Caffeinated #184

Murray Carpenter:

Culturally, we love caffeine. There's a long history and there's a long history of safe usage of moderate caffeine consumption. And the coffee culture that we've developed in the US Is phenomenal. People really do love caffeine, and people particularly love coffee. I think.

Brittany Feltovic:

I think it's nice that people are appreciating quality. A lot of people are attracted to the great beers and the great wines and the great restaurants. And I feel like coffee is kind of that last thing that everybody's now starting to pay attention to, which is really great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 184, Caffeinated, airing for the first time on Sunday, March 22, 2015. Mainers love their coffee. And why not? We have a diversity of roasters creating distinctive blends within our state and many unique coffee houses within which we might enjoy our cup of joe. Today we speak with Maine author Murray Carpenter about his book How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts and Hooks us and Bard Coffee manager and longtime barista Brittany Feltovic. You'll hear some interesting insights about our favorite bean. Thank you for joining us. People who know me well know that I am largely a tea drinker, although I do have a weakness for espresso in some cases. And today we're going to speak with somebody about why that might be. In fact, I actually know it's the caffeine in it. And so does Murray Carpenter. He is a journalist and author. His book Caffeinated was published by Hudson Press in 2014. He has a master's in environmental studies and two grown children. He lives with his wife in Belfast. You know all about this caffeine thing, don't you.

Murray Carpenter:

I know a fair amount about caffeine now. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. This was a great book. I really enjoyed reading it. It's how our daily habit helps, hurts and hooks us. And you really went through some things that I didn't had put no thought to whatsoever.

Murray Carpenter:

Well, good. Yeah. I think a lot of people find that their daily habit is a little more interesting when they get, you know, get to know it a little more intimately, I would say.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So tell me why it was that this became something you had an interest in.

Murray Carpenter:

Well, this project really has its genesis. Thirty years ago, when I was an undergraduate studying psychology at the University of Colorado, I was at that point what the researchers, the caffeine researchers would call caffeine naive, which is, you know, coffee wasn't a part of my life. And between the house I lived in with my friends off campus and the library, there was a great coffee shop. And this was in the early years of sort of the gourmet coffee boom. And it was a coffee shop bookstore. We used to hang out there and drink coffee on our way to school. And I noticed, because I was caffeine naive, maybe I noticed more than most people how a couple of cups of coffee would really help me to focus for studying and it would help me to take on a big writing project. So I didn't take it for granted and ended up, senior year, writing a paper for a senior psychology seminar about caffeine and cognition. So I've had this interest sort of in the back of my mind for quite a while.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This adventure brought you really all over the world. You spent time down in Central America looking at where coffee came from. You attempted to go to a caffeine factory in China. I think you made it as far as the gates, if I'm remembering.

Murray Carpenter:

Yes, that's right. Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Correctly, yes. With experts here in the United States as well. Did you think that you were going to be on such a journey when you started this?

Murray Carpenter:

No, that's a great question. I had no idea when I started the book. It was around the time that energy drinks were becoming controversial, and my interest in caffeine was sort of rekindled. And I knew there was a story here. I had no idea where it would lead. And so, yes, it took me to places that I really didn't anticipate. And that's part of the reason it ended up. It took me more than three years from when I started researching the book until I finished it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm interested in caffeine because as a physician, I know that there is an Impact on health. I don't know what the long term impact is. Caffeine on health. I'm not sure that any of us really quite know that yet. But short term, I have seen patients who have come in with panic attacks, anxiety. I've had triathletes who rely heavily on caffeine to enhance their performance. I've seen people who have tachycardia, elevated heart rate, and this is something that you talk about in the book.

Murray Carpenter:

Yeah. So I'm really glad you mentioned anxiety and panic first, because most of us, and I think its popularity indicates this, most of us handle moderate caffeine consumption quite well. But there are some people for whom it can really be a problem and people who suffer from anxiety, and particularly those with panic disorder. People who, people who experience panic attacks really can have problems with caffeine. And this is one of its better known problems. But it's an area that scientists are continuing to research to understand exactly how it is that caffeine affects people who are anxious. But that's certainly one of the bigger health problems. And it's worth noting people who are anxious often tend to to avoid caffeine, but not everyone. I've had some interesting correspondence from people who didn't really associate the anxiety they were experiencing with their caffeine consumption. But something you didn't mention is sleep. And that's another big issue. A lot of people, as you know, you see a lot of patients, so many people don't sleep well, and so many of us use caffeine. And caffeine really can disrupt sleep. And so this is not to say that everybody who uses caffeine would sleep better if they didn't take caffeine. But I really do think it's important for someone who suffers from sleeplessness or insomnia to at least try to experiment with their caffeine consumption to see if it helps. It won't help everyone, but some people it might.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You talked about being sensitive to caffeine. So some people are more sensitive, some people are less sensitive. In the book, you mentioned that people who smoke and women who are on birth control pills, both of these things influence how we metabolize caffeine.

