. By and

large, this sort of super automatic

stuff where you just push a button and

everything happens and coffee comes out.

There's a bunch of dull technical

challenges that mean they can't make as

good a coffee as you could do if you

were willing to do a little bit of work.

I thought so. And that's I I'm not going

to lie to you. That's just the truth of

it. They're getting better and there are

more and more solutions.

Um

And there's some great high kind of

convenience

solutions to coffee.

But

if you want to have fresh coffee made at

home and it's be as good as possible

I'm going to ask you to do tiny bits of

work. Just just pour beans in a grinder,

put grinder ground coffee into a little

machine and push a button. Which

machine?

Well, it depends on your aesthetic at

this point then, right? Like there's

some really nice filter coffee. It

depends how much coffee you need. Like

how much how much you need in the

morning? I've got to say I've got £100,

£200 to solve this coffee problem. In

total? In total.

To for the machinery.

Okay, so the bad news

is that

Good bad news.

Coffee grinders are the the right

investment, right?

They are more important than the

machine. You can give me a 20 quid

filter coffee brewer from Amazon, but if

you give me a decent grinder, I can get

some pretty good coffee out of it. Oh,

really?

If you give me a 20 pound coffee grinder

and a five grand machine, I can make

pretty terrible coffee.

Average coffee at best, right? So the

grinder, how how it cuts the coffee

essentially, you'll often see people

have little whirly blade grinders. You

push a button, it spins madly. Just

smashes it to pieces, but there's no

real control of the size of the pieces.

So some will be tiny particles, others

will be big rocks.

Really hard to evenly brew tiny pieces

the same way you'd brew a massive piece

of coffee. And so you get a kind of

bitter, sour coffee as a result of it.

Good coffee grinders have spinning discs

inside that cut to a specific size. So

all the coffee is pretty much the same

size mostly, and that's much easier to

work with, but they cost more money cuz

they need better motors and nicer

cutting discs and that kind of stuff.

Not crazy amounts, but

yeah, you're looking at like

uh at least 100 to 200 pounds for a good

grinder. Okay. And I'd love to tell you

it wasn't the the case, and grinders are

getting It used to be like 500 pounds

for a good grinder at home. It's coming

down all the time.

Uh but yeah, I'd say I'd need like 150.

Okay. Maybe off you. Okay.

I can get you a really great grinder

that should last a lifetime and make you

cafe quality coffee.

It's not a It's not a you know, it just

couldn't do it 500 times a day the way a

coffee shop's one could.

But that's where you're going to spend

money. And then, you could just get a

simple pour-over cone

a little and just pour water

uh onto coffee on top of a mug, and life

be really easy that way. Going back to

this this point though about what you've

discovered about people's interest in

coffee from your YouTube journey. The

first thing you said there was people

want to know what machines and stuff,

and then I interrupted, so please do

No, no. I mean, that for for me, the

strategy initially was So, I I I My

bigger umbrella goal of YouTube is that

I want people to enjoy coffee more for a

bunch of reasons, and I want them to see

it as a more valuable piece of their

life. So, that at some point, they might

be willing to spend a bit more money on

it. That's That's the sort of top line

goal. What I'm then trying to do is find

them. And reviews are a good way to sort

of find people. Someone will be like,

"Which is the best espresso machine to

buy?" They find me.

If I entertain them,

uh if I build trust with them, I hope

they'll keep watching. And then, I can

take them on a journey

uh into coffee, and I can open up new

kind of avenues of exploration for them.

That's the kind of goal. That's what I'm

trying to do.

So, in part, we do that through machine

reviews and equipment reviews, in part

through kind of techniques. If you got a

French press, cafetiere, what is the

best way to use that? I want to be there

to help you do that. But it's it's a lot

of it's about building trust so that

down the line, we can go and talk about

something totally different, and you'll

listen, and you'll trust me. And and

that sort of trust is super important to

me in in terms of like building an

audience. Um

because coffee has this really future.

Uh climate change is bad for coffee,

really really bad. And to some extent,

maybe we don't deserve to have coffee

after we've ruined the planet. I'd hear

that argument. But as temperatures

increase around the world,

coffee needs cooler temperatures to

grow.

And the only way you can sort of get

cooler temperatures as the world heats

up is to go higher up the mountain. It's

already mountain grown. It's already

growing at

1,500 m, 2,000 m. The problem with

mountains is that the higher you go,

there's generally less of the mountain.

