Aaron, Chris, and Wade sit down with Lily and Michelle Soehadi, who founded Kopani Coffee in November, 2024. Alongside roasting delicious coffee, they've served drinks from their signature menu on their coffee cart, and held educational events to enrich their community's experience of coffee. Their story and approach to coffee are driven by gotong royong, a commitment to mutual enrichment in community settings, a value they carry from their Indonesian heritage, but especially from their late mother. Coupled with a drive to truly learn and teach about coffee, Kopani continues to grow in every direction, telling an inspiring story along the way.

Mentioned in this episode

Kopani Coffee (@kopanicoffee) - Cat & Cloud (@catcloudcoffee) - Wonderstate Coffee (@wonderstatecoffee) - Friedhats (@friedhats) - Mill City Roasters (@millcityroasters)

Shoutouts

Ugly Duck (@uglyduckcoffee) - The Potted Bean (@the_pottedbean) - Whole Latte Love (@wholelattelove)

Mentioned in this episode:

Food About Town

Food About Town hosted by Chris Lindstrom, focusing on restaurants, food and drink of all kinds, and whatever topics I want to cover! https://foodabouttown.captivate.fm/

Joe Bean Roasters

Joe Bean Coffee - Coffee that lifts everyone. https://shop.joebeanroasters.com

Connections with Evan Dawson

Connections with Evan Dawson - Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Connections

When it used to Internet properly.

Welcome to Dialed In.

I'm Wade Read.

Yep.

And I'm Aaron Pascucci and our producer

Chris Lindstrom is here and wants you to know about it.

Well, it's five o' clock somewhere.

And apparently here in the studio, we don't have daylight savings.

No, this is the studio time zone officially.

Yes.

This is a completely unincorporated zone of the New York State region of these semi United States.

That's great.

So my whole family lives in Arizona.

They don't do daylight savings there either.

So if they don't have to, we don't have to.

So they don't have water there.

We.

We can't.

We can't treat them as like full people in this world.

So it's no water, no basements.

That's just.

That's just my family.

So for those of you who didn't actually follow, it's actually six o'.

Clock.

It is, actually.

Oh, I'm glad to hear.

I thought we just had a lot of extra time tonight.

And we are joined by Lily and Michelle Suhadi of Kopani Coffee.

Say hello.

Hello.

Happy to be here.

Yes.

Awesome.

We're excited to talk to you.

I think, you know, just cruising the website and just having had a couple conversations.

It's.

It's exciting to hear your story.

And before we dive into it though, Aaron, how's your week?

Did you drink good coffee this week?

I always drink good coffee, Wade.

Good week.

Except I keep going through it a little too fast.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

I had to go to the Wegmans and buy something.

Yikes.

Yeah, yikes.

Did you, like, forget to pick up your jar?

The jars are pick up now.

Your jars must be shrinking.

I can neither confirm nor deny.

I mean, the glass is the same size, but the coffee must be like getting smaller or something more delicious.

You're drinking more of it.

I love it.

I love it.

But we've been good.

I mean, other than the fact that it was like 70 earlier and it's snowing today.

Like, what the heck is with that?

Yeah, I mean, it was.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

We.

We got too used to the sun.

Right, right.

That was.

Yeah.

Chris, how about you?

Oh, coffee I've had this week.

So I did get one of the fellow drops recently.

So my first time trying one that I think you'd mentioned before was cat and cloud.

You got the cat cloud drop.

I did.

Josiah got the cat cloud drop, and we tried the paranema.

Yeah.

Oh, my goodness.

It was a delightful.

It was so weird.

So it Was is a Honduras origin coffee.

It was anaerobic and different yeast and like, it's.

It's typically.

It's a little darker roasted than I typically prefer.

So it's like, in that, like, I would say medium plus specialty.

Like, there's a little oily sheen on the beans.

So I would say is like, it's a medium plus specialty, but the balance was really nice.

And it was a funky, weird coffee.

Some like fresh pineapple, some like, deep funk to it.

Yeah, definitely a little bit of funk to it.

It was pretty.

Pretty damn tasty.

You know, I don't love doing those all the time.

I love supporting, you know, the local roasters and everything, but it's nice to get that variety and try out different stuff.

Absolutely.

So that.

That one's been great.

And then also Wonder State is the current guest at Ugly Duck, and we've had that, I'd say, a couple times already.

And I really enjoy what they're doing.

Very cool.

Yeah, that Cat Cloud party name, I think it's interesting because as a variety, I think it gets a lot of love, but really more traditional cuppers tend to score it a lot lower.

So there's like this little pocket of hate for paranima in the industry and in a lot of examples I've had, you know, because as we previously said, we're old guys, I didn't love it.

I thought this was an excellent example of the variety and the funk to it, but also also of balance.

So Cat Cloud.

And they really know what they're doing.

I have always liked their coffee.

I'm excited anytime I can try it.

It's also a real cool ass bag.

Yes.

Great bag.

The beautiful, like, like sky, like, intense sky blue to pink gradient with, like, punchy, almost, almost graffiti white graphics on it.

Looks like it belongs in a pop tart commercial.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

In the best way possible.

Yeah.

Real distinct style.

And I was like, if you're going to have a bag, either be completely uniform and neutral or bring some real style to it.

Awesome.

Yeah, I go uniform and neutral, so it's.

It's a good change of pace behind the bar at AM FM to see some cat cloud.

So nice.

You.

You put a lot of thought into your coffee packaging, didn't you?

The.

