“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.” — George Carlin

mycuppa December 2016 Newsletter

Xmas trading hours and shipping update

Peak freight season occurs from the end of October to the end of January (due to limited resources operating at freight companies during January).

The extreme levels are happening right now, which is from mid-November until the middle of December.

We have felt pain for nine years, especially the first week of December.

This week was no exception.

Congestion is everywhere and affects all freight providers, not just our friends at AusPost.

Planning, speed and patience are the only solutions to these challenges - it's very frustrating for us as we race to get orders processed in minutes yet see all the hard work undone through transit congestion and delays.

AusPost are responding with extra resources deployed to widen their regular delivery hours - they are delivering later in the day and on weekends to cope with increased parcel volumes.

Our message is simple - plan and allow an extra day or two in your expectations for transit to avoid disappointments.

Xmas Trading Hours

Freight services stop midday Friday, 23rd December 2016 and resume Tuesday, 2nd January 2017.

Our store will remain open for orders, but no shipments will be made between Christmas and New Year's Day.

Shipping Services Update - Sendle integration

Every day, we encounter freight incidents and situations that, in our minds, should never have occurred in the first place.

These problems deeply impact our customers, and subsequently, our business suffers.

We never shrug our shoulders or hide behind another company's responsibility because the long-term effects of doing nothing with logistics will ultimately challenge our aspirations for business and customer satisfaction.

For many years now, we have trialled alternatives to AusPost.

Some of these trials have yet to work adequately, and it's important to understand we have a clear responsibility to provide an Enterprise grade of service, not just throw parcels to a Provider and hope for the best. Our customers are spread everywhere in the most remote areas, so range, reach, and facilities are critical.

We have configured Sendle in our mycuppa.com.au store as an alternative to the AusPost service. Sendle is currently in trial mode - carefully opened for limited use.

Sendle is a relatively new company; however, it needs its infrastructure.

Instead, it relied upon the traditional hub and spoke model using selective carriers such as Toll, Fastway and Couriers Please.

For the past 18 months, there has been a lot of buzz about Sendle.

The hype is mainly due to its reputation as a direct rival to Australia Post, which provides consumers and residents with genuine options in the freight market.

The emergence of Sendle has disrupted the monopoly AusPost once had on the industry.

Hype surrounding Sendle is aimed at attracting investors looking to break monopolies.

As a result, several large companies, such as NRMA, have taken a significant stake in Sendle and are optimistic shareholders.

Sendle promises many benefits, such as freight savings; however, some don't apply to us as we already offer our customers more competitive and subsidized rates for AusPost freight.

Sendle categorizes orders based on weight and volume, resulting in varying costs.

The quoted transit timeframes are also comparable with the AusPost standard parcel freight.

There is no Express with Sendle.

Sendle only covers some of the areas of Australia but has decent coverage in the higher population zones.

Exclusions include no PO Boxes, Parcel Lockers or use of any AusPost infrastructure - which is standard for any non-AusPost freight company.

There is a degree of hope that some freight segments will be faster, particularly capital city metro areas.

Still, again, we stress that this service is a hybrid hub & spoke model, which means the parcel may travel on 1, 2 or even three freight companies depending upon the choices for routing that Sendle make internally.

Please note that we do not determine routing or carriers with Sendle.

Futile deliveries remain an area of scrutiny and, to be honest, are my biggest concern.

This is where unsuccessful parcel delivery attempts occur.

While Authority to Leave remains, multiple outcomes may follow a failed delivery.

These include a carded response asking the recipient to collect from a depot or designated collection points, or it may involve another attempt to deliver the following day.

Some providers like Fastway also have collection arrangements with local Newsagents where parcels can be left for collection.

Still, it's essential to understand this is a unique offering across Australia and can differ from area to area and even suburb to suburb.

The parcel must be kept at a Post Office for collection.

Our top priority is to ensure that we deliver your packages on time.

If, for any reason, we miss a delivery, rest assured that we will handle it with care and work to improve your overall satisfaction.

You can easily track your package with the information provided to you.

Our Enterprise Support Center is always available to assist you if you face any issues. However, we encourage you to contact us directly for any support.

We will offer Sendle as an alternative to AusPost.

It's not replacing AusPost but simply providing choice for our customers.

If we encounter issues that cause us or our customers problems, we will switch off the service - it's that simple.

Costa Rica - the quiet quality leader

Coffee farming in Costa Rica is a respected and revered profession - which can be a stark contrast to many other coffee origins as farmers use coffee as a primary cash crop.

