Brian Burik (00:00:00):
It starts from being service minded, right? Like first you give, don't expect to get anything from it. Don't walk into somewhere saying, I want this, this, this that's in the back of your head. Like there's going to be a benefit. You don't know what that benefit was. And then on the other side, so similar to volleyball is get out there and get your touches in start testing things until you get on the court and start doing it. Stop wasting too much time behind a computer, start there, but then use it as a tool. Like practice it, get your touches in
Mark Burik (00:00:31):
What's up. Everybody. Welcome to the better at beach volleyball podcast. My name as usual is Mark Burik. And here we talk about everything you need to get yourself or your players better at beach volleyball. What we are going to do today is pretty cool because spoiler alert, I get to have my brother on my own podcast, which is pretty sweet. Now my brother is a retired FDNY firefighter, and he recently moved to Hawaii to start coffee roasting company. They offer subscription services where you can have coffee delivered to your doorstep. They also do roastery tours and educational events where you can learn a lot about coffee. And what I learned while being there is how much I didn't know about coffee. And specifically for volleyball players, I will admit quite openly, I'm a caffeine addict and I've maybe become a caffeine addict because I know how much it can influence your athletic performance.
(00:01:37):
Caffeine is one of the most widely studied substances that we have, and that people are pretty comfortable testing. And we know 100% that caffeine increases performance increases stamina and increases concentration as well. And so I thought it would be first of all, cool to hang out with my brother. And second of all, really good to introduce some nutritional aspects and, and start talking a little bit to our players and our coaches about the supplementation and how it can increase performance. So today we're gonna have a really good conversation. Uh, we're gonna go deep into coffee. So if you love coffee or even if you like it, this is gonna be a great episode for you. If you like it by the end of this, you'll probably love it. And I really want you guys to stay to the end of the episode because we're going to give everybody who's listening a very special offer from better at beach and Brian's company tradition, coffee roasters.
(00:02:37):
So if this is your first time listening, just know that we are better at beach and we run camps. We run clinics, we run online courses and coaching. And in our complete player program, if you want a team of coaches helping you year round and round the clock, I'm talking AVP and F I V B players and coaches that you can text that you can show your videos and that you meet with twice a week to improve your game, come on over to better beach.com. We are happy to help you improve your game as a player or a coach. And today, specifically, we are going to talk about nutrition and supplementation. And if you wanna dive a little bit deeper into nutrition and supplementation, we have an amazing program called the 21 day back to fitness challenge, and it's www.betteratbeach.com/foundations. This is where we take you through 21 days of building your mobility, building your fitness and getting your diet in order so that you can prepare yourself for a heavy lifting session or a heavy lifting protocol.
(00:03:47):
And if you choose to carry on with us, of course, we'll take you through our 60 day max vertical program. And the average increase in vertical leap right now is about four and a half inches for anyone who completes our program. So if you wanna get started on that and you want to get our entire eight week nutrition challenge, plus our mobility and weightlifting 21 day back to fitness challenge, you head on over to better at beach.com/foundations. But again, I want you guys to make sure that you stay to the end of the episode, where Brian's gonna give us a very special deal on a sweet little coffee, subscription, or package built for you. So without further ado, let's get into how coffee and caffeine can help your volleyball game and how to do it best Brian Burik what's up big brother.
Brian Burik (00:04:36):
What's up, Mark. This is awesome. Great to see you in a podcast world, you've always been huge in teaching. So to see you grow and into the man, you are and meet you in a broader audience. You're proud. Nice job. Thanks
Mark Burik (00:04:49):
Man.
Brian Burik (00:04:49):
Guest. Thank you.
Mark Burik (00:04:50):
Hey, look at us entrepreneur.
Brian Burik (00:04:52):
How about it?
Mark Burik (00:04:53):
Yep. I didn't think that would happen
Brian Burik (00:04:54):
Queens
Mark Burik (00:04:56):
Two guys from Queens, uh, figuring it out. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. You know, we do wanna get into volleyball, but the entrepreneur stuff. So I was a volunteer fireman for all of seven, eight months in breezy point, New York and your job. And I know that I've told you this to be a firefighter is one of the best jobs period. If I didn't play sports, if I wasn't coaching, I know a hundred percent that I would've been into it because of the teamwork because of the comradery, because there's nonstop action, nonstop problem solving. So before we go into a little bit of coffee and volleyball, could you just tell us why the FD and Y might be the best job in the entire world?
Brian Burik (00:05:39):
It is the best job in the world. There's no point hat to it. I loved being a fireman. It was just a great part. You hit everything on the head, the camaraderies the teamwork, it's the thinking. It's the risks. You know, that kind of keep everything exciting and being surrounded by people who are likeminded service minded, people who want to help their community. You never hoped for a disaster, but you were always of the mindset that if there was a disaster happening, you wanted to be there and you wanted to be helping out. So that's part of the reason why I love the fire department. We had many different traditions and that kind of led into some of my coffee,
Mark Burik (00:06:13):
Win, wink, nudge. .
(00:06:17):
Now I don't know if any of your friends or coworkers know that you actually played college volleyball. I know that in high school you got cut from your squad. You weren't six, seven yet. And I'm sure whatever coach that is, is still kicking themself. But for our to bring in our volleyball people who might not be the coffee people yet until the end of this episode, I, I wanna know really cuz you and me have never really dove into what that was like. You were in high school, you come from a tall family, maybe freshman or sophomore year. I'm not sure, but you tried out for your volleyball team. Why don't you take it from there?
Brian Burik (00:06:57):
Yeah. So I guess trying out for, I have a few anecdotes and I've, I've still to this day, I sorted out cuz I have these conversations with my girls. One who will be on the AVP with you one day. If she saw a trajectory, got
Mark Burik (00:07:09):
It.
Brian Burik (00:07:09):
She just loves it. She's gonna be tall. And she, she soothed into it. But I guess when I went to try out for the baseball team, I went through a period of high school where I was, I wouldn't say lost, but I was testing every rule I could find . And then at a certain point when I decided, okay, I'm either gonna go to, you know, my grades were still there. So I wanted to either go to Penn state and pursue medicine, which I loved. And then, then all of a sudden the fire department really kicking kicked into gear. So in some ways it squared me away of saying, Hey, quit, messing around and focus. So one thing that I had missed from life was organized sports. You know, I'd taken like two years off from most organized sports and went out for the volleyball team.
(00:07:49):
Think I did pretty well, but ironically, and I'll say this, I may not have been good enough for the team. Okay. So it's taken long time to really come to that resolve. But in my heart, I think part of the reason was during some of my stages, I wasn't, I had a teacher that I really nudged in many of the wrong ways. Who knew she was my potential coach one day. And your year. Oh. So when I tell my girls that story, they said, I tell them like, that's sad and, and she shouldn't have cut you because she wasn't a fan of you. And I said, no, that's absolutely what she should have done. She made the right decision. Uh, as a coach, you have to think of how a, player's gonna listen to you, the discipline, how they're gonna interact with people. And sometimes it's a very easy decision. And I would imagine that was a very easy decision for her to make the camaraderie of her team. Right. So I got cut from the team and continued my love for sports elsewhere.
Mark Burik (00:08:42):
Nice. So essentially you were kind of a jackass in class or outside. You were like getting in trouble and
Brian Burik (00:08:49):
Pretty much all of it. Yeah. and she picked up on it. She was great. I hold her in high regard. Who was just me? Who was the jerk?
Mark Burik (00:08:57):
do you think that that testing boundaries that young, I mean, you weren't like a terrible kid. I think you, you pushed boundaries, we'll say that, but do you think that prepared you to be in a leadership, physical environment better instead of, you know, the guys who are, who are always towing the line and great rule followers, do you think that your inability to follow rules early on or just a lack of desire to do you think that created a leader out of you? You know, because you went on to be a firefighter in for what some people hold as the top firehouse in the entire world, like rescue one and in Manhattan. So do you think that that prepared you pushing boundaries? Or was it just where you had to straighten yourself out in, in order to become who you became?
Brian Burik (00:09:39):
Yeah, I think, I definitely think people who push boundaries are people who are going to be successful as long as they could keep it under reigns and know how to push boundaries or when to push boundaries. Uh, because I think people who push boundaries, question things, you know, and to say, this is how it was always done. Isn't always the right answer. You know, sometimes this is how it's always done is for a reason that should maybe be tested and questions in its own way. Sometimes it's something that should be changed. So I think by questioning different rules or practices in a positive way, it's one thing to say, I don't agree with it, but then do you have two or three other answers that you want to test out that could actually add on it? Cuz nobody wants anybody who's negative. Who's just gonna question everything, but to say, Hey, I've been thinking about it this way. It doesn't work. Let's try a different way of training. Let's try a different procedure. Let's try a different roast just because it's always been done this way. Isn't always the best answer. So I think it did help me in that aspect.
