Coffee with a Calvinist (Talking Missions & Embarrassing Stories while Drinking Coffee)

Hey guys, I'm Keith Foskey and today we're doing coffee with a Calvinist. Actually, two Calvinists. I've got Pastor Aaron Bell of Redeemer Church in Yulee, Florida, and he's an expert in the area of.

Coffee Roasting, Brewing Gear, and the Four Squirrelly Joe's Blends

Coffee. Is that true? Amateur enthusiast.

Amateur enthusiast. He brought along all these cool tools for us to test out what is the best Squirrelly Joe's coffee. As you guys know, Squirrelly Joe's is one of our channel partners and they have sent me a variety of the roasts that they do and we are going to be looking at four specific roasts today.

We're going to be testing out which one we like the best. Again, my palate is unrefined. When it comes to coffee, I'm just not a guy who knows the difference a lot, so that's why I invited Aaron to come along.

Anybody who has a contraption like this to make coffee knows a lot more than I do. This thing, to me, this looks like the kind of thing you reload ammo with. I mean, if you've ever seen an ammo reloading setup, that's what this looks like.

But this is going to be an opportunity for us to taste Squirrelly Joe's coffee. We're going to grind the beans ourselves in our, is that Bargatze? Like Nate Bargatze? It's Baratza. Baratza. We have a Baratza bean grinder.

We have this... Hario siphon. It looks like one of those things I used to have in science class in high school. What was it? It does take like a Bunsen burner. It does. Oh, we have a Bunsen... You guys, we're going to be playing with fire on this show.

If you didn't know, I've done shows like this in the past where I have done taste tests. My kids and I did an eggnog test. Richard Roden and I have done testing who has the best chicken sandwiches. Chick-fil-A did not win, amazingly.

The Lord is dismayed. That's right. So we do this periodically just as a fun video to kind of break out of the mold of our normal stuff. And I hope you guys are going to enjoy it. While we're doing this, we're also going to be talking about the fact that not only is Aaron a pastor, but he's also done missions work in Tanzania.

Check that out. It's on his shirt. I'm going to have to move both. And we'll talk a little bit about his trip to Tanzania and the work that he did there while we're making coffee. So stay tuned. Coffee with the Calvinists begins right now.

All right. So first things first, we're going to talk about why we chose these four. Squirrelly Joe sent me a few others, but we felt like narrowing it down to four would help us to have a reasonably length video.

Obviously, we could do an eight-hour video on coffee, but we're going to have to make each one of these. So we wanted to narrow it down to just four. And I asked Aaron to look at the ones that we were sent and choose these four.

Can you tell.

Us why we're doing these? Yeah. So for you coffee drinkers who are into specific types of coffee and maybe higher end coffee, you know that not only where the bean comes from, location makes a big difference in flavor, how it's processed, but also the roasting process.

And so we've chosen a mixture. So if you like light roast, we're going to go from light to dark as we try these out. We've got a Costa Rica single origin that is a light roast. We're really looking forward to that.

We've got a Brazilian from the Cerrado region, another single origin. This is a medium roast. Honor, the Ethiopian single origin coffee in a medium dark roast. Wisdom from Guatemala, a full dark roast.

So if you like that heavy, dark, nutty roast, then I think that's where we're going to go there.

I have to ask, I mean, does it really matter where it comes from?

It makes a huge difference. So yeah, a huge difference.

And I promise I'm not just like one of those guys. This is not an infomercial. It's like, can you tell me more? It's what it sounds like. If you call now. This is not an infomercial. I wanted to do this because again, I wanted to learn what the differences were and I didn't realize how coming from different, because this is Costa Rica all the way to Ethiopia.

Is there a eunuch in here? I hope not. Not inside the bag.

Biblical jokes. So this is just interesting to me. Okay. So what we're going to do is we're going to start with the light. We're going to go through the process. You'll see a quick edit here where editing together, all of the grinding and percolating, what do you call it when you use this?

Brewing. Brewing. We're going to brewing coffee. All right. And then you'll see us drink it and talk about the, again, with an unrefined palette and refined palette talking about how we enjoy it. A few moments later.

I'm ner... Hey, hey. Do you ever see that scene in Breaking Bad where the guy's in the room and he's got the little chk-chk-chk-chk and it just blows up. I'm ner... Hey, hey. Yes. He's doing that. This is making me nervous.

I'm so scared. Oh my gosh.