Murray Carpenter:

Yeah, you're right. And again, it's interesting because it's a drug, and we often don't think of it as a drug, but because it's a drug, it will affect you differently depending on what else is going on in your body. So one of the strange things is that smokers tend to metabolize caffeine twice as quickly as the rest of us, which is to say a cup of coffee will have half of the effect on a smoker. A woman on birth control pills will metabolize it. Again, this is approximate, but approximately twice as slowly. A lot of this has to do with the rate at which the liver produces the enzymes that break down caffeine into its byproducts. So it's really worth noting this because let's say you have someone who's a big man and he's a smoker and he's sitting down with a smaller woman and she's on birth control pills. You know, he need, he may need five or six cups of coffee to have the same effect that she has. Now, laid on top of this is another very interesting aspect, which is we all metabolize caffeine differently just due to individual variability and a lot of this tends to be genetic. So if you tend to consume a lot of caffeine, then probably your brother or sister and parents might. If you don't, it might be again a genetic trait. But this is all to say that a cup of coffee is not going to have the same effect on any of us. And the levels of variability can be pretty profound.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

For a long time we've been trying to understand if there is a long term impact of caffeine upon the body. One area that still remains unclear, but we think we're getting more evidence in, is in pregnancy. Women who consume caffeine in larger quantities, I believe they are more likely to have a small for gestational age or a small birth weight baby.

Murray Carpenter:

Yeah, and this is an area again, even after many years of research, people are still learning more about this. So often doctors will suggest that women who are pregnant limit their caffeine consumption to 200 milligrams a day or less. And this could be as little as 12 to 15 ounces of coffee there. There is some new research from Scandinavia that suggests that even at 200 milligrams a day, you may have a smaller, slightly smaller child. It's not that the child would necessarily be less healthy, but it is suggesting that even at that level, even at 200 milligrams a day, the caffeine could be having an effect. So it's one of, it's one of the areas of caffeine and health that has gotten a fair amount of attention, but I think deserves more and again, more research. But yeah, I think this is the reason that doctors suggest that pregnant women limit their caffeine consumption.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And yet there is a side of caffeine that is, I guess some people would consider positive. We know that it actually increases alertness, it enables us to concentrate better, it helps athletes. And I think that what I'm remembering is it's a 3 milligram or 4 milligram per kilogram dose that is useful.

Murray Carpenter:

You're absolutely right. And again, this is one of the things that surprised me in researching the book. Again, going back to college, I used to race bicycles in college. And so even when I was first learning about caffeine and coffee, I knew that if you took a strong cup of coffee before a race, you'd get a little bit of a boost. In the recent years, exercise physiologists have figured out much more precisely what the best dose is and how it can benefit you. And you're right. So 3 to 6 milligrams per kilo of body weight, which would be, you know, for 180 pound guy like me, maybe 250 milligrams, you know, a really good strong 12 or 16 ounce cup of coffee will not just improve your performance, but it'll improve it significantly. And which is to say on a race of approximately an hour duration, I would reduce my time probably between 1 and 3%. And this would often be the winning margin in most of these races. And so yeah, it's pretty dramatic and it's perfectly legal. And this is the other really interesting aspect of this is because it really is, I think there's no question it's a performance enhancing drug and it's a legal performance enhancing drug. And the reason is this, the exact dosage that would benefit you or I most before a race is the same amount that a coffee drinker would be consuming every single day. So it's pretty remarkable. And I think it's one of those aspects of caffeine that's underappreciated and that's why there's so many gels and foods that are specially formulated for athletes, not for triathletes, marathoners.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, you've brought a bunch of things with you today. You have shot blocks and you have shot gels and you have, I don't know if that's a five hour energy. I mean there's so many things now that caffeine is in and K cups, you have a K cup in here. So there's just caffeine and that's not even, we haven't even like, that's just scratching the surface. Most sodas have caffeine in them.

Murray Carpenter:

Yes, I've got a Coca Cola bottle here. Too. Yes, you're right, it's everywhere. And I think of it often as, you know, if you go into a convenience store here in Portland, anywhere back in the cooler you have, you know, a few doors full of sodas. Virtually all of the sodas are caffeinated. All of the top five, eight of the top talent, top ten selling soft drinks in the US Right next door you have energy drinks. Of course they're caffeinated. You have a whole aisle of, or a counter now of coffee in the back there. Get up towards the front and the counter is cluttered up with, with energy shots. And then if you, you know, there's probably an aisle with over the counter stuff like Vivarin and Nodo's. And it's really no exaggeration to say if you know, if you're in a little convenience store anywhere in the US something caffeinated is within arm's reach at every moment. And this is part of what I came to think about that I think we don't recognize its ubiquity, its importance in our lifestyle and we don't associate the fact that we drink soda with caffeine and we don't you, we don't think about five hour energy as just pure caffeine, which really is most of what's giving you the effect. So yeah, there's an incredible diversity and abundance of new caffeinated products on the market these days.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Murray Carpenter:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

i was very concerned to read about the way that we come to produce caffeine because we know that caffeine is in coffee beans. We know that's in cacao beans, so in chocolate. I think there are a few other natural products that grow with caffeine in them. But much of the caffeine that is in sodas, if not all of the caffeine that's in sodas or these gels or the five hour energy, is actually produced synthetically and with, I guess, proprietary secrets involved. So we don't even really know the chemicals that are going into this stuff. And from what I read in your book, the synthetic caffeine glows. It glows blue. That can't be good.