You know what I mean? There's less area

around the world that can grow specialty

coffee, grow great quality coffee.

So, the future is

there'll be less great coffee in the

future. Cheap coffee will be around for

a while. It doesn't need the same kind

of conditions, but great coffee has a

difficult future ahead of it. And there

are millions of people whose livelihoods

depend on that.

And that's

it's not a great system, so to speak.

It's like we There's a lot of problems

with how coffee production

uh

is incredibly unfair towards the people

who produce it.

But if if we are to remain customers, we

need to be comfortable spending a little

bit more on coffee in the future.

And if you enjoy coffee, spending an

extra pound a bag, 2 pounds a bag, if

you really enjoy it, fine.

No problem at all. You know what I mean?

I will keep coffee as a part of my life.

But But

that that's kind of one of the

motivating factors for me. I want more

people to enjoy it just cuz I like

bringing pleasure to people. Like I

That's great. You know what I mean? But

in the future, I want coffee consumers

to still be there through the challenges

that coffee production faces.

What about these pods?

The coffee pod machines that a lot of

people are using and that are getting

more and more popular. Wake up in the

morning, grab the pod, whack it in

there, boom, hit button.

Out comes coffee. Yeah. Um

the best analogy I can make is that

they're a microwave meal. And microwave

meals

are what they are. They are of a

quality. They are super convenient.

There's a fair amount of waste attached

to them. And um you could probably do

better with a little bit of effort, and

it would cost you less. Do you Do you

use those pods? Not really. Not the Like

I There are some and they're they're

kind of

separate and different. I I don't want

to get into it right now. Um

I think a lot of the sort of small

Nespresso kind of style capsule ones are

very popular.

I just wish they were a bit more

recyclable. There's a bit of waste

associated with those. But ultimately,

they're very expensive. Actually, for

what you're you're paying a lot of money

for that, and you're paying for the

convenience, I think. For the same price

per kilo, you could buy some of the best

coffees in the world for what you're

spending on a capsule cuz you're you're

spending money for 5 g of coffee, cuz

that's what it is. Uh

but the convenience is is very strong,

and it's been so success I can't argue

with convenience. We love a little

convenience.

But the possibility of of quality

is far greater once you move beyond

those.

You know what I mean? Like anytime we go

convenience, we have to sacrifice

something.

And it's usually quality. And it's

usually value.

Ultimately, we're going to pay more for

that convenience.

So,

I get it. I get not wanting to make

espresso, but wanting something like

espresso in the mornings.

They've really succeeded in sort of

filling that market.

But they are to me still a kind of

microwave meal.

Is there any culture that doesn't drink

have coffee?

No, everyone drinks Everyone drinks

coffee. People have tried to ban it a

few times. It was seen as a kind of

seditious drink that's kind of uh So,

from a political perspective, uh they

tried to ban it in the UK briefly. I

think

King James, I want to say, tried to ban

it. Doesn't last very long. We tend to

get pretty grumpy if you try and ban it.

Uh

It had a sort of They asked the Pope to

ban it at one point, and he was like,

"No, it's great." And so, he he didn't

do that. That was hundreds of years ago.

But yeah, coffee

was often linked to uh politics in the

early days. So, London

was the greatest coffee drinking city in

the world for a while.

From 16

late 1600s, coffee just comes here to

the city of London and takes over.

Because up until that point, we were

drinking a lot of weak beer. That was

the sort of safe uh high-calorie, high B

vitamin kind of drink that we drunk. And

we were all a little bit drunk most of

the time from drinking a couple liters

or 3 liters of weak beer a day.

Coffee arrives, and it's this safe drink

that is totally the opposite to beer. It

is stimulating, and it transforms London

society of the time.

And we get obsessed with it. Coffee

houses appear everywhere. There is the

story that in the square mile in the

early 1700s, there were 2,000 coffee

shops. Now, that's that's excessive. It

wasn't that many. It was probably

but it was several hundred.

Like they were everywhere, and they

quickly diversified and sort of

specialized into specific things. And

so, uh very famously, Lloyd's of London,

the insurance broker, started as a

coffee shop called Lloyd's of London,

and people did business at the tables.

Those became offices. And to this day,

runners in there are still called

waiters.

