Dan Cox, a specialty coffee veteran who's visited 19 countries sourcing beans, explains why mycotoxins like Ochratoxin A survive roasting. Most roasters skip testing because sampling costs multiply fast across containers. He argues the real fix is better farming practices, not testing after harvest.
Dan, is it fair to say that you're old school coffee mafia? Is that accurate? I'm considered old school, certainly. I hang out with a clan of notorious coffee aficionados that really believe this is still a pretty special product and that we're all pretty passionate about it since I have three companions that we've traveled to 19 different countries together and countless plantations co ops. So I still really like what I do. I'm very fortunate. I love what I do. I'm considered at the top of my game. And then in my old stomping grounds, I was the first employee at a place called Green Mountain Coffee Roasters which we started in 1981. That's ginormous. Just so people know, Green Coffee Mountain Roasters is a billion dollar coffee company, right? It's actually 5 billion. Yeah, exactly. Mycotoxins in the plant world, they're everywhere. Yeah, absolutely. And you can't get rid of them, Right? You can try to mitigate them as best as possible. The first thing is to try to identify them. Identify the ones that can really do damage. Most roasters do not want to take the time or the expense to do proper testing. There is some thought that it gets roasted out at the super high temperatures and the answer is that's not true. Hold on a second. There's always people saying the heat destroys mold. Doesn't it kill the mold? I mean, I know the answer to this, but tell people, as a 30 year coffee veteran, what's the deal here? Ochratoxin A is a stable compound. Like many things, it's stable, which means unless you get to super high temperatures and super high temperatures in about 1,000 plus degrees, anything less than that is just considered hot in theory. The traditional statistical analysis says 10% is valid. So if you have 250 bags, you're going to test 10% of those 25 bags. Well, 25 bags times $150. Man, that adds up fast. That's just one container and that's for just ochratoxin A, not ethylatoxin, not furin, not acrylamide. Oh God, yes. I think the thing, if you're really going to look at this, you want to go right back to the source and you want to figure out how can we create conditions that these things won't, how can we grow this stuff that will lessen, lessen the chance of it forming. You're starting to sound kind of like the bulletproof process there. But I would love the opportunity to continue to talk to yourself and to your listeners about the details of what's going on in the world, because there is a lot of things going on in the coffee world. And I think your niche in the intelligent level and the inquiry level of your listeners is something that's pretty interesting.
