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Coffee, Family, and the Story Behind Squirrely Joe’s

Welcome to the rap report with your host Andrew Rappaport where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church Go to striving for eternity org.

Welcome to another edition of the rap report. I'm your host Andrew Rappaport the executive director of striving fraternity and the Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member. We are here to give you biblical interpretations and Applications for the Christian life and today what we want to do is a little something different.

You guys have heard me talk about a great coffee Company called squirrely Joe's coffee. Well, I have the squirrely Joe himself here with us today. And so we're gonna see just how squirrely he actually is and learn about how we could use Just different things that we might enjoy for God's glory.

So Joe welcome to the rap report. Hey, thanks for having me. So you and I have talked for a while. We are very thankful for your partnership with squirrely Joe's coffee, which I enjoy drinking every day.

But.

Let folks know a little bit about yourself. And then why did you start squirrely Joe's coffee?

From California and the Marine Corps to Southern Illinois

Yeah, so. So I grew up in Southern, California.

My condolences.

Yeah, right. I got out of there. So at 18, I joined the Marine Corps and took off travel.

You were that desperate to get out, huh?

Yeah, I was pretty desperate. San Diego's nice, but everything's some things that were going on there.

It took me a lot longer to get out of New Jersey. I just wasn't as smart as you.

So, yeah, so I traveled the world and Now I'm living in Southern, Illinois. It's where my wife's family's from. So we were both military. We decided to You know plant some roots here, so that's where we ended up and then so as far as the coffee company thing it was really just kind of a Like out of necessity, so I don't know if you remember 2020 and how crazy it was.

But when all that stuff was kicking off the toilet paper missing from the shelves we're sitting around the table with some of our friends right before the lockdowns happened and One of them had said, you know, hey.

All the toilet paper is missing what happens if all the coffee, you know, if there's no coffee because all coffee is imported from other countries. So we thought to ourselves. Well, that's a real fear.

You know, maybe we should do it. Maybe we should do something about that. So you know we Started roasting her. We bought a little roaster. Started roasting our own coffee. It was kind of just for us and maybe some family friends and then people started telling us, you know.

Oh, this is the best coffee we've ever had. We kind of thought the same thing. And then we said well, we might as well sell, you know. Some bags just to kind of recoup costs and you know. It's kind of fun to stick us put a sticker on a bag and sell it as a you know.

Make you make a logo and all that kind of stuff that you do with the business and then you know. Four years later almost five years later, you know, it's it's a legitimate business. It takes up hours and hours and hours of my time.

And it's just grown into something that we had no idea that it was gonna end up like this. So it's it's been a great a great time. So.

No, I'm sure. The question most people are thinking is what is with the name?

Squirrelly's Joe's. Yeah, so. So if you look at the bag on the bag, there's a white squirrel. So the town that we live in all in the Illinois is the home of the white squirrels. So I think there's maybe six places in America that have white squirrels and we're one of them.

We have an albino squirrel. So if you drive around town, you'll see white squirrels running across the road and in the park in the city park and that sort Of thing so it's a big tourist attraction for our town.

So we actually owned a CrossFit gym for about seven years and we used the white squirrel. We had a big buff white squirrel on for our logo on that, too. And then, you know. Little squirrelly. My wife says I'm a little squirrelly.

My name's Joe. We drink we drink a lot of coffee. So, you know, if you look at the the squirrel on the bag He looks like he's had a little too much caffeine and we're typically over caffeinated in our house.

So it all kind of goes together. You know.

Squirrels, Coffee Preferences, and the Names on the Bags

Yeah, I I don't know if you had seen what I did on a pilot my apologetics live stream the podcast there but in the video. When you and I first started a partnership because you know gene client, he's one of our podcasters this squirrel chatter is his Podcast and he loves everything squirrels.

And he drinks squirrelly Joe's coffee and he keeps he's always going. Well, they're not a they're they're not a supporter, but I just like their coffee. And so I you know, he's got his logo. It's a you know black squirrel.

But I I was busting that I think he stole your logo even though he had it before you and then I updated your logo. With a picture of his face for the squirrel head. Okay, just just I think it would be more appropriate, you know have the real squirrel there because gene clients definitely more squirrelly than you.