Mark Burik (00:10:30):
Yeah. I think, I mean, Arnold, Schwarzenegger's got his like six rules to life where he is like, he says break the rules is one of his six rules of life. And then he says, don't break the law, but break the rules, you know, and test what's going on because if there aren't rule breakers and I'm my college coach labeled me a habitual line stepper and I was like, yeah, all right. But if nobody's testing the current rules, then there cannot be progress in any way, you know? So you can follow the path that everybody else did. And for the volleyball players out there who are looking for answers, that that's kind of, one of the special things about beach volleyball is that every player can really create their own game. And that's why we get crazy players like Adrian, Karen Bulla like Nicholas who's, you know, six one and doing it differently.
(00:11:19):
Like people who have goofy footed approaches, there are ways to do things and push boundaries that if no one tests it or known questions it, then the sport can advance. And like right now in beach volleyball, people are jump setting, right? That's one of the things that people just didn't do for 10, 15 years. And all of a sudden, a couple of kids are doing and making everybody look like fools and they literally change the game. So now that every player, every guy is now doing, like putting a jump set into their offense and the women are close behind. So it's pretty cool to, I think, test boundaries on a regular basis. And I think you can, can attribute a lot of the skills you developed as an entrepreneur to, yeah. I wanna learn what people are doing and see, but then is it right for me and how much of it is right for me?
Brian Burik (00:12:02):
Oh, definitely. I think with anything that somebody dives into, you have to go in with, let me learn what people are doing. Let me learn why people are doing it that way. Is there a reason or is it again, just the way it's always be done? And as you start to learn from various experts, mentors online of course has a ton of information, but then when you test it and then you get to a point where you start, you might start to create your own theories. And that's kind of the next stage of learning is saying, okay, I see how these four or five experts are doing it. I see it in practice. And then do I agree with it or do I agree with the portion of it? And then you start to create your own program of thought and that's worked really well for me is first stepping into it with eyes wide open, teach me everything. Yeah. Finding another expert, teach me eyes wide, open another expert. And then you get to a point where I go, okay, I get the general philosophy, right? It it's like making a ceviche. I made a ceviche the other day. The first thing I did is I scrolled down and I found six different ceviche rep recipes. And I was like, all right, I get the general idea. And I made my own ceviche recipe. Right?
Mark Burik (00:13:06):
It's like our chili,
Brian Burik (00:13:11):
But you have to start off listening. You have to start off learning. If you can't model yourself after somebody in a way that you have to like allow yourself to be a follower, to be a leader on, you know, for a few, you can't go in with questioning everything. But once you've been a leader, I feel like that really builds onto becoming your own leader and having your own theories with sports, with group coffee, with life.
Mark Burik (00:13:34):
I like that. It's like survey the land first. You know, instead of just going in saying, this is how I'm gonna do, it's like, look at things first, then try it, see if it works for you and then start making decisions of if you wanna change. But you can't come in with the mindset to say, I'm going to do 1000%, my own thing, no matter what. Yeah. That's gonna take you a long time because you're gonna make literally the same mistakes that people have made for a hundred years before you yeah. You played volleyball, indoor volleyball in college, right?
Brian Burik (00:14:04):
after getting cut. Yeah.
Mark Burik (00:14:05):
After getting cut in high school. So so you took a route not often seen
(00:14:12):
It's funny because, so I went to school and I I'm pretty open about this. I thought college was an automatic. I didn't necessarily go for my education. I just thought the education part was an automatic. I was gonna do it. But when I was choosing schools, I was choosing it for sports. And even when I transferred, I was like, all right, what's my closest route or fastest route to becoming a pro volleyball player. And that was after Delaware, after football, Delaware, that, that was transferring to George Mason. You went to school specifically because you wanted to be a firefighter. So you went to John Jay community college, right? Yeah. And then you chose to pick up baseball and you played volleyball for a season. What was that mindset like? Why were you getting into sports in college when you were, you had the number one goal, plus you were currently working as an EMT. So you chose to go to college so that you could be a fireman. You worked your way through college as an EMT, and then you picked up a sport and then two sports. What the hell I, can you walk me through that?
Brian Burik (00:15:10):
I must hate myself in some on some level. No. When I think about some of the most stressful times of my life, that is college was, is, is really high on that list. I pulled from Penn state. I had an, an offer there, and then I really decided to focus on fire science. And there were very few colleges that were doing a fire science degree, which is building construction, hazardous materials, a lot of chemistry, some hydraulics, some engineering into it. So it encapsulated everything that I wanted to learn. You don't have to go to fire science, get your bachelor's in fire science to be a fireman. But it was just another avenue for me to really learn about something. So when I got there, it was a city school, you know, it's a community college people there from all, all walks life. Some, some people had grown adults, people with kids, people working.
(00:15:55):
So I wasn't gonna get that college experience that I had been looking forward to. And part of me knew that, and I loved sports. So when I first got there, saw a sign for volleyball and I tried out for volleyball, made it. And while I was practicing, the baseball coach was watching me practice. And he cornered me in the elevator one day and he is like, Hey, Bri, I'd like you to try out for baseball, you know? And I said, oh, you know, yeah, watching you practice and we'd love for you to try out. So I started to practice with them and you know, if you, couple weeks later, I'm like, I'm waiting for the call from him. And he's like I said, coach, when do I make the team? Uh, when do I know if I've made the team? He goes, ah, you're on that damn team.
(00:16:32):
Get outta here. so he was this salty scrappy guy. So I was, I did a dual spurt for that semester. And then once spring happened, uh, after fall ball, I said, all right, this is getting to be a lot. And I did baseball fulltime, which was, you know, Springs, summer on a league. And then fall in that time I joined EMS. So that's when I started my fire department career. I had gotten into a program there called the fire cadets, where we were gonna get onto the fire department. And it was a great program. And then there were, there's a semester I had to take off, so I could go through an academy. And then I even had to take off to go through fire academy, everything got delayed. Oh
Mark Burik (00:17:07):
Man. I mean, just to finish college, there was a number of breaks and not sideways journeys, but you know, they're all in the same direction of your goal, but you had to take a break just to pursue your dream. And then you still got through college. A lot of people, you know, they go to their career dream and they never go back and they finish.
Brian Burik (00:17:26):
Yeah. In line with that is one of my last semesters. I two semesters left to go. And I of course take an a semester for the fire academy, which I had finally gotten in. And I think I was a senior on steroids by then, but uh,
Mark Burik (00:17:38):
Not literally everybody super senior is what we call
Brian Burik (00:17:46):
Senior
Mark Burik (00:17:47):
Times. Three years. Yeah. yeah.
Brian Burik (00:17:49):
And I started one of my last two semesters college and as I was a fireman bouncing from shifts to home and, and right at the beginning of the semester nine 11 happened. Mm. So now, you know, that was obviously its own story deserving of its of its own podcast. But just to share a little bit, it was a big challenge to balance between and going to school, the fire department, working down on the pile, attending funerals and trying to be an effective human. So it was tough. And then finally that next work through that semester, and then by springtime, I had two more classes and I was able to finish it up, but I was proud in just a different way of completion than I guess some of the people that I began with school, I was proud that I had this certificate. It became like, you're not gonna do all this work and not come out with a degree. Mm-hmm a long story, but
Mark Burik (00:18:36):
Yeah. And a good story. So we fast forward to retiring, got a low back injury. sucks, low back injury, end up leaving the fire department. It health issues. And they fire department says, Hey, uh, with your back, we don't know if something's bad gonna happen. You got yourself back to pretty good condition. And then they're like, yeah, but it's still not gonna work because
Brian Burik (00:18:59):
Yeah. So they
Mark Burik (00:19:00):
Potentially liability, right. In case somebody else needs rescuing or in case one of your teammates, you need to be there for them. And if your back goes out, they recognize your injury as career ending.
Brian Burik (00:19:11):
Yes. Yeah. So that was sad. Cuz that was something I, I expected to do that till I was basically wheeled out of the firehouse. That was uh, you
Mark Burik (00:19:18):
Nearly
Brian Burik (00:19:18):
Yeah. Which I was. Yeah. So I had that back injury, which led to a, a back surgery. And then, you know, now six months ago, three years outta the fire department, I had a number another back surgery. I don't recommend that to anybody but in both cases, I went from being wheeled into an operating room to being able to walk on the way out, slowly walk. So at the same time I consider it a successful surgery.
