Alabama's STEM explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred.

Holle, Champions of servant leadership, science, technology, engineering, math, all coming up right now on Alabama STEM Explorers.

Hey, my name and welcome to Alabama.

STEM Explorers.

Today, we're at Principio Coffee with my friend Mr. Melvin.

Yes, Peyton.

So nice to meet you.

How are you doing?

Good.

How are you doing?

I'm doing great.

Glad you're here to learn about coffee.

Do you drink coffee?

No.

Well, neither do I.

So we're friends, right?

Okay.

I don't.

I don't like coffee, but I love coffee.

And you don't hear many people say that.

The reason is I don't like the particular the flavor of the coffee.

And I'll tell you more about that later.

Because of the science that's involved in it.

But I love coffee because of what coffee does.

Coffee brings people together, and coffee gives us all an opportunity to visit and to learn more about each other, and especially our coffee, which comes mainly from Honduras.

And that coffee helps us build schools and clinics there with our mission program.

You said that your coffee comes from Honduras.

How is your coffee different from other coffee?

Okay.

Well, the main difference in our coffee is the purpose.

There are coffees from all over the world, but we call our coffee cause coffee because we have a great cause and we work with local people there.

We help the farmer.

We want to give the farmer a better price for his coffee.

And we also want to maximize what he can earn and also what can be returned to his community.

We build schools and clinics and also install water filters and many things that that help a lot of the children in Honduras.

Are there different flavors of coffee?

Yes, there are many different flavors of coffee.

And again, that's a beautiful thing about the science of coffee, because coffee is one of the most unique seeds.

And in all of nature, this is a this is some of the on roasted coffee.

And this is a it's called coffee beans just in general, but it's actually a seed and it comes from a cherry.

So coffee grows on a tree.

It's a hardwood tree.

If it's not prone or crop, they'll actually grow to about 30 feet tall.

But we promote it and crop it so that we're able to pick the coffee from all over the tree.

But it's very versatile.

The flavor is decided by the the variety of coffee.

And if you think about other seeds, run the beans like a black bean is different than a lime.

A bean is different than a pinto bean, but they're all beans.

Coffee is very similar and depending on the variety of coffee, it it alters the flavor of it, plus the kind of soil that it's grown in and the amount of sunlight it gets.

The fertilizer that you use, all that has to do with the flavor of coffee.

And then the biggest thing that makes the flavor of the coffee is what we call the roasting process.

And that's where it goes from this.

Just a raw seed like this, which is one of the most dense and hardest seeds in nature.

And then it goes all the way to this right here, which is the roasted coffee.

And that's what most of us are more used to seeing.

And the a very interesting thing about it is that from this state right here to this state right here in about 15 minutes on this, by the way, you hear that noise back there?

Yeah.

Yeah, That's a coffee roaster.

Yes.

And it's heating up right now.

And so that machine actually takes the coffee from the raw seed to this roasted seed right here in roasted bean.

And this actually goes through about 15,000 chemical changes in the process in about 15 minutes.

So and all along the way there, there are different things happening inside that little seed.

And, you know, one of the really interesting things to me is how did people figure this out hundreds of years ago that all this was available in coffee?

But it's kind of one of the mysteries about the science of nature and how we've accessed it.

Now, the flavor in coffee, as you said, there are different flavors.

The flavor in coffee comes from the essential oils that are in coffee.

And depending on the variety of coffee and where it's grown, it can even have flavors all the way from like a a nutty, like a walnut or even a peanut flavor all the way to the other end of the spectrum that where it could just the natural flavor could taste more like chocolate or even some kinds of fruit, like even blueberry or peach.

So coffee's from all over the world, have a lot of different flavor options.

And so do you ever drink coffee of any kind?

No, not really.

Have you ever tried any of different flavors?

I've tried, so.

Okay.

You've tried some?

Well, so I've tried quite a bit of coffee over the years, especially since I started the coffee company.

But, you know, I found out the science behind why you and perhaps don't like coffee.

Would you like to know that?

Yes.

Well, all right.

I'm going to tell you, there are different configurations of our taste buds.

And 20% of the people in the world have taste buds just through their genetics that are ten times more sensitive to bitter than the other 80% of the people.

And that's one of the heavier falls that's in coffee, has a more of a bitter taste that always stays behind in my mouth and in your ears.

Add to it take a sip of coffee so that no matter what we put in it, no matter how much sweetener, it still has a bitter aftertaste.

Is that the way it is with you?

Okay.

And that's why we don't like coffee.

You said that this was the coffee beans.

If this is the coffee beans.

And what's this?

Okay, this right here is part of the coffee also.

But this is the dried coffee fruit.

Now, this is a this is a new product.

This is something that we're developing here at Principio.

