Before Compass, before coffee, before I even thought about opening a business, I was deep into biohacking.

If you’ve ever gone down that rabbit hole, you know how weird it can get.

For me, it started while serving in the Marines. I was experimenting with everything—diet, sleep, exercise—trying to optimize every part of my life. One of the worst ideas? Polyphasic sleep. That’s where you sleep for 90 minutes at night and take three 20-minute naps throughout the day.

Sounds great in theory. In reality? Absolute nightmare.

Turns out, when you combine sleep deprivation with high-intensity workouts and the stress of leading a platoon of 60 Marines, it doesn’t end well. One minute, I’d be fine. The next, I’d be crying. No idea why. Just full-on Marine Corps officer breaking down over nothing. I figured maybe it was PTSD, maybe it was just stress. Or maybe, just maybe, I was running on two and a half hours of sleep a day like a complete moron.

I had already abandoned my experiment with polyphasic sleep—turns out, being a constantly exhausted zombie isn’t a great biohack. But I was still on my quest to optimize my biology, so I started experimenting with cutting out dairy. I’d spent my whole life battling sinus infections and just assumed they were part of the deal. But when I finally ditched milk, something weird happened: the infections stopped. My skin cleared up. I felt incredible. Apparently, my body had been trying to tell me all along that milk and I were never meant to be. I just wasn’t smart enough to listen.

The problem? No milk meant no ice cream. And I love ice cream.

I tried making all the healthy alternatives. Avocado-banana pudding? Tried it. Cashew "ice cream"? Been there. None of it was the same. But I stuck with it because I felt better.

So when I started Compass in 2014, I personally didn’t drink milk. But I knew that if we were going to make real good coffee, we needed to figure out the perfect milk.

And if we were going to make the best lattes, the milk had to be as good as the coffee.

Real Good Coffee Starts with Great Espresso

The ingredients of a latte are deceptively simple: espresso + milk. But making a great one? That’s where things get complicated. Expertly pulled espresso shots, dialed in just right, perfectly steaming milk, nailing the texture, and pouring a latte heart takes serious skill—and a lot of practice.

In formulating our Emblem Espresso Blend, we went with a northern Italian-style espresso—medium to dark roast, smooth, chocolatey. The final blend?

• Brazil for chocolatey depth
• Guatemala for cinnamon-raisin sweetness
• Sumatra for a little earthiness

Once we nailed the espresso, we turned to milk. And here’s the problem—most milk is garbage.

Trickling Springs: The Dream Dairy

Finding the best milk wasn’t as easy as just picking a local dairy. Most grocery store milk is pasteurized to death, stripped of any real character. It’s a commodity—farms mix their milk together, and no one is really thinking about quality. Milk from factory farms pumped with hormones and antibiotics wasn’t going to work for us. If we were going to make the best lattes, we needed the best milk.

That’s how I ended up on a farm in Amish country, standing in a field with a man named Cliff, surrounded by some of the happiest cows I had ever seen.

Cliff looked me dead in the eye and said, "I'm not a dairy farmer—I'm a grass farmer. I grow the best grass. And cows eat grass. So if I want to have the best milk, I need to start with the best grass."

It was such a simple, obvious idea—but very few farmers thought about it that way. Most dairies focused on mass production—Cliff and Trickling Springs focused on craft. But Trickling Springs wasn’t just one farm; it was a co-op, where small, family-run farms pooled their milk and shared a creamery. Running a dairy farm and running a bottling facility are two completely different businesses, so this system let farmers do what they did best—raise healthy cows—while the creamery handled processing, bottling, and quality control. 

Communicating with them, though, was a little different. The Amish farmers didn’t use phones, so if we needed to get in touch, I had to call the Mennonites, who would then relay the message. It was an old-school system, but somehow, it worked.

They also made sure nothing went to waste. I had no idea at the time, but when cows produce milk, it’s already close to whole milk—the different types, from skim to half-and-half, come down to how much fat is separated out later. Trickling Springs perfected that process, using every part of the milk to create the best possible product.

I had brought an espresso machine and grinder to the farm. Right there in the barn, I pulled shots, steamed fresh milk, and made a raw milk latte—straight from the utter.

I took a sip. It was perfect. In fact, everything was perfect for years with Trickling Springs.

Until one day in 2018 when our milk never showed up.

The Day Our Milk Disappeared

We called. No answer.

Turns out, Trickling Springs was a Ponzi scheme.

Yeah. A literal Ponzi scheme.

The owners had convinced the Amish and Mennonite farmers to invest in the business—then siphoned the money off. Since most of the farmers didn’t use technology, they trusted the owners completely. By the time the truth came out, the company was insolvent.

The Pennsylvania Banking and Securities Commission hit the owners with millions in fines and permanently banned them from the industry.

Overnight, Trickling Springs collapsed. And just like that, Compass had no milk.

The Milk Wilderness Years

After Trickling Springs collapsed in 2018, we entered what I can only describe as the milk wilderness years.

2018, 2019, 2020—we were bumping around, trying out different local milk suppliers. We’d find a dairy that was good, but the problem was scale.

Compass was growing and we were already buying truckloads of milk. That immediately ruled out a lot of small, local farms—they just couldn’t keep up.