Mark Burik (00:19:40):
Nice. Then of course with your family, make the wild move. Woo. Why? Yeah, man, you know, in Oahu now to start your own coffee, roasting and coffee subscription business where people can order coffee. I mean, I know I've been on your program for almost a year now and I will say, man, I just love getting coffee sent at your doorstep and not having to add it to my shopping list, just to know that that's taken care of. And I know you dive way deeper into the taste, the flavor, the making of it for me, my favorite part of your company is that I just get the right amount of coffee every month. That shows up to my doorstep. And you're pretty cool cuz you send me like all the different experimental flavors and different roasts so I love that. And I wanna talk, you know, we, we have to get at some point into the actual performance side of caffeine and why it's going to help athletes, why it's going to help volleyball players. But before we do that, do you have a less than one minute elevator speech about your coffee company so that we can then like turn it into a performance and nutrition episode
Brian Burik (00:20:47):
Here? Yeah. So tradition coffee roasters was born out of the tradition in a firehouse of sitting together at the beginning of the day, having a cup of coffee and starting to join the team in mentality and physically and spirit. So that's where tradition comes from. And I have a longer story with that. But one thing that we do is we started off with e-commerce. So providing different coffees, whether it's different processes, different regions of all specialty grade coffee roasted by
Mark Burik (00:21:14):
You.
Brian Burik (00:21:15):
Yeah and then we also have a wholesale business where we provide cafes and cafes, businesses, restaurants, hotels provide them with wholesale numbers and service and then we also get into education. So once you start learning something, I always say the best way to learn is to teach. And one thing I've really, really enjoyed is making people's coffee experience better by teaching them all the work that happens before I get the bean, what I do and then what they could do at home. So it does all tie into, as you say, the convenience of having coffee show up at your door, no matter what your coffee experience, I know I can make it better.
Mark Burik (00:21:50):
That's awesome. I like that. And what if I hate the taste of coffee? Is it something that I should still try to invest in? Because I know, I mean, I was what 18, the only time I started drinking coffee, literally I was playing pro in Sweden. We had two hours of practice a day and then I could lift on my own time. And all Sweden does is drink coffee all day. As soon as you walk into a house, Hey, want a cup of coffee? As soon as you, their version of like meeting up with each other and hanging out, they called AKA, which is basically a snack and a coffee where you just sit, do nothing but talk and have coffee. So I got hooked on coffee at 22, 23 years old out of boredom. But now every day I love drinking it. So what would you say to the people who are like, yeah, coffee's gross. I'm done listening to this.
Brian Burik (00:22:38):
So here's how it started for me. And this goes back to the firehouse. My first day on the job in the fire department, you know what? From growing up, we drank tea and only the best whipped in tea around
Mark Burik (00:22:49):
straight black lift in tea, no matter what mom and dad are still every day
Brian Burik (00:22:54):
That's right. So my first day on the job they tell me, Hey kid, go make the coffee. I don't know how to make coffee. I know dunk tea, dunk tea bags. So I make the best coffee I can. I'm looking around for my teabag, no tea bags, but I did find a radi old bag of, uh, hot chocolate. Good enough for me. I started stirring on my hot chocolate and all of a sudden the 15 boisterous Vietnam veteran slash salty firefighters behind me go silent. And I'm just stirring my I'm like uhoh somebody messed up. And I bet it was me. One of the guys was like, oh my God, chocolate kids drinking hot Coco he's like your name's Coco. Oh good friend, Betty Burwell coined that. And so I lived with that name for a little bit Eddie,
Mark Burik (00:23:41):
Like fireman ed,
Brian Burik (00:23:42):
No different ed. Oh,
Mark Burik (00:23:43):
Okay.
Brian Burik (00:23:44):
so then, then lo and behold, I was again, a busy company. You wake up a few or you continue your night in today a few times and you're like, I need to wake up. So you try this coffee and sure. It tastes like mud and probably the whatever's cheap and whatever's old on the shelf is what you get as a fireman. And you're like, wow, this stuff works. And I turned around, like I found the holy grail, but nobody was interested. Have you guys tried coffee? I'm telling them . So that's when I really learned coffee as a tool. No. So to me, what I would say to somebody who's using coffee as a tool is I, again, I can make your experience better. Like let's get a better quality coffee later on. When I got involved in, you know, some side jobs with specialty food, I also took a trip to Italy and I had one of the best coffee experiences that I had. And that began my coffee snob journey. So one thing I will say is I am a bridge between the two. I could hang out with the coffee, PhD nerds. And I could also hang out with the guy who's like, give me a cake cup and let me get outta here. I love those guys. Cause all day long, I bring them back into creating a coffee experience in the morning for themselves.
Mark Burik (00:24:41):
Yeah. You can have crap coffee and it's literally gross. And then, you know, you have a cappuccino with a little cinnamon sprinkled on it after having a steak dinner and you're like, oh wait a second. This is how I should be having dinner every night. I should finish it off with this.
Brian Burik (00:24:56):
Yeah. That's your moment. That's your coffee moment. You've gone through quite a few. Uh, pre-workout no explode and some other, oh
Mark Burik (00:25:03):
Man. Explode.
(00:25:04):
So I think I started drinking maybe like red bulls in high school. Right. And that's when it started coming out and energy drinks. I'm sure that in five, 10 years, our kids are gonna be looking at us saying you actually put energy drinks in your body. Like, they'll look at it. Like when we're saying like they used to put cocaine in, Coca-Cola like, are you crazy? You guys drank that. And people are gonna come back to the idea that coffee is just a good, naturally sourced way of getting caffeine. And it is undoubted. It's documented time and time again in every study that caffeine improves, athletic performance, focus, concentration stamina, and your actual ability to lift higher weights or, you know, lift more weight. And so I found that I found the kick from red bull, but then as I went into exercise science in college, I said, oh, it's actually like, I'm gonna be better at practice today.
(00:25:54):
If I put in a little caffeine. Oh, okay. I'm gonna be better for this match. If I add a little caffeine and that became a regular part of my supplementation, I'd say I'd gone a little overboard now to where little bits of caffeine are like, I need it in order to not get a headache. So I don't want people to listen to this and go that far and just crush themselves with caffeine. But I will say that everybody, if you're interested in peak performance, if that's your thing like to, to find what it's like to get your body to the next level and you wanna do it, of course, legally, and without throwing in crazy hormones and drugs, like you should start seeing what a little caffeine kick or a caffeine supplementation or coffee does for your practice for your game. And you should document that little side note, little like commercial for us guys.
(00:26:44):
If you go ahead and you right now, it's on screen. But if you're on a podcast, you're just listening. If you head over to better at beach.com/nutrition, what we do is we have a hydration and eating checklist for you. And we give you a documentation sheet, which forces you not forces you, but it allows you to write down everything that you drink and eat before and after practice. And then it takes you through a questionnaire that says, Hey, what did you eat beforehand? Okay. Rate your performance level. Now rate your focus level because that's a big thing. People like rate their performance, but they also don't necessarily rate their focus because if you wanna improve your passing and then you go into practice and you think about it for five minutes, and then you never think about passing again, cuz you're so pissed off that you're getting blocked all the time.
(00:27:28):
You're not actually focused on passing, right? So the important part is rate your focus and your performance. So if you guys want to jump into that and you wanna see what it's like to track your eating, track your hydration and track what you're putting into your body and then see how it relates to your performance. We've created a really nice, easy take home PDF program for you. And you can find [email protected] slash nutrition. But my story is that everybody should be trying. If you're interested in peak performance and you haven't experimented with a little caffeine, there is something you're leaving on the table.
Brian Burik (00:28:05):
Yeah. And, and you and I have interesting, like almost like before this, you and I have definitely talked about, you know, before you even get to caffeine, are you doing everything? Are you getting a good night's sleep part of that nutrition and audience solid workouts before solid night sleep. And there's nights where there's, that's just not an option for you. Mm-hmm or there's nights when maybe you could have done better with your pre evening workouts that might have been doing, but having a good night's sleep is definitely the beginning. And I think this is really for people who are looking to, Hey, I'm I'm doing all these things and now is there a way that I could use caffeine to give me a boost and still do?
Mark Burik (00:28:41):
I like that.
Brian Burik (00:28:41):
Those benefits
Mark Burik (00:28:42):
Yeah. Where you're not using it as like a crutch, right. Or you wanna make sure that everything else is in point and now, now what can help? Not what can get me out of a ditch. Yeah. Cause if you're not sleeping, if you're not working out the right way and if you're eating like crap. Yeah. Okay. This caffeine is gonna take you from negative 50 to negative 40 you gotta fix all of the other stuff first and then see what you can do from there.
Brian Burik (00:29:06):
That's yeah. That's the other side of that for me.