He's up in like rural Montana, yeah, he's up in Montana. He actually.

He names his squirrels in the backyard. He feeds them. He really loves squirrels. I.

Live far. I live far enough outside of town. I live out in the country. I don't really have a squirrel population. Maybe we should. We've thought about going and stealing a white squirrel and just bringing it to our property.

But I get in trouble for that. We're not doing that. So yeah, they're actually there was a great video.

I can't tell you what to search for to find it. Maybe like how smart squirrels are or the squirrel maze? I don't know my son-in-law gave it to me. But some guy like started realizing how like the squirrels would attack his bird feeder.

And he created a whole like maze a whole Routine for the squirrels to be able to get to.

His bird feeder to get to the food so that so they got to earn it.

They had to earn it and and he did it twice either two and it was really funny. He he starts like looking at how far they could jump and so they had to really work at it. And he's got video of them just learning like they just they'd fail.

Try again, and they just got better and eventually once once they figured out the routine. They just took it over. I.

Have seen a video where a guy did something similar, but he he basically created a slingshot on where the bird food was so that way when the. When the squirrel got to it, it would send it flying away.

You know based on the weight and then it would I mean it was to keep him away. He didn't want him eating it. So yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and the thing is this guy was saying that they always land on their feet there. You know, there's very interesting. I didn't. I learned a lot about squirrels. I will say that but.

So.

The Coffee He Drinks and the Roasts He Sells

Obviously, you're a you know, as you said, you're a coffee lover. I mean for you to get so desperate I mean we jokingly referred to during that time white gold. White gold is what my wife would refer to as Toilet paper because it was so hard to find it was it was easier to get gold than toilet paper.

Yeah, so so, you know, you just wonder what what kind of coffee do you drink.

So, so we have a bunch of different kinds of coffee. So we really wanted to try so actually when we first started we only had three coffees now we have eight so we've expanded our selection and. Really?

What we're trying to do is just kind of getting a give people a little bit of taste of the whole world. So we have some South American coffees. Central America African coffees. So we just want to kind of give people options.

Because coffees from all over the world tastes totally different. There's you know, lots of flavor nuances and. So we really wanted to have a lineup of coffees to where you know. People really could try kind of a taste of the whole world.

So I Noticed you didn't answer that which one is your which one? Yeah. Sorry. So actually our favorite is the respect. So that's a Brazilian coffee. It's got a it's got a nuttiness to it and we really like the nuttiness in coffees.

We can really taste that nuttiness come out. We really enjoy that. So we use that. We really like that in a cold brew. We really like that in a drip. And then our second favorite is probably the honor which is an Ethiopian coffee.

It's got a real fruitiness to it. And that's it's it's really smooth. It makes a really good espresso. It's that's a good easy to drink coffee.

Yeah, that actually is my my favorite is honor which I and by the way folks All the coffees have names that are just kind of fun. If you if you're regular here, you know, I I've talked about this, you know, I like to have a cup of compassion.

It doesn't seem to help. My wife tells me I'm obviously not drinking enough compassion. But we have compassion wisdom honor integrity kindness respect. Now the last two. I Admit Joe I have issues with you know talking about and promoting your next one is called Responsibility now responsibility is both a Brazilian and Colombian mix but it's a it's a half caffeinated half decaf and I just I just don't think that's very responsible to.

Put to you know destroy good caffeinated coffee with this decaf. But even worse even worse is the one you call honesty because that's fully decaffeinated. Joe what in the world were you thinking when you said let's let's talk honesty and make it completely dishonest.

Let's make it decaf. So we fool people thinking it's real coffee when the everyone every good coffee drinker knows decaf coffee just isn't real coffee. Right. Yeah.

So this is how I know I'm good at branding because the idea was to have conversations just like this to have people like you Asking these silly questions. But yeah, it's funny because you know. Kind of what you said with your with your wife saying, you know, hey you need a cup of compassion, right?

So it's almost like You know when you drink this coffee. You're you're getting a little dose of those holy virtues that we that's the reason why we came up with those names. But we what we found and this was totally unintentional, but I've heard this several times.

So we send coffee to a lot of conferences and We always include a bag for each speaker. And I think that's how I think that's how you and I met.