Murray Carpenter:

Yeah. So I think they've been able to produce it so that it doesn't glow as much anymore, but I don't even know. And yes, it is a somewhat secretive process. And let me back up on this difference. Caffeine. There are two ways to extract it to produce caffeine, the caffeine powder itself. And one way is to extract it from a coffee bean. And I've toured a decaffeination facility in Texas that decaffeinates like £60 million of coffee annually and they produce about a million pounds of caffeine. But as I started doing my research, I realized we're using more than 15 million pounds of powdered caffeine in this country annually. Most of it blended into soft drinks and I didn't know where it came from. And, and as I investigated, I learned that most of it is synthesized, as you say. So it's made from its chemical precursors. So one way to think of this is instead of sort of carving it away from the coffee bean, you're actually cobbling it together in a pharmaceutical plant from urea and other chemical precursors, which,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

as you point out, that's cat pee.

Murray Carpenter:

Yeah, well, it smells like it. Yeah, it smells like cat pee. Yeah. Right. And it's a similar. When people think of urea, they think of urine because it's a form of nitrogen yeah, right. But yeah, so you can produce it from urea and these other chemical precursors. The actual product, the caffeine you're making in a synthetic caffeine plant or you're extracting from a natural product should be the same. I think the concern is a lot of these plants like the one I tried to visit in China are, are not only under regulated, they're pretty opaque. They don't want visitors. I approached caffeination facilities in Germany, India, China, and they all denied my request to visit just to see the process as I had at the plant in Texas. So, yeah, most of the caffeine, most of the caffeine we're importing for soft drinks, et cetera in this country is synthetic as opposed to natural because it's a cheaper way to do it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And that's, I guess the thing that I am bothered by is that we already know that there are health effects, good and bad, of caffeine. But what about the chemicals? What about the things that we don't even really think about we might be consuming on a regular basis? Because as you point out in your book, the use of soda has actually surpassed the use of coffee as a delivery. And now younger people are on college campuses drinking five Hour Energy and monster and caffeinated drinks. And it's not, it's not something we should be ignoring.

Murray Carpenter:

It's not. And so a couple of big issues there. First of all, I guess I'm not as concerned about chemical contamination of the caffeine powder itself just because we're taking it in such small quantities. So like a 64th of a teaspoon would be the amount in a Coca Cola. And, and so it would take a lot of contamination to give you a significant harm. I do think there's significant health issues that are worth discussing about these products made with caffeine powder. And one of them is, as you mentioned, with all these energy drinks, and this is something FDA is looking at now, are the other non caffeine constituents, either by themselves or in concert with caffeine, causing some harm? So this is taurine. They have. There are a number of additives to these energy drinks that probably don't have much of a stimulant effect but may have a health consequence? It's not clear. FDA is looking into that. That's one issue. I think the bigger issue in terms of health is really the issue of sugars, of the simple sugars that are in these soft drinks. We know the association between sugary soft drinks and sugar sweetened drinks and Obesity. Obesity is a huge issue. And the link with caffeine here is that it's the caffeine in the soft drinks that often tends to really reinforce that behavior of consuming soft drinks. Which is to say, if you reach one day for a sugary soft drink without caffeine and the next day for the one with caffeine, you're more inclined to go back to the caffeinated one. And, you know, this is something that Coca Cola and Pepsi and Dr. Pepper have known for a century.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it's also, as you have written about, possibly causing insulin resistance. So if you have somebody who's reaching for that caffeinated sugary beverage, and they keep reaching for that caffeinated sugary beverage, over time, their receptors are not going to be doing what they're supposed to be, and they're possibly going to become diabetic.

Murray Carpenter:

Yeah, this is something that anyone who is either diabetic or pre diabetic should certainly be interested in and be discussing with their doctor. But yeah, that is one of the concerns.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

On the other side of it, there is a history to caffeinated products. I mean, we've had chocolate and coffee in their pure forms for years and years and years. And it's something that. There is an important cultural aspect to this.