I tried to get someone else to do it, but that's a story for another time.

Lily and Michelle.

All right, so we finally made it out here and, you know, it took us a minute, but super excited to have y' all on.

So why don't y' all introduce yourselves and who you are and what you do.

Yeah.

So I'll start.

I'm Lily Suhadi.

I like to think of myself as kind of the coffee person for Kani.

So I'm our head roaster, do all the product development, and we are.

What is Kani?

We are just a micro roastery here in Rochester.

We are women owned, Indonesian led, and we're sisters as well.

And then this is my sister, Michelle.

Thanks, Lily.

My name is Michelle.

My stake in Kopani is kind of heading brand and strategy, community outreach, public relations.

My background is in business management and marketing management.

So I try to bring that to the table while Lily's the coffee wizard here doing her awesome things.

That's fantastic.

So how did Kapani get started?

What was, like, the first conversation y' all ever had about it?

Was it recent, or was this, like, the dream from your childhood?

Yeah.

I just started as a home barista and then got super into coffee and getting a little bit more nerdy with that.

Actually, my original idea was just to move up in the banking field, retire, and then get into coffee.

Yeah, great.

Wow.

Been in progress for a little bit.

Okay, cool.

So what was, like, what was the first production day?

Official production day.

We launched early November of last year.

So maybe second or third week of November was our first actual day roasting, getting orders out and everything.

Oh, awesome.

So how were you getting orders?

Was it wholesale?

Was at retail?

Online?

What were.

What were you doing?

So in November, I believe it was November 5th, is when we officially said Kopani is open.

We did it exclusively online via our website.

Awesome.

And then from there, I would say we launched that last November.

Come February, me and my sister went fully operational with Kopani.

We opened up our micro roastery to the public, and then we launched our copy cart to also brew what we're roasting and have people try that out.

So sweet.

That's awesome.

And what was, like, the first event

with the cart that, honestly, right after we launched in November, we hit the ground running.

We got connected with SUNY Brockport, and we did a.

What was it called?

Brew and Blajar.

And blajar means learn in Indonesian.

Fantastic.

So we did a coffee cupping demo, brewing demo for the students at Brockport and teaching them a little bit about coffee.

And was that like through a department?

Was it just like in the common area or what was that like?

Yeah, that was actually my sorority sister.

I'm part of a Omega Phi Beta sorority, incorporated, so she works in the student center at the cultural center at Brockport.

Assisted put us in the running to like put an event on for the students.

So that's how we got connected.

So that part of Brockport specifically we've been partnering with.

That's awesome.

You love to hear it.

Tell me more about becoming a home barista, though.

Like what, what got you into it?

How does, how do we get there?

So I don't want to say shamefully, but the start of it, the origin story was Starbucks.

It usually is.

I mean, I don't know if you heard Anthony Cafaro of Potted Bean.

His origin story was Tim Hortons.

Right, so exactly.

Same idea.

Yeah.

Gotta start somewhere.

You know, everyone starts somewhere.

But I was in high school at the time, so I picked up just a part time job for Starbucks.

Okay.

I think I just really wanted to perform.

Well.

My only experience prior to was Burger King, so very, very different.

So through that I just did like my own research on YouTube, honestly, of how to make a latte, how to

do espresso, Discovered James Hoffman.

Yes, obviously.

Of course.

So hold on.

Was your drinking coffee at Burger King or just working there?

Just working there.

Okay.

I was curious.

I was desperate.

I would tap into that coffee.

Sure.

But it was one of those things, like.

We haven't heard that one before.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay, continue.

Sorry.

No, no, you're good.

So it kind of starts there.

I worked at Starbucks for like a blimp, maybe two, three months or so at most.

And then one of my friends actually gifted me a little Breville Barista Express.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

So, so then through that, I definitely got more into the espresso side of things and then picked up a V60 and then just continued down the rabbit hole from there.

Yeah.

Each new toy, you know, and then more videos to watch on technique and more beans to try.

Like the algorithm starts pushing you all the different roasters and stuff.

Yeah, Very cool.

That's incredible.

I have a quick question.

Do you guys know if other podcasts, like, their ads are algorithm derived, like in between, I mean.

Yes, that's.

That's a very common thing when it comes to podcasts, often location based but, yes, that's how they often work, because

I knew it was.

Most of them are not actually targeted because I was.

I knew it was location based, but there's one podcast I listened to, and the ad in the middle is coffee related.

And I'm like, this can't be.

This can't be an accident.

Right.

And it's like a political podcast, too, so it has nothing to do with coffee.

Right.

Funny.

So y' all mentioned your website.

That's kind of the platform you launched from.

It's one of the better coffee websites I think I've ever seen.

Kapanicoffee.com so everybody go check it out.

There's a.

There's great content on there.

Chris, I see you got it up.

It's.

It really isn't.

It's incredibly well put together.

I noticed a few themes, and I kind of want to ask you about some of that stuff now that we understand where kind of where Kapani's at.

Your mom is really ever present in the story of the business on the website, at least.

What are the things passed down by your mom that you want the business to pass on to people who drink Kapani?

Yeah, absolutely.

So this is very much so an homage to our mom.

Kopi means coffee in Indonesian.

Ani is our mom's name.

And we really wanted to accentuate what she kind of taught us growing up.

Hospitality and inviting people into your space.

Being comfortable is something we've always wanted to accentuate with Kopani.

She always wants us to.

I remember her always telling us, you know, making people feel comfortable and welcomed, and that's something.