Mark Burik (00:29:09):
Yeah. I like it. And it's a good point for everybody because yeah, you can, you can chug yeah. Energy drinks, all you want. But if everything else is, you're treating your body like crap, cuz of what you're putting in, that's not gonna help you really. You gotta, you gotta fix the foundation first
Brian Burik (00:29:25):
And mark, you brought up a real interesting thing with your coffee intake. So, and I'm not a doctor, I'm not, you know, my expertise isn't necessarily with caffeine while, while I still understand the benefits and how to get more to you from a roasting side, as well as a coffee provider provider like you and I, we know we're working on, on a, on a blend, that's gonna be actually for you with the best flavor, but still giving you some, an extra punch in there. Some
Mark Burik (00:29:50):
Kick,
Brian Burik (00:29:50):
Some kick. Yeah. You need a little extra kick, but I just said maybe we should dive into to some of that.
Mark Burik (00:29:56):
Heck yeah. Well, I mean, I think the first question that comes to mind when everybody looks at coffee and caffeine, cuz we've all been like in the gas station coffee and we all know it sucks, but you see like the turbo boost coffee, you know, and you see the dark roast and the light roast. And my question is if I want to get the maximum amount of caffeine, what coffees should I be choosing?
Brian Burik (00:30:19):
Yeah. So, you know, what has the most caffeine, what has a bite roast or dark roast? There's a few different categories of coffee varietals. You knower there's Araca and Robusta right. Okay. So two main ones Araca coffee find Araca coffee. People have found tastes better than Robusta Robusta coffee has more caffeine. Hmm. So if you were to tell me, Brian, I don't care what it tastes like. Can tradition coffee roasters make me a coffee that just has the most caffeine. I would source a hundred percent. Robusta I'd find the best quality I can. And then I would roast it for you. And that's the best way to do it. Another way you can do it is just by drinking more coffee. Another way you can do it is by using more coffee in your room. So a typical number that we use in coffee is, you know, we usually do grams and milliliters, but 17 to one ratio or it's still really simple, 15 to one ratio. So for one gram of coffee, I'm going to use 15 grams of water,
Mark Burik (00:31:20):
One gram of coffee, 15 grams of water. Oh, that's a nice way to think. But is that like in my coffee pot when I'm doing that machine, is that
Brian Burik (00:31:27):
Yes. That's why I believe I
Mark Burik (00:31:28):
Have a scale. God, that would make it so much easier because then I could just, all right. So if I have one cup, so,
Brian Burik (00:31:35):
So
Mark Burik (00:31:35):
If I'm measuring my coffee grinds out, right? Yeah. How do we do this?
Brian Burik (00:31:38):
So first thing I would do is measure out your, take your scoop of coffee, right? How much does it weigh? How much does the actual coffee weigh?
Mark Burik (00:31:46):
Oh, the pounds not containers.
Brian Burik (00:31:48):
No, definitely a container. So you take your bag that I sent you and you take a scoop, right? How much coffee are you actually do you have on there? And then if I have 10 grams of coffee, I'm going to grind it, put it back on the scale and I'm gonna add 150 grams of water. Hmm. Which is milli list. Right. But grams. So I just multiply it by 15. Anytime I'm gonna do it. That's a solid ratio. That's a nice strong ratio. Okay. Does that make sense?
Mark Burik (00:32:11):
Is that with filtered coffee only? Or is that, you know, if I'm looking for the one to 15 ratio, so I'm gonna weigh my coffee. Is there a way to do it without weighing it for people who have, who don't have a scale?
Brian Burik (00:32:21):
No, okay. I would say that you should really get a scale. You should get a good grinder, you know, a nice bird grinder. So that's a little bit of the snobby side of me coming in with that. But what I say in response to me playing devil's advocate is anytime you're brewing coffee, it's just about keeping the parameters even. So if you're doing one scoop of coffee, mm-hmm, brew it with the amount of water that you would usually use. Is it too light tasting? Is it not strong enough? If it's not strong enough, add more coffee so you can do it with a scoop, right? It's just about saying, okay, yesterday I remember doing one scoop. I needed more coffee this time. I'm gonna do it with a scoop and a half or two scoops. Again, you're going to taste. Everybody's taste is gonna be slightly different. So I think that's important. The next part of that is how much caffeine am I getting? You know, kind of just to bring it into, to, to our discussion here. And one interesting aspect of caffeine is it's super soluble in water. So it's like, as you start to brew your coffee, one of the first things to come out of your coffee bed is caffeine. What mine?
Mark Burik (00:33:17):
I know. So like those first few drips when you're impatiently waiting for your coffee pot to fill and, and I take in, I'm just like, I just need half a cup right now. You know? And I take that. I'm getting like technically the most caffeine initial
Brian Burik (00:33:31):
Drips, I would say maybe not the initial drips. Yes. You're gonna get caffeine. But if you used half the water, you'd have concentrated. You're gonna take out more of the caffeine. Then you have enough time to take out the coffee solubles. Sorry. Always have trouble with that.
Mark Burik (00:33:45):
Yeah. Big words are tough, man.
Brian Burik (00:33:48):
Mark Burik (00:33:49):
Three syllables always once we go above too, I hate it. Yeah.
Brian Burik (00:33:53):
So in coffee, we always go to total dissolve solvents when we start to figure out our strength in coffee and that's as we, how much coffee or I actually dissolving in order to get my brew and the finer, the grinder use the higher, the temperature of water, the more you're going to actually dissolve in there. Caffeine is interesting because it just jumps into the water and goes on through, right through the filter, right. Through everything. So yeah, you can do that.
Mark Burik (00:34:15):
So if I don't like the taste of my coffee, well, first of all, okay, so let's go back to the beginning. So Rustica is what I should look for is that found in bags?
Brian Burik (00:34:25):
Robusta yeah. Robusta thank you. So Robusta is, yeah, it's a variety of coffee.
Mark Burik (00:34:29):
Okay. Is that a specific meaning that that's grown somewhere?
Brian Burik (00:34:32):
Yeah. It's typically low grown. A lot of in Indonesia. Uh, India has a lot of Robusta it's considered an inferior quality as far as tasting goes, but it has nearly double the caffeine of a Arabica. Ah, so one of the reasons it has all that caffeine is because it's a natural resistant to pests. So you don't need the high elevation. You're gonna get a, when they grow it, they're going to have larger volumes that they're gonna be able to pull. And it's also a natural PEs resistant thing.
Mark Burik (00:35:01):
Interesting. So you can resist pests with your coffee now. I love that.
Brian Burik (00:35:05):
It naturally does that with the caffeine that's in there. Well,
Mark Burik (00:35:07):
That's, it's great. So why aren't people like, just like throwing coffee grinds around their farm fields? Why are we using all these nasty chemicals? So that's, it seems like a decent answer.
Brian Burik (00:35:18):
We should just have showers of caffeine.
Mark Burik (00:35:20):
Oh my God. That would be great. love that. I would love that. Okay. So we've got the two different types, but you could always just add more coffee. Like if you want extra caffeine, just drink more coffee. And I wanna talk a little bit because everybody talks about, well, you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't do the caffeine because it's dehydrating. It's dehydrating. Well, caffeine is a diuretic, right? So it will open up your pathways and make you go a little bit more. But what's widely been studied is that for American coffee, right? You're making it through a brew. It's not an espresso or a cappuccino or anything. The amount of water that we actually have in a black cup of coffee made in the, the American style through brew and stuff that normally replaces the amount of water that you would lose from the diuretic nature of caffeine.
(00:36:07):
So when people say that coffee is dehydrating, not necessarily, if you're taking in that normal average American coffee, however, what people they do get dehydrated. If they drink coffee as if it were the hydration part. So if you're going to drink coffee, that doesn't count as you adding fluids to your body because that'll come out as net zero, right? So for the sports performance geeks out there, and people who are trying to, you know, prepare themselves for a tournament or a practice, don't think that you can go off to the side of your practice, drink coffee. And because you're having caffeine, it's gonna be better or, or your performance is gonna go up because now the dehydration effects come in because you aren't now hydrating during practice, you're staying at zero for your actually what you're taking. And that's not going to allow you to battle de hydration effects.
(00:36:58):
If I'm giving recommendations to people, you should have the same amount of water as you have with your coffee. So every cup of coffee, you should be drinking a water next to. If you're thinking about staying hydrated at an elite level and keeping your performance up. So don't drink coffee as like your Gatorade. Don't drink it as the only thing. And if you keep in your mind, all right, I had my cup of coffee. Now I have to make sure that at minimum I'm drinking the water to match that cup of coffee. Yeah. So important for people to know. We also wanna talk about like milligrams, how much caffeine is in a cup of coffee, what's the primary or the best amount of caffeine. And I know from the research that we've done for this, and prior that you're hoping for, you know, honestly about 400 milligrams of caffeine, which sounds like a lot, because that could be four cups of coffee. That's shown to have the most performance upgrade with the least negative effects. Right. Without getting too crazy jittery, everybody's gonna have their sensitivity to caffeine. Right. Figuring that out.