Murray Carpenter:

There's a really important cultural aspect. And this was another shock to me in reporting the book is how far back this goes. So I visited an area in Mexico. This was on the border of what's now Chiapas, southern Mexico and Guatemala. A low coastal plain called the Soconusco region. And it's humid and kind of swampy and hot. Perfect place to grow cacao. And 3,500 years ago, people were already consuming these frothy chocolate drinks there. And we often don't think of chocolate as being very caffeinated because we consume it in such dilute forms. But I think the way that they were consuming it really just mashing up cacao beans and drinking this frothy chocolate drink, they were getting a fair amount of caffeine. And I think that the caffeine was a big part of the allure. All the way back then. And around the same time in China, in Asia, people were learning that if they had a tea leaf soaked in hot water, they would get the same benefit. And coffee came on the scene much later. I mean, probably just 1500 years ago. But yeah, culturally we love caffeine. There's a long history and there's a long history of safe usage of moderate caffeine consumption. And the Coffee culture that we've developed in the US is pretty phenomenal. People really do love caffeine and people particularly love coffee.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think there's also an environmental impact to, to coffee, to growing, for example, growing coffee beans and what some people are doing with the rainforests to grow more coffee beans. But people are responding to that as well. You know, the shade grown fair trade, this is something we're paying attention to more.

Murray Carpenter:

It is. And that's something that I didn't focus on much in the book, but my reporting led me to early on is that yes, there are, there can be significant environmental impacts to, for example, coffee consumption. And what I hadn't realized is how many different certifying schemes there are. So, you know, there's organic, there's fair trade, there's bird friendly, you know, rainforest, you know, all these different groups are certifying coffees. Now I do think there's some value in that and I think consumers also have to be maybe a little more savvy than in the old days and finding out, you know, how is their coffee certified and what exactly does that mean? But yeah, I think people are interested in knowing what the environmental impact of their daily habit is.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So let's talk about K cups. You brought in the K cups. It was interesting for me to read about the history of Green Mountain Coffee. I went to medical school in Vermont and this came to be in Vermont. The Green Mountain coffee guy who actually first got his money through rolling papers.

Murray Carpenter:

Yes, that was interesting. I didn't know that. So Bob Stiller, who was the entrepreneur who's behind Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, first made his fortune $3 million by developing this company, Easy Wider, to produce a wider rolling paper in the 1970s when he and his partner sold the company, then Bob Stiller was in Vermont and he had one of those experiences. He tasted a cup of coffee that, that just knocked his socks off. You know, freshly roasted, freshly ground, delicious. Bought the company and that became Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And he continued to innovate.

Murray Carpenter:

And he continued to innovate. He was really shrewd in this respect. He saw the single serving pod revolution coming more clearly and earlier than others in the US and he first partnered with a Massachusetts startup called Keurig and then bought it. And so the Keurig machine and the K cup started off competing in really the coffee pod wars against Nestle, against Sara Lee, against Kraft, against all these huge multinational companies. And at that time, Green Mountain really was as you know, like a crunchy sort of regional coffee company. They went up against these multinational coffee giants and won. I mean, they won going away. Just last month, GE announced, get this, a refrigerator that has a Keurig machine in the door. So, yeah, Keurig is really. They've really taken off.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But you look at these little cups and I'm all about enjoying caffeine, but I shudder to think how much plastic we're throwing away on a daily basis by using the single serving method.

Murray Carpenter:

Yeah. So it's pretty remarkable. And one of the elements in my book that got a lot of attention is that I calculated that the 2011 production of K cups, if you line them up end to end, they would encircle the globe six times at the equator. So it's a lot of K cups. Updating that figure for the 2013, they would encircle the globe 10.5 times the equator. So there's a lot of plastic here. One of the challenges with K cups is for recyclers is it's plastic and it's foil and it's organic matter all in one unit. So it's really hard to recycle to, you know, the people who like K cups and the people who advocate for them, and there is some legitimacy to this. They will say that you can extract more coffee more efficiently from less, you know, coffee bean in this. So the 11 grams in a little K cup would. Would make a stronger cup of coffee than, say, if I was using my Melitta filter at home. And also that there's less waste because you're not making a coffee pot and then throwing out the rest at the end of the day. So there are some interesting issues. But if you just look at the. The issue of the waste at the end of the day in your house, you know, a lot of people don't like that a bit. Green Mountain again last month or maybe in December, said that by 2020, you know, still a long way out, they hope to have a fully recyclable K cup. And I did see, when I toured the plant in 2010, I saw a paper K cup that they were using. It was a prototype they were using for tea. But, yeah, these little pods are interesting. And there's one other aspect of these pods that's fascinating, which is the cost. If you look at the per pound cost for a coffee bean, the roasted and ground coffee that goes into a K cup would cost about 12 to $15, say, at Hannaford, once it's in the K cup, the per pound value is closer to 35 to $55 per pound and that's the way you make a billion dollars with coffee.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One way that we've kept up the American interest in coffee and caffeinated beverages is in the military. This was a big part of. I know that actually in the military we used to supply soldiers with cigarettes during the world War, Second World War. And we also have been plying them with caffeine.