Yes. And I greatly appreciate that because that's how I got introduced to your coffee and that actually got me to switch brands.

Yeah.

So what we found was. We started sending all different kinds to the speakers and then they would argue with each other who gets what because they would base It off of this speaker needs more compassion.

This speaker needs a little bit more wisdom and they would just kind of raz each other a little bit. So it's been kind of fun to hear some of those back back.

Room stories I may or may not have been in a few of those being that I think I've been at three conferences where your coffee was provided and. Yeah, it was it was you know had some interesting Discussions on who had more integrity or needed more integrity.

Who had or needed more wisdom? It's see there were two ways of doing it. You know.

Yeah, I've never heard any names. Nobody ever gives me names. Nobody's betraying confidence or anything. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I was in a conference in Arizona. You provided some coffee for the speakers and it was kind of funny because The the pastor had told all the speakers. Hey before you leave you get to take a bag with you.

But don't take it until you leave. It had to be there on display for everybody to see and We had one speaker who we all knew he hit a health condition. So he was he had said, you know. It was either he couldn't come to conference at all or he just comes speaks and leaves so that bag disappeared we knew.

But the last day we were supposed to wait until the end of the conference and I don't know what happened. But all of a sudden they vanished pretty quickly before lunch. The rumor I heard was that someone grabbed a bag of integrity that someone else wanted so they quickly grabbed the kindness before.

That was gone and I don't know. Maybe that wasn't very kind of them to make sure that they went ahead of everybody.

But.

I do love the names and it actually does. I Mean, I have a little chart that I use because I never remember which ones but on the bags. They say what they are where they're from. The flavors because you have flavors to them and so.

It's helpful, but I will admit it's it's it is more enjoyable when I'm when I'm at a conference and some others have drink Squirrelly Joe's coffee to say hey, what's your favorite? And like you, you know, like you had said, you know, well your your favorite.

I think you said respect and then then the the honor mine is honor and then integrity. So It is just fun to have that discussion with with guys, which I like to ask. Yes, so help me understand because you know, I don't I just drink coffee.

You your your coffee is actually the first I got in bean and not ground because people. People being my daughter who is not really technically a coffee snob but she she really learned how to make good coffee like she she studied out how to make the best type cup of coffee and.

So.

You get you had given it. I got a bag of beans whole beans roasted beans from you and I went to her place and she. You know, she had the grinder and all that. So she showed me how to make it. I was like, oh, okay.

So now I bought one out bought a grinding machine just just because it's squirrelly Joe's coffee.

Because she said it's much better to get the beans than ground. Yes. We are actively trying to convert people to using whole beans.

How the Beans Are Sourced, Roasted, and Kept Consistent

Yeah, so what is the process like? I mean you we're. And where do you get the beans from? I mean, I know that you mentioned the countries, but how do you get these beans? How then do you do the roasting process?

I know that this is a family business, right? All your kids are involved in it. So what it what does that look like for folks?

Yeah, so so we buy everything from an importer. So there's lots of coffee importers. So we found one that. You know coffee is one of those things where the more you buy the better price you get. So starting out four years ago.

I mean we were buying 25 50 pounds at a time and You know, the price is significantly higher when you do that. So over the years, you know as we've You know increased our revenue and that sort of thing.

We've been investing in, you know going with bigger importers and buying bulk beans and. So we found a company that actually is a really nice happy medium between. You know because you could buy a hundred and twenty pine 120 pound bags of coffee you can buy 25 pound bags of coffee just depends on the importer.

So we found one that's kind of in the middle that has good prices. But it's not giant pallets full of coffee because we're not quite at that point to where we need pallets and pallets of coffee. So they come in 65 pound bags.

And they've got a big selection of coffee all over the world. So basically that and honestly the fun at the best part of my job is tasting coffees. So we you know when we're thinking about someone's gotta do it.

Someone's gotta do it. Someone's gotta do it. I guess I've got broad shoulders. It's gonna be me. So so what we're what we're trying to do is when we when we ought when we want to add a new roast. We will just buy you know a dozen samples of different coffees of things that You know are maybe a little bit different than what we have already different origin different flavor profile.