And that was frustrating. We wanted to work with small, local dairies. That’s what we had always done. But the reality was, we had outgrown them. We were too big for the small dairies, but too small for the big ones.

Managing multiple dairy suppliers was a nightmare:

• Too many deliveries → scheduling chaos.

• Inconsistent quality → customers could tell.

• Shelf life issues → wasted product.

So for years, we were stuck in this weird middle ground. High-quality milk, but too many supplier relationships to juggle.

Then COVID hit.

Our business dropped 85% in the span of a week. Milk sourcing? Not even on our radar anymore. We weren’t thinking about whether our dairy was organic or local—we were just trying to stay in business.

We pivoted into making hand sanitizer. We launched Nespresso pods. We focused on selling coffee online and in grocery stores since people weren’t coming to cafes. We did anything and everything we could to survive.

At one point, I thought: Maybe we won’t have to worry about milk anymore, because there won’t be a Compass Coffee.

But somehow, we made it through.

As things started to recover in 2021 and 2022, we were slowly expanding again. But we weren’t the only ones making a comeback—the dairy industry was, too.

For decades, milk consumption had been declining, replaced by oat, almond, soy, and even pea milk (yes, that’s a thing). But something shifted in 2024—for the first time in years, dairy sales started going up again. People were coming back to real milk, whether because of better farming practices, A2 milk, or just a return to natural foods.

And that brings us to a fun fact: did you know that plant milks aren't legally milk?

According to 21 CFR § 131.110, milk is:

"The lacteal secretion, practically free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows."

Translation? Almonds don’t lactate. Neither do oats.

That’s why you’ll never see “Almond Milk” as two separate words on a carton. Instead, brands have to label it as "almondmilk" (one word) or "oat-milk" (hyphenated), because legally, they can’t call it milk.

The dairy industry fought hard to keep the word milk exclusive to, well, actual milk, while the plant-based industry fought back. Now, we have this weird middle ground where oatmilk is fine, but Oat Milk is not.

Go ahead, check your fridge.

Clover Sonoma: The Milk We’ve Been Searching For

I got the text from my long time coffee industry friend John:

"Hey man, I’m taking over as CEO of Clover Sonoma. Do you guys need milk? 

Me: “Well funny that you called, actually yes!”

And just like that, everything changed. I couldn’t believe it. Clover Sonoma isn’t just any dairy—they’re one of the most respected in America, with over a century of experience. Here are some things that make Clover special: 

• They produce their milk in Northern California– which is the best place on earth to be a cow (I mean look at that picture)

• Clover supports 30 sustainable independent family farms and are B-Corp certified

• Clover was the first dairy to be American Humane certified, setting the standard for dairies all over the US.

Their commitment to sustainability and exceptional milk isn’t just impressive—it aligns with everything we believe in at Compass Coffee.

So Chas and I made the brave journey to Sonoma, California—wine country, aka one of the most beautiful places on Earth. (Tough assignment, I know.) The moment we arrived, it was clear this was different. Sonoma is idyllic, and the farms felt like something out of a storybook—rolling green pastures, fresh air, and cows that looked like they had won the lottery. We toured the creamery, watching the milk go from farm to bottle with incredible attention to detail. Every step of the process was about preserving quality, not just producing at scale.

Yesterday, the first truckload of Clover Sonoma milk pulled into our dock. I opened the first case, steamed some milk, and made myself a cortado—the real test.

It steamed perfectly. The texture was velvety, the flavor sweet and balanced. And yes—I’ve still got it. Perfect heart in the latte art.

Starting this week, every Compass cafe will serve Clover Sonoma milk. This is the best milk we’ve ever had, and we can’t wait for our customers to taste the difference.

Back to Biohacking: Can I Drink Milk Again?

And here’s where it all comes full circle—I’ve been experimenting with milk again.

I started taking Lactoferrin and Glycine, two supplements that supposedly help with milk digestion. The idea is that they support gut health and reduce inflammation, which, in theory, should prevent all the issues I used to have with dairy.

And so far? No acne. No sinus infections. No problems.

In an ideal world, I’d be drinking raw milk—yes, I know, controversial. But the thinking behind it is interesting: raw milk still contains enzymes that aid digestion, which get destroyed during pasteurization. Some people even believe you can train your gut to tolerate dairy by drinking it in large amounts until your body adapts (not sure I’m ready for that level of commitment).

Lately, I’ve been diving deep into research—reading studies, listening to experts, and following some of the more interesting voices on Twitter (or X, whatever we’re calling it now). Two of my favorites are The Nutrition Detective and Noah Ryan, who dig into the science of dairy, gut health, and how people’s ability to digest milk may not be as fixed as we think.

I’m not a scientist. I don’t have all the answers. But for the first time in years, I’m actually enjoying milk again—without the side effects.

The Relentless Pursuit of Perfect Milk: From Biohacking to the Best Lattes

From cutting out dairy to searching for the best milk, this journey has been anything but straightforward. But at Compass, everything has to be as good as the coffee—no exceptions.

We’ve tested, we’ve learned, and we’ve leveled up. After years of searching, we finally have a dairy partner that meets our standards. The milk is as good as the coffee.

And that’s the way it should be.