Murray Carpenter:

Yes, I'm glad you brought that up. One of the researchers who was a primary source for my book, Harris Lieberman, studies this very thing, caffeine in the military. And he does it from a military research lab in Natick, Massachusetts. One of the tests that he did was he followed Army SEALs during Hell Week, Sorry, Navy SEALs during Hell Week, which is the week when they're taking their final test to see if they can really have what it takes to be a seal. And they're up most of the night, they're in and out of the water, they're practically hypothermic. They're doing extreme things, carrying boats over their head, doing rescues, practicing marksmanship, all sorts of crazy stuff. In the middle of this week, when there were the most sleep deprived and really sort of exhausted, Harris Lieberman ran them through a battery of tests to see how they would perform with and without caffeine. And in virtually every scenario, the caffeine in helped enhance their performance on a battery of tests. The only thing it didn't help was marksmanship, and it didn't harm. Marksmanship. That's a long winded way of saying, you know, the situations that soldiers might be in in the field where they're sleep deprived, but they need to remain alert and vigilant is exactly the kind of situation in which caffeine can help. So the military has developed a whole battery of products. Caffeinated energy bars, caffeinated gum, you name it. And they have rations that include these various products.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In the end, I didn't come away with the feeling that you were saying caffeine was good or bad. I think I just had the sense that you really wanted people to be more aware, more aware of sort of the range. You know, there's this range over here where it can be possibly beneficial. There's this range over here where it can actually be harmful. This is what it might be doing to the environment. This is what it might be, you know, it might be causing some physical dependency. But really you didn't leave people with an answer on this. You left people with, here's some information. Make up your own mind. Is that your intention?

Murray Carpenter:

That's exactly it my sense is that we consistently underestimate the role that caffeine plays in our culture. We underestimate the roles it plays in our daily routines. We underestimate the actual effects it has on our body. We underestimate the role it plays in commerce. I think caffeinated products are worth more than 100 billion, $130 billion annually in the U.S. alone. And so yes, I think we can continually underestimate caffeine and that it's a much more interesting drug than we give it credit for. And so it deserves like greater respect and more understanding.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I wish that you could have come through and said, Lisa, I want you to think about caffeine this way. However, this was very mind opening and I think that people who want to take the time to read your book, which is called Caffeinated How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts and Hooks Us. I think it's thought provoking and I really appreciate your not only writing about it and researching it, but also coming in and talking to us today.

Murray Carpenter:

Well, thank you very much for your interest. This has been fun.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One last question. So we've been speaking with Murray Carpenter, who is the journalist and author based in Belfast. Murray, how can we learn more about the work that you do and your book Caffeinated?

Murray Carpenter:

You can, you can go to any of the local independent bookstores and they all have the book there. And you can visit my website, which is murraycarpenter.com alright, thanks so much, Murray. Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marcy Booth from Booth, Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marcie. When was the last time you took a break from what you were doing, from the work that was piled up on your desk and just looked up? I know that during the course of my days, I often forget to take a moment or two to just breathe, look up at the sky and dream. Terrible that I have to remind myself to breathe. But when I do, I feel energized because in those moments I'm able to

Brittany Feltovic:

let go of the daily grind and

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

think more about what I want to accomplish, how I want my business to grow. Sometimes those are the aha moments. If we all took a few moments

Brittany Feltovic:

out each day to stop what we

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

are doing and dream a little about our business futures, not only would we feel a great sense of calm, but we may come to realize that these dreams can in fact come true. I'm Marcie Booth. Let's talk about the changes you need. Boothmain.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Having worked in the Old Port with Maine Magazine, Old Port magazine, and Love Maine Radio, I have spent some time across the way at Bard Coffee. And this individual who is here to talk to us today has also spent quite a lot of time at Bard Coffee. This is Brittany Feltovic. She is the manager of Bard Coffee. She has eight years of experience working with coffee and has been at Bard for six. Thanks so much for coming in and talking to us today.

Brittany Feltovic:

Thank you, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Bard is a really wonderful place to be. It's not just the coffee. The coffee is obviously great, but the location is, it's really perfect. It's very central in the Old Port and people. There seem to be a lot of. There's a lot of like brain stuff going on there, A lot of meetups, a lot of stuff going on. What's that like to work in that kind of atmosphere?

Brittany Feltovic:

It's really exciting. Honestly, I think that we're lucky with our central location where we don't get just one type of person that comes in. You know, we have like our young teenagers that come in and then like the hipsters and then we have the guys in their suits and you know, all of the artists from Maine are the restaurant people. So it's kind of nice to just have like this different, diverse group of people that are constantly coming in and being able to talk to them and see really what's going on all over town all the time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it's almost always busy.

Brittany Feltovic:

Pretty much, yeah. I mean, it's, it seems like that

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

when you walk by, there are people sitting in the window. You know, there are people meeting, there are people in the back. It just, it seems like it attracts. Just attracts people from all over.

Brittany Feltovic:

Definitely it does.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why would one choose to go into the coffee field?

Brittany Feltovic:

I honestly kind of just fell into it. I graduated high school and was. My father told me basically that, okay, you're on your own after this. He's like, where do you want to go? I'll give you a one way ticket. So I chose Maine because my family's here. And he was just like, if you want to go to college, you're also on your own for that. So it kind of made me think a little bit more about like, well, is there anything that I actually want to do right now. And there wasn't. So I came to Maine and applied to a bunch of jobs at the mall, and Starbucks was the first one to call me back and had probably one of the most amazing interviews I've ever had where the manager there was just, like, exuding all of this passion for coffee. And I was like, whoa. I've never even thought about all the different things that go into it, from the farm level to the roasting level and the brewing level. So it just kind of made me excited to learn about that since I wasn't going to school. And that's where the hunger started, and it never really stopped.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Where are you originally from?