You know different acidity level different body level and we're just kind of looking for Mixing and matching what's going to complement what we already offer and then we'll taste a dozen coffees. We'll roast them to a light roast we'll roast them to a medium roast them to a dark and just kind of see what they taste like and then we'll kind of just pick pick the one that we really like and what we think is.

Drinkability is one of the biggest things that we're looking for, you know, we're not. So we wouldn't consider ourselves coffee snobs. We definitely like good coffee but coffee snob is.

I mean.

There's a there's a there's a spectrum of coffee snob and we're definitely on the spectrum, but I would say we're more of. We want normal people to drink good coffee and a lot of roasters. In my opinion, they try a little too hard um, they're.

You know, they're trying to win competitions. Or they're you know, there's lots of awards out there and that's fine. But they're catering to people who have that palette that refined palette. Where 99 of my customers are waking up at 5 in the morning.

They've got kids to get to school. They've got jobs to go to they're gonna put they're probably gonna put their coffee in a drip pot. Um, so we want something that's going to be good for them something that's easily drinkable for them something.

That's it's unique. It's specialty coffee, you know, all of our coffee is is considered specialty coffee, which is which means it's ranked higher than Anything you're going to buy at the grocery store.

Um, but but we're really looking to provide coffees for normal people. Who just want good coffee? They know Folgers is terrible. They know. Whatever is being served at church or at a hotel. They know that coffee's usually not good.

No offense to churches, but they're not known for having the best coffee. Um, so, you know, we we want people to drink a good cup of coffee. But we understand that not everybody is going to weigh out the water.

Weigh out the beans, you know, they don't have all the gadgets that you know. Some of us have we do have some of that stuff and we do we do like to play with that stuff. But we're realistic about we know most of our customers don't have the gadgets.

They have a drip machine. Maybe a pour over maybe a french press. And so we try the coffees and all those different. Brewing styles and then you kind of come up with you know, hey, I think this one's gonna go well with what we already offer.

And then yeah, so and then going back to the process. So we'll find a bean that we like. And then you know, we'll order those in bulk and then we've got a coffee roaster. So basically you're just cooking the beans.

Um, so we use what's called a hot air roaster or a fluid bed roaster. Where you know, most people are familiar with a big drum roaster where it's kind of like a dryer. You know, there's a a flame underneath and it's heating up the drum and the coffee's just kind of Rolling around and getting heated.

So that's that's. What most people are used to so ours is basically. Uh, there's a heating element underneath and then there's a blower that's blowing air up through the beans and it's lofting the beans continuously.

And it's blowing hot up hot air up into the beans. So we don't actually have a flame. It's all electric. So it's a little bit cleaner. Um, there's it's a little bit lower acidity. Which a lot of which is important to a lot of people a lot of people have stomach issues around coffee.

So we answer a lot of emails about acidity levels and things like that. So. And then yeah, and then once it's cooked to where we like it where we want it. Then we put it in a bag and ship it out.

That's so a couple things that I didn't know just listening to you. So. You can actually change you you get the bean and you can decide whether it's a light roast or a medium roast or bold.

Roast.

Mm-hmm. So I always thought that was some a property of the bean.

So so that does come into play when you're looking at um, you know where the beans from. You know, there's if if you look at all the different types of coffee beans, um, you know, there's hard beans. There's beans that like pea berries are a lot smaller.

Um, so you are taking those things into consideration. Uh, but what we do like to try them. If we think like hey, this one would be a good light roast. Then we're gonna roast it a light roast and see what it tastes like.

If we don't like it Then we're not going to go with it.

Uh, and.

But you know, so it's really just trial and error to see what we like, you know. There's been coffees that we try. And we're just like this is just not good. You know, we just don't think it's good. That doesn't mean other people won't like it, but I I don't want to sell a product that I don't think is good.

You know, i'm not particularly Uh inclined towards darker coffees, but our dark coffee our guatemalan, it's our most popular coffee. That's the one we sell the most of. So a lot of people like dark coffee.

Even though it's not my favorite. It's it's a pretty good dark roast in my opinion, even if I don't like dark roast. But a lot of people love our wisdom. So yeah, I was gonna say that's the wisdom one.