So we are looking for 24 grams of beans.

Again, Breaking Bad. This is the Breaking Bad episode of your Calvinist podcast.

24 .3 is too much. And yes, I'm being precise to the bean. This is so crazy. You're brewing good coffee. The ratio of coffee to water is really important. We got that fire going. All right. Hold on just a second.

One eternity later. Okay. So you're going to explain to us how this Bunsen burner science experiment works. Yep. That thing scares me, y 'all. I ain't gonna lie. And so what's going to happen... That's a lot of fire right in front of my face.

Yep. What's going to happen here is this water is going to start to heat up and then not too long when it's real close to boiling, we'll seal the top chamber down. It'll push the water up into the top chamber here.

We'll add our coffee grounds. We'll stir, spend about a minute and a half brewing. This is what's called a full immersion brewing method, because all the coffee is in contact with all the water for the whole time.

So not like your drip coffee maker where the water's slowly coming through. And about a minute and a half, we'll pull the heat and it will then create a vacuum in the bottom and pull the coffee back through the filter into the bottom chamber.

So some people call this a vacuum brewer. And this is actually a very old, I think like 1840s. This method came out and there was a time in the U .S. where this was the most popular brewing method, but it is fun.

A little theatrical. It is. It's very... Oh, look at this. Oh, that is so neat. Well hot here. We need to turn this down a little bit and control.

I swear this, I mean this... See? Okay. All right. I'm not going to lie. I feel like this is one of those Darwin Award moments where the whole thing just... Okay. This is the craziest coffee. Well, I'm just thinking about this like nobody at home is going to have one of these.

24 grams of ground coffee, ground to a medium-ish grind. And there's probably lots of people at home who have this. You're going to be surprised.

I want to know if anybody, if any of you at home have whatever this is.

There are probably people watching this who have a far more complicated and expensive setup than this. You're going to be shocked.

First of all, it smells amazing. Jennifer's going to be so mad that she did not get to have any. I'm going to have to make sure to save some for her. So does that just not touch the coffee? Fire off.

Yeah. The flame is just heating up the water in the bottom and the pressure is causing it to rise to the top. So now that we've pulled the fire, you're going to see everything reverse directions here.

And pretty soon it's going to start drawing that coffee back down into the bottom. There it goes. You see it? The magic is happening. But look at how light this coffee is compared to what you may pull out.

Part of that's because we're using a light roast coffee, but part of that is because this brewing method just produces really kind of clean cup of coffee. There'll be no grounds in it. You'll be able to taste different flavors between the different coffees we taste.

And the flavors in this one, if I could reach across. Stone fruit. I'm getting notes of stone fruit. I am a Bible teacher in theologians. I am not a fruit expert. So tell me what a stone fruit is.

I've heard the word, but I could not identify it.

Okay. In the comments, I need somebody to tell me exactly what a stone fruit is. Somebody's going to roast us for not knowing. Yeah. Oh, they're going to say, oh, these guys, you, there's no way you went to college.

That's right.

How do you get through college without knowing what a stone fruit is?

Ladies say to me, what's I don't want to do. I want to, I don't want a Bible teacher.

I don't think I can follow a pastor who doesn't know about the she bears. God bless her. Oh, the she bears story. I had to tell the she bears.

The She Bears Story and a Humiliating Sunday School Moment

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So stone fruit, citrus, almond, and honey. There you go. Okay. The she bears story while we're waiting. Are you ready?

Well, real quick. Speaking of the she bears, let's reference the forest Christian church. Hold it up to the camera. Let's see. This is a testament to the length of relationship and friendship that Keith and I have, because the church he now pastors was once known as forest Christian church.

Jennifer bought me this. It's my 30 ,000 subscriber mug. So when I first started teaching Sunday school, I was teaching Sunday school as a, I mean, I was young, I was in seminary, but I was young, you know, I was very green and people would sometimes reference Bible stories that didn't automatically click in my brain what the story was because in case you didn't know, the Bible's got like a lot of stories.

Like there's a lot of stuff that happens between Genesis and Revelation. And so I was new and I mean, I'd grown up, but I didn't grow up in a church that had really put a lot of emphasis on a lot of Bible teaching.

So, I mean, a lot of times I was learning as I was going early on. And so I'm teaching and I'm in a Sunday school class and my mother, God bless her. She said something about the she bears. Well, if you're not familiar with the she bears, it's the reference to the young men who called Elijah bald, baldy.