Brittany Feltovic:

Hawaii.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's a big leap.

Brittany Feltovic:

Yep. Yeah. My dad was in the military, and we got really lucky. So I was there for all of elementary school and all of high school. And when you can't really live there, though, afterwards, it's just so expensive, and there's not a lot of jobs. So I was like, I guess I'll come to Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you have family here?

Brittany Feltovic:

Yes, yes. His sister is here and her three daughters, and I'm really close with them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So as you've gotten to. Well, first of all, did you end up working at Starbucks?

Brittany Feltovic:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yep.

Brittany Feltovic:

I worked there for about nine months. And then that manager left to work at a local company that has since closed down, and I basically followed her. And after that closed down, a friend of mine was doing the art for Bard, and he was just like, go and, you know, apply here. It's a really great place, really great people. And I did. And that's where I've been ever since.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems to me that it requires a very unique skill set. Not only do you have to know coffee, but you have to know people. You have to know business. You have to do some. You have to do managing. I mean, it's a very. It requires some important skills.

Brittany Feltovic:

Yeah. I think that's part of the reason that I really like it, is that it's. There's always a challenge every day, like juggling all of those things. And I like multitasking and doing a lot of things at once, so it's kind of perfect for somebody like me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And what has it been like to be living in Maine, having been in Hawaii and now? Maine?

Brittany Feltovic:

Yeah. At first, it was a big shock, honestly. I had always come here during the summers, so that was my only kind of knowledge of what Maine could be like. And I was younger as an adult. I didn't like it at first. I found it really hard to make friends. Everybody was kind of already in their own thing. But once I moved into Portland, that's when I saw the light. Like, I love the fact that it has the small town vibe, plus a city still going on and can walk around the streets and I can't go anywhere without knowing somebody. But at the same time, it has really great food and yeah, I just love it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You talked about the art at Bard, and that's something that I've noticed before is that it's a very consistent thing. There's always somebody being featured on the walls, and I really like that. Why has that been important to your store?

Brittany Feltovic:

I think it's just a really nice way to connect with that community. And there's also just a lot of talented people in the city. And it's a fun way to kind of like change up the ambiance a little bit here and there. Like, sometimes we'll have really large pieces, sometimes we'll have more condensed. Like the clocks that we have right now are pretty cool. And it's just a fun way to be able to showcase what the city has to offer.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you have the opportunity to create a relationship with the artists themselves?

Brittany Feltovic:

Yeah, yeah. We have many artists that are repeats that come again and again, like the same time every year. So it's really nice to be able to have that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

My daughter, who's in college now, she worked for a sadly no longer in existence coffee shop in our town. And she really enjoyed the social aspect, but she also really enjoyed crafting the coffee. And I'm afraid it's made her rather spoiled now because her college has only a major chain on campus. And I won't name them, but she doesn't like them nearly as well. And she. She really has developed a palette, it seems, from that experience. So tell me about that for you.

Brittany Feltovic:

I definitely had more of an experience enjoying crafting coffee at Bard than any other place that I've ever worked at. Especially when you're working for a company that has a connection with the roasting and the farming level, the barista is the last person at the end of that chain. And they're the person that can mess up all of that hard work. And when you're working for a company that you know is so involved with all of that, it makes you more proud to want to serve the best cup of coffee that you can serve because you don't want to let everybody else down in that chain.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So where does your coffee come from?

Brittany Feltovic:

We get it from all over. Central America, South America, Africa. We get a lot from Indonesian countries as well. We kind of just find the best of the best. Is our big goal, just to find interesting coffees.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Who's responsible for choosing where the coffee is coming from?

Brittany Feltovic:

Bob Garver, who's our owner, does all of the source trips. So he pretty much has the best job on earth and gets to go to any coffee farm that he wants to go to. He's really great about establishing relationships that we can keep getting coffee from these people every year too, which is really, really exciting to be a part of that. A lot of companies say that they do that, but don't necessarily actually do that. I think a lot of the times he won't go to a new farm. Instead he'll just. Like when he goes to Honduras, he has two farms that he visits every single year. And the change that's happened to since us getting their coffee has been really remarkable too. Like, there's one farm who didn't even have electricity when they first started, and now there's lines going up the mountains. So it's just kind of neat to be able to see all of that happen.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So once you've created this relationship with the farmer and you're bringing in the coffee beans, what's the next step?

Brittany Feltovic:

The next step is to do roasting of it and just kind of sampling it at different levels and see where it likes to be. And Bill, who's our head roaster, is really great at fine tuning and finding that sweet spot of what it's going to taste the best at.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Does he have. Does he have a roasting facility here in Portland or.

Brittany Feltovic:

Our roasting facility is in Topsham and it's pretty awesome.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you've spent time there?