Thing we want to almost personify into Kopani.

Making coffee accessible, approachable, coming as you are.

And our little slogan crafted with care.

I mean, that is deeply rooted in personal value.

There's a lot of intention behind it, and my ma was a giving person sometimes to.

To a fault.

But, you know, just as we're starting up and scaling up, too, with building our resources, then goal here is that Kopani can give back to.

To the community.

It's.

That's just incredibly inspiring.

It's.

It's the finding coffee after.

After losing someone, you know, so close to you.

And I wonder if you'd be willing to read from the website the.

It says, a note for Mama.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because, yeah, it is incredible.

And I think it.

It shows so much of your hearts and where you're coming from and what this whole thing means to you.

So if you don't mind reading that.

Yeah, for sure.

So a note for Mama Surat untok Mama Ma.

We carry you in every roast.

Kani is our way of saying trimakasi for your care, your courage, and the warmth you made from simple things.

We named this place for you.

Copi and ani held together.

When the roaster hums, we hear your steady voice.

When we cup a new profile, we look for rasa.

The taste and feeling that lingers because you taught us what lasts is how we make people feel.

We promise to lead with kindness, work with integrity, and keep community at the center.

Gotong Royang always time is ours because you gave it first.

We'll spend it well.

With love, Lillian.

Michelle.

That's so nice.

That is incredible.

And there's so many things in there.

We are always kind of talking about groups that are coffee first and people that maybe coffee's present but not the most important thing.

I feel like when I read that, it's as though it's both coffee first, but somehow it's not the most important thing.

But you're definitely not leaving it behind.

But there is another driving force, and it's really.

I. I look at that and.

And the things you've talked about so far, and we're probably going to talk about more hospitality and welcoming and.

And then I put that next to doing an educational event for your first event.

How, like, what is the.

How hard is it to keep those two things going?

And do you ever just feel like we've been leaning too hard here?

We need to move over here?

We've been leaning too hard.

Like, what is the balance for, like, being coffee forward but also having so much heart in the game?

I think we like to say both.

And rather than, you know, either or which is first.

I feel like in our framework or just how we operate day to day, everything really plays hand in hand.

So it's hard to say, you know, coffee is more important, community is more important.

I think they both equally work with each other to keep both pushing at the same time.

And I think it's just kind of finding that balance.

And it definitely goes into Kotong Royang as well.

Can you explain that a little bit?

Kotong Royang.

Yeah.

So that's like a phrase we say back home in Indonesia.

Essentially.

It's like a mutual copy cooperation.

It's almost like this inherent responsibility to take care of the community, even in.

In your Successes and what have you.

There is this.

We got you, we all got each other concept.

And even with that, like, the intention behind it all, even with our logo, we have also shout out to Big Bro.

We have an older brother and he's been a part of the mix as well.

Like, there's three dots on our logo to symbolize the siblings behind it as well.

So I don't know, we wanted to make sure.

And we took our time with everything too, because we.

As if our ma was still here, we want to give it the best we got.

And with the gotong royang, with the hospitality that you mentioned too.

I mean, I think that's also just how we are culturally as people.

We come from humble beginnings too.

Maybe we don't have much, but whatever, we got to give 100%.

That's what we're going to do.

And I think education is one of the, I guess most.

There's no price on education, you know, knowledge is free.

It's something that's always ever growing.

So what better way to touch points with people, too?

With the knowledge and power of that.

Yeah.

100.

Isn't it funny how we used to talk about that barrier, about how, like, snobby we used to be, like, as far as specialty coffee and we're hearing more and more about people driving education like this about it more than anything else.

Yeah.

I mean, I wonder why.

Yeah, I think maybe what you're getting at, it's kind of where my mind went to.

Like, why is it so usually so one or the other.

We do.

See, a lot of this is all about community.

And then people either don't know about coffee or don't care to talk about it, or, you know, me, which is like, I'm constantly gaining more and more knowledge about coffee, but please don't talk to me about it.

And I. I just.

I wonder what the difference is, you know, for y'.

All.

Is it.

Is it.

I think, you know, maybe the cultural resource is a big part of it.

And also just, I mean, it seems like your personalities, like, would you consider yourselves pretty outgoing, pretty social people or.

I mean, because I'm very not.

So honestly, I'm not either.

I think my sister.

Yeah, roasters, I'm telling you.

Yeah, here we go.

I'm just an introvert.

I like to kind of keep to myself, but when it comes to really any of my passions, I'm super happy to share with people.

And I think that's really the main driver for me personally and then even within my own coffee journey, I just.

I know that Indonesia is one of the largest producers of coffee, but I never saw it for some reason.

So that, too, is just kind of one of my personal drivers.

I'd love to.

I think it's a very privileged position to be in, to be able to share my culture with people and share it through coffee, which is just something I really love to do also.

So I think it's.

A lot of it is just who we are as people and just having the humility to not say, I know everything, but I'm happy to share what I do know with you.

Sure.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

And I think to that point, too, like, the.

The cultural aspect of it all, I think with coffee, transparently, I didn't know anything about coffee until me and my sister really started working together on it.

But for me, I'm always a sucker for connection, just getting together in Indonesian.

There's also, like, a non Krong culture, like, just kind of hanging out after work.

You get a cup of coffee, and you kind of just chill with your friends and famous.

We've always had that in our household.

And I feel like coffee is just such a fun, malleable vessel of connection, whether it's learning about it, just drinking it, or just talking about, you know, I do K cups or I do a pour over.