Brian Burik (00:37:59):
I think that's, that's a, a strong point. Just caffeine's gonna hit everybody differently. My wife wins. She really can't have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea that that's caffeinated because she gets jittery. She feels like tingling. So she has a super hyper sensitivity, which is even made more sensitive because she avoids it. Right. Okay. So when you find where's coffee, uh, caffeine found it's it's coffee. It's found in tea, it's found in chocolate. So these are like natural sources of caffeine. Most of that she doesn't have, but she does drink a lot of tea, but usually not caffeinated. So then we have to say, okay, where are we gonna get this caffeine? And here, when we're looking at coffee, it's important to find like a high quality coffee. That's not including any other chemicals. I have customers that changed throughout the day. So we talked a little bit about the sensitivity of coffee. There's also a, a backend sensitivity where you're getting closer to your sleep. You don't wanna have coffee. I used to be able to drink coffee and go right to bed. Then it was 6:00 PM and it was 4:00 PM. Now it's like 3:00 PM. If I'm not done with my coffee consumption, I'm not going to sleep soundly that night. And I think everybody where they are in life.
Mark Burik (00:39:06):
So if you're saying that, like, if you drink coffee right now, after 3:00 PM, it's going to affect your sleep.
Brian Burik (00:39:11):
Yeah. 3:00 PM is my cutoff. But if I have a coffee at four or five, yeah. By the time I get to bed at 10, 11, it's still kind of just waning effects. And that,
Mark Burik (00:39:21):
That goes with the science, right? Yeah. Six it's about six hours for the last caffeine to be out of your bloodstream. Yeah. Right. So last time you drank coffee, you can expect that it's completely out of your bloodstream or filtered out six hours from there.
Brian Burik (00:39:35):
Yeah. And the science says within about an hour, you're going to start feeling the most benefits of caffeine. So if you were going to look at, Hey, how am I gonna use caffeine? Which is such a weird, like way when we talk about a drug that's out there in chocolate that we give our kids and like, how are we gonna use caffeine? You have to look at like, when you're want that peak performance for how long you want that. And then look at your own sensitivity and your own resistance. One of the, or not resistance, help me out mark tolerance. You've built
Mark Burik (00:40:03):
Up tolerance. Thank you.
Brian Burik (00:40:04):
Thank you. Geez. Uh, how much tolerance you've built up? So one way that I would say for you, mark, is, are you looking for that peak performance, every workout that you do or do you just wanna use it on game day? Because if you're just using it on game day, maybe you cut back all your other days and then you did an, you know, as you go into game day mm. Other people want it for their practices, but then when you take an off month or, you know, a slow down season, maybe that's where you're like, Hey, I know I'm gonna like, not train as hard or train in different ways. Maybe you're focused more on flexibility and endurance, but you don't need that pipe. Yeah. Maybe that's a time in your calendar where you cut back on your caffeine. I'm not helping my business here. but cut back on your caffeine. And
Mark Burik (00:40:45):
That's when you subscribe to the decaf,
Brian Burik (00:40:47):
That's right. We have pauses. You could pause at any moment or, and, uh, and start it back up whenever it works for you. But I want you to get the most out. I don't wanna waste anyone's money.
Mark Burik (00:40:56):
Okay. So if we're looking at a practice and this is something that I do too, when I'm at practices, like, yes, I still have caffeines, it's part of my regular routine, but I do hold myself back when I know that I can. So when I'm scheduling my practices during a week, if I, no, I got a tournament that weekend, I'm gonna try to curb my caffeine intake. I'm not saying I'm eliminating it still wanna maximize the practice, but I don't want to get to the point where I need to have so much caffeine in my system to feel any sort of different effects or, or increased focus because your gen glands, your hormones, they get used to it. And eventually when you're releasing this adrenaline and caffeine releases in the end, it releases a little bit adrenaline so that you can focus. But then your pituitary glands, the glands that are supposed to do this on their own for like a fight or fight response, when you're getting excited, eventually they get mixed signals because they're so used to you being they're so used to the chemicals, being that they lose the signals to generate it when it's time to perform.
(00:41:54):
Right? Yeah. So they don't know how to like get you excited naturally because they feel like, well, you're always excited. So there's no threat and you're hyped up right now. Like we see all the hormones in your blood, but there's no bear around. So why do we even need to produce this? And that's a big problem that people don't understand is that they want to try to maximize it to every practice. Yeah. You can't constantly have it in your system cuz your body has to learn how to get yourself excited. Yeah.
Brian Burik (00:42:18):
And caffeine is also interesting because really what it does is it tricks your body into not being tired. It's not really maybe a, a stimulant in its truest in its truest form, but it just kind of like puts that waste. That you're, that your brain's saying, Hey, it's tired and kind of fills it up into your body saying, oh, maybe I'm not tired. Cuz losing track of what substance it is. Again, not a caffeine major, but the idea behind it is that it tricks your body into not being tired. Mm. And at some point you do have to pay the Piper, you know?
Mark Burik (00:42:46):
Yep. Okay. So we're making sure that if we're getting our caffeine in, we're getting our coffee in, we're thinking and here's the meat of it. And guys, before we go on, before we give you this and before anyone heads out, we do wanna say that my brother's not sponsoring me, but I, of course I want to support him. And I'm telling you right now that I've, I've been a part of his company for the last year. I love getting the coffee at my doorstep every month, the exact amount that I need so that there's no extra, there's no more. And it shows up and it's delicious and it's a family run business. I mean, my brother's got two daughters, he's got a wife. They, you know, he put his life on the line for 20 something years for everybody in New York city. And this is something that you could love to support.
(00:43:28):
So for everybody who's listening for all of our listeners and all of our volleyball players and who's joining right now, Brian has offered a 10% discount for anything on his website. If you go to tradition, coffee, roasters.com and you'll find your way through it, we've gone through his website. We know that it's easy to find what you want and what you need. And you can, we're gonna talk about a few special blends that Brian has and, and which is more caffeinated and, and what you wanna look for in your taste and flavor profile. But if you want that 10% discount and you want beautiful handpicked and roasted by Brian coffee at your doorstep every month or anything else that they offer, you have the coupon code better at beach. So on checkout, when you go to tradition, coffee, roasters.com, you get a 10% discount for anything that's up there.
(00:44:18):
And that coupon code is better at beach. You know, I would love if you support my brother and of course, I mean 99% of your drinking coffee anyway. So you might as well keep it in the volleyball and friendly family, a tradition, coffee, roasters.com. The coupon code again is better at beach. Go ahead over and take a look or open up a tab right now if you're just listening and if you're in the car, just have the person next to you, open that on your cell phone. So you can have coffee waiting for you when you get back from your road trip.
Brian Burik (00:44:45):
Yeah. That's awesome. Mark, happy to provide for you and all your followers. You've got a great group and I love athletes and consider myself part of the team so to speak.
Mark Burik (00:44:52):
Oh yeah. And you know, you're also in Oahu, so you're running like coffee, roastery tours and of course volleyball and beach volleyball have a deep, deep history in Oahu. So if you guys are headed out to Hawaii and you want to learn anything and everything there is to know about roasting coffee, the different ways it's made, try a bunch of different blends and brew and roasts and beans, uh, you can head on over to them for a coffee roastery tour as well as a tasting experience, which I think is, is really cool. And it's an, I mean, for me, I've always thought like it was an easy date or an easy like business meeting, like, Hey, you know, let's go over and learn about coffee and it'll be a nice little innocent hour, hour and a half experience that we can enjoy and it's not, you know, and then you can part ways, you know, if you're a Tinder or Bumble kind of guy,
Brian Burik (00:45:42):
It, it's a perfect date. And to do some of the classes would, are great. We source globally. So central south America and then a lot of local coffee. So Kona region, Kahu, uh, just south of Kona here, as well as some stuff that is growing here on Oahu Maui. But we take everybody through it. Take a little bit through the production side of it, the farmer side, because a lot of our, what we do is because of them and their hard work. And when we source our specialty grade coffee, a few of the other things that we look for Mar, which is really at the source of helping people, we always say, you have great coffee. It meets the profile that we want, that our customers want, but what else are you doing for people? What else are you doing for the land? So you'll find a lot of our coffee bean are either organically farmed women owned farms. Some are rain forest Alliance, basically just trying to figure out other ways that we can support people who are also putting support in, in other other aspects. So,
Mark Burik (00:46:37):
Yeah, it's a little bit self-serving right, because if somebody's not taking care of the land that they're growing their coffee on, or it's, you're not creating a place where agriculture is self-generating and regenerating and you destroy your own business along with the rest of the earth and whatever else we're doing. So it's smart to do it that way from, not just from a, Hey, it's good for everybody's standpoint, but it's also good for you cuz it continues that business and in a healthy way. So you could give people good coffee instead of tons of pesticides and chemicals and stuff in their coffee.