Coffee and tea.

And since I'm a tea drinker and not a coffee drinker, and I saw all this fruit that was just being thrown away once the seed had been taken out of it.

Like if, if you can imagine a cherry, you know, like the big red ripe cherries that many of us like to eat, if you can imagine seeing someone just take those seeds out and then just throwing away all the fruit.

It's like, what are you doing that you know, that's fruit.

But that's what they had done for hundreds of years.

So I took that fruit and dried it and then brewed it like tea and came up with what we call Pescara Care, which is Spanish for home or Husk.

And then we make tea out of that and we'll try some of that a little later.

All right.

And it's a it's a new industry, basically a new product for the coffee farmers.

And the interesting thing about it is that the farmer can double his income with only a 5% increase in his cost.

Once we develop a market for this coffee cherry tea Yeah, so we're excited about that.

So I've heard of darkness and light roast coffee.

What's the difference between them?

Well, it really is exactly what it says.

It depends on how long it's roasted coffee again, goes to a lot of chemical changes.

And when it first starts out and this right here as just the raw coffee seed or coffee bean, it is it has a lot of different essential oils in it.

And then those are developed as it is roasted.

And so it's some of it's roasted like even to as much as 470 degrees.

So it gets very hot and an ordinary seed like if you took a pinto bean or something, if you got it that hot, it would just turn to charcoal.

But coffee is is like a little piece of coal.

It actually has essential oils in it.

And look, why don't you feel some of this here?

Just see how how hard it is.

See if you can do it with your fingernail.

It's a very hard seed.

I can.

Yeah.

It's very dense, more dense than most seeds.

And so it goes through a 15,000 chemical changes in the process.

And along the way it becomes what we call endothermic.

That means that it's like a piece of coal and it starts creating heat from the inside out.

So then it gets hotter, actually because of the heat from the inside than from the heat that's coming from the outside, from the roaster.

And once it begins doing that, then it develops very quickly and it goes from a light roast, which is, you know, a light color.

And this is a this is a very light roast.

You can see that it's just a light brown.

And then as it stays in longer, so you put that back in there, as it stays out a little longer, then it gets to me this, this color.

Ooh.

And you see this has some oil on it.

All right.

Well, the longer it roast, the more all those are developed and brought out in the coffee and the darker the roast, then the more all there is on this coffee.

Once it once it begins to cool off.

What's the difference between this one and this one?

Do they taste different?

Oh, yes, they taste much different.

The the darker.

Okay, So if you think about coffee and the different roast, kind of like a steak and the way you would cook it.

By the way, do you like steak?

Yes.

So how do you like it?

Rare or medium rare?

Well done.

How do you.

I like my medium rare.

Medium rare.

Okay, so then that would be like a light to medium coffee roast.

Right?

So like with with meat when you have a rare steak there.

So there's more of the taste of the natural taste and flavors in the juices that are in the meat.

And if you go all the way to well-done, then you taste more of the the cooked flavor, more of the charred flavor.

Well, that's similar to what it is with coffee.

So a light roast would be like a rare steak.

And you actually get more of the just the natural flavors of the coffee.

And then the darker you roast it, the more of the roast flavor that you get.

Kind of like galactose.

Some people like Latin, you know, red, lightly toasted are the little heavier and so forth.

So another interesting difference is that the longer you roast coffee, the less caffeine it has.

And that's a surprise to many people because a lot of times they like, man, I like mine, real dark and bold and lots of caffeine.

But actually the latter roast has more caffeine because caffeine is in the coffee as an essential oil.

And the hotter it gets and the longer it roast, the more of that evaporates out.

So there's actually less caffeine.

Now, another interesting thing about the whole process, as we talked a little earlier about the coffee cherry, is that we take this, which is has the highest concentration of antioxidants of any fruit, I mean, like 30 times blueberries, even.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yes, that's a lot of antioxidants.

And so it's a super fruit, but it's an unknown super fruit.

So that's what we're wanting to do.

We're going to take something that used to be thrown away by the farmers, but yet is very beneficial health wise.

It's actually harmful to the environment because it takes so much oxygen out of the water when it ends up in the waterways.

So it's a the dried coffee fruit and the tea and all this just it's a great story of redemption.

And by the way, that's what Principio Coffee is all about.

That's crazy to me how coffee is a fruit.

Yes, yes.

And it's a cherry.

It's a tropical cherry.

Unlike the temperate climate cherry that we grow and and eat here in this country.

So.

But since you don't like coffee.

But does anyone in your family drink coffee?

Yes.

Who does?

My mom.

Your mom.

And what roasters do you even know?

What roast she prefers?

No, just coffee.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I'll tell you what.

We can find out what roast she prefers.

And.