What is your preference?

I think that's always just really intriguing to learn about as we continue to grow with this.

Yeah.

I love that you're giving me one too many soundbites to cut for the reels right now.

Amazing.

It is really a unique perspective.

Yeah.

So, Lily, you know, you interview.

Wade's got his cave.

Where is your cave?

Yes.

And what are you roasting on?

And, you know, give us the.

The nitty gritty details there.

Yeah, absolutely.

So we have a little cave.

I love our cave.

We are off of 40 Humboldt Street.

Okay.

Where that is.

I'm not great with geography, so I couldn't really tell you.

It's a northwton village area.

Yes.

Yeah, definitely.

It's like Culver and Humboldt.

The culvert.

I always forget Culver.

And then our production, we're roasting on a bellwether.

For our space especially, it was just easy entry to market, not needing ventilation and everything.

And then we do also have a little kaleido M1 light just for sampling, getting our rose profiles up there so we can translate that for production.

So as far as workflow, start on the sample roaster and then scale things up.

Sure.

Can I geek out a little bit about the Bellwether, please.

I just have just a moment.

So I have a friend who was Bellwether tech in the area and was one of the only ones in, like, New York when Bellwether really, like, was first kind of coming into this market.

And she told me she could have quit her other job and just done that because, like, there were so many software updates and they were so buggy when they first came out.

Is it, like, have they gotten more reliable?

Like, I really hope they have.

I really hope that hasn't been your experience.

That's been this huge headache.

You know, knock on wood.

Everything's been good with ours so far.

And then, you know, with anything, just keeping up with the cleaning and the maintenance.

I know it's a. I was in espresso machine sales, so I kind of equated to that.

I know it's relatively automated, but you still got to clean it the same way as, like, a traditional drum roaster.

And then, to my knowledge, I could be wrong.

They had a different model that was larger.

That was the one that was buggy.

Okay, cool.

Oh, great.

Yeah, we have the smaller model.

We can only do, like, 1.5 kilos at a time, and then it has a continuous loader, so it can keep running those small batches.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

I mean, I'm glad to hear it because, I mean, yeah, machine headaches are the worst, so.

So, yeah.

And I've just since then, been super skeptical of Bellwether, but, like, obviously there's lots of room to grow for all of us, so that's really cool.

And it's a very.

It's a very cool roaster, too.

Absolutely.

Great idea.

For context.

Electric and a lot of, you know, that constant flow and everything else.

There's a lot of really good ideas.

It's just a matter of always execution.

Yeah.

And it makes a ton of sense that when you have that many good ideas and you're trying to put them all in one one machine, that it would take a little while, a couple generations for it to come out to where it's.

It's working well, for sure.

That's awesome.

And drinking the Sumatra tonight, like, it's working well.

This is really great.

Really great.

Aaron, what do you think?

Mine's gone.

I already drank mine.

I was saving because I wasn't sure what we were going to do a little bit.

Well, I'm going to ask you what you think that's what we're going to do.

No, I like it.

I mean, brewed well, too.

Reminds Me a little bit of lvo's European blend.

Oh, really?

A little bit.

It's a little darker.

It's got that, I don't know, it lingers a lot, which I appreciate because I realized like half the reason I drink my coffee throughout the whole morning.

Morning is I just want something like tasting on the back of my tongue like all day.

I don't know why, but there you go.

Yeah, I like it.

And I was just remarking, you know, you said you hadn't seen Indonesian coffee.

I was telling Michelle I used to work at Pete's and that was a lot of what we carried.

It was the majority of what we carried.

And I was just realizing that since I've been really heavy into specialty coffee, I haven't seen like, I haven't seen a Sumatra in forever, you know?

Yeah, I haven't.

I've found a couple I wanted to source, but I'm like, I don't know.

I don't know.

I have a love hate with it, you know, I think a lot of specialty coffee associates it with maybe more of the Starbucks, that kind of.

That wave of coffee.

Yep.

And I know that's not right.

One of my favorite Sumatras was from Stumptown.

It was a Gallo and it was just.

Man, it was amazing.

How would you describe this coffee?

Like.

Like what do you want us to pick out?

Yeah, that one is what we actually use on the coffee cart.

So I mainly brew it as espresso.

I'm really a pour over person myself.

So that's what we did today.

I like to think of it as just definitely your traditional wet hulled coffee where you get that earthiness to it.

It's very chocolatey and deep in that sense.

But whether the way I brew it or just kind of how we roasted it too, I wanted to keep it.

It's definitely not a light roast, but just keep it lighter so you don't get that muddiness to it.

It's very balanced.

It's very balanced.

Yeah, definitely.

So real quick before break, wet hulling.

Yes.

Do you want to explain wet hauling or should I?

Yeah, no, I'm happy to.

I kind of think of it as an in between washed and natural coffee.

So you predominantly will get really nice body to it.

It does unfortunately mute some of the fruitiness I've had from some Indonesian coffees.

But I'd say it's somewhat similar to washed, where usually with a washed coffee you remove that parchment layer after the drying process, essentially, since Indonesia is so humid.

To speed that up, they'll do the hauling portion of it while it's still partially wet and then finalize the drying afterwards.

Yeah.

And it.

It does make the beans kind of look a little bit more wrinkly.

And these typically ship at, like, a 13, 14% moisture content, which, you know, more normal is like 11.

I think for a while, 11 was specialty standard.

What's really funny is I'm getting a lot of anaerobics right now.

They're all under 9%.

And I'm like, this is so weird.