Brian Burik (00:47:08):
Yep. Yeah.
Mark Burik (00:47:09):
Are there any, um, can, can I ask you to throw some people under a bus? Are there any coffees that we should watch out for that are adding chemicals that you kind of don't want, or you don't get a pure caffeine taste or, or scent, so you don't get that kick or it just comes with too much other crap that you're putting in your
Brian Burik (00:47:24):
Body. So I would say that most places that are doing specialty coffee are moving away from there. What I would pay attention to is DEC decaffeination process. So how coffee gets DEC decaffeinated there's chemicals that that can be used to pull the caffeine out of the, out of the coffee bean itself. The one that we use is a water decaffeination process or Swiss water decaff, as it's more widely known in that sense, instead of putting your coffee into a solution, using chemicals to draw out the caffeine, it's basically put it into a heat bath, done offsite by PE by businesses that that's their main business. They'll put the coffee, the green coffee unroasted into a bath of water, heat, the water. And like I said, the solu ability of caffeine goes into the water and they run it through filters and those filters pull out all the caffeine.
(00:48:09):
What they do with that caffeine is they sell it to pharmaceutical companies, et CRIN and then beverage companies that are using caffeine in their drinks for as a natural caffeine. So, oh, interesting. Yeah. It's kinda like we'll take your garbage and then we'll sell your garbage to someone who else. It's a, it's a good business model for them and a little more involved than we, what we want to get, what we wanna do here. But if you're looking for a nice organically decaffeinated coffee, check out our Swiss water, decaf here, other places we'll do that. Or a CO2 DEC decaffeinated process where they're using carbon dioxide, but
Mark Burik (00:48:43):
Okay. Is that like on the labels or anything that people can easily find? It
Brian Burik (00:48:46):
Should be. I mean, if, if you're going through the process and spending the extra money to get a decaffeinated coffee through these
Mark Burik (00:48:52):
Processes, DEC decaffeinated coffee.
Brian Burik (00:48:53):
Yeah. A good healthy DEC decaffeinated coffee that you could feed your kids. Like I do. You kind of wanna highlight it. So that's something that we do highlight.
Mark Burik (00:49:00):
Okay. So back to the caffeine content with coffee, right. Generally one cup of coffee and correct me if this is the same as espresso, but one survey of coffee, we're looking at somewhere between 80 and, and 120 milligrams of caffeine, right?
Brian Burik (00:49:15):
Yeah, you're right in there.
Mark Burik (00:49:16):
Okay. And that's with espresso or with basically one of the filtered cups of coffee, you're looking at 80 to 120. And we're thinking that for supplementation, if you're looking for supplementation to experience effects, of course, everybody's got different sensitivities. So start going step by step. But two to 400 milligrams of coffee is right around where most people are experiencing that. The peak effects before they go essentially go nuts or get jittery. Yeah. Right with that caffeine. So probably anywhere from two to four cups of coffee is what we're looking at in terms of being able to supplement that. And if we're doing it for a practice or for a match, the first effects of caffeine you're gonna feel at about, because it's so soluble, like you said, you're gonna feel that at about 15 minutes. And that goes up to like max absorbency into your, or into your bloodstream where most of the caffeine is present.
(00:50:08):
That's at about an hour could be up to two hours, depending on how much you ate, how much is in your stomach and how it's allowing to get through your bloodstream. So to be safe, let's say that you would like to ingest some coffee. And if it's your first time go light and one cup of coffee, it'd be fine. Right. But you want to start adding that coffee or the caffeine into your system, I'd say about a half hour before your match or before your practice so that it can ride out so that you wanna hit that max peak. Maybe if you want to hit it on the first point, that's fine. But then you might need to, if you drink coffee or, or whatever, you're drinking an hour before you match or half hour before you match and you have a longer bout, then you also wanna supplement it with like little bits as you go forward, because you also don't wanna experience where you're at a high energy and then you feel it start to drop down. You'd like to keep riding it at a plateau. Right. However, you're not gonna go crazy and make sure it goes over the top. So is that right? Would you say like two cups of coffee, maybe three about hour.
Brian Burik (00:51:07):
I love the way you're thinking about it. And I love trying to come up with like solutions for it and how I would best utilize it. And I think about my day and if I have a, if I long workout, long day where me, it's more on my feet right now than doing much of a workout, but I like coffee to start my day. So I would say, okay, I'm gonna make myself this monster cup of coffee and I'm gonna sip it a little bit in the beginning. And then if I were on my way to the beach, I'd probably throw in a bunch of ice cubes on the side. So as that coffee's cooled, I'm supplementing with ice so that I could sip it throughout my training regimen or my tournament. And then by the end of it, I also benefiting from the extra hydration from the ice part.
(00:51:44):
You know? So then what's neat about coffee is, and we go through this with some of our sensory training is as we evaluate coffee and we, and we cup it or, or sip it, the flavor changes as it cools. So one thing you'll notice with our coffee is even as it cools, you're still getting a lot of the sweetness, the, the, the body, the acidity everything's getting highlighted, depending on which coffee it does. We have some white roast coffees where the acidity is more prominent and then meaning brightness of the coffee and then others where the sweetness. So like my firehouse blend is a great example of it as it, it goes from this sweet, rich cup. And as it cools, it starts to get like this syrupy mapley undertone, where there's still the strength. And so the next time you're having a cup of coffee, mark, try it when it's warm. Okay. Try a half hour later. If you can write down it or just think about what flavor notes and it's going to change. And it's, it's a wild experiment, but it's one thing that really interests me in coffee. Like, why does it change? How come just temperature? And my perception on my tongue is different than it was 15, 20 minutes ago. So when we evaluate coffee, it typically goes for 45 minutes where we're just letting the coffee cool and taste. And, and
Mark Burik (00:52:52):
That's wild. It blows my mind that there are coffee people out there. I, I saw that one movie that was like Jack Nicholas and Morgan Freeman, where they're like getting old and, and they drank the Roach poop coffee, or like, or coffee made from poop.
Brian Burik (00:53:06):
Yeah. Uh, coffee quad. I forget the name, but it's yeah. Cat poop coffee where the cat or sort of a cat digested and helps out.
Mark Burik (00:53:15):
But the fact that, you know, and I'm not a wine connoisseur either, but I know how people pay attention to that. And that there are coffee, conno, sores who are paying extreme attention to the flavor, the temperature, how long you roast. I mean, you skipped over it a little bit, but you said that coffee beans are green. And I never knew that until I went to your spot. I was like, what? Yeah. Green, like the coffee beans are green. And then you actually roast them over what a fire and in onion. And then that is, is that where the flavor comes from? Like if you roast them too long, it'd be, it tastes like
Brian Burik (00:53:49):
Charcoal, mean coffee, beans, aren't beans at all, which is the, the, a bit of a joke. It's it's seeds dammit. It's two seeds in a, of a cherry, which are we, for some reason, try to confuse people by calling them beans, but they are seeds of a cherry.
Mark Burik (00:54:04):
Huh? Oh. And I got my peaberry coffee. Uh, woo
Brian Burik (00:54:07):
P and G Papa. New Guinea delicious where it's,
Mark Burik (00:54:11):
It's a single cause it was fruity. I thought it was a little too fruity for my taste. Mm-hmm so I enjoyed it. But I think some of the other ones like your firehouse blend, oh, that's been my favorite so far for sure. But I am excited for the VO brew or whatever we're gonna call it guys. We're making on the back end, we're making a specialty coffee just for volleyball players. I want it to like taste beachy, taste light, but have high caffeine content. So just be prepared. I don't know if it'll be out by the time this episode airs, but if it is, we'll include it in the show notes, but we're making a VO brew or a coffee specifically so that you can drink for your tournaments and for your practices. That's gonna be high caffeinated and nice and summary and beachy in its nature.
Brian Burik (00:54:49):
And it's going to be delicious with all of
Mark Burik (00:54:52):
That. Hell yeah.
Brian Burik (00:54:53):
Mark Burik (00:54:55):
All right. So this is a good lesson for all athletes. I think if we're gonna sum up your coffee intake, first of all, if we're doing a whole rundown, right, you need to start small and see how it affects you. And I would recommend writing this stuff down. You know, you practice on Monday, see what your energy is like, just rate your energy. Just one through 10 on a piece of paper, write your energy. If you need help, just sign up for our program at better beach.com/foundations. And we'll walk you through it, but it's super easy. You don't need that program to do it. Just write down how your energy was after a non cup of coffee. Then since we know that the max effects of caffeine are gonna be felt about an hour, 15 minutes to two hours, but about an hour after you consume it, start with this a half hour before your match or before your practice or before your lift, you take a cup of coffee right down your energy fields.