Costa Rican coffee farmers are considered, along with Kenyans, the most skilled and advanced in the world, developing and perfecting many innovative techniques for growing, grading and processing.

This long heritage and dedication to quality and constant improvement established Costa Rica's reputation as a trusted source of coffee quality.

A significant factor in the history of Costa Rica has been the country's past reliance on coffee as a vital driver of the Costa Rican economy.

Today, coffee is only a tiny portion of what is now a very stable and diverse Costa Rican economy that encompasses manufacturing, export, services, resources and various agricultural commodities.

This stability and competitiveness enables the Costa Rican coffee industry to continue evolving, improving and innovating. In contrast, ongoing challenges in neighbouring Central American origins, like Guatemala, El Salvador, etc., ultimately impact the lifecycle of coffee production as farmers need more infrastructure and systems.

Many farmers in neighbouring Central American coffee origins often sell crops at unsustainable prices, which prevents them from segregating quality grades.

Last year, we were fortunate to host a visit from Sebastien Lafaye of the Costa Rican Sustainable Trading Company (STC).

In our discussions with Sebastien, it became clear that Costa Rica was experiencing similar changes in demographics to Panama, whereby farming lands are being replaced or converted to alternative use by construction development.

With a stable and mature economy, the labour cost was also increasing quickly to improve living standards.

This shift created a fundamental challenge for farmers in Costa Rica as the cost of producing their crops escalated faster than the rest of Central America, reducing Costa Rica's competitive advantage in the international coffee market.

With Honduras being a more prominent producer, operating at lower cost points and rapidly improving quality outcomes, Costa Rica was acutely aware it needed to keep lifting quality standards or differentiating via segregation.

Otherwise, the buyers' demand for quality and value raw coffees would divert elsewhere.

Costa Rican coffees are best described as sweet, clean and bright.

These attributes are highly sought after by roasters worldwide to inject some character and sparkle into their coffee blends.

The clean, lovely and bright also matches the demands of the modern-day coffee drinker's preference for milk-based espresso (latte, flat white, cappuccino).

Costa Rican coffees exhibit good levels of flavour and body with a delicate fruit element.

We have a delightful, fresh Costa Rican from Tarrazu - the premium growing region.

I regularly drink a lot of single-origin coffee as there are so many roasted control samples to evaluate in our portfolio; it's never-ending.

When you come across good coffees, there will be some striking feature that stands out - whether it's acid, sweetness, fruit elements, complexity or finish.

We always look for this standout feature and then imagine how our customers will respond to this feature or how it might integrate into a blend.

Surprisingly, it's not about what we want in a coffee, but we must anticipate how to best serve our customer base with broad appeal.

Sometimes, when coffee has a striking feature, it can be like a one-trick pony, a characteristic that will, after time, become either boring or mundane after repeated consumption.

It does not mean the coffee is mediocre; the response or excitement may wane quickly.

We came across a remarkable Costa Rican lot.

It didn't jump out of the cup in any extraordinary way, and no particularly dominant or redeeming feature defines it, but it was just superbly balanced.

Achieving balance can be challenging when evaluating coffee, especially in a single-origin bean.

This Costa Rican coffee's perfectly harmonious blend of flavours is simply irresistible. It's so delicious that you'll be left craving more.

This Costa Rican lot does many things well, all at the same time - rather than blow your socks off, it's been quite a pleasant surprise.

To draw a comparison, if I look at a classic black and white image and see incredible shades of light and dark, the picture is far more powerful and effective monochromatic than the same image in colour.

The coffee is like a timeless black-and-white photo - refined and classy.

This Costa Rican, along with our superb PNG Highlands, comes very close to an ideal as a single origin that provides broad universal appeal.

From the Llano Bonito district, it is the only cooperative in the department of San Pablo de Leon Cortes.

Ripe cherries are harvested by the farmers from 1200 hectares of coffee farms of the Coop.

At elevations between 1,400 to 1,700 masl. 35% of the almost 1000 farmers are women who own and work in the farms.

Acidity: Bright and balanced
Body: Medium
Aroma: Hazelnut and toasted caramel
Flavour: Mixed berries, grape acidity, citric-apple, balanced medium body, toffee chocolate notes with a clean, sweet finish.

We have just 750kg of this beautiful coffee.

Grab it now before it's all gone. It's too late; it's all gone.

Available here are other single-origin coffee beans from Costa Rica

storing roasted coffee

Continuing with our knowledge series, this month, we look at the often debated topic of how to store roasted coffee best.

It's a long read, but we hope you will have a newfound appreciation for the volatility of fresh-roasted coffee by the end.

Look on the internet, and you will find practical advice and tips describing various methods to preserve your freshly roasted coffee best.

