TORERO 3 Star Great Taste Award on LMFM

Alex Goodman and Barry Gibbs, Greenbean Coffee. LMFM

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Alex Goodman, Barry Gibbs, Greenbean Coffee

Transcript:

Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
You’re very welcome back Paul to the Coes Road to Greenbean Coffee Roasters, and we’re having a ball here. I never saw such resplendent looking machines inside, in the foyer here, and one of the ladies who’s responsible for how they look in the shops around the place and how the coffee is presented, this award winning coffee, is Alex Goodman. She’s the Business Development Manager here at Greenbean. And Alex goes around all of the coffee shops, and tells them about all the different blends. That sounds like a wonderful job, Alex, but I’m sure it’s quite demanding as well.

Alex Goodman, Greenbean Coffee
Now, it is. Yes. But part of my job is to go to coffee shops that we don’t deal with all over the country. And so that’s kind of… What I love is meeting new people, seeing how they develop coffee because not every coffee shop is the same. Not everyone has the same machine, the same type of coffee, or they serve coffee the same way.

So I love going into new places and learning from them whether they agree to come with us, Greenbean, as coffee partners. I love to learn how they do stuff. How they serve coffee, even how they deal with customers because from that, I can develop myself. Because that’s my role as Business Development Executive. So I’m always trying to find something new to help bring Greenbean forward to bring it to a new section we’ve never been to before. Even through lockdown and COVID we’ve seen coffee containers, horseboxes, trailers, something we never imagined in Ireland, happening.

Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
There’s just been a plethora and everywhere you look somebody was serving coffee. What is it about it? Because you will hear people say “Oh God, I didn’t like that coffee at all”. And then you’ll hear other people saying “you’ve got to come with me here I’ve discovered a fabulous place that has fabulous coffee”.

Alex Goodman, Greenbean Coffee
Well, years ago, I used to be a barista myself. And we were trained that it’s the experience that people come back to. Whether the coffee is beautiful? A lot of times it’s the barista who serves it. It’s the way it’s served, it’s the cup it comes in. And so I always love to look for a takeaway cup that has something different to the coffee shop next to it. So it’s the experience itself, which I try to bring forward in new Greenbean coffee partners that I try to develop their own kind of singular way to make something different to other coffee shops as well.

Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
I’m sure the award, with 14,000 entrants across the water there, that has to be really a very, very big arrow in your quiver.

Alex Goodman, Greenbean Coffee
Well, it is now like. We have had a few great taste awards previously. But this is a different standard altogether. It’s a three star and to be one of the few coffee roasters on the island of Ireland to win it and achieve it. It’s something that we’re going to talk about a lot because it is a great coffee. Whether you enjoy coffee as espresso, Americano or a milky coffee, it works all the way through so you can take the blend and you can serve it any way you want. Because it works perfectly as it goes.

Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
Well. It just led me very nicely because I’m going to go over to Barry Gibbs there. Now he’s the customer service and barista training guy here at Greenbean. And we were talking and Alex just alluded to all these Italian expressions. Yeah, okay, good morning, Barry. I mean, you were saying to me off air, and tell the listeners for instance, espresso, Americano. How did they come about?

Barry Gibbs, Greenbean Coffee
Well, most of the coffee terminology here now actually stems back to the Italian, even “espresso”. When we speak of it, most people will think it’s “go faster”. It’s actually “under pressure” which is what an espresso machine is, it’s all about pressurised water to get the fine coffee out of that machine. So it’s not speed at all. No. Well, it is in many other ways. But even “Americano” would have stemmed back from World War Two when the American soldiers went into the Italian cafes and just kind of found the coffee a little bit too strong, so they added water to it. So the next time the Yankee soldier called back in again, the Italian cafe owners said “ah Americano, Americano”.
Even a cappuccino. I mean, Cappuccino (name is) devised from the Capuchin monks and the tunics they wore, that creates the color on the cappuccino as well. So it all comes back to pretty much Italian terminology. Which I actually quite like.

Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
You’re stripping away layers of mystique there. It’s very different when you hear what’s at the back of them, aren’t they? And when you’re training staff around the place, what would be the one key thing, to all the people who are home, bearing in mind that they’re not baristas, ok?

Barry Gibbs, Greenbean Coffee
Okay. Everybody can be a barista. I like to call them coffee makers, Pat in all fairness.

Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
What is the one key thing you’d say, right? Here’s the key, aside from having your Greenbean beans? Okay. What is the one key thing they need to do to make sure that it’s a perfect coffee?

Barry Gibbs, Greenbean Coffee
Okay, well, most of the coffee, like 99% of the coffees that you’d find in cafes, outside filter coffee will come from an espresso based. Your macchiatos, your cortados, your lattes, americanos, cappuccinos, mochas, you name it. It all comes from that perfect espresso extraction. That’s what it’s about, and if you get that right, with a really good bean like Greenbean, I mean, everything else can fall into place. There are techniques and consistency and so on, so on. But if you get that proper espresso right, you know, everything after that it’s quite easy.

Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
I’ve seen a lot of inside on the machines here this morning, it’s like a work of art. I don’t think I could ever achieve anything like that…

Barry Gibbs, Greenbean Coffee
There is a little bit of art and science attached to it. Like every coffee would have a recipe per se, and that’s where I love coming in. But as a barista trainer, especially with Greenbean clients, I’m constantly making sure that consistency is there all the time. It’s such a competitive market.

Pat O’Shaughnessy, LMFM
It is and you’re doing so well. And it’s wonderful. And thank you very much, both of you for that wonderful insight. We have to go back to the studio, Paul and go back in again. And I hope that I might get a little trail through how it all happens. We might get a little flavor, forgive the pun, for how it all comes together. And we’ll talk to you, I suppose, sometime after 12 o’clock and see how that goes.

Talk to you then. (Back to studio)