And they're super brittle.

But then, yeah, they.

And they roast interestingly.

But we'll not go down that rabbit hole.

Instead, we're going to take our first break, and

we'll be right back.

And we're back.

I got you, Wade.

Wow.

They're all coming for me.

And we're back, back, back with Lily and Michelle Suhadi of Kopani Coffee.

Where's the emphasis?

Yes.

Okay.

And we were just talking more about this Sumatra and had a lot more thoughts.

And I think what Chris was saying and.

And you guys were kind of confirming that I.

That is incredible to me was this bolt of lightning for me is that you all talk about hospitality and welcoming everyone in, and this coffee is literally for everyone.

Like, it is the kind of thing that if your experience is of more commodity and darker roast, that kind of thing, you are going to be happy with it.

But as someone who drinks specialty coffee almost exclusively, like, I'm super happy with it too.

It's, like, really hitting that balance, and you can actually taste like that value of welcoming and kind of making it for everyone in this cup is kind of where I went with just listening to your conversation.

So, I mean, really awesome achievement.

Thank you.

I do want to take a little step back and go to the cart, because we talked about the roaster, but we haven't talked about the espresso machine.

And Sure.

I mean, you know where my mind goes.

So what machine and grinder are we using on the cart?

Yes.

So we have a Eureka Atom W65 for the grinder.

For the machine, we have a Luca, which I believe is La Spaziella A53.

Cool.

Very cool.

How's the Eureka?

I know I. I keep.

I'm so skeptical of your equipment, but, like, I have Eureka grinders at the warehouse, and sometimes.

Sometimes it gets a little interesting, but again, mine are really old.

So how's the.

How's the grinder?

See, thankfully, I've had a lot of experience with Eureka as a brand.

Okay, how.

How do you have that Experience.

I was trying to get into this.

You said you were in sales, right?

Yes.

Where was this?

And tell us a little bit and then go into Eureka.

Yeah, it a.

It's a local e commerce site that I used to work at here.

Is that whole latte, love?

Yeah.

Yep.

And then when were you there?

I want to say start of.

Nope.

Okay.

I was there.

Around there.

Yeah.

Not at that time, but I was there before.

So.

Yeah, So I did have a lot of play time with the machines there.

I enjoy the Eureka Atom series, their home line.

It's not bad.

Not my preference.

So as far as the Atom that we're using, it's great with any weight based grinder.

From what I have had experience with, it's just very finicky.

If your table moves, that's like the biggest issue that we ran into.

Outside of that though, it's definitely a solid grinder and just having that weight based system is ideal.

Just to keep consistency too.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I really like Eureka too.

I used to push their.

Is it Minion or Minion?

Yeah, I could never remember, but I used to push those a lot, especially when I was coming at it.

It was always from repairability.

And the Minion series is so.

Or Minion is so easy to get into.

Is the Atom that way too?

Yeah.

Honestly, I would say the Atom's a little bit easier in that sense.

I know with the mignon, they have that little back screw that I always struggled with.

But the Atom is a lot more straightforward.

You can see all the screws right away.

So very easy to get in and clean when I need to.

Sounds nice.

And how did you end up with the.

The espresso machine there?

That is not a traditional pick.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely just wanted to go for something commercial graded.

So we have a warranty and everything.

It's definitely on, I'd say lower budget end of things.

But it's a solid machine, it does what we need it to do.

You know, if we're looking at like a storefront cafe, I would not recommend that.

But we just wanted something smaller.

One group, just keep it easy to use.

And then the volumetric programming on it was a plus too.

So a little bit of research and we found a good pick with that one, I think.

Very cool.

Yeah, very cool.

Fantastic.

So I'm going to go back to the website.

There are four values listed as part of your mission or four pillars of your mission.

Correct.

Crafted with care, community, forward, education always and time well spent.

So, I mean, I love that and we've talked a little bit about this already, but talk to me about like, you're doing wholesale.

Where do these, you know, where do these fit in?

You're doing cart.

Where do these fit in?

Educational events, obviously educational ways.

But like, which of these, you know, do you feel like are most representative of where you're at now?

Which ones are you leaning into for the future?

And just talk to us a little more about all four of them.

Yeah, I would say, honestly, it's an all the above.

There's a symbiotic relationship to all those values and pillars, like with the crafted with care.

I think that just goes behind our work ethic, how we want to present the product or the service to people.

Again, as we mentioned with Gotong Royang and the Mutual Call cooperation community is always going to be at the center of it all and education, always.

We actually recently just partnered with the Rochester Brainery.

Oh, fantastic.

Yeah, yeah, that's coming up soon.

I think that's going to be for the summer season.

Just stay tuned for that.

But we're going to be like the coffee partners to teach classes to the public.

And I think I've learned a lot also just starting this learning from Lily and I think it's a nice yin and yang of taking the coffee nerd, filtering it into something digestible and approachable for someone who has no idea that's what Aaron does.

Aaron and Chris do that for me.

Yeah.

And then the time well spent.

I think we're okay with not rushing to the, to the mark, you know, like, I think a lot of people when we first started assumed immediately we were going to be a cafe, which fair.

Yeah, they do.

Yeah.

That comes immediately.

And that's, that's where everybody goes.

Right.

How else do you Coffee?

Right, right, right.

There's no other business.

Yikes.

But yeah, no, I mean, I think it's.

I also like how we're also positioning ourselves, you know, starting from the ground up, making our own beans.

We also have plants.

I don't know the timeline yet.

