The World of Coffee

[DiamondDave]

All I can say about coffee... is that it is the Army that set my tastes in coffee...

I can stand any mocha-crapachino with nutmeg made from berry-licious flavored coffee with half-skim platypus milk..... Give me regular ground joe that has been sitting on the burner and evaporating for about 5 hours.... don't matter if there's cream or sugar or whatever... drink it any way you can get it... the coffee others consider crap is actually the coffee I crave... after drinking coffee that we used a green wool Army sock as a filter and heated up in a canteen cup on an engine block, you kinda like the strong crappy stuff

[Top Cat]

Originally Posted by bedir than average

Oddly enough is that when a Starbucks partner makes a mistake it is the fault of the corporation, when an indie coffee employee makes a mistake it is the individual's fault.

Top, your final statement is quite ironic. As a shareholder how would you suggest the company balance the partner, customer and shareholder's often conflicting desires?

Actually I bought the stock and held it for many years a while ago (no longer own it) because I knew they would grow very quickly and do very well. That does not mean I agree with their standards of production. Nor am I foolish enought to think they'd have ever changed them based on my opinion anyway. Let's be clear, I get it that they are in the legalized drug dealing business and always have Park a store in an office complex and feed the caffeine addicts with high margin java and the sugar addicts with cookies, muffins and caramel frappacinos and foo foo mochas Brilliant and perfectly legal.

[bedir than average]

Yesterday I was very disappointed in a partner at one of our highest volume stores in the country.

I had a few hours to kill in Kirkland after driving the wife to work and before getting my teeth cleaned. So I thought to myself why not just enjoy a press of my favorite coffee with a newspaper and a notebook?

I'm a fan of the French Press or Plunger Pot method of brewing and without a doubt my favorite coffee is Arabian Mocha Sanani (both for flavor and historical signifigance). At Starbucks in the Seattle market you can purchase an 8-cup press for in store use for 3$ or so. Freshly prepared coffee, real coffee - straight.

This partner didn't know what I was talking about, not a clue. She didn't know that she had served me only a half hour earlier and she struggled with my instructions as to where the button was on the register. She also failed to give me my discount even though I handed her my partner card. Frustration all around, well up until the prepared press was in my hand and at my table.

Sanani is a tempermental beast. The trees are often nearly wild as Yemen's coffee industry has degraded over the past century due to civil war, drought and being underpriced from Latin America. This combined with the natural dried processing method lead to intricacies in the cup that most coffees don't have at their highest quality levels.

Yesterday it had a biting acidity without the tart berry notes. The flavor was more like cloves and cardamon. Body was the traditional and expected mocha powder texture, it felt a little heavier than usual though. This coffee should not have the heavy body, nearly syrupy of the Asia/Pacific origins. Sipping this coffee, reading the P-I and watching Kirkland hurry to work while I enjoyed an off day was a pleasure.

[Top Cat]

Did you mention it to her boss?

[bedir than average]

I will give a call today to discus what happened. It was in middle of the morning rush and taking two people off the floor to talk to some assisstant manager from out of district would have hurt that store even more.

[Top Cat]

Bedir I spent a goodly portion of my early career managing retail stores. I made a pact with myself that when I saw something significantly wrong I would speak up. I also made the same pact that when I saw something significantly right, I would also speak up.

The pleasure of speaking up when you see exceptional service is well worth it. The look of shock and awe upon the employee's and the manager's faces ir priceless.

[bedir than average]

I have tried to adopt those very practices when managing my own store. Immediate feedback is always best, but when it isn't my store and I don't know anyone on the management team things can get dicey, the whole "who is this guy to tell me what to do in my store" thing

[Top Cat]

Obviously it's very different when dealing with one's peers.

[bedir than average]

By the way, company wide refresher training on proper aeration of milk is coming forthwith. It will include tastings comparing milk done right and milk done wrong.

[RotatorCuff]

Hey Bedir. Can you recommend a decent espresso machine, but not a ridiculously expensive one? Can you get a good countertop espresso machine for a couple of hundred bucks?

Thanks.

[bedir than average]

Well, let's get at what you think the minimum performance issues are? Do you need a timer? Removable water tank? Do you want an autotamper? Do you own a grinder? Do you want to use pods? Do you drink a flavored latte or just straight espresso with steamed and aerated milk?

[RotatorCuff]

I did my homework and just got home with a new Breville Cafe Roma ESP8XL espresso machine.

Plenty of very solid reviews.

It was regularly priced at $250 CDN and I got it on sale for $200.

I'll let you know who it works after I use the thing.

[dlb]

Oddly enough is that when a Starbucks partner makes a mistake it is the fault of the corporation, when an indie coffee employee makes a mistake it is the individual's fault.

That shouldn't surprise you. It's what having a solid brand is all about. People come to Starbucks expecting a certain quality of product and type of experience.

That expectation is created by Starbucks and is at the core of the company's success. If any individual fails to deliver according to the expectations, the brand is diminished. The reason it's the company's fault is that it is the company's responsibility to ensure that its brand is protected.

The failure may have been in hiring, training or not removing an underperforming employee. Either way, it is a management failure.

[bedir than average]

The C-Rate for Coffee is up to .91 cents a pound.

The price of coffee is now higher than the boom years of the late 1990s and the International Coffee Organisation says it expects prices to stay high for some time to come. This is good news for those still producing coffee beans.

It is notable that though demand is up worldwide, particularly in the USA and Japan, supply is down. The C-Rate is futures level commodity coffee and I know of no specialty or artisan house using such a low level of bean, but the prices for higher quality start at about 125% of C-rate and go up from there.


and yes dlb, viewing it through that lens makes sense.

[Wolfchylde]

Ive recently become addicted to Wawa hazelnut coffee. I love the smell of it in the morning.