So so it is it the amount of time you roast it makes the difference?

Yeah, so I so Roasters have a temperature setting right? So you're watching the temperature of the air going into the bean chamber the roasting chamber. And then you're also looking at the temperature of the bean.

So we have thermometers for both.

So.

As coffee's roasting, you know the the rate of rise so the coffee's getting hotter and hotter and it's cooking. So it goes from like a green uh bean. And as it gets heated up it starts to dry out and then it goes from green to yellow.

And then it goes from yellow to brown and then when it hits about 400 degrees. That's when first crack happens. So you'll actually hear an audible crack and it's the bean Splitting because it's getting hot.

It's getting dried out. And that's when you start to get into that light roast when you hear that first crack. That's right around where you would have a light roast and then we've kind of dialed into where we like our temperatures so we You know our we roast our beans to the same temperature every single time so that way we can have a consistent product.

Um, and then yeah, we just trial and error figuring it out which temperature works best for this coffee um, you know, and then it depends on how big the batch size is, you know, if it's if it's a smaller batch you're gonna Turn the heat down a little bit and just make sure that temperature is Rising where you want it to rise.

So, you know, there's there's a little bit of science a little bit of art behind it. Um, there's there is a lot of technology that makes it really easy to roast coffee. Which is very nice because it it uh, you really as a business owner, we want a consistent product.

You know if you order wisdom today. We want it to taste to taste the same as if you order wisdom in a month, you know, or two months. So we really are shooting for that consistency. So we're really paying attention to our temperatures and you know that sort of thing.

Church Coffee, Water Quality, and the Flavor Notes in a Cup

Yeah, and you know i'll just say you mentioned about church coffee which usually churches churches are just I think what it is is churches are like diners. They just get whatever is the cheapest they could get.

And.

You know, we look we always hear you. You sponsor the show. We we tell folks all the time they do sell five pound bags at squirrelly joe's for your church. That's what we recommend. You do is bring some to church and just like.

You know, let whoever is the deacon's pastor. Whoever has got that buying power to say wouldn't people appreciate this coffee instead?

And we have special pricing for churches too. So yeah.

So I I mean now granted I do know our webmaster when when we got into uh working with you and we have and folks if you want to um. If you want to get some of the squirrelly joe's coffee, you can go to striving for eternity .org slash coffee.

Striving for eternity .org slash coffee. And so the webmaster knew that we had to set up this forward to to your page to do that. So, you know exactly how many people are coming over from from our page.

And uh, first thing he did was he he's like, I I i'm gonna get the five pound bags. So he drinks a lot of coffee all by himself.

Um.

But he's drinking I think coffee all day long. So you can do that but for the church, it's a really good thing to do is get the five pound bags. Um, I know that if you use the promo code sfe It at least used to save us 20 off.

We we had this discussion. I did test it and it does look like it gives the 20 off. I started walking through like creating a new account to see and so If it still is set up, so if you get 20 off, uh your first order so now if you're like me Uh being jewish I I love discounts and therefore My first order I made sure it was the biggest order.

I think that I did. I got one of I got one of each of the bags of real coffee. Yeah, yeah, not that decaf stuff. That that's yeah. None of the none of that half decaf stuff. No, I want the real coffee.

So I I wanted to make sure I could test each one. And so I had gotten I've said if i'm only getting the discount i'm getting it for all of it so, uh, I'm I made a big order for that and but if you want go, you know, go to your church and Recommend.

Hey, let's let's get some good coffee. Uh, I I there's two things i've learned with coffee.

Uh.

It's it's the the beans are surprisingly, um. It's it's funny how people focus a lot on the beans right and yet I like I I know peel that I many years ago. I was going to open a uh, I was looking to open a dunkin donuts and I was talking to you know, one of the the guy that does the franchisee and He you know, we're talking he said well, we we sell the we sell the beans, but people still coming back for more coffee I'm like, but why if the if they like the coffee, why wouldn't they just get the beans?

He's like, ah, it's how and how you make it. So he said part of the thing was is it's you know They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in water filtration. Oh sure, and and so that's where like you're saying the right tools.