Hopefully, knock on wood, maybe within five years we've even had our family back home talking about us starting a coffee farm.

So

that's incredible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So like right now, one of my tantas, our aunt is actually like renting out her land to a coffee farm in Bali.

So there's just a lot of different opportunities.

Amazing.

Yeah.

This is incredible.

So is that okay?

You said five years.

It's like a five year plan.

Don't get too excited.

I'm too excited.

You're too late.

Chris, wait.

Or anybody, I guess really what is the growth pattern for like starting coffee?

Like there's a winery that I go to and the owner is just great.

And shout out to Johannes.

I'm blanking on his vineyard name.

I'm going to have to go look it up.

Kemeter.

Kemeter.

Thank you.

Is a fine micro growing winery but he basically grows almost all of his own fruit on the west side of Seneca Lake.

And it is a very boutique winery.

But it has that.

It's a very personal thing.

Like when you're describing that personal vibe when you go and do a tasting, most of the time it's you and maybe five other people in a small off, you know, off the main area, little like almost tasting shed and you're sitting with the guy who both grew it and did the winemaking of it.

And like one time was just my wife and I went and we sat with him for almost an hour.

Yeah.

And just talked.

He's just such a genuine guy.

But that's, that's the kind of passion that's coming through when you're talking about these experiences.

When you're thinking about growing coffee.

When you think about that, you just see like you're both lighting up in different ways.

Like you're lighting up from like here's all the angles we can take.

On the business side, you're reading up from the nerdery side.

And that's, that's the kind of thing that people gravitate to is that passion, that interest when they see you be passionate.

And also with the understanding that we're trying to appeal to the people.

We're not trying to just appeal to the deepest nerdery of coffee people.

We're trying to appeal to the people.

One of the things that appeals to people is a great story and also passionate people who know how to tell that story.

It's a huge part of it.

Yeah.

And I think also with the coffee farm too, like our big high level concept we're trying to achieve here.

You mentioned, Lily, that you know, it is a privileged place to be in Lilly's first gen.

I'm an immigrant.

My brother's an immigrant.

I think there are conversations, I think that are lacking about the equity distribution across the coffee supply chain.

My like huzzah moment of like this is a good idea.

We actually went to Coffee Fest, I think in last year.

Yeah, yeah.

We went to Coffee Fest in New York City.

There were a bunch of exhibitions.

We actually met the owner of Equal Grounds at the coffee Fest.

Yeah, which was fun, but there was just a.

There was no big class or seminar about Indonesian coffee.

That's kind of what we were looking for.

So, like, point of reference.

And it seems like that the.

The dialogue behind why Indonesia is not on the forefront.

It's distance is a huge variable, that connection.

And then I think just the accessibility to resources, too, from the Indonesian standpoint.

And we're hoping, you know, we can scale up big enough where we can help make livable wages for equitable sourcing for the coffee farmers, providing different kinds of resources on the farms or infrastructure.

And it's a ambitious plan, but I think also with our connections back home with the family, I know one of Lily's goals is to be like the coffee importer for Indonesian coffee here in the States.

So we're going to try to achieve that goal.

But, yeah, I think starting as a roaster, then doing the coffee cart, if anybody has come to Ko Pani.

But we've heard people call it a, you know, like a coffee speakeasy or the coffee cove.

Nice.

So we're just doing what we can.

Do you guys have, like, hours that people can just stop in or what are they.

Yeah, so we are open currently Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, 8am to 1pm okay.

And then Sundays were open 10 to 2pm and during that time, too, if we have any online orders, local pickup, that's also what those hours are for.

Sure.

Yeah.

Awesome.

I'm kind of intrigued.

So we've mentioned.

We mentioned Indonesia a lot.

We kind of briefly, you know, touched on the fact that this is one of the more populous countries in the world.

But it's also like.

It's kind of a misnomer to call it one country.

Yes.

Like, it is just like many other countries that were formed and also through colonialization and everything else was turned into one country.

But it's is giant group of islands and different cultures and communities that, you know, cross that whole wide range.

How would you.

I mean, we.

We talked about population.

It's also one of the largest Muslim nations in the world.

How would you define Indonesia?

I mean, I know this is a nearly impossible task, but we kind of talked about it, and we're talking about culture, right?

Oh, geez.

We're talking about culture.

We're about talking.

Talking about, you know, carrying that along.

How would you.

How would you describe Indonesia or where you guys came from as well?

Yeah.

So our family specifically is from the island of Java.

Most of our family would be in Jakarta, which is the capital of Java.

Honestly, Indonesia is extremely diverse as far as the food, the culture, the coffee even too.

I know we have the both robusta and arabica, which is fun, but I like to think of it just based on our location.

It's a lot of mainland Asia for the culture with a mix of also just South Asia.

I know that's not really a great answer, but we're just a super diverse nation, I would say, so you can really experience a whole ton of different things while you're there.

I mean, also, Jakarta is a 10 million person city.

Like this isn't.

This isn't a small town.

This is like one of the world's major cities and also a hyper modern place in many ways as well.

And I think last time I checked, I think there's 400,000 coffee shops in Indonesia.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's why when we were a little scared to, you know, saturated markets and whatnot.

But I mean, if we're looking at point of reference too, to Indonesia, I mean, everyone's has a little pocket somewhere, you know, there's something everyone can do.

And I think having that kind of be a point of reference to kind of shows us how we can translate that here on this side of the hemisphere.

And it's been really cool too, because as we're growing, we're getting connected with other Indonesian businesses across the states.