(00:55:42):
After that, hopefully you've slept the same both nights. And so you're controlling some variables then after that and the next day, two cups next day, three cups, and just see where your energy is and how you feel it. I think most people don't write their stuff down enough. So they just play this giant guessing game instead of becoming scientific with their performance. Right? You wanna make sure that you're actually measuring this stuff so that you can do it. If you are playing a tournament, this is a long day, right? So you can't just pile on with your caffeine or coffee consumption. So this means that you're going to have to take less coffee, less caffeine throughout the day, but still hit those little peaks. So that half hour before each match, maybe you're having one cup of coffee, right? And so that way it res cuz remember the caffeine content in your blood.
(00:56:33):
It's not erased until six hours later. So each time you have another cup of coffee, you're going to end up like compounding that it's not gonna be quite gone. So you're gonna ride a high and then you're gonna hit a new peak. You're gonna ride a high and you're gonna hit a new peak for some of you that might mean jitters for some of you that might mean really great energy where you're fired up, you're focused, you're moving faster and you're making better decisions, actual better mental decisions. Right? But you're gonna have to explore that. So if you're waiting until the beginning of the second set to have your caffeine, you might be done with that match before you even feel the effects. So if we're talking about supplementation, make sure that that we're hitting that hour to half hour window right before to see if you can start writing that caffeine high for your coffee.
(00:57:19):
And if you are drinking, right, we're talking about making sure you stay hydrated, that coffee is a diuretic, so it will pull water out of your body. However, it's not necessarily in itself, dehy it just means neutral, which means that you must drink extra water. So if you're thinking that you're gonna drink black coffee, when you're preparing for a match or something like that, remember that your stomach might start feeling full. If you have the black American like watered down coffee, uh, Europeans would call it watered down, right? The watered down coffee. And then you might feel a little too full in your stomach. So Brian, is there an option where people can have like less in their stomach, but still get the caffeine? Like, is that where espresso comes in or cappuccino so that I don't have to feel so bloated. Yeah.
Brian Burik (00:58:02):
So you could definitely, again, it comes down to the thing with espresso is you're using, you can use the same amount of coffee. So for a double espresso here, we use 18 grams and you could also brew a cup of coffee for 18 grams. The thing with espresso is you are using a much smaller amount of CA of water in order to brew your espresso, right. A couple ounces. So in that you're getting a concentrated beverage, you're using the same amount of coffee as a cup of coffee, but it's concentrated. And yet you're getting more bang for your buck and, and an espresso as far as volume goes.
Mark Burik (00:58:33):
Okay. Right. So it's gonna be the same amount of caffeine, but less water. So now I might, well, you still might need to drink than two cups of coffee. So it might almost, or sorry, two cups of water, right? Yeah. So I might almost serve you to drink the American cup since it's the same amount of caffeine diuretic. Right. And then you're adding the water if you have an Americano, but you're not adding the water if you have the espresso. So either way you still need to add like two cups of water with one yeah. Serving of caffeine coffee,
Brian Burik (00:58:59):
I guess. Yeah. Hydration is a whole different thing. I would hope that especially athletes at your performance level, you guys are so focused on hydration that it's almost not even a concern for you guys because it's just second nature. Uh, but for definitely some of the more novice coffee drinkers, it's something to consider, especially working out hard on a beach or getting your workout on. Nice.
Mark Burik (00:59:16):
Hey, we got a couple more minutes here, but I kind of wanna know what you learned from sports as a kid and what you learned from fire department as well. And I know this is a little weird. I've always considered firefighting as a sport in a way, because it's unpredictable. It's always different environments and different situations that can change. Right? And you still need technique. You still need skill. You still need teamwork and communication. So to me, in a way, firefighting has been like the closest job that there could be to playing a sport mm-hmm . So is there anything that you've carried from your sport background or your firefighting background that you're loving doing, or you think has been so crucial to you that you've learned there and you've taken into business and entrepreneurialism, I
Brian Burik (00:59:59):
Think to like sum it all up for like things that I find exciting are putting myself in uncomfortable situations. You know, whether that's in sport or with a career or with an operation or here with the business, but constantly challenging myself and making myself feel uncomfortable. Even as a firefighter. I remember, you know, when I was first in a ladder company and then I would say there's some areas, no matter how interesting the job is that it becomes monotonous. So going to special operations was a huge way to challenge myself. And then later on becoming an officer was another way to challenge myself. So about every, every few years I wanna find a new way to make myself uncomfortable. And the business has been one of those. So trying to enter a whole different industry from the complete ground up with just nothing more to start with other than a passion for coffee, passion for brewing and excitement about roasting and getting to, into a position where I'm able to up the games of others and share some of the experience that I've learned.
(01:00:59):
So if I were to take something from sports from childhood, it's just to a piece of advice, it would be just to keep finding ways to make yourself uncomfortable. I think you use that a little bit with muscle building, right? If you're these microscopic tears, it's like exceed the comfort of your muscles. Well, here I exceeding the comfort of my life by putting myself into a new challenge and that's something I've really love. And the other side of it is, you know, a great chief told me once Brian, he goes, the best way to learn is to teach. And I really, uh, wholeheartedly believe that because it forces you to be on point with your material. It forces you to question your material and you get question and the more you get questioned, the more you hear other people's viewpoints and the more open you are to new ideas. So I love the idea of teaching to learn.
Mark Burik (01:01:49):
I love that. I had that experience the same way where, you know, we got taught the same thing from a bunch of different club and high school coaches. And then, you know, people ask me about it and I start teaching it and I start saying it and I'm just like, yeah. But if I had to play devil's advocate, cuz I always play devil's advocate with myself, right. I'm always like, I attack my own things to make sure that nobody attack attacks what I say the next time. Yeah. Or at least I have a good defense or explanation for it. And sometimes the answer is guys, we actually don't have any studies for this, but all of the current top coaches in the world teach it this way. All the best players do it this way. So that's what we're doing. You know, if you figure it out, let me know.
(01:02:25):
And literally I'll be coaching a camp and I'll, I'll let people know exactly where I stand on it and they respect you more when you're just like, oh, okay. He's not gonna BS us ever. As soon as you tell a good, hard truth, people gain a lot of trust in you. And they say, oh, he's never going to BSS. If he doesn't know an answer, he's gonna say, I don't know. Or I don't know why, but we have a lot of those skills in volleyball where it's been taught to you, but because you're teaching somebody else and you have to explain it and you have to logic it out, then you have to go back and you look at what people are doing. And for me, you know, watching some of the best players in slow motion has completely eradicated advice that lots of coaches are giving because you're like, wait a second.
(01:03:02):
All of the top athletes all are not doing it this way or they are doing it this way and that's not what people are teaching. And so that's when you have to take a step back and realize that. So I like that. I like that. You're saying like, make sure that you're can teach what you're doing. And for us it better at beach it's one of our main goals is if you're playing with us right. And you're learning from us, but you can't explain it to the next athlete. We haven't done our job in helping the volleyball world, the community, the next generation. If I just tell you do it, do it, do it. And that's all you learn and you can't explain it to somebody else in a couple different ways. We really haven't done our part in the sport for, for our goals. Mm-hmm . And I do like that, that you're saying that with, with entrepreneurialism as well, that you should be able to explain a lot of what you're doing and be uncomfortable in the beginning. until you get to that point
Brian Burik (01:03:49):
And then find a new way to make yourself uncomfortable. But with your communication, you know, I see, I know, you know, a lot of people may not know truly how hard you work on so many different aspects of your life and what you've put into, you know, being a professional athlete and then now to starting to teach others to become or become better professional athletes. It's always interesting, the hard work that goes in behind it and you're complete inspiration to see that. And it's how a lot of people really need to look at one aspect of their life and take it to that professional level to teach whatever it is. And you know, that could be serving a ball, passing a ball. But if you, you may not be able to teach the whole game, but can you teach someone how to do an overhand move from a underhand serve to an overhand serve, you know, very basic level. And then can you teach it to a kid and can you teach to an adult? And then can you teach it to a lefty? Like
Mark Burik (01:04:45):
Yep.
Brian Burik (01:04:45):
All different ways that you could start to say, well, what am I actually teaching? And I've seen you do that just to such an expert level. That it's, it's awesome too. Um,
Mark Burik (01:04:54):
Thanks
Brian Burik (01:04:54):
Man much in that progression.
Mark Burik (01:04:55):
Thanks. If somebody's thinking about, and this might have to do with the other podcast slash business that we're starting, I'm about to make myself hella uncomfortable. I should used the word hella out loud, uncomfortable in starting another business called entre athlete. But if we could dive into that for just a second, what at the beginning of completely starting over, you know, you had your career as a firefighter and you, and how old were you? 38.
Brian Burik (01:05:18):
40 41 41.