I now I now have uh, I mean I have uh, my water is distilled and then that way I can add exactly in what I want in my water. So I start with with that. I have like you were saying I grind the beans. I measure the beans so I have the exact amount of of Coffee in there.

I then you know, I have it where my daughter showed me, you know, I have a My water is an exact temperature. I pour it over for a minute. Give it a minute to seep in. Then you go and fill the rest of it.

Um, yep, and i've been amazed how things like that Have a big difference in in how the coffee tastes. I mean I I used to have a reverse osmosis. In my old house and I just ordered the cheapest coffee.

Probably what the diners get or most churches and yet the water made a big difference. Right and people are like, oh, this is the best coffee. What is it? I'm like shop, right? Whatever was cheapest. But if you don't have if you're not making it, well, you're not you don't have all the tools like you said you don't have good water.

Then the only thing you really have to to really increase the flavor is the beans themselves in the roasting process, right?

Yep, so.

What like what things. Because like if I let's just take an example, we're look at your compassion, right? You have a flavor to it. That's a milk, chocolate roasted almond apple and brown spice. Flavor, how do you get the the flavors?

Do you add something to the beans while it's roasting?

Or is it the bean itself that has that those are just those are the natural flavors of the coffee. Um, so a lot of people are familiar with wine and you know. You read the back of a bottle of wine. It kind of tells you what some of those tasting notes are.

Coffee is the same way. It just has natural flavors. So those uh those flavors we have listed at the top of each bag. That's just kind of the nuances that you're kind of looking for. So if you're tasting it.

You know, can I taste that chocolatiness? Can I taste that, you know, a little bit of almond? Uh hazelnut brown spice, whatever it is, depending on the country of origin. Like I said the uh respect has that nuttiness to it and you can really taste the nuttiness the Honor really has that fruitiness.

You can really taste that fruitiness, especially in like the aftertaste um, it just really it really hits so that's kind of just It's fun to kind of look to see if you can taste those flavors, right? So like you sound like you're starting to nerd out a little bit on coffee with measuring the water measuring the coffee.

You know what? I mean?

So you're you're kind of in that position to where You can start tasting that coffee and see can I can I taste those little nuances that that I should be looking for. And that's kind of a fun thing people like doing that and you know, our favorite feedback is, you know Hey, I can actually taste what what it says on the bag.

So it's nice to hear those things. And then yeah, you're right about the the water, you know the water that you use so we actually have to double Filter our water because we we're on well water because we live out in the country.

Okay, so we run it through just a regular a shelf like a brita Filter and then we also have a alexa pro that we take the filtered water put it in the alexa pro. And we keep that thing filled up. So we're actually double filtering our water just because you know, well water is not known for Producing the best cup of coffee.

So that's that's why in my old house.

I had I was on well water and I got a reverse osmosis for that reason. Mm-hmm. So let me ask this is not just. You know, this is something you actually are using to train your children as well on how to run a business.

What's it look like from for your family's perspective? I mean you're you said you're you're basically Pretty busy with with this. Um, oh, yeah, but at least you're you're doing it with the family. So it's family time, too.

Yeah.

Yeah between uh, it's mainly my 17 year old son. So we have seven kids. Um, i've got two adults out of the house already. Um, the the second oldest did help me when he was still here. And then the third oldest he's a senior in high school and he does probably 80 of the roasting now at this point.

Um, he's been doing it for About a year maybe a year and a half. He's been roasting for me. And honestly when i'm out of town or something, he actually runs the entire business for me. So he knows how to do process all the orders he knows how to do all the shipping.

You know all the packaging weighing and measuring, you know, he can do the whole thing. He would prefer not to but if i'm in a bind and i'm like out of town I was out of town on wednesday. So he ran the whole business for me on wednesday.

So it's really really nice having him around. And we probably put in between the two of us. We probably put in about 40 to 50 hours a week. Um with the business and that's on top of my full-time job.

So i'm i'm putting in a lot of hours with the business and he is a huge help. Um, and then my sister-in-law comes every monday to help us package orders. So the weekends are crazy. You know, we don't uh, we we actually roast and ship monday through saturday.

But then there's so many orders coming through on the weekend that monday. We needed some extra help. So my sister-in-law comes in for a few hours every week to help us with that. So.