Some of them are sister owned.

And just kind of seeing how we're all interpreting our culture, what we remember in our childhood, what kind of flavors, like on our signature menu.

We have a lot of childhood nostalgic drink homages.

Give us one.

Yeah, we could talk about the cold brew.

That was kind of like a notion to our brother that was like his childhood drink.

There's a rose syrup we have and we make this cold brew with a rose cold foam on top.

And that rose syrup, I mean, my brother, admittedly so, was like, he could drink that straight.

He could drink that with some soda water and just mix it up with some ice.

So putting in that notion, even with like our copy latte, we put palm sugar into that as well.

Just to add a notion to the Indonesian palette.

Wow.

It's also, it's also a complicated flavored flavor of sugar as well.

People think of sugar as like being dumbed down and, you know, white sugar and bleached to hell.

But like, if you're tasting more of the raw sugars, whether it be palm or coconut or other ones like that, they have real distinct flavor that brings that round complexity, especially with a You know, a little more developed coffee like this, it's going to merge so well with those flavors.

Yeah, yeah.

I'd say the copi latte is probably the most popular, which is made with that palm sugar syrup.

To me, it just adds a nice umami almost to the coffee.

And then especially with the Sumatra, happen to pair very well.

And then I think that in itself is super popular in the Indonesian cafe market right now.

They're doing spice, palm sugar, and almost everything.

So.

Yeah.

And also in.

So in Rochester itself, there isn't.

I mean, as far as I've seen.

As somebody who's been pretty close to the diverse restaurant scene and everything else, I haven't really seen Indonesian representation in Rochester.

I've seen little touches of non, you know, non Thai, non Viet, Southeast Asian.

Like, you know, our friends over at Cocoa Garden, you know, you know, really cool people who are doing that.

I've had the pleasure of working with them multiple times doing Malaysian food, but there really isn't.

I haven't really seen Indonesian representation in Rochester.

What does it mean to you making this brand to be.

Right now, this would be the only visible Indonesian related thing that I'm familiar with in Rochester.

Absolutely.

I mean, to make immediate response is like, what an honor it is to have this opportunity.

I think honestly, what we're.

Also.

The goal or the mind mapping we're doing is, you know, my mom came here with two kids, not knowing anything, a stranger to the nation in a strange place we've even had.

And we've.

My mom was one of the people in Rochester to create this little Indonesian community that's kind of just grown through the years.

And how cool would it be to have somewhere where maybe an Indonesian immigrant or somebody going to school here can stop by and recognize a drink that they can get at home?

Kind of.

We want to.

The goal is to make you be able to kind of be in Indonesia while being in the 585, you know, but it's.

Cocoa Garden is probably the closest thing we could compare it to.

But I think once we get into the cafe space, that's when I'm gonna get really excited because.

Okay, so when's that?

Let's haul as possible asap.

They said they weren't doing cafes, right?

So did I.

Not yet, but yeah, that's when I'm gonna kind of get in the studio with cooking.

I love to cook, and the Indonesian food is how me and my mom bonded.

That was our love language.

So to share that too.

I've even shared that with Some of my co workers at my old jobs and like, like a corn fritter, you know, and with Indonesian food too, which is super fun.

It's.

It's cheap, it's cheap to make, it's cheap to.

It's very street food oriented.

That's kind of what we want to go for.

And.

Yeah, I think there's just a lot of different opportunities there.

Yeah.

And especially once we get to the cafe space, however we gotta do it.

I ideally want it to feel like you're stepping into Indonesia when you step into our cafe, but I, I, it's truly an honor to be able to do this and be in this position and definitely just trying to create a second home away from home.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

How old were you when you came over?

I was, My brother was about 15.

Lily wasn't born yet.

This is.

I was pretty Lily.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I was about 1 years old.

But then me and my sister did end up moving back when I was in seventh grade.

We went back there for a year and then when my mom was still alive, every summer we would go back for a few months to be with family.

And do you know how she ended up in Rochester?

Yeah.

She met my father.

Yeah.

Or, yeah, my father.

Yeah.

I was like, wait, yeah, yeah.

My sister's dad.

That's how she ended up coming over here.

And you've alluded to a little bit there's a coffee culture in Indonesia.

Oh, yeah.

Because I remember just going to Africa and being so excited.

I'm like, coffee, coffee, coffee.

And there's very, at least in the area where I was in Uganda, there wasn't really a coffee culture.

And I was talking to somebody about it, and it's because they export everything, you know, it's one of their biggest exports there.

So why would you consume it?

Right.

Makes a little bit of sense when you think about it.

But what's it, what's the culture like over there?

Coffee specifically, though?

Yeah, I would say, unfortunately, my point of reference is a little bit further outdated.

It's been a while since I've been back to Indonesia myself, but I'm definitely keeping up socially where I can.

I think they're.

It's nice to see, actually.

I've seen a lot of Indonesian, either roasteries or cafes focusing on Indonesian coffee.

They've been doing a lot of natural processes, the anaerobic naturals, even with Indonesian coffee.

And then just from a cultural aspect at least growing up, one of the major memories I have just with my mom, my aunts, they would always just have a coffee.

We could be at the cafe for like the whole entire day, basically, literally.

And it's just smoking a cigarette, having your coffee, maybe another coffee.

Another.

So that's my point of reference, at least.

And then.

I don't know.

That's honestly a good point.

Yeah.

There was this mall there, Pondok Inda Mall in Jakarta.