Mark Burik (01:05:21):
When you started a
Brian Burik (01:05:23):
Company. Oh, when I started,
Mark Burik (01:05:24):
No, no, no. When you, when you started a new, a new situation. Gotcha. Right. You started a completely new company in an industry that you had never been a part of that had never been in business. You know, you're a firefighting. What was the scariest part about making that change? Because I think a lot of athletes are gonna relate to this and, and I certainly will about coming towards the end of their playing career and saying, now I have to redefine myself or something that has defined me since I was four years old, picking up Roman candles to see if any of them were still, you know, liable
Brian Burik (01:05:56):
Mischievous little boy, how it was.
Mark Burik (01:05:59):
Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're a firefighter like when you came outta the womb, but then you had to redefine yourself and go into a completely new industry. So what was the scariest part of that? And what did you tell yourself or who was there to help you overcome it?
Brian Burik (01:06:11):
I would say one thing I really have in common with professional athletes of that level is, you know, and you go back to fight club, right? Like you are not your job. You are not your, your house. You know? And I had actually at one point just kept reading that, you know, to disassociate myself from everything that I thought I was and wanted to be in my whole life. So there was a few very difficult years of like, oh my gosh, am I not going to be, you know, what am I gonna do? So one of the scariest things for me was not having a passion, you know, like never getting to that risk level, that intensity level that I was so used to and going from Brian, the firefighter and, you know, rescue firefighter to Brian, you know, the retired guy who was a face of a, you know, a gorgeous face of a 30 year old with the back of an 80 year old .
(01:07:01):
So I guess that was a tough thing is getting over that aspect of yourself. And I think professional athletes can say, Hey, they're young. They feel like they could do it. They're mentally ready to do it, but either their body or competition is telling them you're not competing at this level. So finding a passion was really imperative. And then when I did find the passion, I didn't realize it for a while. You know, I was just so excited to start roasting. And then at some point, you know, 16, 17 hours a day of just research, reading, finding mentors, finding people who would ask questions, Lindsay came over and she was like, why don't you do coffee? Like you talk to people who are walking by babies and strollers about, you know, coffee and how to roast . So why don't you do it? And then it was the risk of saying, okay, I'm going to do it because once you I'm very similar to you.
(01:07:54):
Like when you say you're gonna do it, you're once you say, oh, I'm doing it, you're gonna do it. Right. So that's scary to take that jump. It's scary to tell people I am a coffee roasting professional, because then you are a coffee roasting professional, and you have the responsibility to do that in a professional manner. Yeah. Right. So saying you own a business is scary because you know, in six months I'm gonna ask you about your business and what are you gonna tell me? Oh, I never did that. Hmm. That's scary to me. People looking at you, like, you know,
Mark Burik (01:08:25):
Like you're full of BS. Yeah. Full
Brian Burik (01:08:27):
Of BS, you know, it's scary to commit to something that's grand. Hmm. Um, and then also being very new, not being brought up as a barista or through a roasting community and just completely going into an area where there are already personalities and professionals and not belittling their work, not taking away from it, but more so saying thank you for their work because it helped accelerate. My process was really exciting. And now to start being someone who a resource that people are coming to is really
Mark Burik (01:08:58):
Cool. I think that that's so relatable for players who are starting to play like a lot of our audiences, 25 30, and they're exploring beach volleyball or volleyball for the first time. And they're like, you know, and, and the line is like, oh, we played these D one players from, they played in college. So that's why they're kicking our butts. And to have that feeling like you're in imposter, when there's so many people who have so much more experience than you is scary, but it also gives you an advantage in that you have to find unique or faster ways to match them than they have. And I, I think, cuz I didn't play in high school. I played, you know, half a season in high school. I was like, I felt so far behind everybody. So it was just like, well for me it was just reps and coaching.
(01:09:43):
I got into coaching to learn volleyball. So like when, during my summers it was, I have to learn how to play volleyball. How do I do that without spending hundreds on a coach? Oh, I know I'll go. And I'll coach for coaches. So I went around the country and found like NCAA coaches who were running their summer camps. And I was like, Hey, I'll coach for you. Hey, I'll coach for you. And I would always throw in, you know, how much is the pay? And if they said we don't have any paid opportunities, I was still there. You know, because if I can learn quickly how they're coaching, then I'm getting all these hours, all these reps ahead of the people who are years ahead of me. And then you find that unique path to catch up. So if, if you guys are out there and you're worried about your new endeavor, your new path, your new life, changing your identity, just remember that you have an advantage that somebody who's been in it for years does not have. And you're going to learn it in a unique way that they can't. And I think that's important for people to hear in their lives.
Brian Burik (01:10:37):
It is. And mark, I also, when started the coffee journey, I, you get to a point where you need more experience. And after reading and learning at everything that I could online or to a healthy amount that you could online, I found a men, a mentor, and I walked into a place. He didn't know me from a hole in the wall. And I said, I told him a little bit about my story. He says, Brian, what are you looking for? I need a mentor. Like I need somebody to actually test and ask these problems about. And he goes, okay, come in here as much as you want. And at the end of the day, we'll have a discussion and, and we'll do it. And it was, it starts from being service mind, right? Like first you give, don't expect to get anything from it. Don't walk into somewhere saying, I want this, this, this that's in the back of your head.
(01:11:21):
Like there's going to be a benefit. You don't know what that benefit was, but not to box yourself into knowing what the benefit was. I got so much experience from those conversations that I would have and continue to have with that mentor. It was just incredible. And then on the other side, similar, so similar to volleyball is get out there and get your touches in. Start for, for me, it was roasting coffee, start testing things, start understanding it, but you could read all you want and it, you could learn from the websites. You could watch personalities, you could watch your videos. All you want until you get on the court and start doing it. Stop wasting too much time behind a computer. You know, stop continually trying to get all the information from other people start there, but then use it as a tool. Like practice it, get your touches in, love
Mark Burik (01:12:07):
It. Big B, I think that's a good place to cut it. And that's probably our, our sound bite. , that'll be the hook at the beginning. And at the end, that's perfect.
Brian Burik (01:12:15):
This is good, mark. I hope it was intensive on caffeine as we want it to be, but it's cool to always see the similarities, uh, with where we are in life and share an hour and a half, which is more than we've shared. I
Mark Burik (01:12:25):
Know
Brian Burik (01:12:26):
For far too long,
Mark Burik (01:12:28):
I know we're getting it in, but we'll build our empires and then we'll merge 'em
Brian Burik (01:12:32):
Well, thank you
Mark Burik (01:12:34):
Guys. If you want the best tasting coffee in the entire world delivered to your doorstep and hand roasted by a hero and my brother head on over to tradition, coffee, roasters.com. Remember that we are offering it 10% discount coupon, just enter better at beach in the checkout and would love to have your support. And you know, I'm just happy to introduce the world to my brother, somebody I love and somebody that I know, uh, will never disappoint you. If you become one of his, his customers. So heading over to tradition, coffee, roasts.com and coupon code better at beach. Ry love you, buddy.
Brian Burik (01:13:14):
Love you too. And just tell everybody next time you're on Oahu. Stop buying Kailua, come by up to the roastery. And I would love to see you mention this podcast and you're gonna get a great big hug, 10% off. So love you guys.
Mark Burik (01:13:27):
Hey, is there any way that people can reach out to you personally? Like if they have a coffee question or if they're just something as simple as like how much grinds should I use for cetera or, you know, what's the best espresso machine, anything or do they wanna learn about the coffee business or anything or where to visit Oahu? Is there any way that they can specifically reach out
Brian Burik (01:13:46):
To you? Yeah. So Brian at tradition, coffee, roasters.com. It's a long one. Talk about lessons learned another time, but Brian at tradition, coffee, roasters.com, uh, would be a great way to reach out again, mention, mention mark, mention the podcast, or just mention your problem. And I love helping sort through that. It's a great way for me to connect and another excuse to talk about coffee.
Mark Burik (01:14:10):
Oh yeah. L and guys, they have an Instagram account. It's called tradition coffee roasters, right at tradition, coffee roasters on
Brian Burik (01:14:16):
Instagram. That's right. Tradition, coffee roasters. And, and by the time this comes out, we're going to have your blend. I just wanna start, keep sending you samples and keep it in your notes. I know you have, uh, a notes about how you're feeling, what you eat. Keep it in there. Tell me if you get different feelings of intensity from different samples that I send you.
Mark Burik (01:14:36):
Oh cool. I'm in the Molly brew will come about. I love it. Yeah.
Brian Burik (01:14:40):
Ready?
Mark Burik (01:14:41):
All right. Cool. Brian, love you say hi to the girls and love you and we'll see you later. Everybody else. We'll see you on the sand.
Brian Burik (01:14:49):
Thank you.