And so, that just happened to specialize

in shipping insurance, that coffee

house. Others specialized in politics.

Others specialized in literature. They

became known as penny universities

because you could pay a penny to get

into a London coffee house, and you

would gain the education just from

listening to people talk of a university

degree. And so, they were these

incredible places for a while.

Uh eventually, our colonial interest

shifted to tea, and the coffee house

went into the decline in sort of 1700s,

1800s. But for about 100 years, London

was the most incredible coffee drinking

city in the world.

When coffee came to the UK, Mhm. and

when it came to the Western world, was

there a productivity boom? Yeah, 100%.

Uh huge change in culture. Massive

because we were no longer drunk all the

time.

Um So, yeah, it arrives in London, I

think, in 1652 is the the first coffee

shop that's right just near Bank tube

station. You can see a little blue

plaque on the wall if you go looking for

it there.

Uh yeah, we we absolutely fell in love

with it. It became a part of industry,

culture, politics, everything. Like it

it supercharged the nation. There are

people who argue that uh you know, we we

awake from this drunken stupor, and then

are like, "Well, what's the rest of the

world got to offer?" And we go and

become the colonial, you know, horror

show that we were after that. And you

can blame coffee for that. But uh that's

a bit of a stretch. But it it was a

massive shift in society.

I I think for most of my life assumed

that tea didn't have caffeine in it. I

don't know why. I just always thought

coffee, caffeine. I think cuz they sound

similar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But then I I I heard at one point

that tea also has caffeine in it as

well.

bit. Nowhere near the quantities uh of

coffee. But you know, if you're drinking

10, 12 cups of tea a day, it's probably

worth paying attention to how much is in

there. And how you steep your tea and

all that kind of stuff will have an

impact on how much caffeine's in there.

And what's your What's your favorite cup

of coffee? You get must get asked this

all the time.

get asked this all the time, and I

still, after 20 years, don't have a

great answer. I drink a lot of filter

coffee. Uh So, what is filter coffee?

So, filter coffee is not from an

espresso machine. So, it's going to be

brewed either in a filter coffee machine

or by hand. You'll see a lot of people

pouring water over coffee.

Uh the drink is going to be the same

kind of strength as Americano, but it's

a sort of It's a It's a weaker thing.

I'm I'm not obsessed with espresso the

same way. I want a cup of black coffee.

Cuz I want to take my time.

Because as you taste a cup of coffee, if

it's a great cup of coffee, as it cools

down, it's its flavor kind of opens up

and becomes really interesting and

complex. And so, I like the idea that I

can sit for 10, 15 minutes, and if I

want to, have a really enjoyable kind of

journey of flavor.

That for me is is the the kind of

great bit about coffee. Yeah, I'll drink

an espresso sometimes if I want a little

short shot of something tasty. But But

the idea that I can, if I want, have 10,

15 minutes to myself to enjoy this thing

and see some benefits afterwards. That's

a wonderful thing. So, I like coffees

from all over the world.

I feel like I'm forcing myself into a

tiny space here. If I could only drink

coffee from one country for the rest of

my life, it would probably be coffees

from Colombia.

They just have a real spread of flavors,

but really just incredible coffees come

from that part of the world. But there's

amazing coffee from just just about

every producing country. If you're

within

the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of

Capricorn, that kind of belt around the

earth, then you can probably grow coffee

above certain altitudes. And almost

every country that is in that band does

grow coffee. So there's a lot of

different places that grow it. And

there's going to be great coffee in all

of those places. And there'll be cheap

and low quality coffee in all those

places, too. But yeah, there's

the range that the spread is massive. Do

you pull sugar and milk into your

coffee? I don't use sugar and milk. And

I get why people do, because most coffee

benefits from sugar and milk. Milk is a

very

It has a weird quirk. It's a bitter

blocker. It inhibits bitterness. So when

you put it into a harsh bitter cup of

coffee, it does soften that. We of

course like sweet things. I think one

thing to note when it comes to all of

the studies that look at coffee and is

coffee healthy, they'll be like, yes,

coffee's healthy if you drink it black.

And if you're putting a lot of cream and

a lot of sugar into your coffee, there

are the health benefits very quickly

taken away. You know what I mean? It's

it's not quote unquote as healthy a

drink. For me, putting milk or sugar

into coffee kind of hides the flavors a