Literally, while we were living there, my mom and her older sister, every day we would go to that mall.

They would set up shop in this cafe called Regal.

They already knew what was going on.

And we would literally be there from open to close, and they'll just order their cappuccino with their little accoutrement and just chat.

And I think that's always what's excited me about the coffee culture is everyone just kind of gathers around, whether it's after a day of work or school, or let's say you're doing homework.

There is very much a street food market.

You can go into a warung.

Like a food stall.

Sure.

And you can just get a copy to Brook.

I think the translations like crash coffee.

So literally, it's essentially like a cupping cup.

You put the grounds in there, you put some boiling water, you mix that up, and then that's.

That's your drink that you're having.

Yep.

So there's so many different kinds.

Or you can even see like food stall vendors walking around.

A lot of it.

They.

There's like these sachets of like instant coffee that they'll just have running on their cart.

So I think coffee just almost become like another form of oxygen in.

In Indonesia.

Like it's always going to be around somewhere.

Like, let's say you have a visitor coming to your house.

You're going to offer that.

And something that I think was a little bit of a culture shock for me coming here.

Coffee is not too.

It's not consumed as much in the nighttime.

But honestly, that was like my mom's night cap.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

With a little Regal biscuit and her coffee latte and then going to sleep.

So the number of times I've gotten the business from people for drinking coffee late at night, I'm like, yeah, it's coffee.

Like, I just drink it.

You drink it anytime.

So we're coming up on time here, but we have to hit our last question because I bet the answer is going to be fascinating.

So our favorite question for our guests is, describe for us the best cup of coffee you've ever had.

You go first.

Okay.

I am so into my home Brewing.

So the coffee I select is not going to be like, a cafe beverage or anything.

I actually picked up coffee from fried hats, which I want to say they're in Amsterdam.

It was a.

It was my first exposure to natural Indonesian coffee.

So this one was from Java.

I say that one.

I wouldn't say it was my absolute favorite profile necessarily, but that was just the most unique Indonesian coffee I've had up until that point.

That honestly really changed my perspective on Indonesian coffee.

It's not my first pick because I do like the very fruity, funky ones, but that one is just always memorable to me.

Their packaging's super cool, too.

They're like little pill bottles.

Oh, I just pulled it up.

Yeah, this is super cool.

Looks great.

Oh, I love it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

They're awesome.

That one has to be my best cup so far.

That's excellent.

I remember the first natural Sumatran I had.

It's from one of the more northern regions.

Starts with the W. I can't think of it off the top of my head, but.

And it is.

It's just like, this is a.

What it is.

So eye opening.

That's awesome.

I love that.

Yeah.

I would say mine's probably leaning more towards the cafe selection, honestly.

I would say it's our astor latte on our cart, and what that consists of is our mocha syrup, Lily's espresso pole.

And then we have a.

Another new notion to Indonesian snacks.

There's a astor wafer.

It's like a chocolate wafer that we put on top for it.

And it.

It can melt into your drink if you want it and you get a surprise at the end.

Or you can dip it and eat it as you go.

But I've always liked or leaned more towards mocha coffee flavors.

But I would say in terms of, like, the most.

Not impactful per se, but the one that really changed my perspective of coffee was at Coffee Fest, Mill City Roaster.

They gave their mango co ferment as a sample.

Wow.

That was very cool.

Different.

Yeah.

You know, and that made me.

Because I was always transparently a t person before, like, getting really into the coffee.

And I think, like the anaerobics, the.

The lighter coffees, you can start to play with that.

Like a tea medium, you know?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So that was fun and interesting.

That's incredible.

I love to hear it.

Very great.

Yeah.

And where can.

Where can we find you?

Give us all the socials.

We talked kapanicoffee.com somewhere you can learn a lot about.

About the.

The company and the sisters.

So where else?

Yeah, absolutely.

You can get us on Facebook.

Instagram, Kopani Coffee.

We also have an email, hollowapaniccoffee.com if you have any inquiries, but Instagram is really where we put a lot of our stuff out.

And we also have a TikTok page as well.

Kopani Coffee.

Awesome.

Very cool.

Anything else, Aaron?

I don't think so.

I mean, you guys wrapped things up super nice, and I just love.

I'll just reiterate this.

We got this with Marvin.

It's so refreshing to see a specific look and take on coffee.

We've talked recently a lot about the replication that's going on, and it's exciting to see that it's not all about the cafe.

Your idea of community isn't like, let's open a space where people are comfortable.

It's community building more than it is kind of providing the opportunity, which is really cool.

I can't wait to stop in.

Yeah, love it.

Thanks again.

Hopefully we'll see you sometime out at the Roastery.

Stop in for.

For a drink and.

And Chris, you want to lead us out?

Yeah, absolutely.

So this was.

This was tremendous.

And getting to learn about, you know, different side of culture when it comes to coffee is always a great thing.

And if you want to learn more about other things, go to lunchadore.org to check out all of the shows on the network.

We have a new show coming out very soon that's going to be with librarians around Rochester doing Rochester's book club, which is going to be really cool.

And then Rob Bell from Behind the Glass is joining with his show Plants and Beats.

So he's doing lo fi music and talking about plants, and he does little residences over at amfm, doing a run club and lo fi TV Sundays, I believe.

Yeah, it's a great time.

Make sure you go check that out.

And thanks so much for joining the podcast and stay dialed in.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchadore Podcast network.

If they don't come out with a rendang flavored latte, I'm not sure if they're really Indonesian.