Yeah. And, and God sent the bears to kill. And it wasn't like they were.

Little boys. It wasn't like six James. They're not called female bears. They are referred to as she bears. Well, I tear 40 and two of the children, according to the King James version. I'd never.

Heard it called that. I'd never heard it called the she bear story. So my mother not trying to put me on blast just said, well, that's like whatever I was talking about. She goes, well, that reminds me of the, she bears.

And I said, the what? Cause I thought it was like a story from her childhood. I know what she was talking about. Well, the lady who was in the class was known for being quite outspoken. She did not obey first Corinthians 14.

She was not quite in church. And this lady says, I don't know if I want to be in a class where the Sunday school teacher don't.

Know the story of the she bears. I mean, that is actually in first Timothy three,.

The list of pastoral qualifications. You better know about them. She bears. I was so embarrassed. I wanted to die. My mother fell back and she, she set you up, but she was like, I didn't know. You didn't know.

That made me feel worse.

So parents, the lesson from this is if you think your child will end up in the pastorate one day, make sure you include the she bears in your bedtime Bible stories. Yes. So to make it better, when I went to seminary, which we just talked about going to Southern seminary in preaching class, we had to choose an old Testament passage and a new Testament passage.

And I chose foolishly now, but I chose to preach through the passage of the she bears in honor of.

You and your she bears story. I love that so much. I love it. There were hundreds saved when.

I preached it right there. So that's right. I think this is ready to try. So it smells really.

Good. It smells so good. Notes of is that stone fruit. All right. All right. Again, this is squirrelly Joe's kindness. I'll take a cup of kindness, a cup of kindness. Okay. I'm going to taste it before I want to wait to get your thoughts because you taste it first.

I.

Don't want to color your opinion and then we'll both give our thoughts. It's just the right temperature where it tastes like no coffee you've ever had before. Doesn't it? It does not taste.

Like coffee. There you go. I mean, in a good way. Yeah. It, a lot of people will describe siphon.

Coffee as a very tea like, like a brewed tea, which we're in the South. We love tea. And so we're drinking this. There's no sugar sweetener. No. Yeah. That was the other thing that we're not adding pure coffee and it is, um, it has some sweetness to it.

Um, I think.

You're not going to believe it. No, I'm here for it. I can taste the stone fruit. I can taste the fruitiness. Yes. That is so wild. There's a fruity taste. Yeah. Now we'll.

Find stone fruit and we'll know what it's going to taste like. That's a really good cup of coffee in my humble opinion. And that's no credit to me for brewing it. It's just, um, this is fresh coffee. Um, it's roasted.

Well, the flavors of this specific coffee kind of come through.

And almost tastes like, yeah, it does have a tea texture. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, that's right. It's,.

It's when you, especially bad coffee, you think of it just as muddy kind of, you know, it just overpowers your palate. You're not tasting anything individual, which is why people dump hot, dirty water, tons of sugar and creamer and all that into it because, Oh, I love coffee.

And then they go to Starbucks and order their, you know, 42 pump half cat double pagan worship coffee. My coffee is usually the same color as this table. Right? So this is a coffee that you can drink just like that.

So if you're somebody who's trying to cut back on sugar, but you have a coffee habit, you don't want to give up, just get better coffee, two mugs up to squirrely Joe. Uh, yeah. Cheers. Uh, I am grateful to have found good coffee from,.

A Christian, a Christian business, a solid, um, solid dude. Joe's a great guy. Um, he and I've gotten to know each other a little bit more doing this work together. And I'm, I'm thankful for that. He's doing a lot of good things.

Missions in Tanzania and Training Pastors to Exposit Scripture

Okay. So we had the light roast. We're moving now to a medium roast. This is known as compassion. And we're going to do the same thing we did before. We're going to use the siphon to brew the coffee. This is good coffee.

If you like a medium roast and a.

Traditional cup of coffee, you're going to love compassion, a Brazilian single origin from.

Region. Okay. So while we're waiting for this time to cool, uh, I'm going to show that you're wearing a shirt that says Tanzania because you recently made what a 30 hour flight to preach the gospel in Tanzania.

It was only like 25. I'm still telling you. I, I make a two hour flight.