Brittany Feltovic:

Oh, yeah, yeah. I go up at least once every week. I do. There's a training cafe there, so I get to bring all my baristas there. It has the same exact machine, same exact pour over set up. So I get to throw them in and just have them sit there for six hours and just make coffee over and over and over again.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You must be pretty caffeinated by the time you leave there.

Brittany Feltovic:

Yeah, yeah. I've gotten good practice though.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So this is something that I'm also interested in. I know I read the autobiography of the founder of Starbucks, and it was really important to him that when they went through this big reorganization, everybody made a consistent espresso. And the espresso was like. That was the thing. You start with that and you do it really well. It sounds like you have a similar process that you work with people at your store.

Brittany Feltovic:

Yep, definitely. We don't start with espresso necessarily for our training, just for the way that our cafe works out. We've have, I don't know if you've seen, but we have the pour over bar that we do. So most people, we start on register and then we get them to go on to pour overs and make sure that they can craft like the perfect pour over. And then espresso is kind of the last thing because it's honestly one of the hardest, I think, because it's this constant moving target that's affected by, you know, the air temperature and the humidity levels and even the level of the amount of coffee that's in there. And there's so many different factors. So they really need to be able to understand how to change that and how to make it taste good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I wasn't even really familiar that pour over was a thing until, I don't know, maybe three or four years ago. And it seems like it's become more popular in this neck of the woods. Yeah, why is that? What's the difference between a pour over coffee and a brewed coffee?

Brittany Feltovic:

Fundamentally, it's not really that big of a difference. The big thing is just that you are doing it manually. So it takes a skilled barista to be able to do the work of a machine, like with just a regular brewed cup of coffee, you know that it's gonna be good every time because that machine is set with all the correct parameters and it's doing the same thing over and over and over again. So I think it kind of just shows the expertise of the barista if they can, you know, make something just as good as a machine. For us, we like to have it just to have the different options. We have, you know, two coffees that are ready to go every single day, and then we have an additional five on the pour overboard that you can get at any time. So if you don't like, you know, what the coffee of the day is, then you have these other options or if there's like a specific special coffee that's on the board that you want. Like, currently we have one that is like a dollar extra a cup and you can only get that on pour over. So I think it's just nice to have the different options available to you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

it's funny that I'm sitting here having this conversation with you because I'm really a tea person.

Brittany Feltovic:

Yeah, it's okay.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Actually, I enjoy espresso, but it's more for the caffeine of it. Yeah. Which I won't admit to. Well, I've just admitted it to everybody.

Brittany Feltovic:

So everyone knows now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Everybody knows now. But if I were a coffee drinker, what is the difference between like a light roast, a medium roast, a dark roast? I mean, what are some of the things that people who actually drink coffee and really enjoy it? What are some of the things that people are looking for?

Brittany Feltovic:

Basically, the darker that you roast a coffee, the more that you're kind of masking the flavor. Honestly, in my opinion, the darker that you roast a bean, the more that you're kind of just getting this smoky charcoal essence out of it, which some people really enjoy. Like that's what they're looking for in a cup of coffee. They want that smokiness there and that kind of depth. But when you do a lighter or a medium roast coffee, a lot more of those, like sweet kind of fruity characteristics can come out in a cup of coffee that most people don't think of when they're thinking of a cup of coffee. And there are times where I've had coffee that tastes like a cup of tea. Like it's so delicate. And those are my favorite cups. Honestly, it's almost like a cup of wine where you're finding all of these amazing nuances that it's just a factor of what they're doing at the farm level. So roasting just helps to bring those out.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I'm glad you said that because I have always felt like the reason that for me, coffee I couldn't get into was like almost like Hitting me over the head. It was so strong. And for me, for my palate, it often tasted so bitter. But it's good to hear that, really, that it's not. There are. There's a range.

Brittany Feltovic:

Yeah, there totally is. And it also takes a lot of practice, honestly. When I first started drinking coffee, I was that girl that put toasted marshmallow syrup and everything and, like, a bunch of cream. And when I started working at Bard, they were like, okay, pull me a shot of espresso. I was like, okay, here you go. And they're like, no, you need to taste it. I was like, oh, I don't drink espresso. I don't really drink coffee. And they're like, well, you're going to if you want to work here. So after forcing myself to drink it and drink, I make all of my employees drink their coffee black. Like, the same thing. And after a while, you tend to not notice the bitterness as much and then focus more on those pleasant flavors. And then all of a sudden, it comes together. I think I had my aha moment. Maybe after a year and a half, it took a while.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that is fascinating. And, you know, it's very interesting for me as a doctor, because caffeine has at some points been vilified. So it's a bad thing. Nobody should ever drink coffee because coffee's really bad for you. And then. And most recently, we've heard that coffee use has been linked to a decrease in multiple sclerosis. So we don't really know whether it's good or bad, but clearly people like it. And I'm often with people who like coffee. So now to know that it only takes a year and a half, maybe I will eventually enjoy it myself.