And we'll send her some, and then she can tell you because you don't drink it, but she can tell you if it's really good or not.

Yeah.

Could you tell me a little bit more about your coffee and what your mission is?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you for asking.

Yes, We started our coffee company as a result of a mission that we already had going in Honduras.

I went there first in 2008 and we went there to build a school in a rural area.

Then I found out that there were people in the area who grew coffee, and so I asked them about helping with coffee, and they weren't interested at first because they didn't trust us.

But I went back to that area for six years, several times a year, never mentioned anything about coffee again.

After six years, they said, okay, Mel Vito, which is my name in Honduras, it means little Melvin I said, okay, Mel Vito, if you want to talk about coffee, we'll talk.

So I said, Well, I'm not a coffee drinker, but I'll be glad to see what I can do.

So that's when we formed Principio Coffee Company, which is a nonprofit, which doesn't mean we don't make a profit.

I mean, every company, even a nonprofit, it has to make a profit.

It becomes a non existent.

So we do make profits, but it's just what we do with the profits.

All the profits 100% of the profits of our coffee and our team go back to Honduras and to the communities there to build schools and clinics.

And again, with with with water filters.

Wow.

Yes.

And it's a it's one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done.

Yes, it really has.

You said that you saved the coffee husks.

What do you actually do with that?

Well, I'm glad you asked that question, because I'm going to let you decide whether or not we have a good project going here.

All right.

All right.

So we take the dried coffee cherry again, which the farmer had been throwing away.

And are you good at math?

Yes, you are.

Okay, then.

You'll love this number because there are a lot of zeros here.

There is more than 200 million tons.

200 million tons of coffee, cherry that's thrown away every year around the world.

And that is harmful to the environment.

So by taking that and bringing it here to the states and making a beverage out of it, it's actually helping the environment.

And it's also very healthy.

And so we take this and we grind it and we mix it with other things.

This is this is what it looks like ground.

All right.

You want to get a whiff of that?

Wow.

Yeah, That smells good.

Yes.

And then so we mix the coffee cherry with this.

Put your hand out here.

What's this?

What do you think that is?

Just look at it.

What does that look like?

I don't know.

Okay, well, this right here is a flower petal.

Oh, wow.

These are.

This is from the hibiscus flower.

So these are just actually picked and then dried.

So this is a flower petal.

So we take that and then we take this right here.

Put a little bit of this right here is lemongrass.

And we grow this on our farm in Honduras.

Can you get a whiff of that?

That smells like lemon.

Yes, it really does.

It's really rich in in that in citronella.

So we combine the dried coffee fruit, the petals from their hibiscus flower and then dried lemongrass, and we get what we call trinity because our three holy ingredients, our trinity.

And we have some made for you out here.

And as you can see, this looks a bit like coffee, right?

Yeah, but actually it's a mixture of the dried coffee, fruit, hibiscus flower and the lemongrass.

And then it has a little bit of honey in it.

Do you like honey?

Yes.

Okay.

So you've never tasted this before, right?

So we're going to be real bold here.

And we are.

So take a little sip.

And if it's not good, go ahead and swallow and smile anyway.

Oh, that's good.

Okay, you know what?

We just made a coffee drinker out of you, but it's the coffee cherry tea.

Not from the coffee seed.

How about that?

All right, that's all right.

And now this is so high in antioxidants that one cup of this a day will give you your daily required amount of antioxidants.

Wow.

And that's so important to health, so important for your immune system.

And there are a number of other things I want to leave that right there.

You may want to taste again after a while, huh?

It is very sweet.

I like it.

Yes.

And there are a lot of other health benefits also, too.

Coffee for the other health benefits.

Okay.

One of the main ingredients that's healthy in coffee is called chlorogenic acid.

What's that?

Chlorogenic acid is a naturally occurring compound that's found in plants and especially in coffee.

And it's very helpful in regulating the systems of your body.

It's very healthy and helping regulate your heartbeat and also the sugar levels in your blood.

And it's the chlorogenic acid is also an appetite suppressant.

And that's why that coffee drinkers will know what I'm talking about here.

If you're hungry and you don't have food right away, then if you drink some coffee, then it kind of takes the appetite away.

Well, it's not just the liquid that you drink, it's the chlorogenic acid that is an appetite suppressant.

And so we've taken the coffee and roasted it just a little bit here to a mid roast.

This is not even quite to a light roast yet, but the chlorogenic acid is still very high in the content here.

So we grab this into a powder and we use that as a health supplement to get extra chlorogenic acid.

So what we're wanting to do is to get all the health benefits of the coffee, sell as much of it as we can everywhere that we can, so we turn as much as we can back to Honduras, to the farmers and to their community.

I know coffee was healthy.

Yes.

You know, it's actually the things that people put in the coffee that may not be quite as healthy.