And I'm ready to die. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was two, uh, two eight or nine or 10 hour flights, plus some shorter stuff. Yeah. I went to Tanzania and partnered with, uh, folks from intensive care ministries, Africa missionaries named Jim and Janice Larson, who are, have become great friends who our church has partnered with.

And they're doing an amazing work of training pastors, native Tanzanian pastors to, um, exposit the word of God, uh, to exegete and to teach and preach expository sermons. So they actually, the ministry began with a focus on teaching the inductive Bible study method, something that you and I both share with our people and teach, you know, observation, interpretation application, but it moved beyond that to training and equipping pastors who in many cases have not only little biblical knowledge and education, but often very little, uh, education.

Um, yeah, they see us and they're.

Like, I mean, we have a glutton of riches when it comes to how much, yeah, that we have the.

Opportunity to learn and do the biggest difference is, you know, here in the U S we have resources galore and little to no appetite for the word. Yeah. And in Tanzania, and I presume haven't been there, but in East Africa and beyond, you have people who are starving for the word.

They're ICM Africa is making a generational impact on the church in Tanzania and actually in four other countries throughout Africa by teaching these pastors how to exposit God's word. Um, so that their churches are not being built on repeating what someone else told them, or often the heresies and false teaching that get exported from the U S into other contexts.

Instead, they are studying the word for themselves, learning to be noble Bereans and teach and preach the word. And God is blessing it profoundly and bringing life into these churches. They have trained, uh, over the last number of years, they've trained more than a thousand people who've graduated through their three different programs.

And, um, you have to imagine, think about it. You know, I think about a typical Sunday morning, hundreds and hundreds of pastors preaching in places that are far and widespread across that country. They're teaching the word of God in a way that they, they did not and could not before because of this ministry.

So I was really privileged to be there for one of their annual conferences and teach through the book of Ephesians, uh, to about a hundred pastors who have been through their program and graduated, but came back to be further equipped.

Um, and so while we were there, I was teaching Ephesians. Another brother was teaching through Colossians and then another brother taught through a significant chunk of Genesis. And so these guys are getting in line by line, verse by verse, nice teaching and examples of how to do that.

Um, and so, yeah, it's a really amazing ministry. I'm grateful to be a part of. That's awesome. Are you going back? I am. Yeah. Uh, we're working on details for a trip this year where Lord willing, I'll be in, uh, Malawi and also in Tanzania.

And you have to teach to an interpreter. So these, this, uh, this last trip I did primarily teach through an interpreter, um, but there are some other opportunities out of country where English is more prevalent.

And so I'll be able to do, it'll be a mix of both in future trips.

Awesome. Well, I just want to say this to the audience. Uh, if anybody's interested in what he's doing, uh, reach out, uh, redeem it or give me your church website.

Yeah. So our church is RCC, Uli .com.

And that's Uli Y U L E E.

Yeah. Everybody in the world doesn't know how to say it. Uh, yeah. RCC Uli, uh, is our church website. I'm happy to have people contact me. Uh, ICM Africa intensive care ministries, Africa. You can connect with them through Facebook also.

Um, it's a really vital ministry. Be great for folks to support. And, uh, we're looking forward to a long and fruitful partnership with them. Awesome. Yeah.

Coffee Tasting Notes for Compassion, Honor, and Wisdom

All right, guys, we're moving to number three, which is our medium dark roast. It is called honor from squirrely Joe's and it has blackberry cane, sugar, plum and vanilla cane sugar. That's going to be, this might be my favorite.

Cause I like a sweeter, um, a sweeter coffee. I mean, I like it coated in one metric pound of sugar, but you smell that. Yeah. The blueberry flavor. Actually, I think it's blackberry, but yeah, it is.

It's blackberry. Yeah. Blackberry. Sorry. Yeah. There's a strong bear. There's a berry flavor. Yeah. I smell it. It smells great.

This is a great contender for somebody who likes a darker roast, but is usually turned off by the way they taste because they're often ashy or muddy. This is really good coffee. This is well done. Yeah.

And this it's, this is an Ethiopian coffee. And I can tell you, we were talking earlier about, you know, why the different places in order the other coffee I've had that I know of that had this really strong fruity berry flavor on it was also an Ethiopian.

So there's something to.

The locale of growing. So we've moved on now to the darkest of the dark roasts that we have. This is the wisdom from Guatemala. Has hints of milk, chocolate, brown spice, and pecan. All of the things I think are going to be absolutely delicious.