Brittany Feltovic:

Just do, like, one cup a week.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's also interesting because it seems as though this idea of crafting and crafting on a smaller scale is becoming more and more important. The pour over. You know, people get to choose what it is that they're drinking, what it is that their own tastes are more associated with. And this is something that I think, you know, we used to all be like, senka drinkers, like, back, I don't know, 40 years ago or whatever. But now everybody gets to be different.

Brittany Feltovic:

Yeah, I think it's nice, and I think it's nice that people are appreciating quality in a way that, you know, a lot of people are attracted to the great beers and the great wines and the great restaurants. And I feel like coffee is kind of that last thing that everybody's now Starting to pay attention to, which is really great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

There are even pairings that go on with coffee, from my understanding. It's interesting because it's not just coffee goes well with chocolate, for example. Coffee goes well with lots of different things.

Brittany Feltovic:

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So have you explored any of those?

Brittany Feltovic:

Not personally. I'm not very good at the whole creativity pairing things together. But the competitions that I just came back from, their barista competitions, and part of it is they all have to make a signature beverage, and that signature beverage is supposed to highlight the flavors that they're finding in the coffee, not necessarily mimic them. So I've had a lot of interesting drinks that you wouldn't think that those things would go together to elevate this coffee, but they totally do. Like, I think I had one this weekend that had pine tree syrup and clove in it, and it somehow elevated the, like, citrus level of this coffee. So it was really interesting, the different combinations that you can do. It's almost like making a cocktail.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I really love that. I love knowing that, you know, something brings out something else in. In coffee, for example. And I think you're right that it does seem like kind of the last, the final frontier. But it is, again, so different than. It almost seems as though we got to be a bit of a homogenized society. You know, everybody's going to eat the stuff that tastes like this. Everybody's going to eat the stuff that looks like this. But now we've had to almost retrain our palates and get back to a place where we can taste the subtle things, the pine essence or whatever it is that the beans are. Are bringing out. You've worked at Bard now for six years. You've been in coffee for eight years. What does the future look like for you?

Brittany Feltovic:

I think that I would just really like to soak up as much knowledge as I possibly can, and I'm in a very good environment for that, surrounded by many talented people that have been in the industry for a very long time. I'm also supported by somebody who. My boss, Bob, who is willing to send me to anything that I want to go to. Like, there are barista camps and these competitions and everything that I get to go to. I feel like I'm learning more and more each time. I would really like to learn more about the roasting process. I know a fair amount about being a barista, and I think it'd be really nice to kind of go to the roasting side and eventually, you know, go to a coffee farm and see what that's like it's so easy to look at all of these pictures and try to figure out how everything is actually done. But I feel like it's one of those things that until you're there experiencing the process, you don't really get it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's pretty great that this all stemmed from your father saying, okay, here's your ticket. Where do you want to go? And you taking a chance and getting this job at originally at Starbucks and now at Bard and just the fact that you've kind of, you've stayed with it and you've kept layering your experiences and going deeper and deeper into the process. I mean, you've received this great education having started from not even really knowing which direction you wanted to be educated in at all.

Brittany Feltovic:

There were times definitely where I wasn't sure if it was going to take me where I needed to go. But just sticking through has really paid off for me and it's been a very rewarding experience and it's starting to get to the point with my family where they understand that I am doing really well and this is something that's really good for me and I'm making as much money as them and don't have student loans also a bonus. But yeah, it's been a really great experience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Brittany, how do people find out about Bard?

Brittany Feltovic:

Most people find out about it by walking down the street, seeing a Starbucks and then seeing this weird little local coffee shop across the street and taking a chance on it. But a lot of people have been. Our social media has been growing a lot. So I think that that's one aspect I figured out. Instagram finally this year. I feel like everybody's been doing it for years, but it's been really, really fun. Mostly everybody that finds out about it, they're just like walking in and we still have people. We've been open for six years. We still have people to this day that are like, how long have you been here? I've never been here before now for

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

people who are out of town and are maybe planning an old port trip. Do you have a website?

Brittany Feltovic:

Yep, it's www.bardcoffee.com and it has a little bit about the shop and then obviously the coffees that we're currently offering. We have a blog on there as well. You can definitely check out.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate your coming in and talking to me today. My job is also very fun because I get to learn things and today I have learned a lot about coffee. As a non coffee drinker, that's particularly intriguing to me.

Brittany Feltovic:

Hopefully it's inspired you a little.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It has. It has inspired. I mean, I know that there are foods I now eat that I didn't eat when I was younger and it just happened with time. So maybe coffee will become one of those things. We'll see. We've been speaking with Brittany Feltovic, who is the manager of Bard Coffee, which happens to be right across Tommy's park from where we're sitting now. People who are listening go in and visit Brittany at Bard and Brittany. Thanks so much for coming in.

Brittany Feltovic:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine radio show number 184, caffeinated. Our guests have included Murray Carpenter and Brittany Feltovic. Follow me on Twitter and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We'd love to hear from you. So please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our caffeinated show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.