Like sugar.

Yeah, Like the Creamers.

Yes.

And some of the creamers are more or less healthy that not as healthy for you.

But there are a lot of alternatives.

Now, you can use almond milk or oat milk, so some people who who can't take dairy can use some of those other creamers.

But you know, there are other flavors that you can put in coffee like hazelnut and you can put There's even a pecan flavor.

We have a pecan flavor, southern pecan roast and then we can also put spices in it like cinnamon.

I know you could put spices in coffee.

Yes.

Coffee is a very versatile drink and it really works well with a lot of different flavors.

And as you put.

But we don't put that in until after we roast it and grind it.

Okay.

So that's one thing we didn't talk about, about the coffee yet.

So once you get the coffee down like this, okay, hang on to that.

And then we have to grind it because it has to be brewed.

And that's another part of the chemistry and the science about coffee is that the flavor is extracted with hot water.

And, you know, I just happen to have some right here that that we're going to brew.

And this is called a pour over, basically because you just wear water over it.

All right.

And this is the ground coffee.

And you've seen that before.

Yeah.

Do you like to smell the coffee?

I like the smell.

Well, so do I.

It's just that bitter flavor there that really gets me.

Okay, Now, one thing I want you to notice as my friend, why don't you pour this?

Can you do that?

Yes.

Okay.

Just start out slowly and.

Okay, Wait just a moment.

Okay, So you see it's bubbling up.

Okay, That's.

That's actually that release and carbon dioxide.

There's a lot of carbon dioxide as a gas.

Look at there.

It's really bubbling there now.

I know there was gas and coffee.

Yes.

Yes.

There's carbon dioxide and there's actually more of it right after it roasts.

And so coffee goes through a process that we're calling Degassing.

And that's why some people think, well, freshly roast coffee, just as soon as it's roasted, let's grab it and drink it.

That's not when it's its best flavor.

It has a lot of carbon dioxide, which affects the flavor.

So if you let coffee, if you wait for a couple of days after you roast it and let it take gas, some then that it tastes better.

Okay, go ahead and put a little more.

Okay.

You're Oh, look at it, man.

It's as it heats up now, it's really bubbling, huh?

Okay.

And then you can see this wonderful golden brown brew coming in the bottom.

And for the people that that are watching this, that like coffee, they're just thinking, man, they would love to have a sip of that.

Does this coffee made this way taste better than in a coffee maker?

Well, yes.

Yes.

It has a lot different taste because the way you brew coffee has a lot to do with the way it tastes.

And again, the science of it is that everything has everything affects the flavor of the coffee water, really.

It needs to be between 203 and 207 degrees.

I know that's a very narrow window there, but it needs to be 203 to 207 degrees in order to get the very best brew.

If the water is too hot, then it extracts too much of the bitterness out of the coffee.

If it's not hot enough, it doesn't extract enough of the good flavors to go in, pour in a little more and say what you're doing.

Now you're controlling the okay, that's good.

You're controlling the rate of extraction.

So you pour in the water in and let the ground sit in the hot water just a little while and then it just kind of goes to the bottom.

There you see it's getting a little darker as it's building up there.

And so just what you would call our Mr. Coffee, you know, just a regular brew of where you put it in the filter and, you know, hit a button, pour water in it.

Many times those coffee makers don't get the water hot enough like that.

They get it to like two 180 or 190.

But that's really not hot enough to get the very best flavors out of the coffee and coffee is known to have flavor notes, we call it, so that there's a lot of there's a lot of different flavors that are available.

And really the more flavors that you can define and pick up on in coffee, the usually, the more expensive that coffee is.

So that would be a lot of different flavor notes that you would have.

So what's next for Principio coffee?

Well, we actually have a 50 year plan for Principio our mission and the coffee is a very important part of that.

And what we want to do is develop more members in our co-op there so we can get more farmers involved, so we can take the profits from that and send back to their village.

And again, we want to build schools and clinics and water filters.

And the goal of Principio mission and Principal Coffee is that 50 years from now, when someone is born in Honduras, they will have a better opportunity because we were able to take their great coffee and develop it into something, and especially the coffee Cherry team that you and I could enjoy.

And then the profits can be shared back with them.

Peyton I really hope that next time you see your mom or your grandmother make coffee, that you look at it a little differently so that you'll know, man, the water needs to be a certain temperature.

And that actually probably came from a family farm somewhere in coffee growing country in the tropics.

And there are a lot of things that went into it.

So hopefully you'll be able to have a better appreciation for it.

Well, thank you, Mr. Melvin, for having me here today.

Join us next time for another episode of Alabama STEM Explorers.

Thanks for watching.

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Alabama STEM explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Holle, champions of servant leadership.