This to me, tastes more like what I think coffee should taste like, if that sounds like a weird thing,.

Like it just makes sense. And this is, you're hitting on something really important. Coffee is personal preference. It's like food, you know? Yes. You think your, your mammals, you know, banana pudding is the best ever, but it's probably not.

Don't you dare raise up from the grave. You know, it's, it's, so for me, this is across the threshold of a dark roast into an area I don't personally prefer. It's good coffee still. And if you like the flavors of it, it's good quality.

You should buy and drink this. But for me, the last medium dark. Yeah.

Is the kind of a darker roast that I enjoy. Okay guys. So we're now at the point where we're going to give our overall thoughts. I'm going to let the expert go first, but remember we started with the light roast and then we went to a medium roast, medium dark roast, and then the dark roast.

Now this, there are a ton of other coffees that Squirrely Joe's has. I mean, we didn't pull these out just because of time, but there's, this is a light roast and it's a different light roast. It's respect.

There's integrity, which is another medium roast. And if you guys are interested in this video, maybe we can do another one again. There's just too much for us to do, but we felt like this was a good cross section of all the things that Squirrely Joe has to offer.

Final Rankings, Free Coffee Offer, and Closing Remarks

Yeah.

And I want you to give me your honest opinion. Yeah. So first of all, my honest opinion is that this is good quality coffee. This is my number one preference is very close. And it would, I would buy these two bags of coffee together and alternate between them at home.

So the medium dark roast honor, the Ethiopian is really great. And the light roast kindness is really great today. I would edge out honor over kindness, and that would be my order for those two. The medium roast, the compassion was probably my least favorite again, and it's just personal preference.

I prefer the dark roast that we had last a little bit more than that, but.

And this is all personal preference, but for you, this is the order.

This is how I would rank them to here. So if you want to order from Squirrely Joe, the Aaron Bell sampler pack, I'm sure he'd be happy to send you all four bags and you can try those out. But yeah, all really great coffees.

I just really enjoyed these two. And like I said, I would buy those two bags because sometimes you're in a mood for, you know, a heavier flavor.

Or lighter flavor and just rotate between the two of them. Okay. So for me, I, as I said, going in, I do not have a refined palate. I don't come at this with any type of expertise, but I do know this, all of the coffee tasted a much higher quality than what I'm used to.

I keep thinking of Buddy the Elf. You did it. Congratulations. World's best cup of coffee. This is definitely the best coffee I've ever tasted. And I've tasted a lot. It's just not, I'm, it's not my thing like it is Aaron's, but I certainly can say definitely good quality.

For me, the top spot is going to go to the light roast. And that's probably because I don't, I do have the unrefined palate. I'm just going after what tasted the best to me. It's an easy entry way. The light roast.

But here's where it really switches up for me is I, the very next one that I would probably be most likely to buy and drink would be that the darkest roast, which seems like it's like two absolutely contradictory ideas, but for whatever reason, it just tasted, I liked the taste of both of these and it might be the hints of the different things that were in them.

The one that both of us really are going to put on the end is the compassion for whatever reason, it wasn't my favorite. And everybody knows Calvinists aren't very compassionate. That's right. That's right.

We just weren't going to be compassionate. And I, and so that puts for me, the medium dark roast at number three, any one of these would be, you know, quality coffee that you could drink. But as far as my favorite, it would start with the light roast and then the very dark roast, the medium dark, and then the last would just be this medium roast.

And so that's my thoughts and recommendations. I don't know how much of a help that's going to be to you, but here's the thing that you can think about. You can get a free bag to try simply by going to swirlyjoes .com slash your Calvinist.

They will send you a 12 ounce bag, absolutely free. All you have to do is pay for shipping. So you can go and do that right now. And then if you decide you want to buy some bags of coffee after you've tried it, you can use my name, Keith in the coupon code, get 20 off anything you buy.

And so go do that. It's a benefit to you because you get free coffee and it's a benefit to me because it lets Swirly Joe know that you guys watch the video. So last thoughts, Aaron, anything to add?

Great quality coffee. I hope you grab some and enjoy it. And it's good to be able to support Brothers in Christ with our money when we buy these kinds of things.

That's right. We're not only buying great coffee, but we're supporting Brothers in the Lord and the businesses that they're doing. Yeah. Good stuff. Well, God bless you guys. Remember, if you like this video, hit the thumbs up button.

If you didn't hit the thumbs down button twice.