Sometimes, this information contradicts previously held views or opinions promoted elsewhere.

This text needs to be clarified and more manageable. Occasionally, advice can be plain wrong.

Before we can talk about storing fresh roasted coffee beans, let's look at the factors affecting freshness, such as the critical events occurring in the first week of life for fresh roasted coffee, to understand better the dynamics and variables to play.

We will then explain coffee packaging and suggest some simple and effective best practices for storage.

Firstly, some context.

Ground coffee is an entirely different beast to whole beans - well, yes, they both suffer the same oxidization effects, but with ground coffee, it's game over very quickly indeed; in fact, ground coffee is pretty much a dead duck despite the fact we use coffee straight from the roast, grind, seal and eliminate every possible aspect that may risk staling.

We've said it before many times - 15 minutes of oxygen exposure, opening the sealed bag, boom, it's like jumping off a cliff - there goes all the good stuff!

For this article, we will discuss the coffee beans' lifecycle, which will be easier to explain when broken down into stages.

Whole beans are also the most commonly sold product by mycuppa.

Ground coffee makes up less than 3% of our sales as a sidebar, but we secretly wish it was 0%.

Wait, I'm not ready yet - what do you mean it's too fresh?

It may come as a surprise to our customers that we ship coffee that is too fresh.

That's right, I'm not making it up, not playing marketeer, not trying to be a smartypant, but there is such a thing as "too fresh" when it comes to roasted coffee beans - sometimes it is referred to as yet-to-be "degassed" or "not yet developed" or "unstable".

When coffee beans are roasted, a significant amount of CO2 is emitted for up to 10 days, depending on the temperature around them.

The emission rate is high right after roasting.

Still, it gradually decreases over the first week as the pressure inside the beans equals the atmosphere or the conditions inside the sealed container.

If you have ever wondered about the purpose of the one-way valve in coffee packaging, it is to allow the CO2 to escape while preventing oxygen from entering.

Some coffee companies roast their coffee and let that roasted coffee sit in tubs, silos or hoppers for a couple of days.

They might then pack the roasted coffee and store it on a warehouse rack for another week or ship it to the retailer - whatever makes it easy for them.

The truth is, I'd love to have one of those types of businesses because it's simple, predictable and easy when you run to stock rather than running to order (a day off once in a while would be lovely!).

Why don't they pack the coffee immediately? Some of these companies may need to grind the coffee or fit it into smaller packaging with less expansion tolerance.

An example of this is seen in retail shelves where companies aim to prevent the packaging of puffed-up bags as consumers may perceive the product as defective or unappealing.

Thus, companies allow some staling process before packing the product.

However, companies' approaches vary greatly and may range from a careless attitude of "whatever, don't care, doesn't matter" to a more established practice of "that's how we have done it for 30 years".

At mycuppa's, products are not on a retail shelf, so a puffed-up bag is less of a concern - it helps protect the contents during shipping.

We also have to keep an extensive portfolio of coffees from running out of stock daily; we run short on at least 30 - 40% of our portfolio as we roast only enough for 24 hours in blends and 48 hours in single origins.

Typically, on Monday afternoon, nothing is left from the roasting that morning.

Sometimes, we run out of certain roasted coffees in just hours when a group of customers place orders for the same coffees in a short timeframe.

Our daily routine tops up approx. 20 plus different coffees in a never-ending cycle to keep it always fresh.

Our products need to move so quickly we don't have the luxury of allowing roasted coffee to sit in tubs for days - we need to ship immediately because customers tend to place orders when they have already run out.

We roast and pack within an hour; the coffee is not allowed to degas or develop.

Whilst it's not an ideal situation, it's the safest and most reliable method to ensure peak freshness for the end customer.

With roasted coffee too fresh leaving our warehouse, it can lack full flavour, sweetness and body as it still needs to be developed - but don't worry, it will occur.

In this "too fresh" state, the roasted coffee may have a slightly woody note because it is still very gassy - too much CO2 in the espresso extraction, which affects flavour.

Too fresh coffee requires a coarser grind, resulting in less flavour, body, and sweetness released due to limited contact time and large ground particle size.

You may notice that opening a fresh pack of roasted coffee beans may also partially "choke" your espresso machine due to the static/clump grounds.

There is no easy way to deal with this imperfect balancing act, so it's always safer for us to ensure it's too fresh and utilize the buffer created by freight transit times to aid the development of the roasted coffee.

The objective is that customers receive coffee that is still too fresh and experience that unique peak/optimal usage window.

You can't get that same result from a supermarket or most retail stores due to uncontrolled or unmanaged inventory turns measured in weeks and months versus our mycuppa approach of hours and days.

The challenge, of course, exists for those customers that use Express freight - receiving coffee that is barely 24 hours and maybe not even 48 hours off the roaster - it's yet to develop.

Packaging of roasted coffee.

Freshly roasted coffee is a highly volatile food product.

It has hundreds of active compounds that dynamically change by the hour and the day when it's freshly roasted coffee beans.

Some of these are what we refer to as the core essential elements providing magnificent attributes we love about freshly roasted coffee, such as aroma, etc.

Still, many other active compounds we can't see or touch contribute to the flavours, oils, acidity and complexity of freshly roasted coffee.

A barrier must protect these compounds.

A roasted coffee bean is not the same as an apple; therefore, you can't store fresh roasted coffee beans in a plastic or paper bag.

Most plastics suffer from outflow, where the gases emitted by freshly roasted coffee pass through small holes in the molecular structure of plastics.

Whilst that sounds pretty techie, it's easily proven:

Take some freshly roasted coffee and store it in an airtight plastic container.
Come back a few hours later.
Don't open the container but sniff around the outside, and sure enough, you smell coffee aromas.

Some plastics are much more complicated/dense and can act as a better barrier, although these types are rarely used in containers these days, except in some expensive brands.

Coffee is packaged in a unique way to preserve its freshness and taste.

Instead of plastic or paper bags, a specially constructed pouch with three layers and a one-way valve is used.

The pocket has a middle layer coated with metalized film that acts as a barrier to prevent volatile compounds from escaping the freshly roasted coffee.

The 1-way valve is vital as CO2 builds up in the bag; it needs to escape; otherwise, the load expands and may burst.

This pressure can build significantly when the ambient temperature rises.

As we enter the warmer season, this becomes a factor when the coffee is in transit.

Some coffee bags have zip locks.

The 500g pouches have a traditional zip lock, and the 1kg gusset bags have the 2nd generation embedded zip lock, which could be more effective.

Unfortunately, only two factories worldwide make this product, and they are outside Australia.

Many customers mistakenly believe that the zip-lock feature on coffee bags is intended to keep the coffee fresh, similar to packets of other food ingredients.

However, the truth is that zip-locks on coffee bags are only meant as a short-term convenience feature and do not keep coffee fresh.

They function like a plastic bag, allowing the coffee's aroma and flavour to escape, reducing its freshness.

As a result, coffee bags with zip-locks should be resealed as tightly as possible after each use, preferably using a dedicated airtight container, to maintain the quality of the coffee for as long as possible.

What can I do with the coffee beans?

Metal, ceramic or glass are the best containers for coffee beans - something with a firmly sealed lid.

It's best to keep glass in a dark area away from light.

Is it safe to place fresh coffee into an airtight container?

Yes, but you should decant the seal at least once daily in warm weather (above 20 C) for the first week.

Where can I store the coffee?

Not in the fridge.

Not in the freezer and not near anything that gets warm - which means above 25 C.

Over the last decade, I've lost count of people from the "extreme brigade" swearing by the virtues of freezing coffee beans.

They claim it works a treat or is the only way to store beans in their hot climate. The opinions on whether to freeze or not are polarizing.

As multiple tests have shown, I firmly believe that unfrozen beans have an unpleasant taste.

The ideal storage conditions for coffee are between 12 to 20 C, but there is no need to stress if you can't keep your place below 20 C.

If you live in a hot climate, you can do something straightforward like place your coffee beans in a small esky - cheap and reliable.

Store your coffee in a cool, dry place to keep it fresh for longer.

The bottom of the pantry or a southeastern corner of a room are great options as they are generally the coolest spots in the house.

Avoid storing your coffee in areas where the temperature exceeds 30 degrees Celsius, as this can accelerate the oxidation process and cause it to become stale faster.

Please don't leave it on a coffee machine or kitchen window ledge.

The gate is open on the Pony Express.

Last month, the Pony Express was an incredible hit, and to be honest, we were floored by the response - entire lots were sold out in under 4hrs, and we had to keep increasing stock inventory levels for the following days.

We had intended to roast these on just one day but some ended up doing it over the next few days. A campaign which has generated an unprecedented positive response.

The limited lots will remain available for seven days while the gate is open.

All of the coffees are sourced from the upper spectrum of the specialty coffee range, starting around 85+ points up to virtually 90-point coffees, and they represent excellent value buying - literally 30 plus % cheaper than our competitors.

In December 2016, we offer a limited supply of 5x coffee until each roast is sold out.